By The New York Times Cooking
Tanya Sichynsky is the author and host of The Veggie, our vegetarian cooking newsletter and a new video series.
Every few months in my weekly newsletter, The Veggie, I set out to address a smattering of reader questions and fulfill recipe requests that are often hyper-specific in circumstance. (See: “I am hosting my younger lover upon his return from studying abroad.”) Still, a handful of recurring characters have emerged: the holidays, the miscellany within a C.S.A. box, the hard-to-please partner.
So we’re bringing this question — what do I make for my meat-and-potatoes partner? — to the small/medium/large-but-not-big screen.
In a new video series, I’ll take readers’ vegetarian cooking dilemmas, like this one, and hunt for answers in The New York Times Cooking database and studio kitchen. Consider it a Veggie hotline.
One reader described her never-ending quest to get her carnivore husband to “enjoy meatless meals.” Another, a vegetarian about to move in with her “anti-vegetable” boyfriend, hoped to find common ground at the dinner table. In these emails, words like “satisfying,” “filling” and “meat-and-potatoes” come up time and again.
Café Chelsea’s maitake au poivre.Armando Rafael for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Hadas Smirnoff.
For this first episode, I went Orna Guralnik mode: These recipes might just save your relationship. In my quest to fill and satisfy, I cooked through the maitake au poivre adapted by Florence Fabricant from Café Chelsea in New York; Superiority Burger’s crispy fried tofu sandwich adapted by Alexa Weibel; and Alexa’s vegetarian mushroom shawarma pitas. They are each delicious, and some of my favorite recipes in the NYT Cooking database. But you needn’t take my word for it. We brought onto set a professed meat-and-potatoes guy to prove me right, or wrong, or both. You’ll want to see where he lands after the taste test.
I unknowingly spent nearly a decade of my life preparing for this challenge, having planned and cooked many a meal for a meat-and-potatoes partner of my own. Every single dinner suggestion was met with many versions of one question: Where’s the meat? (A sampling: “How about pasta for dinner?” “Pasta and what?”) A nonscientific survey of this mind-set (my own experience, reader emails) revealed a handful of priorities. While “filling” is chief among them, texture and protein are also up there.
Superiority Burger’s crispy fried tofu sandwich.David Malosh for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Barrett Washburne.
That informed my selection of recipes to feature. I’d slot the crispy fried tofu sandwich into all three of those categories. You must believe me when I say that, despite its marinating and dredging and frying process, the crispy fried tofu sandwich is one of the most straightforward fried sandwich recipes I’ve ever had the pleasure of making and eating. Do not fear the fry! (And if that appeals, you may also like Kay Chun’s Nashville-style hot tofu sliders.)
The shawarma is plenty satisfying, too, especially if you make extra of the seasoned mushrooms and onions, which I’ve easily doubled for friends before, as well as for my video guest. The texture of sliced and roasted portobello caps, particularly when folded in a saucy pita, is enough to give you pause. Pretty meaty! Of the three recipes, it is the most prepared for your weeknight rotation, coming in at a cool 25 minutes.
Alexa Weibel’s vegetarian mushroom shawarma pitas.Jenny Huang for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Barrett Washburne
Other letter-writers have expressed interest in a vegetarian take on the actual meat-and-potatoes format, for which the maitake au poivre is just one answer. Alongside baked or mashed potatoes and sautéed spinach, that’s a meal I’d be thrilled to break out the steak knives for. Café Chelsea’s approach achieves savory depth by fortifying the au poivre sauce with a mushroom stock, but for a simpler approach with ample umami, take a look at Ali Slagle’s portobello “steak” au poivre.
Try any one of the recipes in the video and see how they stack up in your home. But they are only three of many that may mend dinnertime disagreements. There were several recipes on the cutting-room floor of this episode, including Samantha Seneviratne’s five-star vegetarian shepherd’s pie, full of lentils, mushrooms, peas and more vegetables, and topped with mashed potatoes, of course. Just as filling would be Melissa Clark’s vegetarian tamale pie, packed with plenty of hearty beans and topped with a cheesy, tender cornbread crust. They are both proof positive of what legumes do best in meat’s absence: add heft and protein (and fiber!) and provide a vehicle for satisfying, meaty flavors.
We’ve got more episodes to come! Keep an eye out for the second one next month. And I’ll see you next week with our final Summer Veggie Bingo card.
