Move over, mesquite: Tea-smoking infuses grilled chicken with delicate Asian flavors

Black tea, orange zest and a host of aromatics give Tea-smoked Grilled Chicken with Star Anise & Orange a satisfyingly complex taste. Recipe below.

MY FEW EXPERIMENTS WITH WOOD CHIPS ON THE GRILL have met with decidedly mixed results. For one thing, no matter how long I’ve soaked them beforehand, they love to catch fire. And the subtle difference the wood smoke has made, at least when I was doing the grilling, has frankly left me underwhelmed.

Tea-smoking, however, is a whole other matter. This ancient Chinese cooking technique infuses foods with delicate, complex flavors as varied as the tea-smoking ingredients you choose. Tea-smoking has been used in Western home kitchens for a while too. Unfortunately, it’s usually practiced pretty much the same way it is in Chinese kitchens. Continue reading “Move over, mesquite: Tea-smoking infuses grilled chicken with delicate Asian flavors” →

Medium Raw: Anthony Bourdain revisits Kitchen Confidential, 10 years later

Chef/author/TV personality Anthony Bourdain was in Chicago recently promoting his new book. I’m still starstruck from getting to see him speak. He’s the subject of my latest post on the USA Character Approved Blog.

Anthony Bourdain is the man who scared me out of the restaurant business. Not that I was ever in it or even seriously considered trying my hand at it. But like most food-loving home cooks, I’ve had my fantasies about running a bustling little neighborhood bistro where regulars would turn up night after night to ooh and ahhh over my simply prepared meals.

Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly, published ten years ago, quickly disabused me of any notion that I could—or even wanted to—cook professionally. Reading this fascinating, profane peek behind the culinary curtain into the world of restaurant kitchens was like sitting down with a brutally frank career counselor: Continue reading “Medium Raw: Anthony Bourdain revisits Kitchen Confidential, 10 years later” →

Subtle, savory black magic: Linguine with Mushrooms and Black Garlic

Fermented black garlic, the mysterious ingredient that’s been exciting chefs for a couple of years, is now showing up in grocery stores. Here it works with just a handful of ingredients to create a rich, satisfying vegetarian meal. Recipe below.

Umami. That savory, meaty fifth taste, only recently named. That’s what I smelled when I opened the bag containing two heads of black garlic. The smell of a really good consomme or perhaps the browned bits in the bottom of the pan after searing a roast.

The funny thing is, the only ingredients in black garlic are garlic, heat and time. No meat, no salt, no stock—nothing to impart that almost meaty scent. I can’t remember now where I first heard of black garlic, but it so fascinated me that I wrote about it for this week’s USA Character Approved Blog post. And I had to cook with it. Continue reading “Subtle, savory black magic: Linguine with Mushrooms and Black Garlic” →

Colorful news for your kitchen: Green cutting boards and black garlic

Dishwasher-safe cutting boards made from sustainable bamboo and fermented garlic that delivers subtle flavors and a striking appearance are the subjects of my latest posts on the USA Character Approved Blog.

Despite what a certain famous frog says, being green is easy, at least when it comes to cutting boards. TruBamboo has introduced handsome, durable cutting boards made from bamboo, the quintessential green renewable resource. And best of all, they’re dishwasher safe.

I mean, let’s face it—we all want to be greener in our daily lives, but not if it means using green products that require special care or, worse, don’t work well (I’m talking to you, eco-friendly window cleaners). Continue reading “Colorful news for your kitchen: Green cutting boards and black garlic” →

Vietnamese beef stew blends flavors of multiple spices and cultures

Flavors from all over Asia (ginger, lemongrass, five-spice powder, garam masala, fish sauce…) spice up this delicious, aromatic, meaty stew that draws its inspiration from when Vietnam was called French Indochina. Recipe below.

vietnamese-beef-stew2 — Bò Kho: Vietnamese Beef Stew

OKAY, SO, YES, IT’S HOT. BUT SOMETIMES I GET THESE CRAVINGS. The other day the taste I wanted was a particular combination of beef and lemongrass and spice. And I wanted sauce, and plenty of it. I know it is insane, in the middle of the hottest summer in recorded history, to want stew. Nevertheless. Continue reading “Vietnamese beef stew blends flavors of multiple spices and cultures” →

Chicago small bites: Alfresco dining, help wanted for good cause and farm dinner, on a farm

Your outdoor meal at First Slice Pie Café helps provide meals for Chicago’s homeless; Greater Chicago Food Depository needs volunteers to help pack 40,000 family food boxes in 40 days; and City Provisions is hosting a farm dinner field trip.

Last winter, chef Mary Ellen Diaz opened an outpost of her popular Ravenswood restaurant, First Slice Pie Café, in the recently renovated Water Works Visitor Information Center in the historic Pumping Station across from Water Tower Place. Well now, for the summer at least, you can savor homemade pies, pizza made from local, seasonal ingredients, salads and sandwiches al fresco at café-style tables and chairs outside along the Pearson Street side of the Visitor Center.

The reasonably priced food gets Diaz’s three-star gourmet touch, including organic ingredients, and the pies are amazing. Eating there feels good too—a portion of all proceeds from the First Slice Pie Café is donated to the First Slice community kitchen, which provides these same restaurant-quality meals to homeless men, women and children. Continue reading “Chicago small bites: Alfresco dining, help wanted for good cause and farm dinner, on a farm” →

A fresh, spicy surprise for summer: Watermelon Mango Salad with Blue Cheese

Watermelon, mango, blue cheese and cayenne pepper combine sweet, savory and spicy flavors in a fresh, colorful summer salad. Recipe below.

When we started planning last weekend’s road trip to Eastern Iowa, one of our first thoughts was that we might make it to Newton, Iowa, home of the Maytag Dairy Farms and Maytag Blue Cheese. Continue reading “A fresh, spicy surprise for summer: Watermelon Mango Salad with Blue Cheese” →

Biking across America in search of local food

On April 24, two friends set out on bicycles from Hardwick, Vermont, to explore the local food movement. As they approach their final destination—Portland, Oregon—my post on the USA Character Approved Blog shares some of what they found.

To our grandparents and great-grandparents, local food was just food, something grown by them, their neighbors or maybe a farmer a few miles away. Anything that had to be shipped from someplace more distant—an orange, for instance—was deemed exotic, something to be reserved for a holiday gift.

Fast forward to today, though, and local is the new exotic. Increasingly, “locally sourced” is the new mantra for restaurant chefs, home cooks, community activists, environmentalists… But what does local food really mean, to those who produce it and those who consume it? Friends Aaron Zueck and Robert DuBois decided the best way to study local was to go national, biking across America, hosting potluck dinners along the way and talking to people about food, over food. They named their epic project Bikeloc. Continue reading “Biking across America in search of local food” →