Hello and welcome to Five Weeknight Dishes. The Fourth of July, with its tantalizing promise of corn and watermelon, is somehow upon us. (Is time moving quickly? Slowly? It’s tough to tell!)
There are two recipes below that would go nicely on the grill — though you could also cook them indoors if grilling isn’t an option — along with some very herby, summery recipes to help carry you through the week. I’m at [email protected], and I’m always happy to hear from you.
Here are five dishes for the week:
1. Mayo-Marinated Chicken With Chimichurri
J. Kenji López-Alt wrote that he uses mayo with nearly all his marinades, a brilliant addition that allows them to more evenly coat the meat and also improves browning. (You won’t taste the mayo.) Here the marinade is chimichurri, the Argentine herb sauce. Once you’ve marinated the chicken breasts, this recipe is about as simple as lighting the grill or stove.
2. Pasta With Burst Cherry Tomatoes
I love this old recipe by Melissa Clark, with its juicy singed tomatoes and mountains of mint. It’s delicious even if you don’t have peak season tomatoes. It’s also delicious if you leave out the pancetta, which I always do, adding a little extra cheese at the end instead.
View this recipe.
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3. Crispy Tofu With Cashews and Blistered Snap Peas
In this new recipe, Yewande Komolafe coats seared tofu in a ginger-garlic-coconut sauce and serves it with minty snap peas, to glorious effect. The nuts add crunch that pulls the whole dish together.
4. Scarlett’s Tuna Salad
This recipe is adapted from the Mexico City chef Scarlett Lindeman, and it is unimaginably good for how simple it is: a lime-dressed jumble of canned oil-packed tuna, avocado, cucumbers, pickled red onion and a lot of herbs. One of my favorite things to eat in hot weather.
View this recipe.
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5. Hamburgers (Tavern Style)
Burgers: Too cliché? Probably. But the mere thought of the Fourth of July makes me crave a cheeseburger, so here we are. Sam Sifton cooks these in a pan, so you don’t lose any of the rendered fat to the fire. You could just put that pan on the grill, though, and take a minute to breathe in the fresh air. (Here are best practices for burgers that use vegan ground meat, if you go that route.)
View this recipe.
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