Japanese curry, pan-seared pork chops and more recipes. (2024)

What to Cook This Week

Good morning. We’re in that quiet moment before the holiday season really takes off, and it’s put me in the mood to make food for the freezer and the pantry. That way, when I’m exhausted in coming weeks, deliciousness need only be assembled or heated through.

For instance, today might be a lovely one for making bricks of Japanese curry, against a future meal of kare rice (above), which Bryan Washington wrote about for The New York Times Magazine this week.

It could be a good day for making a tray of spinach-artichoke lasagna, then freezing it until you hear its call. Ditto for this lovely split pea soup, and this fragrant duck and andouille gumbo. You could try your hand at corn muffin mix or clam chowder, at a tourtière or a cauliflower gratin.

I thought I might make a lobster mac and cheese to reheat and eat on New Year’s Day. But forget it. That’s dinner tonight. (Try it with shrimp if lobster’s not your game.)

As for the rest of the week …

Monday

I love Sue Li’s recipe for a caramelized onion galette. Since it’s a weeknight, I’m going to try it with store-bought puff pastry instead of her marvelous dough. Fingers crossed!

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Tuesday

Ali Slagle’s latest recipe, for sweet and spicy pan-seared pork chops, is fast and super flavorful. You baste the chops in ginger butter, then cloak them in a sticky whiskey-molasses sauce. I might throw some carrots in the pan to go with the pork, and serve mashed potatoes on the side.

Wednesday

There’s something incredibly elegant about Tejal Rao’s adaptation of this Jack Monroe recipe for cannellini bean pasta with beurre blanc. Even more important: It’s delicious.

Thursday

Kay Chun’s roasted salmon with miso rice and ginger-scallion vinaigrette is an easy weeknight meal that may become a staple of your repertoire. Try it as written, and then with roasted chicken thighs or planks of tofu in place of the salmon.

Friday

And then you can cook yourself into the weekend with a new dinner menu from David Tanis: a persimmon and pomegranate salad to start, a cassoulet-ish dish of lamb shanks and beans for an entree, and baked apples with honey and apricot for dessert. Holy cats is that a wonderful meal.

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Now, it’s nothing to do with headcheese or tofu skins, but The Times’s Blake Gopnik put me on to this Corri-Lynn Tetz show at Arsenal Contemporary in Manhattan. Blake’s right. The paintings are terrifying.

Even if you don’t live in New York City, Curbed’s “39 Reasons to Love New York” is a joyful romp.

You might like this story of true crime, “A Gilded Age Tale of Murder and Madness.” It’s by Kay Adams and Nancy Markey, in Narratively.

Finally, here’s a new poem from Ama Codjoe in The New York Review of Books, “Mother-of-Pearl.” Think on that, and I’ll see you later in the week. Melissa will write you tomorrow.

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