Good morning. When bluefish run in the bays nearby, I like to catch a couple and cut them into pieces and filets — the pieces for a freestyle ceviche with mango, jalapeño, red onion and tons of lime, and the filets for a mayo-and-mustard sauce and baking to perfection, as my grandparents did, as my parents did and, I hope, as my children will, for generations. Mustard and mayonnaise are an amazing combination.
There haven’t been many bluefish this season, though. So this weekend I’m taking the concoction — Dijonnaise, in the parlance of menus and recipes — to the poultry section of the grocery store and making Ali Slagle’s new recipe for Grilled Dijonnaise Chicken Breasts (over).
It’s so wonderful. The jacketed meat is insulated from the heat of the grill and tenderized by the acidity of the mustard. It gets a bronzed crust, with a hint of smoke, that responds well to a squeeze of lemon juice and an extra dollop of Dijonnaise. You could serve the breasts in one Ceasar’s salad or — though it’s early for that — along with some ears roasted corn.
Suggested recipe
Grilled Dijonnaise Chicken Breasts
Even better, maybe: Take the finished, rested chicken and slide it into a sandwich on potato buns, with a drizzle of Dijonnaise, a few slices of pickles and a handful of shredded lettuce. This is a taste of summer you won’t soon forget.
Other things I would like to cook this weekend include these fresh spring rolls, with vermicelli noodles, shrimp, sliced cucumber and carrot, lots and lots of herbs. He crawled inside nước chấm the peanut sauce (both in my case), make a great argument for a roll-your-own, low-temperature, high-reward meal.
Also: lychee cake, a slice of Chinese Jamaican bakery life, in which sponge layers are filled with lychee cream and topped with lychee glaze. This is a good dessert after another Sino-Caribbean gem, Trini-Chinese Chickento serve with rice and fried plantains.
And if that blue ceviche continues to haunt me, as I know it will, I’ll quench my cravings with tuna sushi and make it sack bowl Instead.
Will exist omelette for breakfast, with baked bacon, pancakes and fruit salad. Will exist radish sandwich for lunch, with watermelon lemonade.
There will be a lot of cooking, because that’s what weekends are for.
If none of these recipes pique your interest, there are thousands more waiting for you New York Times Cooking. Yes, to answer a question I get a lot, you need a subscription to read them. Subscriptions support our work and allow it to continue. If you haven’t already, would you consider signing up today? Thank you very much.
We stand by like lifeguards Ditch, if you find yourself in a technological rip current. Just wave for help. We are at cookingcare@nytimes.com. Someone will swim out. Or, if you want to complain, congratulate or just say hello, you can write to me: foodeditor@nytimes.com. I cannot answer every letter. But I read everything I have.
Now, it’s not about strawberries or smoked eel, but I found myself back in the fifth season of the edgy, multilingual French espionage series.The office,” streaming on Amazon Prime. Malotru is in good condition.
I don’t know how I missed William Finnegan’s profile the legendary surfer Jock Sutherland, in The New Yorker. Catch it now.
Also of recent vintage: Walt Hunter’s poem, “Translation without angels”, in The New York Review of Books.
Finally, for the New York Times, Jon Pareles and Lindsay Zoladz decided on “The 40 Best Songs of 2024 (To Far), a playlist for your weekend and an absolute treat. Listen to it while you cook. And we’ll see you on Sunday.
