When he was working on his new cookbook, "See You on Sunday," New York Times food editor Sam Sifton couldn't have known that we'd suddenly be so focused on home cooking. His idea was to create a guide for preparing meals for groups larger than the average American family, and dishes that are relatively easy and inexpensive. The goal is high-impact, low-stress cooking.
Now that we are thinking more about batch cooking _ creating larger-scale recipes that can be used as multiple meals or frozen for later use _ his new book seems perfectly timed for this stay-at-home period in our lives. Most of the recipes can easily be scaled up or down.
Sifton says this Mapo Ragu is based on a dish developed years ago by chefs David Chang and Tien Ho at Momofuku Ssam cq Bar in Manhattan. He describes it as a mashup of Korean, Chinese and Italian flavors. And he says it's "endlessly adaptable," based on what you have in your pantry.
