For those who follow me on Instagram and TikTok , this write-up will be old hat. I published a video of an instant ramen taste test with Philadelphia singer/songwriter Greg Mendez in celebration of his new album, Beauty Land, but I wanted to codify the rankings here.

I’m proud to say this was 100% Greg’s idea, he is evidently a fervent consumer of many instant ramen products, and suggested that the tasting include, at least, Nongshim Shin Black and Buldak Spicy Ramen. Although my experience was more or less restricted to cup noodles, I did a little research and filled in the gaps.

Before diving into the results, I can’t recommend enough giving Beauty Land a spin. Sparse, haunting instrumentation, the soft vulnerability of Greg’s voice and lyrics, it is an enchanting listen.

Now for the ramen:

Sapporo Ichiban Tonkotsu Ramen

Noah - 7/10

Greg - 7/10

Pretty good. Creamy. The first time Greg had tried this bowl as well as the first thing he had eaten on this particular day. As an instant ramen novice myself, I initially rated this as an 8/10 in a fit of blind optimism, but tasting some later contenders had me revising my score to meet Greg’s 7. This bowl had a lot going on though, with the broth’s unique, rich texture, but it was lacking spice for Greg’s palate. I could see this being a solid daily driver though, not too hot or too salty. Not that you should eat ramen everyday, but …

Nongshim Shin Ramyun Black

Noah - 8/10

Greg - 9.5/10

Instantly, this is a whole different ball game. Spicy, with a surprisingly deep beef flavor, and swimming with savory mushroom chunks. It was Greg’s frontrunner going into the taste test, and you’ll see that his opinion doesn’t change. It’s hot, with a spice that grows over time, but never overwhelms the broth. It is all about the broth.

Original Buldak Spicy Ramen

Noah - 8/10

Greg - 8/10

Moving on from our broth-based ramens, Buldak Spicy is the fiery hot, viral saucy noodle situation of nightmares. We were both a touch trepidatious to dive in, but immediately impressed by the satisfying noodle texture. The heat was real, a step up from the Shin Black, but tempered by a smoky-sweet backdrop which brought everything into focus. Very good, though maybe it should be reserved as an “every-once-in-awhile” ramen.

Buldak Cheese Hot Chicken Ramen

Noah - 4/10

Greg - 4/10

Greg was nervous, but I was excited to try this hot chicken and cheese flavor twist on the classic Buldak. Ultimately, I would say we felt underwhelmed. This is more or less the same sauce and noodles as the Original Buldak Spicy Ramen, but with an added orange cheddar powder that, in my opinion, disrupted the delicate sweet and spicy flavor profile of the original. This was always a wild card pick though, better luck next time.

Final Rankings

4. Buldak Cheese Hot Chicken Ramen

3. Sapporo Ichiban Tonkotsu Ramen

2. Original Buldak Spicy Ramen

1. Nongshim Shin Ramyun Black

What musician should I dine with next?

Last weekend I ventured deep into the woods of Westchester county in search of wild brambles: blackberries, raspberries, or even black raspberries. It is just about that season around New York, perhaps a little on the early side. While I did find a few black raspberries fruiting, I found far more wineberries than anything else.

Wineberries are a close cousin to raspberries, but are invasive in the U.S., which is to say they grow absolutely everywhere. It’s an interesting experience when you clue in to the existence of a specific plant, especially one so ubiquitous. I went years never spotting the shrubs, and now, at least in the middle of summer, I see them everywhere I look.

So I spent a sunday afternoon wandering into thickets of poison ivy and thorned bushes in pursuit of these sweet and tart, slightly sticky berries. When ripe, they are a dark ruby red and practically fall off of the bush with the slightest disturbance.

The other great thing about wineberries is, to my knowledge, they have no poisonous look alikes. The biggest mistake you can make is to accidentally eat a raspberry.

I was half-hoping to find enough berries to make a batch of wine (wineberry wine, duh!), and I probably could have had I not had other things to do. My goal is to make at least one wine this year for spring, summer, and fall. Spring is sorted: I have a strawberry knotweed wine in secondary fermentation smelling delicious. I am taking suggestions for summer. Peach perhaps?

Still, I came home with about a pint of beautiful berries to my name, just enough to make a small, two serving crumble. Using rye flour in the crumble topping adds a deep, nutty flavor to contrast the bright, tart filling.

