The Best of Epi: August 2020

August was a tart, sweet, smoky month for Epicurious as we grappled with how to handle all the stone fruits, eggplants, tomatoes, and ice cream in our kitchens. It was a month of hard work for our team, who continued to chip away at our archives, repairing the site one recipe and article at a time. But hey, we’re not complaining—August is one of the best cooking (and eating) months of the year, and we got the most out of it. Here’s how:

Recipes

Our first recipe of the month was from staff writer Kendra Vaculin, who gave us this lentil salad with sweet peppers and warm cheese. Excuse me, I wrote that in the wrong order: The recipe is titled Grilling Cheese With Sweet Peppers and Black Lentils. As Kendra points out in her article about the recipe, the lentils and peppers are mere supporting players. “To be clear, [this recipe] is all about the cheese.”

It’s one of the only recipes of the month that isn’t, when it comes down to it, focused on produce. (Another one is Danny Mena's flawless flour tortilla recipe, which you can read more about here.) Joe Sevier’s Charred Peach Panzanella With Pickled Pepper Vinaigrette has the crusty croutons that are a panzanella’s signature, but really it’s all about those tomatoes and peaches. Other stone fruits could work here too. “The affinity peaches, plums, and cherries have for tomatoes is really something you have to taste to believe,” Joe writes.

Another pair of vegetable-focused recipes came from contributor Nandita Godbole, who wrote this guide to make quick achaars. Unlike classic achaars, which are traditionally cured for days in the sun, Godbole’s quick achaars rely on souring agents like lemon juice and vinegar. “These souring agents mimic the tangy flavors of a classic achaar,” she writes in this comprehensive guide to quick achaars. The result is achaars that are “easier, faster to make, and far more forgiving.”

Another fast technique for adding big flavor: adha, the crunchy garlic-and-spice oil that is used as the finishing touch for recipes all across Palestine. We learned about this technique from Sami Tamimi and Tara Wigley, who mention it in their new book, Falastin, but really drill down on it in this exclusive piece they wrote for Epi. (They also offered two recipes from the book that you can use to try out adha: these stuffed eggplants, and these chicken meatballs.)

Of course, all of these recipes are just preambles to dessert. This month we have not one, not two, but three showstoppers from Tara O’Brady: an ice cream cake with a tahini blondie base and plum and maple-walnut ripples (it’s easier than it sounds!); this gorgeous Stone Fruit Custard Tart; and a simple and compelling tahini magic shell. I’ve made the tart twice myself already—I have a thing for cardamom—and I plan to make it several more times before stone fruit season is over.

For an even easier dessert, Tiffany Hopkins makes very convincing cases for both bibingka cassava and grilled plaintains, while Kendra advocates fiercely for this hot-water cobbler. But Brigid Washington wins the award for easiest after-dinner treat of all: It’s just rum and a coconut water ice cube, nothing more, nothing less.

The Smart Cook

You know what else is easy? Spam. We’ve talked about Spam before, but over on The Smart Cook, Epi’s hub for affordable cooking, Kendra recommends you eat that Spam fried, on a crispy English muffin, topped with a Green Goddess–ish sauce. And a poached egg, because this is Kendra’s latest installment of her 3 Eggs and a Can column. (You can’t have that column without the eggs.)

Elsewhere in The Smart Cook, we talked to Hooni Kim about his Cheap Thrill, and it’s a very good-looking one: a scallion pancake that’s heavy on the scallions, light on the pancake batter. We also talked to nine other cooks and chefs about their go-to, no-cook, throw-together dinners. (Cold soba! Cold watermelon! Cold fish!)

Another person we turned to this month was Olia Hercules, who has a new book out called Summer Kitchens. I highlighted her Burnt Eggplant Butter (shown above) recipe because it’s silky and smoky and the kind of thing I want to eat every summer night for dinner. But it’s also a great way to eat affordably in the summer, so—win-win!

Well Equipped

You’d think that we might view cookbooks as the competition here at Epicurious, but it’s just not true: We love cookbooks, and this month on Well Equipped, our shopping vertical, we hyped two of them: The Flavor Thesaurus, a 10-year-old book we still can’t get enough of, and New World Sourdough, which Rachel Khong writes is “capable of infecting even a perpetually exhausted, jaded person (ahem, me).” She goes on: “It’s a book that speaks to the gratification in bread-making, divorced from the excessive focus on the end result, written by someone who clearly finds joy in the process.”

Speaking of cookbooks, Nik Sharma has a new one coming out this fall, and Lauren Joseph got a preview recipe from it for her piece about Sharma’s sour, spicy, cooling drinks.

In addition to cookbooks, the Well Equipped team has suggestions this month for ice creams (the more old-school, the better), curried condiments, a syrup that does everything your corn syrup does (but better), beautiful and dramatic cloches (good for picnicking), well-designed flasks (ditto), Yolélé fonio packets (so fast), vanilla salt (the only flavored salt we stand behind), and modern sodas (okay, fine, some of them are really just mixers).

Finally, two more baking pieces: this one about silicone muffin tins, and this one about binder clips.  Kendra thinks you need the former, and I think you need the latter. How are you going to bake all the fruit that's in season without them?

Originally Appeared on Epicurious