No-fry zone: These Korean Style Chicken Wings are roasted, not fried

Korean hot pepper paste, rice vinegar, soy sauce, sesame oil, garlic and ginger make oven roasted Korean Style Chicken Wings a flavorful appetizer, main course or bar snack. Recipe below.

The first time we had Korean fried chicken wings, we were at a rooftop bar in Manhattan. It was the Mé Bar on the 14th floor of the La Quinta Manhattan in Koreatown, with the Empire State Building rising high above us just a block away. And it was a single wing, generously pressed upon us by a table of enterprising New Yorkers who’d had them delivered to the bar (New Yorkers seem to be able to get just about anything delivered just about anywhere). We had smelled something spicy and delicious and asked what it was. They insisted we sample one.

The next day, we headed to the source for lunch—Kyochon Chicken, at Fifth Avenue and 32nd Street. Continue reading “No-fry zone: These Korean Style Chicken Wings are roasted, not fried” →

Enjoying the return of berries with a simple Berry Blue Cheese Watercress Salad

Blueberries, raspberries, watercress, butter lettuce and blue cheese all shine in this simple salad. Recipe below.

Berries are suddenly abundant in the supermarket—and therefore in our fridge. After not having them for so long, or else having them be too well traveled and hideously expensive to consider, we can’t seem to go to the store now without bringing some home.

Looking for ways to use up some of the unexpected bounty, I started thinking of salads. Nothing exuberant and overly busy, just something simple that would let the berries—and everything else—shine. When I first started eating salads—willingly, I mean—I viewed lettuce as nothing more than a vehicle for multiple ladles of gloppy, sweet dressing. Then I dallied with salad bars and their countless edible doodads and distractions for a while. Continue reading “Enjoying the return of berries with a simple Berry Blue Cheese Watercress Salad” →

Sweet, tart and savory: Goat Cheese Tarts with Leeks and Apricot Preserves

Frozen puff pastry makes these tarts easy to prepare. Their delicate savory/sweet flavor makes them hard to resist. Recipe below.

The intersection of sweet and savory is a sweet spot for me. I love how the flavors complement each other. And the geek in me loves how they cause different sets of taste buds to fire off at the same time, leaving it to your brain to sort out the sensations colliding in your mouth.

I also love easy, which is among the reasons I tend to shy away from baking. But recently, I saw a recipe for individual tarts using frozen puff pastry. (Yes, I’ve seen—or more likely, tuned out—tons of recipes involving puff pastry in the past, as I’m sure we all have.) For some reason, though, one particular recipe caught my eye recently, and I thought, “I’ve got to remember this. I’ve got to bookmark this.” Of course, I did neither. Continue reading “Sweet, tart and savory: Goat Cheese Tarts with Leeks and Apricot Preserves” →

A crisp, lively welcome for reluctant spring: Chinese Sesame Asparagus Salad

This chilled Chinese salad makes the most of minimal preparation and five simple ingredients—asparagus, soy sauce, olive oil, black vinegar and toasted sesame seeds. Recipe below.

It snowed Monday night in Chicago. Still, it’s officially spring, and beautifully thin asparagus is starting to turn up in grocery stores—and along some roadsides. So I’m going to turn the kitchen over to Marion and let her tell you (and me) about her foraging adventures before we met.

Asparagus wasn’t my first experience with gathering food from the wild—that would have been mushroom and berry picking, when I was a kid—but it was my first great breakthrough as an adult, when I had half forgotten the experiences of my childhood. That you could wade into all that mixed weedy stuff by the roadside and come out with a handful of tender! young! asparagus! (and for free, I might add) was a revelation. Continue reading “A crisp, lively welcome for reluctant spring: Chinese Sesame Asparagus Salad” →

This colorful, lively side bites back: Roasted Radicchio with White Beans and Tomatoes

Roasting radicchio is a favorite way to prepare it in Italian kitchens. Here, roasted wedges add a pleasantly bitter edge to cannellini beans, tomatoes and sage. Recipe and variations below.

Of the five taste sensations, bitter is often the toughest sell, the one we come around to last. For many of us, we discover its pleasant edge through coffee, dark chocolate or perhaps licorice. In the produce department, you’ll find varying degrees of natural bitterness in escarole, broccoli rabe, eggplant, curly endive, mustard and dandelion greens… and in deep red radicchio.