Wineberry Rye Crumble:

1 pint fresh wineberries or similar berry, washed and drained well

1/2 tablespoon lemon juice

1/4 cup sugar

salt, to taste

For the crumble topping:

2 tablespoons rolled oats

2 tablespoons rye flour

⅓ cup sugar

¼ cup softened butter

1 pinch cinnamon

1 pinch salt

1. Add the wineberries, lemon juice, sugar, and pinch of salt to a small bowl and stir to combine. If you have time, let the mixture sit for a couple of hours or up to overnight to macerate, but this is not necessary.

2. To make the crumble topping, add the rolled oats, rye flour, sugar, softened butter, cinnamon, and salt in a bowl and mix with your fingers to incorporate into a crumbly mixture.

3. Add the macerated wineberries to a small gratin dish and cover with the crumble topping. Bake in a preheated 400°F for 30-40 minutes or until bubbling and golden brown on top.

4. For best results, allow to cool until just over room temperature before serving with vanilla ice cream or chilled creme anglaise. The filling has no thickener so it will be very runny when hot. Personally, I don’t wait but if you prefer a less liquid filling, that’s the ticket.

I’m using this experimental substack format as a receptacle, a filtering device to sort through all of these digital artifacts and distill them into only the choicest cuts, if you will. These are the things I texted myself, and therefore thought were cool or at least worth revisiting this week.

Photography by Elaine Constantine

I am hardly a photo critic, but when this TikTok slideshow of images shot by Elaine Constantine came across my desk, I was floored. They are so fun, immersive, exuberant. The lighting has an almost surreal quality to me, achieved at least in part by using an outdoor flash. Ultimately, the subjects are just all having the time of their lives. I want to ride a bike down a hill and scream!

“Niche Artists" - Fader

Oh I’m in heeeeere, this is the kind of video I live for, a bunch of artists I don’t know (except Trophy Wife, shout-out Trophy Wife) but I’m glad I dug this one up because I’m going to add all these to the queue.

@thefaderWe went to C2C to find out what NYC’s cool music enthusiast have on rotation. @Ed Axel @Roy Blair @C2C Festival #c2cfestival

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These Floral Design Videos

I’ve been seeing a lot of floral videos recently and this one from Freddie Garland stuck out to me. Something so satisfying about the way the flowers stay suspended perfectly in space and I love the use of negative space and dimension in the arrangement, I feel like I could get into this in my home.

@freddiesflowersI thought soft lemons and oranges were rather fitting for today - joyful, positive and creative . Perfect for my wonderful mum @carolinegarlanddesign. Love you mum! The branches I’ve used are called corylopsis , from the hazel family. The colour of the catkins is extraordinary - a very vibrant lemony green, and I also love the paleness of the actual branch. The peculiar looking orange flower is a type of fritallaria called Imperialis, also known as the Crown Imperial due to its crown of orange flower heads. Fritallaria always have wonderfully wonky stems which are perfect for structural arrangements like this one. Although they have a most pungent scent. Icelandic poppies are definitely in my top 5. I’m fairly obsessed with them. Their stems are super sculptural wiggling in all directions. To open up their flower heads you need to gently remove the outer casing - very satisfying indeed. French tulips are called such not because they originate in France, but because they are commonly grown there using methods that produce the long, elegant stems (oui!). Thanks for watching and have a blessed day everyone ✌️

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Tulip Ashtray Scooter Mod

I don’t smoke, I don’t have a scooter (yet) but what the hell this is so cool. This whole project looks so cool I love stumbling across stuff like this.

@dan.ludeinstalling a tulip ashtray on my domo scooter! - - - - - - - - - - #honda #domo #gentsuki #domokun #hondaaero

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PEACH & CARROT DELI CONTAINER MOCKTAIL

If I continue this series you will probably notice that I very rarely save social media recipes, even though I am myself a purveyor of the very same product. However something about this inspired me. It looks so yummy and fresh. I probably won’t add the electrolytes, I don’t even know how to do that, but I probably will be drinking blended citrus and fruits over ice in a deli container this summer!

