[music]

Kousha Navidar: You're listening to All Of It. I'm Kousha Navidar in for Alison Stewart. In another installment of our weekly series, Food for Thought, we're learning about a new cookbook that offers 120 recipes that require less effort and less thought around dinner time. In her book, New York Times cooking contributor, Yasmin Fahr brings her philosophy of cooking to life with recipes that aren't just easy to follow, but also adaptable to whatever you have on hand and whatever mood you find yourself in.

Whether you're a home-seasoned cook or just starting out, this cookbook promises to inspire you to create delicious meals and maybe without the stress. The book includes recipes like lap dinners, including sheet pan asparagus with tomatoes, egg, and feta, coffee table dinners like roasted chicken thighs with grapes, feta, and mint, and roasted mustard salmon with hint of mint escarole salad. The cookbook is titled Cook Simply, Live Fully: Flexible, Flavorful Recipes for Any Mood. It's out now. Yasmin Fahr is the author of three cookbooks and a frequent contributor to The New York Times cooking section. Yasmin, welcome to All Of It.

Yasmin Fahr: Thank you for having me. Hello.

Kousha Navidar: Absolutely. Glad to have you here. Listeners, we want to hear from you too. What is a simple go-to meal that you like to make at home after a long day? Are you into one-pot or sheet-pan meals? Which ones are they? Are you looking for a new and easy recipe? We got the person here for you to talk to. Give us a call at 212-433-9692. That's 212-433-WNYC. We'd love to get your calls or your texts. Yasmin, you said that Cook Simply, Live Fully isn't meant to sit pristinely on your bookshelf, look pretty, even though the book itself is quite beautiful. How exactly would you like this book to be used at home?

Yasmin Fahr: I would love this to be someone's everyday cookbook that they spill on, splatter on, and turn to for whatever mood they're in and however much energy they have to make dinner. It's really meant to adapt to people's everyday life and whatever they need. I really want it to be dogeared, spilled, stained, tossed around nicely, but used and loved.

Kousha Navidar: Keep the binding, but you can have some tears along the edges. I hear that.

Yasmin Fahr: Exactly. Make it your own, yes.

Kousha Navidar: In the book, you differentiate between these different kinds of meals. There are lap dinners, coffee table dinners, dinners at the dinner table. Can you tell us about the differences between those categories?

Yasmin Fahr: Yes. That's how I learned is how I eat. Sometimes when I'm super tired, I'll be eating on the couch in a bowl on my lap. That's the inspiration for lap dinners. There's no prep work. Everything comes together in 15, 20 minutes. Coffee table dinners is more your average weeknight meal, 30, 45 minutes, but nothing too complicated. At the dinner table is when you have a little bit more time where you don't want to go crazy, but you'll maybe make a couple of dishes, not just a sheet pan dish and a side.

Kousha Navidar: It sounds like those three categories, it's about amount of time required. Is that fair to go from lap dinner up to dinner table?

Yasmin Fahr: It's fair, yes. I think it's also the energy you want to put in. I feel like when I'm really tired, I'm not going to take out a cutting board. I'm not going to want to clean a lot of things. Lap dinners is really the bare minimum, and then-- It is both, I think, time and energy level.

Kousha Navidar: That makes sense. I think a lot of people in New York City can probably relate to lap dinners where your eating area is literally your couch and that's about it. If you have a coffee table, wow, good for you. [laughs]

Yasmin Fahr: Exactly. That's like a fancy meal to put some tablecloth or take a-- Exactly. [chuckles]

Kousha Navidar: Listeners, we're here with Yasmin Fahr, who's the food writer and New York Times cooking contributor. The book is Cook Simply, Live Fully: Flexible, Flavorful Recipes for Any Mood. It's out now. We want to hear from you listening right now, what's a simple go-to meal that you like to make at home after a long day? Give us a call. Send us a text. We're at 212-433-9692. Yasmin, while we're getting some calls coming in, let's start with some of the basics in the book. What kind of ingredients should you always keep in your kitchen, do you think?

Yasmin Fahr: You don't need a lot. I think, in the book, there's a list of what you'll need is miso, mustard. There's only about six spices that I use because I think you can really combine them in different ways to get a lot of different flavor profiles without doing a lot of work or really stocking up on too much. The idea really is to cook simply with what you have and not clutter your kitchen or anything else.

Kousha Navidar: You talk about fridge staples as well. What should you keep stocked in your fridge and maybe your pantry too?

