Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. For our last three minutes today, we will wish a happy birthday to the New York Times cooking app. Ten years old this week, it has collected thousands of archival times recipes, now in one elegantly designed, easy-to-use place, as they recently put it. Listeners, to those of you who are fans of the New York Times cooking app or the New York Times cooking section generally, we're inviting you now to shout out one favorite recipe that you may have gotten from those sources.

212433 WNYC, 212-433-9692, was it Katherine Hepburn's brownies or the more recent classic buttermilk brined roast chicken? Or no-Knead bread? Tell us your one New York Times cooking app recipe that you've actually gone on to make. 212433 WNYC. Joining us now to celebrate the decade with a list of the most iconic recipes and take a few of your phone calls is Emily Weinstein, editor in chief of New York Times Cooking and Food and author of its popular newsletter, Five Weeknight Dishes. She's also the author of a forthcoming New York Times cooking branded cookbook coming out in October. It's called Easy Weeknight Dinners. We all need those. Emily, welcome to WNYC.

Emily Weinstein: Thank you so much for having me.

Brian Lehrer: Is there a number one New York Times cooking app recipe that's been downloaded the most or however you measure success?

Emily Weinstein: Well, one of the fun things is that we actually use a lot of metrics to measure success, and that's how we put together that list that you mentioned of our greatest hits. In terms of the most saved recipe, which is a metric we actually love because it means somebody saw a recipe and they saved it to their recipe box, they wanted to come back to it and cook it. That recipe is Melissa Clark's red lentil soup, which if you've never had it, make it immediately. It's a great recipe.

Brian Lehrer: What's in it besides red lentils? If you can do a short version.

Emily Weinstein: Red lentils, tomato paste, I think a little bit of turmeric maybe, and lemon. Lemon is what makes it bright and delicious. It's also that vibrant red color instead of regular lentil soup, which has its fans but be a little drab.

Brian Lehrer: You want to name one more?

Emily Weinstein: Another great recipe or-- Our shrimp scampi? Oh, gosh. It just goes on and on and on. People love it.

Brian Lehrer: Karen in Manhattan has a favorite. Hi, Karen, you're on WNYC.

Karen: Hi there. My favorite recipe is one that I saw about five, six years ago by Mark Bittman, said it was his favorite simple salad, Fennel and Celery. It is so simple that when I saw the recipe, I thought, "How good could this be?" It's so good. I'm eating it for the last five years very regularly, and everyone I make it for raves about it.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you very much. Mark Bittman is a good source to get a recipe from. Jeremy in Dobbs Ferry has one. Hi, Jeremy.

Jeremy: Hi. I just love the app. I recently noticed that there was a dumpling and tomato salad recipe, which was unusual to me in concept, but if you've got kids and you're in a hurry, frozen dumplings can either be steamed or fried. Then I grow my own tomatoes, so I cut up a bushel of fresh tomatoes and fresh basil out of the garden, and then you top it with fried shallots. If you can't find that, I got the fried onions from the grocery store. It's excellent and super easy. Very, very, very good.

Brian Lehrer: Jeremy, thank you very much. Let's go right on to another one. Sherry on Roosevelt Island. You're on WNYC. Hi, Sherry.

Sherry: Hi, Brian. Long-time listener. One of my favorites. I have several, but this is one that I made recently. It's Parmesan braised beans with olives. It is so good. The only thing is you have to remember that you have to either soak those beans overnight, you have to make-- I use the real hard beans, and so you do have to soak them to get them softened up. It is divine. You use a mix of dried beans, white, brown, black, whatever you can put together, and it's just divine. You can use it as a side dish or with other parts of your meals, or you can have it just as its own dish with a little piece of bread.

Brian Lehrer: You got that one from the Times cooking app?

Sherry: Oh, not the app. I got it out of the New York Times magazine.

Brian Lehrer: Very good sherry. Thank you very much. Let me do one more in this set. Chris in Weehawken, you're on WNYC with Emily Weinstein from New York Times cooking. Hi, Chris.

Chris: Hey. Good afternoon. One recipe that my family has found indispensable is Huevos Rotos. It's noted as broken eggs in parentheses on the app. It is a potato and egg dish. Feels a little brunchy. We make it for dinner. One modification we do to it is we throw the brown a little chorizo and also introduce that into the meal. It's life-changing. It's become indispensable. The Katherine Hepburn brownies is a close second. I've made it numerous times, and for the life of me, I can't get those brownies to come out of that pan without them falling apart. It torments me every time I make them, but Huevos Rotos is our top favorite in our family.

Brian Lehrer: Well, I note your use of language. That dish skews brunchy. I've never heard brunch used as an adjective before, but there you go. Do you use the word brunchy on the New York Times cooking app, Emily, as far as you can recall?

