Good morning. J. Kenji López-Alt is back in our pages this week with a smart look at his favorite secret ingredient: mayonnaise. You can smear it on fish to encourage browning in the pan; you have to try it on the exterior of a grilled cheese sandwich, for similar reasons. Kenji uses mayonnaise on steaks cooked sous-vide, so that when he sautés them in a pan they develop the most marvelous crusts. And he cuts mayonnaise with all sorts of concoctions to make mighty marinades — with teriyaki sauce, curry paste, pesto, barbecue sauce. Try his mayo-marinated chicken with chimichurri (above) for dinner tonight, and you may find yourself a convert.
Or just fly blind as we do every Wednesday in this space, no-recipe style, cooking off the mere suggestion: mayonnaise and something else as a marinade, followed by high heat.
For instance, cubes of firm tofu tossed in a marinade of mayonnaise, soy sauce, gochujang, sesame oil and slivered garlic. Remove the tofu from the marinade, then brown the pieces in a nonstick pan on both sides. Add the remaining marinade, perhaps with a splash of water to thin it, to make a sauce, let it heat through, then garnish it all with sliced scallions and a two-fingered pinch of sesame seeds.
That’s really good.
Mayonnaise is a hard pass for some of our number, sadly. (There’s no need to tell anyone that it’s in the dish if you cook it — the mayonnaise doesn’t taste of mayonnaise in this application, but delivers texture and fat instead.) If that’s the case for you, maybe these citrus-glazed pork loin chops with gingery bok choy would be better.
Alternatively, you could make pressure cooker black bean soup. You could make a party board. Or sheet-pan sausage Parm with garlicky broccoli.
Is it cold now at night, where you stay? I like these five-star braises for dinner. Is it temperate and nice? Yucatán shrimp with limes and toasted bread is your answer, with an ice-flecked beer.
Making that last is quick work and will leave time after dinner to consider Thursday’s All Hallow’s Eve and our recipes for Halloween treats for grown-ups. Take a container of Melissa’s black-pepper and bourbon caramel chews to work for your fellow corporate ghouls, and you will win the day, assuredly.
Many thousands more recipes to cook this evening and in coming days are waiting for you on NYT Cooking, at least once you’ve taken out a subscription to our site and apps. Subscriptions are how we keep in groceries and the labor to make them into delicious things, an exchange we think benefits all parties. (You can double down on the help by getting someone a gift subscription in addition to your own.)
Those seeking additional inspiration should visit us on Facebook, where we maintain a thrilling community of home cooks. Check us out on Instagram, where Alison Roman’s vinegar chicken with crushed olive dressing is a community favorite. You can watch us on YouTube, as well. (Alison again, her with creamy cauliflower pasta.) And, of course, we’re on Twitter, because that’s where news breaks. Visit us, please!
And if you run into trouble along the way — with your subscription, with your cooking, with my outlook on the world — do write. We’re at cookingcare@nytimes.com. I’m at foodeditor@nytimes.com. Someone will get back to you.
Now, please, in The Times, do read Pete Wells’s hard look at the fall of the Peter Luger steakhouse in Brooklyn, a restaurant in which I have never eaten without a tie, and to which I think I may never need return. (Here’s Pete on the “CBS This Morning” podcast, talking about his work as restaurant critic.)
Also, while you’re at it, see what you make of Brett Anderson writing about the rise of Washington, D.C., as a restaurant city: “The vibrant scene now attracting attention rose on a foundation built by members of a culinary deep state, and a diverse constellation of restaurants that have flourished here.”
Tejal Rao on the nightly feasts in Little Guatemala in Los Angeles is likewise delicious.
And you should absolutely read Eric Asimov on a family-run vineyard in Spain that is setting up as an industry leader in the fight against climate change.
I’ll be back on Friday with more to cook and read, listen to, watch. In the meantime, enjoy your time in the kitchen.
