The summeriest skillet pork chopsHello, lovelies. This is Margaux, filling in for Emily today. Tickled to be here. I know it sounds silly, but I’ve always been a little intimidated by the idea of cooking pork chops on the stovetop. It just seems so finicky: You have to get the pan really hot for a nice sear, but not so hot that the exterior burns and you end up with an uncooked center, which means you have to babysit the pan. Not to mention the splatter and the mess. Give me instead a foolproof pork shoulder roast or a tenderloin that I can slide into the oven and ignore for a little while. Ali Slagle’s most recent recipe — skillet pork chops with buttered corn — has forced me to reconsider my stance. With 10 highly rated pork chop recipes on New York Times Cooking, she knows what she’s doing, and her technique is easy and foolproof. Yes, there might a little mess, but nothing that a splatter screen can’t mitigate.
1. Skillet Pork Chops With Buttered CornAli really knows how to make a handful of ingredients sing. In this delightful six-ingredient recipe, golden brown pork chops mingle with fresh corn kernels that have been sautéed in butter, shallots and rosemary. Do like one reader and toss in sliced zucchini if you’re feeling very summery about everything.
2. Provençal Greens SoupI know it’s summer, but in my house, soup is a four-season affair. It’s cheap, it keeps well and it happily travels to work in my little Thermos. This one from Martha Rose Shulman is a reader favorite with over 3,000 ratings. Use whichever greens you’ve foraged from your afternoon amble through the French countryside, or you know, the almost-wilted Swiss chard lurking in your fridge.
3. Slow Cooker Whole ChickenI made this the other night, and it was big hit. Naz Deravian’s recipe yields perfectly moist and tender chicken (use an instant-read thermometer to keep an eye on the temp toward the end of cooking), while the onions and carrots beneath the bird soften and soak up the turmeric- and smoked-paprika-seasoned drippings.
4. Crispy Cheddar Chicken TacosI’m trying very hard to reduce food waste these days, so leftover chicken from the recipe above will be repurposed into these wildly delicious tacos from Rick Martínez. Little rounds of Cheddar frico are created by baking piles of shredded cheese in the oven until bubbly and golden brown. Then those fricos are topped with a tortilla, and the tortillas are flipped so that the costra (crust) is facing up, ready to be filled with a mixture of shredded chicken, chipotle peppers, avocado and salsa.
5. Elaine’s Fettuccine AlfredoDon’t tell my kids, but I’ve informally titled this season “Life Skills Summer” because I’m trying to get my 14- and my 12-year-old to take on more of the day-to-day tasks around the house. One of their assignments is to make dinner one night a week. They can choose, and their dad and I buy the ingredients. Pancakes? Pizza? Fine. I just don’t want to be in charge. This creamy tangle, which was adapted from Elaine Kaufman, is my oldest’s go-to. My husband and I often top ours with sliced chicken breast or steamed broccoli, but my kids like theirs as is, with lots and lots of black pepper. 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. Thanks for reading and cooking with me. If you like the work we do at New York Times Cooking, please subscribe! (Or give a subscription as a gift!) You can follow us on Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest. Previous newsletters are archived here. Reach out to my colleagues at cookingcare@nytimes.com if you have any questions about your account. View all recipes in your weekly plan.
|
