Hoecakes for Weekend Breakfast; ‘Those Meatballs’ for Weeknight Dinner

Good morning. I like a savory breakfast on the weekend — maybe a bowl of congee studded with peanuts or a roast beef hero with gravy and mozzarella. Occasionally, there’s a mad dash to Queens for early doubles at Trinciti or a first-in-the-door shrimp and grits at Bubby’s in Manhattan. Those are nice mornings.

Conversely, I’m not at all opposed to breakfast for dinner on the weekend: a stack of waffles with coined bananas and maple syrup, say, or buttermilk pancakes with a big drift of scrambled eggs on the side. French toast amandine to eat with “60 Minutes”? You bet.

This week, I’m thinking it could be this ace recipe for hoecakes (above) that Ramin Ganeshram adapted from one that Justin Cherry uses at George Washington’s Mount Vernon. Cherry developed his recipe for the cornmeal pancakes using archival sources that described the first president’s intense fondness for the dish, which was likely made for him daily by Hercules Posey, his enslaved chef. Cooked in hot butter so the exteriors crisp nicely while the interiors remain moist, the pancakes make for a fine Sunday repast, adorned with more butter and a healthy drizzle of honey.

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Hoecakes

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With Sunday sorted, we can look to the rest of the week. …

Monday

The late Raghavan Iyer gave my colleague Kim Severson this recipe for pan-fried tofu with red curry paste last year, one of three Thai curries he included in his final book, “On the Curry Trail: Chasing the Flavor That Seduced the World.” If you choose a store-bought curry paste over making Iyer’s version from scratch, you’ll likely want to use a little more than the recipe calls for.