What to cook this weekend: the simplest roast salmon, cinnamon rolls and Hunan chicken
I flew out to Omaha last weekend. There was plenty to do.
Suicideboys were playing downtown at the CHI Health Center, and even though Brett Young, who wasn’t feeling well, canceled his show at the Steelhouse a few blocks away, there was still Stewart Copeland’s run-in with the Police and the Omaha Symphony just a few blocks from that. Throw in some homecoming outfits, add a lot of fans of Big Blue and many dejected Cornhuskers, and it was quite the evening for poutine burritos at Block 16.
I welcomed the beautiful quiet of Lauritzen Gardens the next morning, where I was thrilled to talk about our work here at The Times, and then beat feet for home and a revitalizing meal of roasted salmon glazed with brown sugar and mustard (above). It’s one of the great easy-peasy recipes for when you’re exhausted and just happen to have some salmon fillets in the fridge. Serve that dish with braised greens or over raw baby spinach, with the heel of whatever bread you’ve got laying about.
Featured Recipe
Roasted Salmon Glazed With Brown Sugar and Mustard
I hope you’ll give that salmon a try this weekend. But not only the salmon. Claire Saffitz has an ace new recipe for cinnamon rolls that would be just the thing for a late breakfast on Saturday or Sunday. Her recipe will be easier and more fun to make if you watch this delightful video she has made with the crew at our studio kitchen on the West Side of Manhattan.
And so long as you’re baking, maybe you want to start your Thanksgiving rehearsals with Samantha Seneviratne’s new recipe for pumpkin pie bars, a streamlined version of pumpkin pie with a press-in gingersnap crust and an elegant proportion of pumpkin filling.
For dinner? I like the idea of Vivian Chan-Tam’s recipe for Hunan chicken, a version of the Chinese American takeout classic. Vivian coats chicken breasts in a vivid hot and sour sauce, and adds some baby corn, but I grew up eating the dish with chicken thighs and canned mushrooms, so … make this recipe your own.
Or maybe Hetty Lui McKinnon’s ramen with charred scallions, green beans and chile oil? David Tanis’s kale, squash and bean soup? Or his artful tofu Milanese?
There are many thousands of recipes worth cooking this weekend waiting for you on New York Times Cooking. The idea is that they’re all easy to find and all easy to make, but you do, yes, need a subscription to read them. Subscriptions make this whole enterprise possible. If you haven’t done so already, I hope you will consider subscribing today. Thanks.
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Now, it’s as far from cooking as Kenefick Park is from the jetty where my pal Bermy stalks false albacore from the rocks, but John Grisham is so good at his job that I tore through his 2022 legal thriller “The Boys From Biloxi” in a day. And so could you.
David Remnick interviewed Olivia Rodrigo for The New Yorker, and it’s kind of great.
The giant pandas at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C., are moving to China. Meilan Solly looks back at their 51 years in the enclosure for Smithsonian Magazine.
Finally, the indispensable Jon Pareles put me on to this new track from the National, “Smoke Detector,” nearly eight minutes of music to cook your salmon by. Do that, and I’ll see you on Sunday.