A basting sauce of Sriracha, apricot preserves, hot chili sauce, rice vinegar and fish sauce gives grilled chicken a tangy, slightly spicy kick. Recipe below.
LOOKING OVER MY MOST RECENT POSTS, I realized I’d done two vegetarian dishes, a peach-centric roundup of mostly vegetarian and/or fruititarian dishes and last week’s boozitarian cocktail. It was time to get meaty again. Continue reading “Flavor, smoke and a little fire: Grilled Sriracha Apricot Chicken”
From tea-smoked chicken to lamb feta burgers and a classic Alabama white sauce, here are five great recipes to liven up your summer grilling.
For Americans everywhere, the 4th of July weekend is a time to declare independence from the kitchen stove and fire up the grill. For Marion and me, this weekend was more about the freedom of the road—some 700 miles of it, without a kitchen in sight. So this week, I’m serving up grilling recipes from the Blue Kitchen archives.
This is a truly American burger, in that it happily borrows ingredients from other cultures and then reinvents them. Continue reading “Five cool grilling recipes for the long, hot summer”
Marinating boneless pork shoulder with Dijon mustard, garlic and a fresh herb mix adds extra depth to the smoky flavor of this grilled roast. Recipe below.
Meat Week is a great time to know a butcher. Yes, it’s a real holiday, as the official website’s URL somewhat defensively states: meatweekisreal.com. Started in January 2005 by two bored guys in Florida, Meat Week is now observed in 18 cities across the US and, randomly enough, in London. Meat Week is a celebration of all things BBQ. Its primary focus is restaurants that serve BBQ (I’m guessing the two bored founders also aren’t much on cooking). Revelers are encouraged to enjoy eight straight nights of eating BBQ in a specific list of restaurants in each city, in order.
For me, though, learning about Meat Week gave me an excuse to haul my charcoal grill out into the snow and fire it up. Continue reading “Celebrating Meat Week: Grilled Pork Roast with Mustard and Fresh Herbs”
Two recipes this week, both Asian inspired—smoky, slightly spicy grilled pork chops in a simple marinade and a lively slaw bursting with fresh summer flavors and packing a little heat of its own.
Our classical radio station recently played a Brahms piece for piano, four hands. The sound of four hands—two people—doing more with the instrument and the piece than two hands could have done reminded me of our occasional approach to working in the kitchen.
Marion and I both love to cook. On any given night, you’ll find one or the other of us in the kitchen whipping up something for dinner. Who’s at the stove will often be decided by who has time to cook or an idea to try—or whose perennial favorite dish we’re really, really craving at the moment. Sometimes we both get in the kitchen to put a meal together. Most often, one person is cooking the main course and maybe a side, and the other is called in—quite possibly at the last minute—to throw together a salad or some other side. Not only is having the extra set of hands in the kitchen convenient, it’s fun.
This past weekend, though, was one of those too rare moments when we were in the kitchen together by design. A true kitchen, four hands moment. It started with me wanting to grill something and Marion coming across a recipe she wanted to play with. Soon we were tweaking ingredients and techniques to create two Asian-inspired dishes that would complement and elevate each other—a smoky, slightly spicy pork chop and a lively slaw bursting with fresh summer flavors. Continue reading “Kitchen, four hands: My Asian grilled chops and Marion’s Asian slaw play beautifully together”
A mix of Asian seasonings and indirect grilling combine to create flavorful, tender Grilled Hoisin Chicken Thighs. Recipe below.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Last week I wrote my little anti-grilling manifesto, and here I am doing a grilling post this week. It’s not that I don’t like grilling or the wonderfully smokey taste of something done right on the grill—it’s that I don’t like not being in control, not feeling like I know what I’m doing. Continue reading “Grilling and lessons learned: Grilled Hoisin Chicken Thighs”