Happy Sunday. Here’s your weekly recipe inspiration newsletter, and we’re pretty excited about this week’s dishes.

As always, a grocery shopping list for the recipes is linked in Notion at the end of this email.

In This Week’s Edition:

Try Something New 🤯 — Mushroom Risotto

Throwback Time 🍳 — Beer Battered Fish

The Leftover Shelf 🥡 — Baja Fish Tacos

Extra Helpings 🤤 — Pink Sauce, Packing Lunch for Work, & More

Shopping List ✅ — Ingredients sorted into categories for easy shopping

Try Something New 🤯

The best meal I made this week.

Mushroom Risotto

Everyone should understand how to make risotto — it’s a great weeknight meal to have in your arsenal. Here’s a version with mushrooms, although any toppings or flavor profiles work:

Risotto Components

• 16 oz (450 g) assorted mushrooms, cleaned and chopped into bite-sized pieces.

• 1 tbsp (15 g) neutral cooking oil

• 1 cup (200 g) Arborio, Carnaroli, or Vialone Nano rice

• Broth of choice,* around 3-4 cups depending on rice type and desired texture.

• 1/2 yellow onion, grated

• 2 cloves of garlic, grated

• 4 tbsp (~60 g) butter, divided into two

• 1/2 cup (40 g) Parmigiano Reggiano, finely grated

• Kosher salt & black pepper to taste

• Parsley, finely chopped for garnish

*Chicken or vegetable stock work, but if you want to double down on the fungal flavor, try making a dehydrated-mushroom stock: simmer a variety of dehydrated mushrooms in water or veggie stock, along with any other aromatics of choice. Let it steep for 30 mins to an hour, then strain. (If you can’t find dried mushrooms, don’t bother: fresh mushrooms won’t impart quite enough flavor to make a difference).

Instructions

1. Sear the mushrooms & reserve: In a wide sauté pan over high heat, add the cooking oil and mushrooms to sear until browned on all sides. Remove the mushrooms from the pan.

2. Saut aromatics & toast rice: Add 2 tbsp (30 g) butter to the pan. Once melted, add in the grated onion and garlic and soften for 1-2 minutes until fragrant. Add in the cup of rice and stir until each grain is covered by fat in the pan.

3. Simmer risotto: Add about 80% of the total broth you’re going to use (look at rice packaging for risotto ratios). Alternatively, add enough broth to submerge the rice to start. You can add more and adjust the liquid at the end. Bring to a simmer, cover, and let cook undisturbed for 10 minutes, then stir to make sure nothing is sticking, and add a bit more broth if necessary. Simmer covered for 10 more minutes, check to make sure your rice is done to your liking, then turn off the heat.

4. Adjust texture, seasoning, & serve: Stir in the remaining 2 tbsp (30 g) of butter and the grated Parmigiano. Add in more broth or water until the risotto is your desired consistency. Season to taste with salt and pepper, then serve: add to a plate and top with the sautéed mushrooms and a sprinkle of parsley.

Pro Tip - Risotto can be made to many different consistencies. Check out this video guide for adjusting risotto to your preferences and why you don’t need to stir constantly.

Throwback Time 🍳

The easiest beer-battered fish recipe you could make on a weeknight.

Use the written recipe, or check out the video for a detailed walkthrough plus how to ensure your batter fries up crispy instead of tough or gummy.

If you don’t want to use alcohol in the batter, we covered beerless-batter workarounds in a previous newsletter.

The recipe is great for sandwiches or fish and chips, but here is another great way to use the leftovers:

The Leftover Shelf 🥡

Leftovers are back in style…if you know how to use them.

This week’s move:

Leftover Beer Battered Fish → Baja Style Fish Tacos

Tortillas and toppings transform your fish into a whole new weeknight meal!

