Every week, Executive Food Editor Keith Dresser pairs each main dish with a side to give you a complete, satisfying dinner without the guesswork. Look for the game plan section to learn tips on how to streamline your kitchen work so dinner comes together quicker.
Weeknight Cooking
Dinner This Week: Skillet-Roasted Fish
This week’s menus include Skillet-Roasted Fish Fillets, Cheese Pupusas, and Stove-Top Roasted Chicken for dinner in about an hour.
By Published Aug. 6, 2021.
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Dinner 1: Skillet-Roasted Fish Fillets and Pita Bread Salad
Game Plan: Heat the oven. Prep and make the salad through step 2, keeping the components separate. Cook the fish. Once the fish is done, toss the salad and serve.
For evenly cooked Skillet-Roasted Fish Fillets, we sear the fish in a hot pan, flip it over, then transfer it to a hot oven to finish cooking. A sprinkle of sugar mixes with moisture on the surface of the fish, accelerating browning and giving the fillets a rich color and deep flavor that’s anything but sweet. Pita Bread Salad with Tomatoes and Cucumber (Fattoush) is at its best when it combines fresh, flavorful produce with crisp pita chips and bright herbs. To make the pita moisture-repellent, we brush its craggy sides with plenty of olive oil before baking. The oil prevents the chips from absorbing too much moisture from the salad and becoming soggy.
Printable Shopping Lists: Skillet-Roasted Fish Fillets and Pita Bread Salad
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Dinner 2: Cheese Pupusas with Curtido
Game Plan: Start by making the curtido. While it rests, prepare and cook the pupusas.
Pupusas, a traditional dish from El Salvador and Honduras, consist of small masa harina cakes stuffed with cheese. Hydrating the masa harina with boiling rather than room temperature water allows the starches in the flour to absorb it more quickly and completely, resulting in a well-hydrated dough that is easy to work with and doesn't dry out when cooked. Curtido is a traditional accompaniment to pupusas. Instead of fermenting the cabbage, we marinate thin slices of it, along with chiles, in a fruity cider vinegar–based pickling liquid. Waiting to add the cilantro until after draining the liquid ensures that the herb is vibrant and fresh for serving.
Printable Shopping Lists: Cheese Pupusas and Curtido
Equipment Review
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Dinner 3: Stovetop Roast Chicken and Sautéed Swiss Chard
Game Plan: Start by prepping and cooking the chicken through step 3, using the unattended cooking time to prep the Swiss chard. While the cooking liquid settles for the chicken (end of step 3), sauté the Swiss chard. Make the sauce for the chicken as the Swiss chard finishes cooking.
Stovetop Roast Chicken with Lemon-Herb Sauce has all the features of an oven-roasted bird, without having to preheat your oven. A technique of searing, steaming, and searing again yields chicken with crisp, golden skin, evenly cooked meat, and a flavorful sauce. The key to mastering Sautéed Swiss Chard with Garlic is getting the stems to finish cooking at the same time as the leaves. Sautéing the stems first over relatively high heat provides a desirable tender-crisp texture and lightly caramelized flavor that acts as a foil to the tender leaves, which we cook very briefly to maintain their earthiness.
Printable Shopping Lists: Stovetop Roast Chicken and Sautéed Swiss Chard
