February 2020

We started our Greek-style shrimp recipe (shrimp saganaki) with jumbo or extra-large shrimp because they made peeling and deveining a relatively quick process. We used a simple marinade to give them a jump-start on flavor. Simmering the shrimp and canned diced tomatoes together allowed for an exchange of flavors and a full-bodied dish. We used onion, garlic, and bell peppers for a Mediterranean sauce for our Greek-style shrimp, and then rounded it out with dry white wine and ouzo.

Be sure to let the sweet potatoes roast for the full 30 minutes: as they cook, they will first get quite soft, then they will slowly crisp as their sides puff up and the edges brown.

Spiced chickpeas are crisped in olive oil, then simmered in a garlicky coconut milk for an insanely creamy, basically-good-for-you stew that evokes stews found in South India and parts of the Caribbean. While the chickpeas alone would be good as a side dish, they are further simmered with stock, bolstered with dark, leafy greens of your choosing and finished with a handful of fresh mint. When shopping, be sure to avoid low-fat coconut milk, coconut milk meant for drinking or cream of coconut: All are very different and would not be suitable here.

Shakshuka may be at the apex of eggs-for-dinner recipes, though in Israel it is breakfast food, a bright, spicy start to the day with a pile of pita or challah served on the side. (It also makes excellent brunch or lunch food.) It’s a one-skillet recipe of eggs baked in a tomato-red pepper sauce spiced with cumin, paprika and cayenne. First you make that sauce, which comes together fairly quickly on top of the stove, then you gently crack each of the eggs into the pan, nestling them into the sauce. The pan is moved into the oven to finish.

This is truly the best way to cook salmon. Slowly roasting an already fatty fish in an even more luxurious fat (here, olive oil) makes it nearly impossible to overcook. Plus, you can flavor that oil with whatever you fancy — spices, herbs, citrus, chiles — which, in turn, will flavor the fish. It's a very simple method for cooking any large piece of fish (cod or halibut work well here, too). This makes it the ideal dinner party trick, sitting perfectly in the center of a Venn diagram where “looks impressive” and “not a ton of work” overlap. It also doubles beautifully.