Good morning. It’s been nearly a decade since the designer Steven Stolman taught me to make his chicken Provençal (above), and I’ve made it one gajillion times since (approximately). It’s a staple for dinner parties and Sunday suppers in my house — an excuse to iron napkins and use the plates we inherited from my wife’s grandmother, to finish the night with a glass of Sauternes and pretend I’m a grown-up.
Not that you have to do that! Chicken Provençal is just as good eaten with mismatched silverware and glasses of milk, a fragrant, lemon-garlicky taste of an imaginary commune where you might walk the dogs off-leash through a field after dinner, peonies and lavender everywhere. (In reality, you could just retire to a couch and watch Cary Grant in “To Catch a Thief.”)
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Roasted Chicken Provençal
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Tuesday
Rick Martínez has a new recipe for sopa de fideo y frijoles con chorizo, a fideo and bean soup with chorizo. It’s superb. You toast the thin noodles in chorizo fat, and they plump up in the blended black bean soup, which becomes thick and almost creamy. Serve with cheese, some diced white onion, cubed avocado, cilantro, hot sauce and crema. Oh, my.
Wednesday
My no-recipe recipe for a party board might be called, in some locales, a charcuterie board. The chef Gabrielle Hamilton says it’s a snack tray, and she includes Pringles and Castelvetrano olives on hers. I like, among other things, sliced mortadella rolled around pickled jalapeños with a swipe of mayonnaise, shards of Parmesan cheese, cubes of salami and a stack of crackers. You can make a party board with whatever you’ve got!
Thursday
Here’s a smart new recipe from Alexa Weibel for braised broccoli pasta that takes the cook on a real journey. You blitz onion, broccoli and garlic in a food processor, sweat it in hot oil like a sofrito, then add stock, pasta and broccoli florets to the pan. Now watch! The mixture goes from soup to stew to a glossy, luxe pasta in less than a quarter of an hour. Top with oregano bread crumbs and praise Weibel!
Friday
To welcome the weekend, try Zainab Shah’s new recipe for aloo chicken, a Punjabi stew thickened with cashew butter and potatoes. It’s excellent with rice as well as roti, which is a nice option if you want to ease out of the workweek with a bit of rolling and griddling.
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