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This one marries two of my current obsessions: Korean chili paste and chicken wings. They’re extremely easy to make, and once you do the initial splurge on the ethnic ingredients, very cheap to make. As it is, I think the spend in the Asian supermarket was only about £10-£12, and as you only need relatively small amounts – especially of stuff like shrimp paste – it lasts forever. These are by no means authentic, but I welcome any input from those who know more than I do about Korean cooking (which is precious little).
This works equally well in both the oven and the crockpot. Oven-roasting is slightly better if you’re planning to take these on a picnic or other situation where you will be eating as a finger food without plates. If you’re using the crockpot, they will get falling-apart-tender and therefore messier, but you will wind up with a tasty sauce for putting over rice. Also, don’t joint the wings if you’re going for the crockpot. They’ll be easy enough to pull apart when they’re finished cooking.
Marinade ingredients:
- 2 generous tbsp gochujang (Korean chilli paste)
- 2 tbsp soy sauce
- 1 tbsp black Chinese vinegar
- 1 tbsp rice wine vinegar
- 1 scant tsp of sugar or honey
- 1 scant tsp shrimp paste
- 2 cloves crushed garlic
- optional – scant tsp chilli oil with shrimp paste (omit or scale back plain shrimp paste if using)
The rest:
- 10 fresh chicken wings (do not separate if slow-cooking)
- 1 large onion, sliced (if slow-cooking)
This is really just an excuse to show off my $1.99 Las Vegas tea tray.
Mix all the marinade ingredients together. Pour over chicken wings. I like to do this in a large plastic freezer bag so I can mush up the marinade into the wings, but a bowl is perfectly ok. Refrigerate for a couple of hours or overnight. You can actually just chuck them straight into the pot without the marinade time if you’re slow-cooking, but if you’re opting for the oven, I’d go with marinating.
If slow-cooking:
Line the pot with thickly-sliced rings of onion to prevent the wings from sticking. It also makes a nice sauce for serving the wings over rice, if you’re that way inclined.
Lay wings on top, pouring over any marinade. Cover and cook on high for 2 hours. Or, if you’re like me, cook on high for 45 minutes, then switch to low and go ramble around Victoria Park for a few hours.
Optional: Give wings a quick blast under a hot grill to caramelise. I was impatient and did not do this.
If roasting:
Preheat oven to 220 C (or 200 C if you have a fan oven).
Place wings on a rack over a foil-lined grill pan (for lazy cleanup). Roast in the top half of the oven for about 30 mins, turning once halfway through. Chuck wings in tupperware, grab a blanket and some beers, and haul the lot over to Victoria Park to enjoy in the rare British sunshine.
As anyone within range of my constant facebook status updates on the subject will know, Neil and I spent the week between Christmas and New Year in Iceland. Possibly a bit of a strange choice for the time of year, considering there’s only about 5 hours’ daylight each day, but the flights were cheap, and if you’re the type of person who likes to relax on vacation instead of getting up at 6am for a 12-hour sightseeing marathon, then Iceland in December is the place for you. Reykjavik wakes late and stays up late this time of year, and most attractions and shops seem to open at 11am, so it is possible to sleep in and still get a hefty day of vacationing in. As it was, the sun rose at about 11am, so technically we were out and about at the crack of dawn.
When people speak of Iceland, after extolling its many natural wonders, it seems that the subject most often mentioned is that it’s expensive. That certainly is the case, though prices for alcohol are not as steep as they once were – they’re more on par with any major metropolitan hub. A pint of beer runs around £5-£6, which is definitely on the pricey side, but not the heartstopping £9 I’d heard was the norm before the banking crisis.
Food isn’t cheap either, but what many people fail to mention is that Icelanders seem to effortlessly produce some of the most mindblowingly delicious food you’ll ever eat, and it’s worth every krona. I do intend to wax lyrical about the Icelanders’ way with seafood, lamb, and national delicacies such as reindeer, whale, foal, and puffin in future posts on our trip, but first, one of the most memorable meals we had was a couple of hot dogs.
Yes. Hot Dogs. Read the rest of this entry »
I can’t make any claims to the authenticity of this recipe – I’ve been to Texas once, and that was a layover at the Houston airport – but according to my research, a proper Texas chili is meat and chili peppers, spices and maybe a little bit of tomato sauce. There are no beans, and using fresh ingredients such as real onions and garlic is frowned upon (most recipes I’ve seen advocate the use of onion powder and garlic powder).