Yasmin Fahr: I love white miso. It lasts a really long time, and I use it throughout the book as a marinade, in salad dressings. There's so many things that you can do with it. I think with that, mustard, but I also always have lemons, dried pasta, feta in the fridge. These are things that you can throw together a really simple meal without a lot of time or effort.

Kousha Navidar: How do you suggest people shop for produce?

Yasmin Fahr: Well, I think it's hard to say always shop at the farmer's market because that's not always available. I don't want to say in that way, but I do think trying to shop seasonally and with the freshest and best produce you can find is the best way. I think that extends to meat and fish, but really, it's trying to make the best choice for yourself without stressing yourself out or feeling guilty about it.

Kousha Navidar: There's this recipe that really struck me in the book because I love hibachi and there's this Hibachi-ish five-minute shrimp. Can you go into that a little bit, because I thought that was really cool?

Yasmin Fahr: I love Hibachi as well, and I used to have all my birthday parties there when I was a kid. The shrimp is inspired by that. It has mustard and soy sauce undertones, and it's really simple. It cooks on a sheet pan. It's done in about five minutes. It always reminds me of that shrimp flavor, and it was just so good with some rice. Perfect.

Kousha Navidar: What was so unique about the Hibachi shrimp? Can you identify that flavor, because I totally know what you're talking about? Then, maybe how do you recreate it-ish?

Yasmin Fahr: This was my attempt to recreate it. I think it has this salty, but I think it's such high heat. There's such a caramelization on it too. I think when you pair that with rice, it's just so delicious, so flavorful. This is cooking under the broiler to get that high heat and intensity, but in a short amount of time, and not everyone has access to that at home of course.

Kousha Navidar: Right. This is classified as a lap dinner for you, so-

Yasmin Fahr: Yes, exactly.

Kousha Navidar: - it's time, energy on the lower end [inaudible 00:06:45] [crosstalk]. Totally.

Yasmin Fahr: Oh, yes, because you're coating the shrimp on the sheet pan, so you're not using another bowl. You're doing everything directly on there. You stick it in the oven and then you're done.

Kousha Navidar: How about type of shrimp? Suggestions on that? Is it worth it to go beyond the frozen shrimp? Should you do that anyway?

Yasmin Fahr: I think if you can. I think shrimp is tricky because it's sold in different sizes and amounts and there's a lot of farm shrimp, and I know not everyone loves the flavor. I think I would pick what's right for you, but if you have frozen, you can use that as well. It is a good option if there isn't fresh available or good quality fresh.

Kousha Navidar: Got it. Listeners, we want to hear from you. What's a simple go-to meal that you like to make at home after a long day? Do you have a chance to-- Do you love Hibachi as well and have you tried to recreate the Hibachi flavor? I would love to hear about that. I'm really intrigued by that. Give us a call. 212-433-9692. We've got a caller I'd love to bring on. Tracy from Staten Island. Hey, Tracy. Welcome to the show.

Yasmin Fahr: Yay.

Tracy: Hi. I am a Italian American from Staten Island, [laughs] a lot of us are. My trick is chicken cutlet. You just buy them when they're on sale, bread them, flash-freeze them, put them in a zip lock bag. Then, any night of the week when you need a quick dinner, you just whip out the chicken cutlet and they're done. It's amazing. You can bake them. You can pan-fry them, and it's perfect. Just always have chicken cutlet breaded in the freezer is my advice.

Kousha Navidar: Tracy, thanks so much for that advice. Appreciate it. It reminds me of a recipe from your book as well. The lemony skillet chicken with pan croutons.

Yasmin Fahr: Oh, yes.

Kousha Navidar: That's a dinner table meal. I love that line, "Lemony skillet" instead of "Lemony Snicket", which it reminded me of. I'm sure that was probably on purpose. Can you talk us through that recipe a little bit?

Yasmin Fahr: Yes. Everything is done in a skillet, but there's some of course lemon slices, croutons, so they get really crispy, but they also cook in the chicken juices. The bottom part is really soft and the top is crunchy. I know my favorite thing is to swipe. I use bread to swipe the bottom of the pan after you cook chicken or something to get all that flavor. This is built-in bread, but it all cooks in the oven. Really simple, low maintenance. The idea for this is you can put it in the oven and then use that time to make a salad or something else when you're serving people at the dinner table.

Kousha Navidar: I've noticed that you use a lot of lemon and citrus in your recipes. How does citrus enhance the flavor of the dish? Maybe walk us through the backstory of this dish of lemony skillet.

