Good morning. What’s better than stracciatella, the Italian dish of chicken broth with a cheesy suspension of poached egg and herbs? The answer is: Stracciatella seasoned with really good fish sauce. Trust me! Go with it.
Beat a few eggs, then grate in some Parmesan until the eggs are the texture of cake batter. Now, add a few squirts of fish sauce and some grinds of black pepper. Toss in chopped herbs like parsley or marjoram, if you’ve got them.
Heat up a pot of chicken stock, and when it’s simmering gently, pour the egg mixture in and watch it set up in just a few seconds — a cloudlike dumpling across golden, chicken broth skies. More cheese on top? Why not! That’s your no-recipe recipe for the week, and I hope you like it.
If you’re looking for a more orderly recipe, try these vegetarian huevos rotos — runny eggs with fried potatoes dusted with smoked paprika. Just slide everything onto some wilted greens to make it a meal.
And if you keep puff pastry in the freezer, you’re ready to start this potato and cheese tart. To make it extra pretty, and extra nutritious, go ahead and steal a technique from the pastry chef Natasha Pickowicz: Cover the whole tart with big, juicy dressed radicchio leaves.
Feeling fancy? Make dessert on a weeknight. Cheesecake pudding comes together pretty quickly on the stovetop and so does tembleque (which employs the exact same technique of thickening something delicious with cornstarch, but with a base of fresh coconut milk instead of dairy).
Or, if you caught my friend Priya Krishna’s super simple recipe for homemade yogurt, which she got from her dad, you can scoop some into a bowl and have it with a spoonful of sour cherry jam, or a dribble of honey and some crushed walnuts. I loved the story that went along with this recipe, too, about the South Asian immigrants who have carried starter cultures like heirlooms, across continents and oceans, and, ahem, even through airport security.
We’ve got thousands more recipes for the week at NYT Cooking. You can access them all, browse, save and leave notes for your fellow cooks — if you have a subscription to The Times. We’re also on social, on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, where I invite you to come hang because lately our stories have been especially fun. If you run into any issues over on Cooking, or have questions, please send us a note, and we’ll get right back to you: cookingcare@nytimes.com.
The chef Ed Lee grew up in New York, and in this essay, he tells the story of how the subway system’s ephemeral graffiti served as his first introduction to art, helping him to understand “the act of being anonymous while simultaneously aspiring to fame.”
“Why arrive from Brooklyn to become a high-end mall pizzeria in a city that defined mall pizza?” I’m still thinking about Meghan McCarron’s thoughtful, razor-sharp story about Roberta’s opening in Los Angeles.
The USDA’s pomological watercolor collection is an amazing trove of botanical paintings, all made from 1886 to 1942, of fruit and nut varieties introduced around the turn of the century. If you’re in the mood for a jolt of pure color and beauty, scroll through for tardiff blood oranges, olivet cherries and more.
That’s it from me. See y’all on Friday!
