Pollo a la brasa — golden, garlicky chicken roasted on a spit — is a staple across Latin America. To those of us up north, the best known bird is the Peruvian version: crisp-skinned and tender-fleshed, often accompanied by a bright green cilantro-chile sauce.
You don’t need a spit to make my oven-based recipe. You get a similar char by cutting the bird in half and roasting it in high heat, though spatchcock enthusiasts can spatch away. The real jewel of this dish is the glossy, spicy cilantro sauce, with its sweet-salty combination of honey and feta. Make it for the chicken, and then save the leftovers to slather on almost anything that needs an herby boost.
Featured Recipe
Peruvian Roasted Chicken With Spicy Cilantro Sauce
For a meatless recipe that needs no such boost, we have Hetty Lui McKinnon’s crispy sheet pan noodles with glazed tofu. It’s absolutely packed with flavor from its marinade of hoisin, garlic and soy sauce. And the roasted ramen noodles — crunchy on top and soft on the bottom — make a wonderful textural contrast to the bouncy, savory tofu.
If you’ve got an itch for fish, Lidey Heuck’s baked salmon might be the easiest way to scratch it. She sprinkles salmon fillets with a brown-sugar-sweetened spice rub perked up with garlic powder and paprika. Swap the spices to suit your taste, but do keep the brown sugar, which melts and caramelizes, endowing the fish with a gorgeous, burnished crust.
Ali Slagle’s one-pot broccoli mac and cheese is as fast as opening a box but so much fresher and better tasting, as it’s made with grated sharp Cheddar and life-enhancing vegetables. For something vegan, her citrusy lentil and sweet potato soup is both earthy and bright. It’s exceptionally colorful thanks to a topping of red and yellow chard stems tossed with lemon juice and jalapeños for a kick.
Dessert-wise, the new menu from the ever-elegant David Tanis culminates with some fantastic cookies. And I do mean fantastic: his cardamom-scented pistachio almond cookies are chewy, nutty delights that also happen to be gluten-free. I’ve already bookmarked them for Passover. Is it too early to start getting ready for spring? What do you think? Let me know at hellomelissa@nytimes.com.
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