We Say Potato

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Susan Spungen's leek risotto with pancetta and sugar snap peas.

Julia Gartland for The New York Times (Photography and Styling)

Wednesday, May 13, 2020

We Say Potato

Sam Sifton

Good morning. I learned a neat trick from the chef Ned Baldwin’s excellent new cookbook, “How to Dress an Egg,” which he wrote with Peter Kaminsky. It’s for making a butter-basted hanger steak that is not only delicious but a perfect indoor steak preparation. There’s no searing involved, no smoke, no mess.

It’s basically a no-recipe recipe, and you don’t need to do it with hanger steak if hanger you do not have: You just cook the meat gently on the stovetop in an oil-filmed pan for a minute or two on each side (graying it, basically), then transfer it to a 400-degree oven for 10 to 12 minutes, depending on the thickness of the cut. When it’s coming up on rare — that’s 120 degrees if you’re using a meat thermometer — pull the steak from the pan, and let it rest on a rack for 10 minutes. It’ll keep cooking in its residual heat.

Put the empty pan on the stovetop over medium-high heat and cut a few tablespoons of unsalted butter into it, maybe an unpeeled smashed garlic clove, maybe a sprig of thyme. When the butter foams, swirl it around until it turns a glorious nutty brown. Add the steak, and either spoon butter over it as if you were a fancy television chef or use your tongs to flip the steak over and over again in the fat as if you were a working cook. Do that for a minute and a half, then remove the steak, slice it on the bias and serve with roasted potatoes. Pretty neat. Next up, Ned’s pork-shoulder pot roast with clams. I like just typing those words.

But you came here for actual recipes? David Tanis has three new ones, all for potatoes, in case you’re one of those people Priya Krishna wrote about for us this week who bulk-bought 50 pounds of Yukon Golds. They’re for Spanish-style patatas bravas, with pimentón and garlic mayonnaise; French-style potato salad with capers and anchovies; and an Indian-style potato soup with turmeric and cumin.

You could make leek risotto with sugar snap peas and pancetta (above), which I can report works quite nicely with bacon. You could make a yam and plantain curry, with crisped-up shallots on top. Or how about a lemony farro pasta salad with goat cheese and mint? Spicy shrimp salad with mint? I love this curried rice I learned from the chef Paul Carmichael, which pairs nicely with clam fritters that you might make with conch or oysters instead.

And of course it’s still Ramadan, and you may need main dishes or sweets with which to break your fast. (For many Muslims, Ramadan is the most social time of the year, as families and communities gather for predawn suhoor meals and evening iftars. The coronavirus pandemic has changed that, our Amelia Nierenberg reports for The Times this week, but not completely.)

Thousands and thousands more ideas for what to cook this week are waiting for you on NYT Cooking. (Here’s a fresh strawberry pie! Here’s everything you need to know about cooking rice and beans!) A lot more than usual is free for the browsing even if you aren’t yet a subscriber to our site and apps. (I hope you will consider subscribing, though. Subscriptions support our work.)

Please visit us on Facebook, where we have a lively community group you can join, and on Instagram, where the photography’s beautiful. We’re on YouTube and Twitter as well. And if you run into trouble along the way, either with your cooking or our technology, please ask us for help: cookingcare@nytimes.com. We will get back to you.

Now, it’s nothing to do with pan sauces or blueberries, but I’ve become deeply fond of “Unauthorized Living,” a Spanish-language mafia soap opera, set in Galicia. That’d be a good place to visit, when this is all over.

The New Yorker has published a fine collection of its profiles of comedians, and they’re worth revisiting as a kind of reprieve from the dark news of the day.

I’ve started another newsletter, a weekly called At Home, all about living a cultured life during the pandemic. Won’t you sign up to receive it?

Finally (and I barely recall doing it because the interview happened before the pandemic lowered the boom), Milk Street Radio is out with a podcast of my conversation with Christopher Kimball about cooking regularly for family and friends. It’s like something out of a time machine!