Dumplings With Tomato, Basil, and Chili Oil Will Blow Your Mind
The tomato train refuses to stop, folks
By my count, I ate 10 tomatoes last week. I had to make an early-morning “emergency run” to the farmers’ market on Tuesday after eating the tomatoes I bought on … Saturday. Yes, I too find myself grating and like an annoying bit—but the cold, hard truth is that I simply cannot function without good tomatoes surrounding me in late summer.
Sure, you could buy tomatoes in a grocery store that probably come from a greenhouse in a random state, but this is what I’m working with in New York at this time of year. Sorry not sorry.
All I can say is that Tuesday’s emergency was totally worth it. Enter: Dumpling tomato salad with chili crisp vinaigrette from
for NYT Cooking.First off, this thing has more than 5,000 ratings on NYT Cooking, averaging five stars. 5,000!!!
The ingredient list is ridiculously short, too—which, I admit, slightly puzzled me the first time I read it. I mean, a bag of frozen potstickers? With tomatoes? Basil? Chili crisp??
Thankfully, I didn’t let my momentary confusion stop me from making it. The tomatoes are lightly marinated in a bowl with a touch of grated garlic, giving the dish a nice acidity. It’s bright and tastes like summer with basil. A zhuzhed-up chili oil (a constant in my fridge—currently rotating equally between this and this) makes it the slightest bit spicy. The chili crisp mixes with the tomato juice to form the most insane dressing/sauce ever. And the potstickers (another easy staple) make it filling and substantial enough to justify tomatoes as a meal (I obviously don’t need any justification but if you must).
The best part: Dinner legitimately took 10 minutes to make, and the leftovers were even better once the tomato flavors had infused into the dumplings.
My only regret is that I made this dish for the very first time in August 2025 and know that my time to make it again is dwindling. Such is life.
I made it in my new bowl, which I am low-key obsessed with and fear is a direct representation of my personality.
A moment for her close-up, please.
The next night, I packed it up and took it to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden for a picnic dinner. With New York’s surprisingly pleasant weather lately, eating tomatoes and dumplings on a picnic blanket surrounded by beautiful plants is definitely something I’d love to do regularly.
Six other tomato recipes I have flagged this week that I want to make/eat:
This tomato and peach situation with whipped (!!) goat cheese, (NYT Cooking).
Cherry tomato orzo, (NYT Cooking).
Tomato butter-baked cod, (Meredith Hayden—OK, I actually made this already but so good!).
Tomato and melon gazpacho (Jess Damuck).
Grated tomato linguine (Haylee Catalano).
Grilled steak and tomato tartare, (
for NYT Cooking).
Like I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, I’m going to experiment a bit with this newsletter this fall because… why not?!
First up, I’m channeling our one and only queen
. For one month, I’ll cook through her first cookbook. And if I like it, I’ll keep going!Ina published her very first cookbook, titled “The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook,” in 1999 after running her food store, Barefoot Contessa, for many years. Since then, she’s written 13 (!!!) cookbooks plus an excellent memoir—but it all started with the original cookbook.
I’ve always loved food writing from authors who cook their way through books (please bring back the simple blogging days of Julie and Julia). With Ina, no one has perfected this trend better than Trent Pheife with the iconic account Store Bought Is Fine, and I’m looking forward to putting my own spin on Ina.
All that to say, I’m currently reading through Ina’s first cookbook to find some recipes that exemplify her style. Expect to see the first Ina recipe around October—or maybe sooner. Who knows.
I went to a cheese-tasting event hosted by Metro Cheese Club, a group that organizes … cheese events in New York City. It was a fun, low-key event where I sampled six different cheeses. I bought my favorite one and now spread it on crackers, add it to salads, and uh, eat it straight from the container.
I’m pretty sure that I’ve listened to every single episode of This is Taste from the past two years. I especially loved this recent interview between
and Miles Soboroff, the cofounder behind Zab’s. Zab’s is a hot sauce I discovered a few years ago that’s been in my fridge ever since.If you like to nerd out specific ingredients—in this case, datil peppers—it’s a fun listen.
BONUS: Every month, Brightland—maker of superb olive oil, vinegars, and other such things—curates a list of what’s in season. Consider this a PSA that SUMMER IS NOT OVER so stock up on plums, cantaloupe, raspberries, and OK fine—apples.
See you next week!!!