Emily Weinstein: I can confidently say we wouldn't avoid the word brunchy.

Brian Lehrer: You must be pleased because we took four in a row there. All our lines are full of people who want to shout out recipes that they love and make frequently, that they got either from the New York Times itself or from the app.

Emily Weinstein: Absolutely. I mean, I'm sitting here beaming ear to ear. I love hearing, of course, that people love the app. They love NYT cooking, but hearing the specific recipes, there's just something about that. It really first calls to my mind, "Oh, God, there really are so many recipes over the years." Of course, there are, but really, it hits home for me. Also, really, people each have their own favorites. There's one you just get attached to, and I certainly had those, too. I believe it was Jeremy who said he just made that dumpling salad. I also just made that dumpling salad. Not my first time, but what a great recipe.

Brian Lehrer: Now, can you help Chris in Weehawken get the Katherine Hepburn brownies out of the pan without falling apart?

Emily Weinstein: Brownies can be a little heartbreaking like that. I don't know if he's tried parchment paper. I don't know if he's tried really greasing the pan. Here's the thing about broken cakes or brownies coming out of the pan. They still taste great. Just really good.

Brian Lehrer: Susan in Peekskill has one. Susan, you're on WNYC. Hello?

Susan: Hi, Brian. And thank you so much for taking the call. I love the sheet pan veggies with feta. It is such amazingly delicious and various variable dish that I can serve throughout the year with different veggies every time. It's wonderful. Also a shout out for Babette Friedman's apple cake, which is especially wonderful in Rosh Hashanah.

Brian Lehrer: By the way, on that sheet pan vegetables with feta, my producer just said in my ear that she makes that, too, and the leftovers are really wonderful.

Susan: Oh, yes. With pasta or with anything. It's great.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you, Susan. Let's go on to Hannah in Harlem, who I think makes one that Emily, our guest, already mentioned. Hannah, you're in WNYC. Hello?

Hannah: Hi. Great to be on. I absolutely love Melissa Clark's red lentil soup, and I think similar to the first caller who said, "How could a salad be this easy?" I'm always like, "How is this soup so easy and so good?" I think I make it every week.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you very much. Oh, let's keep going. Why not? Crescent in Montclair, you're on WNYC. Hello, Crescent.

Crescent: Hi. Well, I feel like I'm speaking to royalty. This is so exciting. I love the gojujang buttered noodles. We make that at least once a week. It is so delicious and so simple. I love it.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you very much. Emily, let me ask you a question before we run out of time. There are so many recipes featured that come from different cultures around the world, and the recipe for guacamole by Josefina Howard stood out to some people because, as the article notes, she really helped popularize Mexican food in New York in the '80s and '90s. Can you tell us very briefly about her contribution and about this recipe, just as one sample as we near the end of our segment on the 10th anniversary of the New York Times cooking app?

Emily Weinstein: Well, Josefina Howard is known for that recipe because she established the Rosa Mexicana chain, which has a few locations throughout the city, still immensely popular. When you go there, if you order the guacamole, they prepare it tableside, and it has this real festiveness to it and it is really, really delicious. That's a longstanding New York Times recipe published many years ago, way predates the actual launching of the app. It was one of those archival recipes that just came to life when people started using it over and over again.

It is a very simple recipe. If you make it at home, it's going to be very similar sort of overall to what you find in the restaurant, but it's really fun to go to the restaurant if you've never done that.

Brian Lehrer: There are the recipes and then there are the comments, which include debates, just like a news article, comment sections. Like, you have a debate in the commenter community for how far you can substitute the ingredients in a recipe before it stops being the same recipe. Give us a 15 seconds thought on that or just plug the app in our last 15 seconds.

Emily Weinstein: You have to go see those comments to be believed. I'll just say I love our commenters. We all do. Go to nytcooking, nytcooking.com, download the app. You will see exactly what I'm talking about. People are substituting wacky things and having a really good time.

Brian Lehrer: Emily Weinstein is editor in chief of New York Times Cooking and Food and author of its popular newsletter, Five Weeknight Dishes. She's got a book coming out next month called Easy Weeknight Dinners and is celebrating the 10th birthday this week of the New York Times cooking app. Emily, thanks for sharing some of this with us. It was so much fun.

Emily Weinstein: Thank you.

Brian Lehrer: That's the Brian Lehrer show for today. Produced by Mary Croke, Lisa Allison, Amina Srna, Carl Boisrond, and Esperanza Rosenbaum. Megan Ryan is the head of live radio and that was Juliana Fonda and Shayna Sengstock at the audio controls. Stay tuned for Allison.

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