Still Cooking

We’ve been lazy about blogging on home cooked meals lately, partially because we can never fit pulling out a camera amidst getting dinner on the table. I did get one decent photo lately, though, so I’m using it as an excuse to blog on some of our more memorable meals this summer.

Above is a pork bun based on David Chang’s recipe in Momofuku. It was made during one of summer’s hotter days, so I used the grill rather than the oven. It’s just cured and slow cooked pork belly with steamed buns, quick pickled cucumber, scallions and hoisin sauce. Our only criticism of this dish was that it was quite rich but too easy to take down. In a restaurant we’d be served a couple of these and leave wanting more. With all that yummy pork available, though, we ate so much we didn’t want breakfast the next day. Jonathan loved the buns (they were sweet and made with pork fat) and cucumbers but not the somewhat fatty meat. A version of the recipe can be found here, but the bun ingredients are slightly different than those in the book.

A much simpler summer dish was shrimp with corn and basil from our Gourmet cookbook. All that’s required is sautéing shrimp and sweet corn cut from the cob in butter, then mixing in fresh basil and scallions (or chives). A good accompaniment is crusty bread and tomato. The book’s description, “the essence of summer” is pretty accurate, and no other ingredients are necessary.

Our favorite grilled dish of the summer was Alton Brown’s Ring of Fire Chicken. The cooking technique–rotating your grill grate with tongs–is fun and efficient. The cocoa chili rub (reminscent of mole) was unbelievably good, and all the chicken pieces were perfectly done and nicely charred. We plan on making it again before grilling season is over.