Sesame - crusted chicken cutlets bring big flavor

So easy, so quick and at the same time delicious.

I can get dinner on the table in about 20 minutes. I do it all the time. The trick is hitting that 30-minute-or- less sweet spot, but still ending up with a dish that’s got big flavor.

In her new cookbook, “Big Little Recipes,” food writer Emma Laperruque, whose popular Food52 column bears the same name, inspired me to dig deeper into my pantry to make this few-ingredient dish that offers a surprising pop of flavor.

Not every one of the 60 recipes featured in her cookbook is ready in less than 30 minutes, but many are, including this Sesame Chicken With Artichokes and Arugula. For this dish, you grind sesame seeds to make a powdery seed flour that you use to coat the chicken cutlets — no egg wash, no flour needed. Then, you pan-fry them until golden. While they are sizzling, you make a salad of arugula and jarred artichoke hearts, tossing it with some of the marinade from the jar. Lay the crisp chicken cutlet on the salad, and dinner is served.

Laperruque recommends making the same dish, but with poppy seeds and salt tossed together on a plate as a coating, no need to crush those tiny seeds. Bet that’s a stunner, too.

As in her column, each of the dishes requires only a handful of ingredients — many probably already in your pantry or refrigerator. Laperruque’s philosophy is to “wring each ingredient for all it’s worth.” She makes the case for using the whole fruit or vegetables — beets and their greens — when possible. She tosses herbs in with a heavy hand for bigger flavor. And she has fun “deconstructing’ favorite dishes: A bacon and lettuce salad made with bacon-fat fried croutons and a “tomato-y” dressing of blitzed tomatoes and mayo is perfect for this time of year when tomatoes are less than perfect, but the BLT craving hits.

She builds confidence, too, proclaiming: “If you can make cereal, you can make salad dressing.” She’s got a point. I can remember when salad dressing used to intimidate me. If it still seems daunting to you, imagine turning 2 ounces of blue cheese and 1/4 cup of yogurt into a “low-lift blue cheese” dressing. I’d probably add some freshly cracked pepper, but easy, right? (She does the same thing with frosting, blending together goat cheese and confectioner’s sugar, for example. Now, why didn’t I think of that as a tangy alternative to cream cheese? I want to try it on pecan-stuffed dates.)

And, next summer, I’m making her buttermilk granita (buttermilk and sugar, stirred until the sugar dissolves and then frozen and raked with a fork until it is “totally frozen and snowy in texture”), which she serves with peaches sprinkled with freshly ground black pepper. Sounds so good.

That’s the other nice thing about this slim volume: It takes you through the seasons, so you can reach for it to make a four-ingredient chicken noodle soup with loads of fresh dill this winter and grab it again when the weather warms to make a tossed-together rigatoni with sizzled corn.

Yum.