Yasmin Fahr: Well, I think a lot of times people tend to think that dishes are under-seasoned or unbalanced because they're lacking citrus. Lemon or acidity or vinegar can really help balance that out. I think lemon in general just adds such a brightness and lifts things up. I think that's why I draw on it and use it in so many of my recipes. I get made fun of a lot because everyone's like, "Oh, is it lemony again?" I'm like, "Yes, it is lemony. There's probably going to be some feta and bread and a lot of chicken."

I think these simple things you can really elevate by using ingredients like lemon because they will change the flavor profile, especially when you cook it, and they soften and infuse everything with that lemony flavor.

Kousha Navidar: Then, what's the story behind the lemony skillet? When did you come up with that?

Yasmin Fahr: Oh, this one in particular, I think I was in Minorca when I came up with this because I spent a lot of time during this book working and creating on this island and there was so much beautiful citrus, and so it was really easy to just grab lemons from the tree and then use them in dishes. I felt really lucky to have such fresh produce available.

Kousha Navidar: We've got some texts about chicken that I want to get to as well. It says, "Chicken thighs tossed with olive oil, kalamata olives," which you mentioned, I believe, "sun-dried tomato, roasted in the oven." We've got another that's not about chicken, but about steak on the other side there. Messaging from Brooklyn, "A go-to super fast meal for me is a steak, frozen french fries, and a pre-mixed bagged salad. 10 To 15 minutes, basically no prep." Bag salad, I've been there, I am there quite often. Bag salad is a way to get your fiber. Folks, we're talking-- [crosstalk]

Yasmin Fahr: [unintelligible 00:11:02]

Kousha Navidar: Yes, if lemon works, lemon works. If bag salad works, bag salad works. Listeners, we're talking with Yasmin Fahr, who's the food writer and New York Times cooking contributor, about her book, Cook Simply, Live Fully: Flexible, Flavorful Recipes for Any Mood. If you're listening right now, have questions, or some advice about good, go-to, quick and easy meals, give us a call. We're at 212-433-9692. We've got Edward in Roselle Park. Hey, Edward. Welcome to the show.

Edward: Hey. How are you? Thank you.

Kousha Navidar: Hey. What's your take on quick easy meals?

Edward: A skillet, and she reminded me of something that I like to do as well, and I have a question about that. I take Kielbasa, I come home, cut the Kielbasa up, and I cut the cabbage up into pretty decent size, maybe two by two or three by three, and I take red potatoes or Yukon potatoes because they cook faster. I put them in the pot in olive oil in just salt and pepper because the Kielbasa will flavor the potatoes, it will flavor the cabbage. You just cover the pot or the skillet, and you just let it cook for maybe 40 minutes or so. You can walk away, change your clothes, get comfortable, you come back, and it will be ready.

You lift the lid up, and you serve it with-- either I use—well, I like sour cream, and I like Dijon mustard as well because it just gives that extra pop when you're eating it. You can eat it by itself as well, but I think that sour cream and that Dijon really brings out the flavor. I made this maybe 10 years ago for St. Patrick's Day, and now I make all year round because it's just too easy to do. What I will ask you though is, when you were talking about the lemon, some time I let the cabbage overcook a little bit, and I'm telling you, it added a flavor to it. Not overcooked, but it crusted over a little bit, but it added-

Yasmin Fahr: Caramelize it.

Edward: -a little bit of a flavor to it. What is it called?

Yasmin Fahr: When it caramelizes, like it becomes a little brown and almost sweet, but it has a [inaudible 00:13:10] [crosstalk]-

Edward: Yes, caramelizes it and adds extra flavor.

Yasmin Fahr: - flavor. Oh, so good.

Edward: Oh my gosh.

Kousha Navidar: Edward,-

Yasmin Fahr: It sounds delicious. Yes.

Kousha Navidar: -thank you so much for that call. It is wonderful to discover caramelization on your own. That's a great discovery of cooking. Thank you so much for that. We got another question that came in for you, Yasmin, and I want to say it here. It says, "Hi. Can you substitute chicken instead of shrimp for the hibachi shrimpons in your book? We don't eat seafood. Thanks." Do you have those kinds of substitutions? What do you think?

Yasmin Fahr: Yes, you definitely can. It's cooked under the broiler, so I would use boneless chicken thighs, probably, and you can cut them up into maybe one or two-inch pieces. Then, I would just maybe turn them halfway, maybe like four to five minutes on each side, but just cut into a piece and see if it's cooked through. Yes, you can definitely [inaudible 00:13:54]

Kousha Navidar: Thanks so much for that text, and happy cooking. We've got another text here that says, "I have kids, so sheet pan nachos. Always have tortillas, so even if we don't have chips, almost anything can go on the tray with some seasoning and thrown in a tortilla after. Meat, no meat, any beans, any cheese, cauliflower, peppers, et cetera. Once out of the oven, jarred salsa, sliced avocado, slices of lime, and dollops of sour cream." Wonderful. Oh, I think that-- Can we get Ben on there? Did we just drop Ben? Here's Ben from Fairfield County, Connecticut. Hey, Ben. Welcome to the show.

