Good morning. I went over to Rockefeller Center in Manhattan the other morning to smother a chicken on the “Today” show. It was Craig Claiborne’s recipe (above)jilibet, a taste of his Mississippi childhood that he brought to The Times in 1983, and one that I think sits near the heart of what we’re doing here: bringing the delicious to bear seven days a week.
Make that recipe as written once or twice and you may want to introduce change-ups, adding mushrooms and pearl onions to push the dish in a European direction, say, or tomatoes, chopped celery, onions and green peppers to take it into Creole territory. I once tried it with fish sauce and ginger, an experiment in Viet-Cajun cooking. If that recipe isn’t yet ready for prime time (it will be!), it’s still a reminder that the original dish is fantastic and forgiving, just the sort of meal to bring a long week to its end.
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Craig Claiborne’s Smothered ChickenView Recipe →
I serve my smothered chicken with rice and steamed green beans. But I bet it’d be awesome with grits or mashed potatoes, with roasted beets. Or biscuits! Make smothered chicken regardless and report back.
With Sunday taken care of, we can turn to the rest of the week. …
MondayYou can kung pao shrimp. You can kung pao chicken. Lately, though, I’ve been making Ham El-Waylly’s recipe for kung pao tofu, mostly because I love how the crisp-soft tofu soaks up the numbing, tingly sauce. It’s a simple weeknight preparation, and ridiculously good.
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