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Salt It Like You Mean It

Your chicken — and your pasta and your eggs and even your desserts — will thank you.

My kids’ babysitter asked me the other day how I make my chicken. The girls love it, she said — one of the most gratifying things you can hear when you cook for young kids, who are tiny, tyrannical critics. (Here are more ideas for what to feed them.)

My secret is that I use a lot of salt. And I don’t mean an inappropriate or shocking amount of salt; just the right amount to make the chicken taste maximally chickeny, which is more salt than most people think to use. (Most home cooking needs more salt. Even desserts need more salt!)

I also season the chicken all over. Here’s how to do this so you avoid making a mess and repeatedly washing your hands: Have a pile of salt ready in a bowl or salt cellar. Pick up a piece of chicken with one hand and hold it midair over a cutting board. Use the other hand to grab the salt and sprinkle it on both sides, still midair. Don’t put the chicken hand in the salt bowl, or the salt hand on the raw chicken. That’s it. (For the best primer on how to use salt, turn to Samin Nosrat’s seminal cookbook “Salt Fat Acid Heat.”)

I usually roast bone-in chicken thighs salted this way, brushing the skin with oil, then cooking them at 425 degrees and checking for doneness at 30 minutes. But a superb and more exciting (and not at all harder) chicken recipe is below, along with noodles and other delicious options for the week. Write to me anytime at dearemily@nytimes.com — I love to hear from you.

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Credit...Johnny Miller for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews. Prop Stylist: Christina Lane.

I can’t tell you how often my husband or I just roast plain chicken or salmon and serve it with yogurt sauce. Melissa Clark’s recipe improves on that by flavoring chicken with garlic, lemon and herbs, and adding cucumber to the yogurt in the tradition of raita, mast-o khiar and tzatziki. Note that she says to salt the chicken generously! Salt like you mean it!

View this recipe.


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Credit...Kate Sears for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Barrett Washburne.

Hetty McKinnon adds sweet scallions to her meatless version of the classic stir-fried rice noodles with curry powder, which despite the name likely originated in Hong Kong. Play around with the vegetables if you like, as long as they cook quickly — this one comes together fast.

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Credit...Julia Gartland for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Barrett Washburne.

Nargisse Benkabbou’s kefta (the Moroccan Arabic term for kofta) is simple and alluring: She blends parsley, cilantro, mint, cumin and sweet paprika with ground beef or lamb, threads the mixture onto skewers, then grills. You could use a grill pan instead, or the broiler, or even just shape it into patties and cook them in a skillet.

View this recipe.


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Credit...Julia Gartland for The New York Times (Photography and Styling)

This Ali Slagle recipe is more grown-up than your typical creamy pasta, though not kid-unfriendly. It leans on chives as an ingredient, not a garnish, and crème fraîche, too (though you could use heavy cream or ricotta). Change up the alliums if you like.

View this recipe.


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Credit...Andrew Scrivani for The New York Times

Speaking of salt, my husband’s great-aunt, still with us at 101, once shared this adage from her youth: “Kissing a man without a mustache is like eating an egg without salt.” Make what you will of that regarding mustaches, but it’s pretty clear what you’re supposed to do with eggs. The Parmesan and anchovies in this Melissa Clark recipe provide that saltiness; if you leave one or both out, be sure to compensate when you’re seasoning.

View this recipe.


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Emily Weinstein is a deputy editor of the Food section and the editor of NYT Cooking. She was part of a team that received a James Beard Foundation Award in 2018 for innovative storytelling in food. More about Emily Weinstein

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