Good morning! Today we have for you:
Quick beef biryani with cumin raita
Tejal Rao’s lamb biryani is a gorgeous dish, a heavy, generous pot of rice, fresh herbs, caramelized onion, saffron-infused milk and braised lamb. It is a centerpiece, a stunner, the sort of dish that guests will remember and rave about for years to come. It also takes four and a half hours to complete, not including overnight marination. And it is Thursday afternoon and you’re hungry right now. Here comes Kay Chun with her self-described “cheater version” of biryani, which captures the fragrance and complex flavors of the dish. While the rice starts cooking with its warming spices, ground beef is browned in a skillet with spiced onions, with yogurt stirred in off the heat to add tang and creaminess. That richly flavored mixture is scattered over the rice before the lid is clamped down for the rice to cook through; the finished dish gets a swoop of quick cumin raita. That all clocks in at about thirty minutes — not bad for, as one reader puts it, “delicious comfort food.” Featured Recipe Beef Biryani With Cumin RaitaKay’s biryani, by the way, is featured in our new collection of easy recipes for ground beef — that filling, inexpensive supermarket standby. There’s a lot of New York Times Cooking heavy hitters in here, like Alexa Weibel’s crunchy queso wraps, Kay’s Korean BBQ-style meatballs and Priya Krishna’s homemade Hamburger Helper. That last one, by the way, features one of my favorite NYT Cooking comments: “I got drunk and made this when my fiancée wasn’t home and got all these stains on my undershirt when I ate it (I spilled on myself) and it was so good and I don’t even care.”
Turkey Day TrackerWe’ve tried a lot of pies in our day, but we fully lost it over this year’s crop of Thanksgiving pies:
Sue Li was in charge of our pies this year, and boy did she deliver. Apple and cream pie! Hojicha cheesecake pie! Cranberry mousse and chocolate espresso and delicata squash and banana phyllo! If you, like me, are having a hard time choosing between the six options, let me remind you that Thanksgiving is but one Thursday, and there are six Sundays between now and the end of 2025. You could, in theory, make a pie a weekend and experience them all, strolling into the new year with the love and gratitude of the friends and family who share them with you. For a limited time, you can enjoy free access to the recipes in this newsletter in our app. Download it on your iOS or Android device and create a free account to get started. Today’s specialsSlow cooker Tajín chicken and peppers: Here’s the game plan for this Sarah DiGregorio dish: Throw all of the ingredients into your slow cooker before you leave for work (don’t forget to push the button). Pick up some corn chips or tortillas, queso fresco and whatever else you’d like to serve this citrusy, saucy chicken with — lime wedges, maybe some sour cream? — on your way home from work. Sit down, dig in, exhale with great relief. Masala chickpeas with tofu and blistered tomatoes: We’ve moved well past raw tomato season into blistered tomato season, in which the oven or stovetop helps those out-of-season tomatoes reach their sweetest, juiciest best. Yewande Komolafe warms them up with tandoori or garam masala and seared crags of tofu for a filling vegetarian dish (which is vegan if you use vegetable oil instead of ghee). Simple buttery bean and sage pasta: Bookmark this five-star dish from Christian Reynoso for when you’re staring down a half-bunch of sage, having used some of it for your turkey or stuffing or gravy, and need a speedy dinner that uses up the rest of it.
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