@olivianocedait’s gonna be a good summer 🧡 recipe: (makes one, 32oz drink) 2 peaches 1/3 cup carrot juice 2 limes one small knob ginger 2 cups water - 1/3 cup water electrolyte power (i used @promix white peach) small handful mint 2-4 tablespoons of honey ice method: - start by making your concentrate. blend 1 peach, juice of 1 lime, 1 knob ginger & carrot juice together with 2 cups water until emulsified. strain through a fine mesh strainer into a separate class. you can store this in the fridge for up to a week. - into a 32oz deli container, add 1 diced peach, 1 diced lime, handful of fresh mint & honey to the bottom. muddle together. add ice to fill the container. add 1/3 cup of your concentrate and fill the rest with electrolyte water. you could also top with sparkling water as well! #delicontainermocktail #sobercurious #alcoholfreelifestyle

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Ok that’s it for now! Happy saving.

A handful of disparate forces were at play in my life and the universe to produce this recipe. First, I’ve been creaming spinach in the comfort of my own kitchen like nobody’s business. It started with a delicious, greens-packed cheddar gratin number that I pulled out for a family dinner last fall and has snowballed into full-on steakhouse dinners at home. It has been top of mind.

Second, the Union Square Greenmarket has been overflowing with fun and interesting greens perfect for cooking down into something dreamy and creamy. I grabbed heaps of lamb’s quarters, mustard greens, stinging nettles, and good old-fashioned spinach. When I saw bunches of fresh fenugreek, or methi, at a farmstand the other week, smelling somehow of maple syrup, like the seeds do, but fresher and more herbal, the pieces started falling together.

Third, I woke up one night in a cold sweat with the alliteration of “tallow tadka” swirling around my brain. The classic Indian technique of tempering whole spices in ghee to finish a dal or curry, why shouldn’t that be done in straight beef pan drippings? Forget a pan sauce.

So this dish is a customizable array of greens, ranging from sweet and tender to bitter and hardy, cooked down with full-fat yogurt and coconut milk, flavored with aromatics such as garlic, ginger, and onion, and finished with a hunk of steak and spices, including chile, coriander, cumin, mustard, and curry leaves, tempered in rendered tallow. It is somewhere between steakhouse creamed spinach and Indian saag. Check it out!

Steakhouse Saag

2 - 3 pounds fresh greens, I used a mixture of lambs quarters, mustard greens, stinging nettles, and spinach.

2 Tbsp ghee

1/2 tsp cumin seeds

1/2 tsp coriander seeds

1/2 or whole small red onion, diced

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 inch ginger, minced

1 thai chili, sliced

1/4 tsp turmeric

3/4 cup fresh fenugreek leaves, picked or 1 to 2 tablespoons dried fenugreek leaves (kasuri methi)

1 1/2 cup coconut milk

1/2 cup full-fat yogurt

1 tsp garam masala

1 tsp amchur powder

For the tallow tadka:

a steak (ideally with a large fat cap)

3/4 tsp of cumin seeds

2 whole dried red chilies

1/2 tsp mustard seeds

1/4 tsp Kashmiri chili powder

1 tsp curry leaves

1. To start, blanch the greens in boiling water. If any of the greens have tough stems, remove them before or after cooking. If you’re using stinging nettles like I did (which you absolutely do not have to) be sure to avoid touching them with your bare hands until after they have been blanched for 2 minutes. They sting! Shock the greens in an ice bath, wring out any excess water, and give the cooked greens a rough chop. Set aside. You should have about 3 cups.

2. Meanwhile, heat a skillet or pot over medium heat. Add the ghee followed by the cumin seeds and coriander seeds. Cook, stirring, until the seeds begin to toast and pop. Add in the onion, garlic, ginger, thai chili, and turmeric. Cook, stirring, for a few minutes or until the vegetables are fragrant.

3. Add in the greens followed by the fresh or dried fenugreek leaves. Add in the coconut milk and yogurt. Bring to a simmer and let cook, stirring occasionally for around 5 minutes or until the liquid has partially reduced and the entire mixture has thickened. Add in the garam masala and amchur powder. Cook for another 2 minutes, adding more liquid if necessary.

4. Meanwhile, cook a steak. Sear it in a pan, making sure to render out that ideally large fat cap. Avoid butter basting.

