| Good morning, all. Recently I was sifting through the many (many) worksheets my son brought home from elementary school. One of them was a math exercise that involved adding different combinations of numbers to end up with an identical sum. The same concept applies to cooking: You can use different ingredients or techniques to achieve similar results. (Of course, the opposite is often true, since you can use the same ingredients to create food with very little in common.) Want to impart charred, smoky flavor to a piece of meat? Choose from the broiler, grill, grill pan or a hot cast-iron skillet. Looking to finish a dish with a hit of acidity or tartness? You can do that with a squirt of lemon or lime juice, a splash of any number of vinegars, a sprinkle of sumac and more. You'll find that kind of versatility among this week's new recipes. First up is food writer Ben Weiner's Pasta With Sausage and Fennel Ragu, a creamy, spicy, hearty dish that had us all swooning when we could finally dig into the batch you see here after we were done photographing it. This clever recipe has one big trick up its sleeve: It's a one-pot pasta, meaning everything — the sauce and the noodles — is cooked in the same vessel. Yes, it's the same technique that had critics of Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, falling over themselves a few weeks ago when she made a similar dish on her Netflix show, "With Love, Meghan," but there's a reason the duchess and recipe developers like this technique. Cooking the pasta with less water concentrates the starches coming off it, and keeping the whole operation in a single pan ensures none of them are lost, giving you a thick, creamy sauce that clings to the farfalle, or whatever short pasta shape you prefer. The Matar Paneer that Joe Yonan shared from cookbook author Meera Sodha also features a luscious sauce, accomplished with a completely different tactic. In this rendition of the popular Indian cheese and pea curry, cashews blended with water bring together the Kashmiri chili- and turmeric-spiced sauce that coats a colorful mix of tomatoes and snow peas. Cashew cream or puree is a favorite alternative to heavy cream for vegans, but as this dish shows, it can work just as well in dishes other than plant-based ones. (For a vegan matar paneer, simply swap the paneer for tofu.) Rather than relying on an ingredient to thicken the sauce for Instant Pot Ropa Vieja, Aaron Hutcherson uses time and heat to cook it down. This adaptation of a recipe for the Cuban staple from cookbook author Kiera Wright-Ruiz cuts the braising time of the beef considerably by pressure cooking it instead of using the more traditional stovetop method, which Aaron offers instructions for as well. Regardless of which route you take, once the beef is tender, you pull it out to shred with two forks while reducing the braising liquid to a thick, saucelike consistency. The beef and sauce, which is chock full of bell peppers and onion, get recombined before serving, ideally with rice to soak up every last drop. Ellie Krieger's Roasted Salmon With Whipped Feta and Peas contains its own creamy element. To create the bright green bed that the simply seasoned fish sits on, you'll combine feta, peas, parsley, yogurt, garlic, and lemon zest and juice in a food processor until smooth. That alone, maybe with crackers, crudités or pita, would be reason enough to celebrate, but once you plate it with the salmon fillets and a shower of watercress, this becomes a wow-worthy meal you can get on the table in 35 minutes. In our live chat this week, Aaron and I answered a lot of great questions from readers about how different ingredients might change the outcome of a recipe, including salted vs. unsalted butter, self-rising vs. all-purpose flour, and orange vs. rainbow carrots. What else can we help you better understand? We'd love to answer your questions in our next session Wednesday at noon Eastern, so submit them now, then return for the real-time conversation. Until next week, happy cooking. |
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