A form of chicory, radicchio enjoys a long, storied history in Italy. Roman scholar and prolific author Pliny the Elder wrote of its medicinal benefits in Naturalis Historia around 77 AD, claiming that it was good for insomnia and purifying the blood. Its culinary history dates back centuries too, but Americans are fairly recent converts to its bitter charm. Continue reading “This colorful, lively side bites back: Roasted Radicchio with White Beans and Tomatoes” →

A pair of grown-up Halloween treats: Roasted baby pumpkins, white chocolate with buttery pecans and candied orange peel

An impressive start and finish to an autumn dinner—roasted baby pumpkins filled with mushrooms and shallots, topped with Gruyere for the first course and sinful white chocolate with candied orange peel, roasted pecans and reduced maple syrup for dessert. Recipes below.

Our last Halloween party some years ago was the kind of party that makes us call the police now. Seventy-five or so people overflowing from our apartment into the hall and onto the fire escape out back. About two in the morning, I started turning the music down out of some drunken semblance of courtesy to our neighbors. I turned it down three or four times, in fact. But at 4:30, when the last guests left and I turned it off, it was still impossibly loud.

Still, we have fond if blurry memories of that party—and a soft spot for Halloween in general. Continue reading “A pair of grown-up Halloween treats: Roasted baby pumpkins, white chocolate with buttery pecans and candied orange peel” →

A classic makeover: Ripe summer peaches freshen up Caprese Salad

For a colorful twist on the Italian classic, peaches stand in for tomatoes in this Peach Caprese Salad; a bed of mixed greens adds extra depth. Recipe below.

AS MUCH AS I LIKE TO PLAY WITH MY FOOD, when it comes to salads, I usually prefer to keep them simple. More often than not, some mixed greens with a garlicky French vinaigrette or sherry Dijon vinaigrette sounds perfect to me. A friend of ours calls these stripped down efforts honeymoon salads—”Lettuce alone.” Continue reading “A classic makeover: Ripe summer peaches freshen up Caprese Salad” →

Five late summer recipes from fellow bloggers

I don’t browse food blogs often enough—it usually just makes me hungry. I did a little browsing just now. Here are some delicious recipes I found.

Melon Mozzarella Salad with Honey, Lime and Mint

This refreshing looking dish from Nicole over at Pinch My Salt not only sounds like the taste of summer, it also has a nice kick of crushed red pepper. Because, as Nicole puts it, “After living in Sicily for four years I now put crushed red pepper in just about everything.” Continue reading “Five late summer recipes from fellow bloggers” →

Multiple personalities, one delicious rustic dish: Eggplant Caponata

Versatile eggplant caponata, flavored with garlic, fresh tomatoes, golden raisins, red onions and parsley, makes a vegetarian meal for two, a side dish for four or an appetizer for a whole party. Recipe below.

Eggplant caponata is often referred to as Italy’s take on ratatouille. And it shares a rustic charm with that classic French stewed vegetable dish—as well as eggplant in a starring role.

But eggplant caponata boasts some real versatility when it comes to serving it. Chances are, if you’ve ever had eggplant caponata, it was served on crostini as an appetizer. But it’s also great served warm or room temperature as a side dish. Or with a nice crusty bread as a vegetarian meal. And it can even be spread on a sandwich, stuffed into a pita…

Recipes for eggplant caponata are just as impressively varied. Fresh tomatoes, canned tomatoes, no tomatoes… capers, no capers, pine nuts, no… well, you get the idea. Lots of recipes call for olives, but not all Continue reading “Multiple personalities, one delicious rustic dish: Eggplant Caponata” →

Bastille Day a perfect excuse for sailor’s mussels, frites and all things French

A pair of simple, delicious French recipes this week—Mussels steamed in wine with shallots, garlic and lots of parsley and oven-fried pommes frites flavored with herbes de Provence.

“LAFAYETTE, WE ARE HERE.” Those famous words, marking our returning the favor to France in World War I for their vital assistance in our Revolutionary War, were undoubtedly followed by the less well known, “Now, when do we eat?”

Because in addition to contributing to American independence, the French are rightly far more known for their contributions to food and cooking. And not just for their stellar, elaborate concoctions. It’s more their understanding of how a few well-chosen ingredients perfectly combined can become something wonderful—and their daily celebration of food in even the simplest dishes. So when I saw that this week’s post would go up on Bastille Day, that was all the excuse I needed to feed my inner Francophile in the kitchen. Continue reading “Bastille Day a perfect excuse for sailor’s mussels, frites and all things French” →