Ben: Hey, guys. Hi, Yasmin.

Yasmin Fahr: Hi.

Ben: My dish, and this could be the first food,

I remember eating, it's just chickpeas right out of the can. Certain brands are better than others in my opinion. You crack open the chickpeas, you pour them in a bowl after you drain them. You douse them in hot sauce, and there it is. That's your meal right there.

Kousha Navidar: Wonderful

Yasmin Fahr: There you go, yes.

Kousha Navidar: Ben, thank you so much for that. I want to ask about skillet eggplant with orange, ginger, and spinach as well, Yasmin, which is one of your coffee table dinners because we've talked about a lap dinner, and we've also talked about a dinner at the dinner table. You have a recipe for a coffee table dinner that's a skillet eggplant with orange, ginger, and spinach. Can you tell me what was the inspiration for this recipe, and what flavor profile does the citrus of the orange in the eggplant create, because now we're talking about another kind of citrus besides lemon here?

Yasmin Fahr: Yes. I actually made this also in Minorca for our friends, and it was one of those things where I had a bunch of different ingredients around. I think it's a bit unusual because people don't think they all go together because there is a bit of soy sauce, which adds a bit of saltiness, and it balances with the sweetness of the citrus, and the creaminess of the orange. There's really a lot of different flavors, and it's one of those things that people might think there's no way this actually goes together, but it does somehow come together.

Kousha Navidar: Oh, wow. Tell us the first thing that someone should note when cooking with eggplant. It can be a little bit intimidating, I think.

Yasmin Fahr: Yes. In this recipe, I cook the eggplant in a dry skillet, and this is what helps remove the moisture from it because a lot of times, and people probably experienced this, you can cook eggplant and it tastes really rubbery because they really soak up anything like oil or water, and they have a lot of water content in general. Cooking them in a dry skillet helps take that away so you don't end up with that rubbery, horrible texture in your mouth, which is really unpleasant.

Kousha Navidar: A dry skillet is totally crucial there?

Yasmin Fahr: Yes, and I've done the same method for onions as well to really helped them caramelize faster. You cook them in a dry skillet. It forces the moisture out faster.

Kousha Navidar: You put no oil in the pan at all, just do it-- [crosstalk]

Yasmin Fahr: Add it after.

Kousha Navidar: Oh, add it after. I see.

Yasmin Fahr: Yes. Basically, you'll add it to a hot pan, and you'll see it starts steaming, the water will start releasing like. It's actually pretty cool to see it happen. Then, once that's gone, then you'll add the oil, so you won't get water logged or oil logged.

Kousha Navidar: What's the difference between an Italian eggplant and a regular eggplant?

Yasmin Fahr: There's many different kinds of eggplants. It's the shape and the water content and the taste, but you could use different varieties as well. The same method would apply to any of them.

Kousha Navidar: Got it. We've got Debbie from Sussex, New Jersey. Hey, Debbie. Welcome to the show.

Debbie: Hi. I'm actually in Sussex County. Yes. I'm here to speak for people that don't have a big budget and want to cook something quickly and nourishing. I used to tell my sons, places like a Dollar Store, Dollar Tree, have very excellent frozen mixed vegetables. I buy the sliced peppers and onions in a frozen bag. I can buy bottled tomato sauce, any brand you want, and I always keep cans of black beans and/or chickpeas in stock. When I want to make a nice chili, I get the inexpensive turkey-- I don't know, chopped turkey that you get at Walmart-

Yasmin Fahr: Ground turkey, yes.

Debbie: -believe it or not, for like about $2.50-- Ground turkey. Thank you. You sauté ground turkey in the onions and peppers, you add a little bit of tomato sauce, you stir it, you put in your beans. While that's cooking, I take jasmine rice, believe it or not, and this always works.

Yasmin Fahr: Oh yes.

Debbie: I have a low-voltage microwave, and I can have the rice going for 20 minutes. By the time the rice is done, the chili, to which I always add my little touch, I always add garlic powder and any kind of hot spices I like, but I also add a little bit of cocoa powder to enrich it. You stir that. It's very satisfying. You stir it around, and you can cook it for as long as you like, but I can have it ready in 15 minutes, and it's delicious. You can put a little shredded lettuce on top of that. The other one is hot and sour soup.

