Staying In No. 37

I can't stop eating olive oil cake.

Welcome! This is “Staying In,” a Sunday newsletter with recipe ideas for your week ahead. Every other Thursday I also publish a “Going Out” edition where I review a restaurant, bar, or activity here in Portland. Know someone who might like Riley’s Recs? Get your share link here! And don’t forget to check out pdxrecs.com for even more recommendations and follow RR on Instagram at @rileysrecs. Enjoy!

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The buttermilk chicken last week exceeded expectations. It was perfectly moist with a crispy, salty skin and managed to please my sometimes-picky brother who helped me recipe test.

In addition to being a simple weeknight meal, roast chicken is also a great excuse to make homemade stock. So this weekend while I watched Almost Famous for the first time (how did I go to journalism school and never watch this?), I let the chicken carcass and whatever old vegetables I had in my fridge simmer on the stove for 3-4 hours.

And voilà: 8 cups of broth. Because I have so much broth on hand, it’s this week’s “inspo ingredient.” If you don’t have any broth in your fridge, I recommend buying bouillon cubes or paste — America’s Test Kitchen found broth concentrate to be a winning alternative to boxed.

I also spontaneously made an orange olive oil cake this weekend so I’m sharing that recipe here, too. Olive oil cakes are great to have in your back pocket when you need to bring a dessert to a dinner party or you just have an insatiable sweet tooth like me.

Happy cooking!

✨ Inspo ingredients: chicken stock, potatoes, and pickle brine ✨

DINNERS

• Pickle-Brined Potatoes | Beef Skewers | Roasted Carrots

• Potato Soup

• One-Pot Chicken and Rice with Caramelized Lemon

• Crispy Chickpeas with Charred Broccoli, Tahini, and Yogurt

DESSERT

• Orange Olive Oil Cake

DRINK

• Pickle-Brined Martini

Notes:

• I’m going to buy skewers from New Seasons to save time.

• Carrots are used as a side and again in the potato soup dish.

• Recipe for pickle martini here.

Pickle-Brined Potatoes

Michael Solomonov | Zahav

I have a tub of Grillo’s Pickles in my fridge that is begging to be used for these potatoes. Brining potatoes in pickle juice and then frying is a genius way to infuse salt and flavor. The result is a tangy, crispy potato that goes with any protein. This recipe calls for making a harissa tahini sauce alongside it—which you could totally do since this week’s recipe plan has another recipe that calls for tahini—but I don’t know if I have the energy on a Monday. You’ll need to brine these overnight FYI.

Potato Soup

Naz Deravian | New York Times (Gifted Link)

My family had an Ecuadorian exchange student who introduced us to the wonders of potato soup. Specifically, Locro de Papa. Here’s a more “authentic” recipe, but if you don’t mess with Google Translate, here’s an Americanized version (read: includes bacon) from the New York Times. Whichever recipe you choose, the point is to create a lusciously creamy soup out of potatoes and cream. If you’d rather not top with bacon, avocado is more traditional alternative.

One-Pot Chicken and Rice with Caramelized Lemon

Dan Pelosi | New York Times (Gifted Link)

Here’s yet another great recipe from Dan Pelosi. It promises one-pot cooking and big flavors from olives, shallot, and lemon. Commenters note that the caramelized lemons can be a bit intense. So I’ll probably follow Melissa Clark’s guidance and boil the lemon slices in water before caramelizing to help temper some of the intense acidity.

Also have you seen Dan’s home tour in Domino Magazine? I could cook in that kitchen.

Crispy Chickpeas with Charred Broccoli, Tahini, and Yogurt

Hetty Lui McKinnon | To Vegetables, With Love

This is a recipe NYT contributor Hetty made up based off of what was in her fridge. She has a well-stocked fridge because I love all of these ingredients: tahini, chickpeas, gochujang…

The recipe also calls for coconut yogurt, which I’ve never even tried, but Greek yogurt is an acceptable substitute.

Crispiest chickpeas and charred broccoli with gochujang tahini yoghurt

Orange Olive Oil Cake

Samantha Seneviratne | New York Times (Gifted Link)

Olive oil cake has almost ruined me for other cakes. It’s just so moist and flavorful and easy to make. It also takes to infusions really well, which is why I added a stray blood orange I had in my fruit basket. You could also add rosemary, fennel, or lemon (which is what this recipe calls for).

There are a couple of recipe notes here that I think you should follow:

1. Bake at 350 degrees not 375 in order to avoid excessive browning. Mine was done at 45 minutes.

2. Reserve about 10-20% of the filling to avoid overflow. I used the leftovers to make pancakes the next morning (!!!!). Really puts the cake in pancake. Bonus rec: add a little blood orange juice to your maple syrup and heat.

3. The directions call for smoothing out the top of the batter, but it’s so liquidy that I don’t understand why that’s included. Don’t be alarmed if the batter is looser than expected — and don’t be tempted to add more flour.

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