Taco Components

• Leftover fried fish, cut or broken into bite-sized strips

• Corn tortillas

• Toppings of choice: purple cabbage, sliced radish, pico de gallo, cilantro, and extra lime wedges

Avocado Crema Components

• 1 part avocado

• 1 part sour cream*

• Lime juice, to taste

• Kosher salt, to taste

• If you want this spicy, add in a serrano or jalapeno pepper

*Use a non-fat greek yogurt for a higher protein, lower fat alternative. But if you want an even richer sauce instead, add up to equal parts mayo to the sour cream.

To assemble:

Make the sauce: Blend together all Avocado Crema Components until smooth. Season to taste with salt, and thin out with more lime juice or water if necessary.

Construct the tacos: Heat up the fish and tortillas. Over 1 or 2 corn tortillas, add a serving of fish, a drizzling of sauce, and toppings to your preference.

Extra Helpings 🤤

🚀 Viral Eats

Cooking trends explained.

Q: What is pink sauce? Alarming or respectable?

A: Pink Sauce is a pink-colored dipping sauce created by a private chef and TikTok user @chef.pii. The sauce went viral on TikTok in the summer of 2022, with over 500 million views on the #pinksauce hashtag alone. The color makes it hard to ignore.

However, after Chef Pii decided to mass produce it, the Pink Sauce controversy began: sickness-inducing accusations rolled in, TV interviews and debates ensued, and someone even faked their own death in protest of the product.

Social media clamor aside, here’s what Pink Sauce is on a culinary level: a brightly colored emulsion no different from any other mayo-based condiment.

Other condiments are brightly colored too — mustard, ketchup, chimichurri, and buffalo sauce, for instance. Color and contrast is important to our visual eating experience. Then why is pink so surprising and polarizing?

Our theory: pink color is associated with sweet but usually not savory ingredients (e.g. fruits, candies, and frosting), so it's alarming when paired with salty foods.

Yet while the merits of its color are up for debate, Pink Sauce works for its texture and mayo-like base. Oil emulsions are great dipping sauces because fat transports and enhances flavors (of whatever it’s touching) to our taste receptors. This is why pizza and chicken tenders taste so much richer when dipped in a ranch or aioli, for example.

What do you think about Pink Sauce? Groundbreaking or just a gimmick?

🧠 Reader Q&A

Q: “A lot of us are returning to the office and don’t have the luxury of making lunch at home. Is there an in-between solution you can offer between prepping “in bulk” and cooking the same day? Something we could pack/throw together quickly in the morning or the night before, for example. Thanks!” — Daniella R.

A: The recently released video Why Bento Boxes Are My Favorite Way to Pack Lunch is a great place to start.

We think interactive eating is important and fun, such as assembling or saucing a meal on the spot, so definitely look into compartmental food storage options, whether that is a bento box or a stackable food-carrying system. These will allow you to bulk prep different ingredients but keep them separate to mix up a fresh meal right before eating.

Additionally, think about foods that are often eaten on the go, or become popular street foods. Maybe it’s bringing a container of prepped meat to heat up at the office, but you also have a few tortillas or flatbreads wrapped in foil to eat it with.

As for reheating, there’s nothing worse than that microwaved lettuce in the leftover burrito bowl, for example. A solution is to have a “hot” container that can reheat meat/starches, and a “cold” container with sauces or fresh toppings that you can mix in at lunchtime. This gets you that satisfying temperature contrast that usually only comes with a takeout meal.

🏆 Dinner Winner! Reader Photo Submission of the Week

This week’s winner is Alice X, who made an amazing NY Style Halal Chicken & Rice dinner.

Reply with a picture of the best meal you made this week for a chance to be featured in a future email.

🍽 More Yummy Content

A Read: Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain (Book)

In a Minute or Less: Cherry Tomato Cutting Hack​

What We’re Watching: Are Air Fryers Dumb? (Brian Lagerstrom)​

Food Science: How Much of a Difference Do Spices Actually Make?​

Upgrade Your Feed: Connect with Ethan on Twitter​

Ready to shop? 🛒

​✅ Shopping List 3/5