5. Once the steak is cooked and resting, you should be left with a hot pan of beef grease. This is the base for your tallow tadka. Keep the heat on and add in the cumin seeds, dried red chili, mustard seeds, kashmiri chili powder, and curry leaves. Allow to pop, sizzle, and toast slightly before pouring directly over your plated steakhouse saag/creamed spinach situation. Eat it with the steak!

I recently had a friend over for dinner and, in a fit of Alison Roman fantasy, I made a bolognese. It turned out really good, as a bolognese is wont to do. The trick is simple really: give it time.

Sadly, I did not film this for a video. But lucky for you, my clever substack-exclusive audience, I was so freed up from not moving a tripod around every five seconds, I actually wrote down the recipe!

So here it is, nothing groundbreaking, just The Bolognese I Made For a Dinner Guest the Other Night, Which I Served with Garlic Bread and an Arugula and Apricot Salad, met with an unsolicited “best I've ever had.”

Pasta Bolognese (serves 4-6)

3-4 oz pancetta, cubed

1 onion

1 medium carrot

3 stalks celery

1/2 pint or 8 oz. mushrooms (cremini or white button)

1 pound ground beef

1 pound ground pork

1 large or 2 small links sweet Italian sausage (about 5-6 oz.)

1 cup passata

1/2 cup red wine

1/2 cup beef or chicken stock

3/4 cup heavy cream

16 oz. pappardelle

parmesan for serving

1. Add pancetta to a cold, heavy-bottomed pot or dutch oven. Set the heat to medium and allow the pancetta to slowly render, stirring often.

2. Meanwhile, blitz the onion, carrot, celery, and mushrooms in a food processor until very finely chopped. You can also just finely chop these by hand, but a food processor is so much faster! Set aside.

3. Once the pancetta fat has rendered and the pancetta has browned, add in the butter and olive oil followed by the recently blitzed veggies. Cook, stirring often. You want to cook until the water in the veggies has been driven off but not until they are browning. You will hear the sounds of the pan change from a soft, steaming sound to a faster, crackling frying sound. This is, in general, a good cue in the kitchen that your veggies are making that special, flavor-enhancing contact with all that butter, oil, and pancetta fat.

4. At this point, add in the beef, pork, and de-cased Italian sausage. Use a sturdy wooden spoon to break everything up into fine pieces. Cook, stirring, until the meat is no longer pink. I’m not looking for any browning on the vegetables or ground meat/sausage. That rich, roasted flavor is coming from the fried pancetta.

5. Add in the passata, red wine, and stock. Bring to a boil and reduce to a simmer. Let cook for at least an hour, stirring occasionally, but this will basically only get better as it cooks. 2-3 hours is probably ideal, mine was probably closer to an hour and a half. Add the heavy cream about 20 minutes before serving and let it simmer the rest of the way.

6. Meanwhile, boil your pappardelle according to package instructions. Drain, reserving a little pasta water. Return to the pot and toss with as much or as little of the bolognese sauce as you’d like. It might be smart to make more sauce than you need, or boil less pasta than this recipe calls for, as you’ll be glad to have a deli container of this stuff in your freezer.

7. Serve with freshly grated parmesan, fresh cracked black pepper, and a drizzle of olive oil to garnish.

I have a complicated relationship with rhubarb. I often love the idea of pretty, pink rhubarb desserts in the spring, especially those that are intricate and sculptural and circulating the internet as we speak. Some kind of ambition awakens inside of me whenever I see those stalks stacked at the farmers market or neighborhood food co-op. I’ve tried (and failed) repeatedly to make them into all manner of sculptural dessert: braided rhubarb tarts, shingled rhubarb upside cake, candied rhubarb ribbons.

Maybe one day I will be the kind of person with nimble fingers to splice microscopic threads of perfectly poached rhubarb into construction-grade rope. Until then, I’ve decided to be a little more honest with myself.

Clafoutis is the ultimate low-effort mix-and-match dessert for showcasing seasonal fruits. Cherries are most typical but I’ve had success with blueberries, figs, etc. The batter is dead simple, forgiving, and the bake time is relatively short.

It is with this rhubarb and rose clafoutis that I feel I have nailed the batter recipe: uber-custardy, lightly sweet, it sets up firm, fastening the delicate rhubarb in place.