If you buy coleslaw that's pre-prepared, the plain cabbage and carrot mixture, you can sauté that with some onions, and you put the broth in, [unintelligible 00:18:55] you have to have mushrooms, and you can use either vegetable, beef broth, or chicken broth. You add a little rice vinegar, and you have a beautiful hot and sour soup in minutes.

Kousha Navidar: Debbie, thank you so much for those tips. That sounds great. I want to look at one more caller here if we have time. Let's go to Nicole in City Island Bronx, because Nicole, I understand that you have a tip for folks, right?

Nicole: Actually, two that are my favorites. I believe in the theory of cook once, eat twice. While you've got your oven heated up and you're doing a roast chicken or something, when you take the chicken out and you turn the oven off, close the door, that oven is still hot, and it still has cooking energy. I usually have a tray of chopped potatoes with rosemary with little garlic for home fries, or I'll do a couple of trays of roasted vegetables, and just put them in the oven. The oven is turned off, but it's still hot, and just leave them overnight.

Kousha Navidar: Oh, so residual heat, is what you're talking about then?

Nicole: Yes.

Yasmin Fahr: Residual heat, fantastic. Yes. Such a great cooking tip.

Nicole: Yes. Anytime the oven is warm, use it for whatever. Use it to toast something, use it to dry up vegetables. I use it to dry out mushrooms or I do roasted grapes, which is fantastic, nothing else, just base them in their own juice. Also, if I've got a pan and I'm doing something like let's say a chicken piccata or something and the sauce is still really great, and the pan still has those really great, crispy bits, if it's small enough, I'll just cover it and just put it in the fridge. Then, a day or two later, I'll just warm up that pan and use that as the base for a spaghetti sauce or something else. There's no reason to clean out and throw out all those lovely, [unintelligible 00:20:25] crispy bits.

Kousha Navidar: Oh, wow. Cool. Thank you so much for that. Yasmin, go ahead.

Yasmin Fahr: No, I was going to say residual heat is also great for if you want to do sheet-pan-baked eggs. You just crack them on there and put it in the oven so they cook, but not too strongly. That's a great tip.

Kousha Navidar: What I was hearing from the last caller as well was leaving vegetables overnight with the residual heat. Is that okay to do?

Yasmin Fahr: Yes, no, I think it's okay to do. I've never tried it, but [inaudible 00:20:54], yes.

Kousha Navidar: Are there any other recipes that really excite you from your book?

Yasmin Fahr: There is a sheet pan sumac and yogurt chicken, which is super flavorful and has a lemony texture. It's another sheet pan meal, but the chicken stays really tender and moist. I like that a lot. They're [inaudible 00:21:14] hard to choose.

Kousha Navidar: Yes, definitely. In your mind, if you had to think of tips to give for people as we look at closing out this segment, what final tips would you have for folks as they're thinking about how to decrease the amount of effort but still get that wonderful flavor for their meals when they're tight on time?

Yasmin Fahr: I think using a lot of condiments, and I think soy sauce, mustard, dijon mustard, and citrus, adding a little bit of these things, even soy sauce to deglaze a pan after you cook something, you just add a big hit of flavor and umami to something like as simple as vegetables. I think really learning how to use those to create flavorful dishes is key to speedy cooking.

Kousha Navidar: You come home after a long day, you, Yasmin, are ready to end the day, you still got to cook, what is your number one go-to dinner meal?

Yasmin Fahr: Oh, I do a lot of pasta. That's my comfort food. I have a harissa and tomato paste, basically, just cook those together in a pan, add the cooked pasta, and it's done in 10 minutes, really fast, really easy, but very rich and warming and flavorful.

Kousha Navidar: Got to love the pasta. Yasmin Fahr is the author of three cookbooks, including Cook Simply, Live Fully: Flexible, Flavorful Recipes for Any Mood, and a frequent contributor to the New York Times cooking section. Yasmin, thank you so much for joining us.

Yasmin Fahr: Thank you for having me and for all the great questions, everyone. That was great.

Kousha Navidar: Yes. Thank you all so much for calling in with those great questions. There is more All Of It on the way. We're going to talk to Alex Braufman, who has been an important member of the downtown New York Free Jazz scene since the '70s, and we're going to talk to Ron Howard about his new documentary with Jim Henson. That's after the news, stay with us.

 

Copyright © 2024 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.

New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of New York Public Radio’s programming is the audio record.