Fast, fresh and full of summerIt’s high summer. Shouldn’t we all be at a beach, or by a lake, or somewhere else where dinner is the freshest fish, seasoned honestly with just salt and pepper and grilled to pearlescent perfection? That’s what I did on my summer vacation: I went to Portugal and I ate that fish at a table on the sand, with lemon wedges, simple vegetables and rice on the side. It was nothing fancy, but it was also pure luxury. You can still have that meal wherever you are, and fish cooks so quickly that you can make it any night of the week. Mine was grilled whole, but Ali Slagle has a method for grilling individually portioned fillets that all but guarantees success. Her recipe is written for salmon, but if you look at the headnote you’ll also see directions for other firm fish, like red snapper, halibut or sea bass. Make that this week, or try the dishes below, all of which sing of the season. Reach out to me anytime at dearemily@nytimes.com. I love to hear from you.
1. Pork Tenderloin With Corn, Peaches and LimeThere’s a pork tenderloin in my freezer, and now I know how I’ll use it. Ali Slagle’s new skillet dinner was inspired by grilled lemongrass pork, drawing peaches, corn and cucumbers together with a punchy lime and fish sauce dressing. You can eat this one hot or at room temperature.
2. Dumpling Tomato Salad With Chile Crisp VinaigretteHetty Lui McKinnon’s tomato dumpling salad is the stuff of summer dreams. It’s juicy, spicy, tangy and savory, and even initial doubters find they love it (one commenter called it the “skeptical-to-obsessed pipeline”). You can watch Hetty make it in the video on the recipe page.
3. Lemon-Garlic Grilled Chicken BreastsGenevieve Ko has a step-by-step technique for cooking the best grilled chicken breasts, along with an extremely helpful video showing you how to do it (it’s easy, I swear). I think even the breast-avoidant cooks who watch that video will have to admit that these look really delicious.
4. Spicy Shrimp MasalaZainab Shah brought this recipe to Cooking and described it as a “small miracle” — such is the speed with which you can make this fabulous dish and the fiery, layered depth of its flavors.
5. One-Pot Zucchini-Basil PastaI love pasta with zucchini, but the most delicious version of that calls for shredding the zucchini and then watching it shrink and caramelize in the pan — a process that can take more than 30 minutes (though it does make for a really excellent dinner). I can’t bring myself to do it after a day at work. So I was very happy when Alexa Weibel wrote this recipe, which is equally good in its own way, creamy, rife with pure zucchini flavor and remarkably fast to make. 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, or follow me on Instagram. I’m dearemily@nytimes.com, and 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.
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