Emily Weinstein's 40 forever ingredients

If you love NYT Cooking, thank Emily.

Welcome to a special edition Dinner Tetris, an advice column here at 40 Ingredients Forever where a reader shares the ingredients they always have on hand and I dream up three dinners using those ingredients. If you’d like your pantries Tetris-ed into dinners, head here.

The editor in chief of New York Times Cooking and Food is not a chef and hasn’t had formal culinary training — and that’s probably partly why NYT Cooking is so useful, successful, and beloved.

Emily Weinstein likes to cook and knows the value of a good, home-cooked meal. She is also very busy (see above) and hates doing the dishes (her husband’s job). She simply can’t spend all her time in the kitchen, even if she wanted to.

This is where Emily was coming from when she picked 100 recipes for Easy Weeknight Dinners, a NYT Cooking cookbook that comes out tomorrow. It includes recipes from

Hetty Lui McKinnon

,

yasmin fahr

, Melissa Clark, Priya Krishna, me, and many others.

Emily knows that good recipes can ease the everyday, but if was limited to only 40 ingredients, what would they be?

She shared her list below (scandal: no chicken), and I dreamt up some dinners using them. Thanks for playing, Emily, and for supporting my work for all these years.

But first, a commercial break:

To celebrate the book’s launch, Emily and I will be chatting tomorrow night at Talea Taproom in Brooklyn. Would love to meet you.

After a summer break from publishing 40 Ingredients Forever every week, its return is coming….soon!

Emily Weinstein’s 40 Forever Ingredients

• Pantry: Salt, canned tuna, anchovies, rice vinegar, cumin, red pepper flakes, pasta, rice, beans (black, chickpeas, cannellini), canned tomatoes, coconut milk, olive oil, neutral oil (like canola)

• Produce: Cherry tomatoes, lettuce leaves, broccoli, herbs (dill, basil, mint, parsley), ginger, scallions, summer corn, citrus (lemon, lime, grapefruit), garlic, winter squash

• Fridge & freezer: Cheese (Cheddar, Parm, feta), hot sauce, eggs, firm tofu, wild salmon, kimchi, maple syrup, sesame oil, soy sauce, chicken stock (homemade or Better Than Bouillon), chili crisp, yogurt, frozen dumplings, mayo (Hellmann’s only), nuts (pecans, almonds, pistachios), sourdough bread (always in the freezer or on the counter), butter!

Three Weeknight Dinners Using Emily’s Ingredients

🍊Feta, chickpea & citrus salad🍊

Chickpeas, lemon, orange, salt, olive oil, herbs, feta, red pepper flakes, lettuce leaves, bread

You could totally toss all these ingredients together in a bowl and call it, but a few steps will give each element a different texture, temperature, and overall personality, which will give the overall salad more pizzazz.

The chickpeas are going to be citrusy, herby, bright. Add drained and rinsed chickpeas to a big bowl. Zest and juice half a lemon over the chickpeas. Zest half an orange or grapefruit on top, too (or both!). Cut away the peel and pith from the orange, then cut the fruit into bite-size pieces and add to the chickpeas. Drizzle with salt and olive oil and stir to combine. Chop up some of whatever herbs you have (dill, basil, mint, parsley) and stir those in too — about 1/4 cup but who’s counting?

The feta’s going to be warm and custardy. Arrange a rack 4 to 6 inches from a broiler and crank it to high. Slice a block of feta 1/2-inch thick and pat the slices dry. (Avoid cow’s milk feta, which doesn’t have as much fat as sheep’s milk cheese and could get rubbery.) Find a dish that will fit the slices in an even layer, like a 9 by 13-inch or sheet pan. Grease it with a little olive oil, then add the feta and drizzle with more olive oil and a sprinkle of red pepper flakes. Broil until the edges are golden, 4 to 8 minutes. 

The greenery is going to be crunchy-crispy. When the feta’s ready, add lettuce leaves to the bowl of chickpeas and toss to combine. Taste. If flavors are muted, add salt. If too puckery, add olive oil. If too rich, add another squeeze of lemon juice. Transfer the salad to plates and top with the soft feta. Eat with a slice of bread.

🐟Anchovy butter pasta🐟

Pasta, butter, anchovies. Maybe broccoli, lemon, and parsley.

In Italy, it’s not pasta with butter and cheese on the kids’ menu — it’s pasta with butter and anchovies. Both are very buttery and very savory, but here, the umami undercurrent is created not by cheese but by little fishes.

To make it, follow this method. Once the butter is foaming, add 8 or 10 oil-packed anchovies and smush them around until they dissolve. Continue with the recipe, skipping the cheese. For a vegetable, you could add broccoli to the pasta pot in the last three minutes of cooking. Top bowls with lots of black pepper to cut some of the richness. If you’re still finding it too rich, add lemon juice and chopped parsley.

🍁Kimchi-maple tofu with squash🍁

Winter squash, olive oil, salt, pepper, kimchi, maple syrup, sesame oil, soy sauce, firm tofu, scallions, almonds, lettuce or rice

Cabbage kimchi is a spicy and punchy condiment, but it’s also primarily vegetables, so use a whole lot of it and it counts as a green vegetable for dinner. Here it makes a sweet-and-spicy sheet pan dinner with custardy tofu, winter squash, and maple syrup. 

Arrange a rack on the bottom of the oven and heat to 425°F. On a sheet pan, toss cubed winter squash (about 1 1/2 pounds, about 1 inch cubes) with olive oil and salt. Roast, without flipping, until golden-brown underneath, 15 to 20 minutes. Meanwhile, in a medium bowl, stir together chopped kimchi (about a cup), maple syrup (2 tablespoons), and two dashes of sesame oil and soy sauce. Rip firm tofu big chunks, add to the bowl, and toss to coat. 

Flip the squash, spread into an even layer, then top with the tofu and all the juices in the bowl. Roast for another 10 to 15 minutes, until the tofu is warm. Top with sliced scallions. Serve over lettuce leaves or rice if you like.