Actually, the only time I’ve ever had a Texas chili was at Garlic and Shots, a bar in Soho that was established by two brothers from Sweden. Again, no guarantees of authenticity there. I don’t know if the Olsson brothers have ever been anywhere near Texas, but they make a damn good chili – wonderful spicy shredded beef, with very little sauce to speak of.
My research indicates that you can use many different textures of meat – some recipes call for cubed, some for the usual minced or ground beef. The BBQ Pit Boys on YouTube use their shredded beef brisket and mince which looks incredible, but a tiny flat in east London isn’t the place to try out smoking beef, so I’ve had to improvise. Also, a chili is meant to use up leftover meat, so I’ve done this with stewing pork as well as beef and I think I actually prefer it with the pork. It’s even cheaper to make too.
I’ve been trying my hand at making preserves. I haven’t got much of a sweet tooth so I’ve been experimenting more with chutneys, though we’d probably call it a relish in Yanksville. Actually, the word chutney is so little used in the US that (apparently) Donna Summer’s daughter is named Chutney. That’s probably the weirdest one yet in the stakes of celebrity spawn named after foodstuffs. I imagine Peaches Geldof will be well pissed off.
Anyway. Sweet Chili Jam. This is bubbling away on my stove as I type this. Again, it’s not so much a jam as a very thick sweet chili sauce or relish. There’s not enough pectin in peppers to allow this to set like actual jam, though I suppose you could add some storebought pectin if you’re desperate to have a jelly texture. The finished jam is an amazing crimson color, sticky and sweet, with just enough heat to give whatever you’re putting it on a nice little kick. It goes with pretty much any kind of cold meat and it’s great with cheese. It will likely end up on just about every burger, sandwich, chip, and french fry that comes out of this kitchen. Guess what everyone’s getting for Christmas this year?
God, I love Buffalo wings. Since moving to London over a decade ago, I’ve rarely touched anything deep-fried, but the moment the jet’s landing gear opens over Philly International, I’m drooling at the thought of Philly cheese steaks, nachos and Buffalo wings. Don’t get me wrong, Britain has much to offer on the subject of tasty ways to clog your arteries, but to paraphrase Bill Bryson, we Americans like our food to practically squirt when we bite into it, and fish n’ chips just doesn’t quite cut it.
When I first moved here, I heard lots of lame jokes on the subject of my beloved chicken cast-offs (“I didn’t know buffaloes could fly, hur hur” is only second to even lamer jokes about my state of origin: “Pennsylvania? Are you a vampire? Isn’t that where pencils come from?” etc). They are, of course, named for their city of origin, Buffalo, NY, concocted by a restauranteur sometime in the mid-1960s to satisfy the salty-spicy-meaty cravings of a crowd of late-night drinkers. I could happily eat them for breakfast.
I rarely see this done in the UK but it’s one of those midweek American looks-weird-tastes-great dinner staples. I’ve seen cheffy types doing “updated” versions with lots of posho ingredients but that totally misses the point of meatloaf (though I admit Emeril’s version does look really good). The trendy American-style diner chain The Diner has it on the menu, but the portions are kind of small and it’s actually a bit expensive (unfortunately the case with most of their dishes, very tasty, but pricey and on the small side).
Anyway, meatloaf is supposed to be cheap, plentiful and easy enough for a mom to throw together while keeping her three children from pummeling the crap out of each other. And it’s never going to look pretty even if it’s presented small and tall on a trellis of chives and julienned spring onions.
Sounds weird but tastes great, and they look really tasty (my phone camera doesn’t do them justice). These are almost like a stir-fry in cake form, and I have these a lot for a cheap and easy dinner. I use a pair of egg rings that I got at Marks & Spencer’s for about £3 – you get these round cakes that look pretty cheffy, which is perfect for the presentationally-challenged like me (top tip from Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential). I actually use the rings quite a bit to do simple things with them that look very fancy, like piling steamed rice into the ring for these perfect little circles of rice.
Anyway, this one is another stupidly easy one, and uses a lot of stuff I tend to have lying round in the cupboards and the fridge. It’s pretty free-form, and you can use whatever you have lying around. I use tuna most often because that’s what I tend to have in the cupboard, but I’ve also used cooked prawns, shredded barbecue pork, and shredded chicken with great success. I imagine tofu would be good, and some defrosted frozen peas in the mix work well too.
