Stuff I've Been Cooking - May 2025
A flavor bomb chicken, a much hyped salmon, and one glorious pesto
I’ve been traveling a bit this May, but journeys to Texas and Vegas didn’t stop me from futzing around in the kitchen. Here’s some of the stuff I whipped up.
(I may split this digest — pun not intended but welcomed — into two newsletters in an attempt to not saddle you with a novel every time I open the fridge.)
Chili-basted Half Chicken with Caper Chimichurri
This Molly Baz recipe hails from More is More, a cookbook famous for its horrifying Old West fonts squished so closely together they resemble a Rorschach test. Questionable typefaces be damned, Molly knows how to throw down with les poulets, and here she has us slather chicken halves with a chili rub before roasting them over potatoes and serving everything with a caper chimichurri.
In lieu of chicken halves, I simply purchased a whole bird and split it down the center, which I recommend since I never actually see chicken halves in stores. Everything else I followed to the letter, and not-so-shockingly, the dish turned out magnificently. Roasting chicken over potatoes always yields ecstasy-inducing results, and these thinly sliced Yukon golds remained true to form: buttery, crispy, chewy - all the textures (with the added bonus of schmaltz infusion). The chicken itself was juicy throughout, and the zingy flavor bomb of a caper chimichurri added a necessary acid punch to the party. Excellent all around.
The Only Way to Bake a Salmon
“The Only Way to Bake a Salmon” — that’s the actual name of this superb dish from the Kismet cookbook. The recipe had earned rave reviews from my friends Sylvia and Matt; so naturally I needed to try it for myself.
The process was wildly simple. First I made a rub that featured the usual suspects (paprika, garlic, olive oil) with a few wildcards: caraway, coriander, and orange zest. I slathered this all over two salmon fillets and let them rest for about fifteen minutes before baking them low and slow in a 250 degree oven for 40 minutes.
Fun fact about those filets: the recipe calls for a 2 lb salmon fillet, but I could only find two 1 lbs fillets instead. I was worried that the smaller cuts might mess up the timing; so I placed the two fillets next to each other side by side with no gap to emulate the luxe experience of having an actual two-pounder on the sheet pan. The modification worked like a charm — highly recommended for those who find themselves in a similar fillet crisis.
While the salmon cooked in the oven, I embarked on the final aspect of the dish: a citrus-onion-dill mixture. It was supposed to be served on the side, but I brashly heaped it directly on the fish because I’m nothing if not a true iconoclast. However this salad (condiment? accompaniment?) is meant to be consumed, it proved to be an excellent foil for the fish’s rich vibe.
This salmon was a big hit with the assembled diners — an exclusive VIP group whose withering culinary critiques have made many a chef tremble. In other words, my parents.
My dad declared this the *best* salmon he’d ever eaten, and given that he has a few decades of experience under his belt, I’d say this was QUITE the endorsement. My mom was also rather enthused but maybe not as effusive as my father. What matters most here is that Sylvia and Matt were right: this was a killer dish that required minimal effort. It may indeed be the only way to bake a salmon going forward.
So glad I TOTALLY forgot to take a picture of it.
Rigatoni with a Pesto Remix
Heaps of basil popped up at the farmers’ market this week; so I snatched up four bundles and set a pesto plan into motion. After some washing and drying, I plucked all the basil leaves from the stems and sliced them up in the food processor. I then added a single garlic clove and a grab bag of whatever nuts I had left: pignolis, cashews, and pistachios - about half a cup in total. This was where the pesto remix began.
I was about to grind up a cup of a parmesan when my lactose-intolerant boyfriend Dominique gave me a hangdog look — one that said “I know parmesan has barely any lactose in it, but please don’t make me roll the dice tonight.” I did add about 2 tbs of grated parm into the mixture (because I knew he’d be okay with that), but that simply wasn’t enough to make the pesto taste pesto-y. Time to put this remix in high gear.
To emulate parmesan, I threw in a bunch of nutritional yeast (which people say is a good parmesan alternative), some rice vinegar to capture parm’s tang, and finally, in an effort to boost the missing umami factor, a heaping tablespoon of yellow miso. The final product tasted quite a bit like pesto but was very much its own thing — its own DELICIOUS thing, that is. This was an excellent green sauce / pesto remix, especially after a ladle or two of pasta water transformed it into a luscious sauce. Downright undeniable. In retrospect, I realized the miso swap was similar to the trick Meera Sodha pulled in her miso butter greens pasta, and as we all remember, that turned out so well.
Wait a second. Do we remember that? Did I ever write about that pasta (I did)? Long story short: I made it in February. In the recipe, Sodha takes inspiration from Joshua McFadden and blends kale, broccoli, miso, fennel seeds, and vegan butter into a stridently green, earthy sauce, perfect for the orecchiette to swim around in. I found my pesto remix to be more comforting, but Sodha’s miso butter greens felt healthier. Can’t go wrong with either.
Oh - and a fun little protip: for an added punch, add some calabrian chiles as garnish. This added an invaluable zing, both in terms of flavor and color.
I’ve got about three more dishes to discuss, but I’m going to shovel them off into next week’s newsletter. Keep an eye out!
What have you been cooking? Do you have any pesto hacks you adore?