By macerating the rhubarb and subsequently draining and reducing its liquid into a syrup, we avoid the wet,soggy pitfalls of my rhubarb experiments past; rhubarb is 94% water which means it shrivels and weeps somewhat unpredictably while baking. Using sugar to draw out that liquid in advance means we end up with rhubarb that is perfectly cooked, soft and yielding, but not sopping wet and withered.

The flavor of unadulterated rhubarb is rather sour, and I’ve chosen to not over-sweeten this dessert so as to showcase that. Garnished with some lightly salted, soft-whipped cream, this makes a killer breakfast too.

Rhubarb and Rose Clafoutis:

8-10 oz rhubarb, cut into 2 inch pieces

3 tablespoons sugar

1 orange, zest and juice

pinch salt

splash rosewater

ALL-PURPOSE CLAFOUTIS BATTER (all ingredients room temperature):

1/2 cup flour (to flex, I use Castle Valley Mill's bolted soft wheat flour)

1/4 cup sugar

1 cup whole milk

3 large eggs, lightly beaten

2 tablespoons butter, melted (plus a softened tablespoon or so for greasing the pan)

1/2 teaspoon vanilla bean paste

For serving:

powdered sugar

orange zest

soft-whipped cream, lightly salted

1. Start by macerating the rhubarb, combine the cut stalks with sugar, orange zest and juice, salt, and rosewater. Toss to combine and let sit for at least 30 minutes or up to an hour. The sugar and salt will draw out moisture from the rhubarb, mixing with the orange juice and rosewater. Separate the rhubarb stalks and accumulated liquid, reserving both.

2. Add the reserved liquid to a small pot and set over medium heat. Boil for a few minutes until the liquid has reduced by at least half and thickened into a syrup. Turn off the heat and set aside.

3. Preheat your oven to 400°F. Meanwhile, make the batter by whisking all the ingredients together in a large bowl. If the ingredients aren’t all room temperature, there is a chance the batter could become lumpy or grainy. If this happens, no fear! Blast it with an immersion blender briefly and it should smooth out with no issue.

4. Grease a 10-inch cast iron skillet with a little softened or melted butter. Arrange the drained rhubarb evenly in the bottom of the pan or pour over the clafoutis batter. Transfer immediately to the preheated oven to bake for 30-40 minutes or until nicely browned, puffed, and a cake tester comes out of the center clean.

5. Drizzle immediately with the reduced rhubarb syrup. Dust with powdered sugar and grate over some fresh orange zest. Allow to cool so that the custard sets before slicing and serving with soft-whipped cream.

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Coq au vin is a beloved chicken stew that has somewhat transcended its rural French origins. Today, it is a classic “gateway dish” for ambitious home cooks, perhaps because it presents a bit of a crash course in a number of foundational French techniques (deglazing, braising, reducing, etc.). Or perhaps it is because there is no shortage of iconic chefs with their own coq au vin recipe. Julia Child’s recipe is probably the most famous, being that the dish was at the vanguard of her admirable Francophile crusade into American kitchens.

We are all indebted to her interpretation, but the recipe I’ve settled on is chiefly a blend of recipes by Adam Byatt and Anthony Bourdain. I’m borrowing heavily from the former in terms of technique, as I was drawn to Chef Byatt’s intentionally well reduced and emulsified sauce.

The original reason for making coq au vin was to make use of an old rooster or stewing hen towards the end of its life. Many recipes just call for any supermarket chicken, but if you can find one that’s a little long in the tooth, I do think it makes a serious difference, adding complexity of flavor or richness in the form of increased collagen content. I used a stewing hen laced with bright yellow fat that I bought at Amaze Meat MKT (58 Elizabeth St in NYC). In general, Chinese meat markets are a great place to find old, tough birds uniquely suited to soups and stews.

There’s only so many ways to make a coq au vin, and there’s really no reason to use my recipe over the numerous recipes that already exist, but for the sake of public record, here is how I make coq au vin in my kitchen.

