Every Monday night, Bon Appétit editor in chief Adam Rapoport gives us a peek inside his brain by taking over our newsletter. He shares recipes he's been cooking, restaurants he's been eating at, and more. It gets better: If you sign up for our newsletter, you'll get this letter before everyone else.
You cook, you learn—or at least you hope to.
I did a bit of both this past Saturday night when Andy Baraghani came over for dinner.
The first thing I realized—which I guess I kind of knew but never really thought about—is that if you have friends who love to cook, let them cook. Instead of asking them to bring a random bottle of wine, have them bring the makings of a dish that fits your menu. We all know that the best part of a dinner party is when you’re all hanging out in the kitchen cooking and drinking, so why not lean into that moment?
For dinner, I splurged on some beautiful looking lamb chops, while Andy hit up the farmers market for a Greek salad and just-harvested potatoes.
About that salad: Just because it’s early October doesn’t mean summer is completely over, even in the Northeast. Andy showed up with a riot of tiny, sweet-as-candy cherry tomatoes, which served as the base of a new-look Greek Salad that he developed for our August issue. No diner-style chopped up iceberg here. Instead a tangle of arugula, sweet red grilled peppers and, yeah, maybe we forgot to add the feta, but I’m not sure we needed it.
I learned my lesson the hard way when it came to the lamb chops. I bought some beautiful rib chops—you know, the kind that are cut from rack of lamb and are passed around at fancy country club weddings. Whenever I grill these over high heat, in order to get them nice and crispy but still medium-rare on the inside—I inevitably cause a raging inferno due to all that fat on the chops. They basically get incinerated and blackened and all smoky (not in a good way). From now on, I’m either going to be like my mom and crank up my broiler and throw the chops on a sheet pan, top rack, or I’m going to sear them off in a cast iron skillet (no flare ups!), with my hood cranked on high.
Finally, those potatoes. Lesson: Why do I not always make crispy, smashed potatoes? Couldn’t be easier. Boil some smallish, thin-skinned potatoes, like Yukon golds, in well-salted water until just tender. Let cool a bit. Then flatten each one on a sheet pan, drizzle with a generous amount of olive, toss and salt, and slide into a 500-degree oven till all crispy and crunchy and gorgeous. You can be fancy like Andy and serve them atop a swoosh of homemade aioli, or get like Molly Baz and whip up a walnut dressing to go on top (watch her do it here). But, honestly, if you give me crispy, salty potatoes with some indoor-cooked lamb chops and a nice salad, I’m all good. Lesson learned.
Get the recipes:
