Introduction

Albert Einstein may have shown that time is relative, but for as long as French cooking has ruled the world, we’ve been told it—and heat—were constants, the critical components of flavor. Turns out that’s only true in European kitchens.

Look at cooking elsewhere in the world and you’ll find that flavor is built with ingredients, not time. For anyone living outside Europe, this isn’t much of a revelation. But for those of us raised on classic American cookery, heavily influenced by the cuisines of northern Europe, this is a watershed moment. Herbs, spices, fermented sauces, chilies, ginger, scallions, lemon grass, smoked meats and fish. These are the ingredients that make cooking quicker and easier. Likewise with pantry staples such as harissa, tahini, pomegranate molasses, salsas, chili paste and vinegars.

This quickly leads to a new way of thinking about dinner. Yellow lentils become a main course. Fried rice is the ultimate fast food. Stir-frying goes far beyond classic Chinese recipes, as in lomo saltado (a Peruvian stir-fry of beef and tomatoes) or Vietnamese shaking beef with soy sauce, sugar, garlic and watercress. Quick soups are made with stale bread, garlic, water and smoked paprika, or chickpeas and a soft-cooked egg. And, of course, there are endless variations on eggs for dinner, from frittatas to omelets to Turkish scrambles.

We’ve organized Milk Street Tuesday Nights by the way you cook. Some chapters focus on time—Fast, Faster and Fastest—others highlight easy methods or themes—Pizza Night, Easy Additions, Supper Salads, and Roast and Simmer.

We take familiar ingredients such as ground beef and spice them up. Add garam masala, ginger and garlic and you have keema matar. We dress pasta simply, but boldly, with ricotta and sage, for example. Spice rubs transform steaks, sautés and quick roasts. Meatballs are turned upside down with cashews and coconut. Sometimes we hew closely to the original inspiration. Sometimes we are inspired by our travels, as with chicken teriyaki donburi (a simple take on chicken teriyaki we learned from Elizabeth Andoh during our trip to Tokyo), or Thai rice soup, a classic recipe we picked up in Chiang Mai.

If you flip through these pages, you will notice two things: simplicity and big flavors. That is how you get supper on the table quickly on Tuesday nights while also delivering great food. No matter where you live. The secret is nothing new. This is how the world cooks. Milk Street is simply a translator, sifting through a world of spices, herbs, chilies and sauces that combine to put supper on the table quickly and easily.

Milk Street Tuesday Nights proves that culinary time is relative. It comes down to ingredients and how you define dinner. For millions of people let it be said that we offer nothing new. To them, we are late to the game. But we hope that this book offers the home cook a new beginning and a break from a past when fast food meant bad food.

In the kitchen, it turns out, time is indeed relative.