Granted, I was born and raised in California, but I will always consider the roast chicken from Zuni Café, in San Francisco, to be the platonic ideal of a Fancy Chicken Dinner. So my Zuni senses were tingling when I saw Melissa Clark’s new recipe for herby skillet chicken with greens. It hits all the necessary notes: crisp skin, tender meat, sturdy greens and scallions dressed in garlicky chicken drippings made just puckery enough with something acidic (in this case, lemon).
But this dinner is doable on a weeknight since — after you sear your chicken thighs — you finish cooking the chicken and braising the greens in the oven in well under an hour. A finishing bit of butter keeps things luscious; optional olives and capers add briny salinity. I’ll serve mine with thick slices of toasted sourdough (to channel those bread salad vibes) for a little bit of Market Street on a Monday.
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Herby Skillet Chicken With Greens
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Maybe you’re feeling fish? Anna Francese Gass’s pesce all’acqua pazza (fish with white wine and cherry tomatoes) also appears to be weekend-fancy while remaining weeknight-friendly. The acqua pazza — “crazy water” — is a wildly good mix of burst tomatoes, white wine and salted water (to mimic the seawater Neapolitan fisherman would use to simmer their day’s catch). Sub in canned tomatoes if the cherry tomatoes at your grocery store have no personality.
While we’re swapping things around, you can make Melissa’s tangy pork noodle salad with lime and lots of herbs with ground turkey instead of pork. The assertive, citrusy dressing and handfuls of mint, cilantro or basil really lift that blandest of birds. You can leave out the rice noodles to make it squarely a salad, or skip the lettuce to keep things nice and noodly. Or be like Bob, a reader, and dive in with no changes: “Rates as one of the best dishes I have ever prepared. So many ingredients, so many great tastes.”
On the other ends of the flavor and texture spectra is Hetty Lui McKinnon’s savory, silky one-pan creamed spinach with eggs. A fantastic use of frozen spinach, it’s a meal I turn to when I’m too tired to cook: There’s no chopping involved, and half the time I don’t even bother grating the garlic cloves — instead I just smash them to smithereens under my trusty bench scraper.
There is chopping involved for this vegan mapo tofu, but not very much. (Does chopping tofu even count as chopping?) David Tanis’s recipe pairs shiitakes with that classic tongue-tingling sauce, deepened with doubanjiang and fermented black beans. It’s another quick dinner I find myself making often, when I’m craving something saucy and spicy to drape over fluffy white rice.
And for when I need something sweet: these pistachio-lemon bars from Molly O’Neill. I love a lemon bar, and I love pistachios, so these are a shoo-in.
One more thing! My colleagues Tanya Sichynsky (whom I trust you recognize from The Veggie) and Priya Krishna want to see your grocery store receipts. “I want to know who you are shopping for, where you shop, what your budget is and what your shopping staples are,” Priya writes. You can read more about their project — as well as share a bit about yourself and your grocery cart — here.