Coq au Vin

1 chicken, (an old rooster or stewing hen preferred)

3/4 bottle red wine (preferably pinot noir and preferably from burgundy, though mine wasn’t)

1 large carrot, chopped

2 ribs celery, chopped

1 leek, chopped

1 small onion, chopped

handful of black peppercorns

handful of thyme sprigs

4 cloves garlic, smashed

flour for dredging

ghee for searing the chicken

1 quart good chicken stock

1/4 pound slab bacon, cut into lardons

8 oz button mushrooms, cleaned

15-20 pearl onions, frozen is fine

fresh parsley, chopped for finishing

Carve the chicken up into manageable pieces (you can also ask your butcher to do this): drumsticks, thighs, wings, and I like to cut each breast in half. Add to a large bowl with the red wine, carrot, celery, leek, onion, black peppercorn, thyme, and garlic. Toss to combine and marinate in the fridge overnight. I am often loose with my marination times, but in this case it is non-negotiable. Say goodnight

The next day, set a colander over a large bowl and straing the chicken mixture, reserving the wine. Fish out all of the chicken pieces and set onto a clean sheet tray, being sure to reserve those aromatic vegetables. Season with salt and pepper before lightly dredging in flour. Set aside.

Heat a large dutch oven or heavy bottomed pan over medium heat. Sear the floured chicken pieces in ghee on both sides, in batches if necessary. You are looking for a very light golden brown. Remove the chicken from the pan and add in the reserved carrot, celery, leek, onion, black peppercorn, thyme, and garlic. Cook, stirring often, until the vegetables have softened. Add in the reserved wine from the marinade and reduce until au sec or the pan is almost dry.

Add in the chicken stock and bring up to a simmer. Nestle back in the seared chicken pieces. Optionally cover with a cartouche before setting into a 325°F oven to cook for 1 hour.

Meanwhile, add the bacon to a cold pan and bring up to medium heat. Once the fat has begun to render out, add the mushrooms and pearl onions. Cook, stirring often. The mushrooms will release a ton of moisture. Keep cooking, allowing the liquid to evaporate, the bacon to render, and all the ingredients to eventually get lightly browned. I’d rather slightly undercook this mixture as it will finish cooking in the sauce. Transfer to a bowl and set aside.

Once the chicken is cooked through and tender, remove the chicken pieces to a plate. Strain the braising liquid through a fine mesh strainer to remove the aromatics and return the liquid to the pan. Bring back to a simmer and skim off any excessive fat that rises to the top. Add in the cooked mushrooms, bacon, and pearl onions, leaving behind any accumulated juices in the bowl (or add with restraint, it just might tip the scale too far into umami-mushroom-bomb territory). Simmer until the braising liquid is nicely reduced and slightly thickened. Add the chicken pieces back in along with some fresh parsley, tossing to coat. Serve immediately with mashed potatoes.

Last week, as I was clearing out my freezer, I found a massive pork chop. One of those bone-in hunks of meat that I must have bought at the butcher with grand plans a few months prior. Maybe it would see a brine, or a glaze. Or perhaps a smothering of soft apples.

Plans change, and this forgotten pork chop and I found each other at a moment in time when I happened to be craving katsudon. I thought, while it may be a little extravagant to use a frankly expensive pork chop in what is meant to be an affordable dish utilizing leftover, already fried katsu, it is also likely to be very delicious.

And so it was. While I am a huge fan of that crispy-gone-soggy texture that is a hallmark of katsudon, I do take care to leave the top of my pork chop unsubmerged, skirting its edges as I add the beaten egg. This way there is a contrast between that lingering crisp top and the tender, simmered bottom.

I am no authority on dashi (I simply followed the Serious Eats recipe for mine) but I saw great results with this kombu brand out of Maine.

Bone-in Pork Katsudon - for two

1 thick bone-in pork chop

¾ cup flour

2 eggs

1 cup panko

oil for frying

1 cup dashi

1 Tbsp soy sauce

2 Tbsp sake

2 Tbsp mirin

1 Tbsp sugar

1 small onion or half of a medium onion, sliced thinly

3 eggs, beaten

1 cup jasmine rice for serving

Lightly pound pork to about a half inch thick. Dredge in the flour, followed by the egg, and finally the panko.

Add enough oil for frying to a wok or heavy bottomed pot. Heat the oil to 350°F and fry the pork chop, flipping occasionally if necessary, for 6-8 minutes or until an instant read thermometer registers 145°F internal temp.

Add dashi, soy sauce, sake, mirin, and sugar to a frying pan (it should be big enough to fit the cooked pork chop). Stir thoroughly and bring to a simmer until the sugar is dissolved. Add the onion and simmer for 3-5 minutes or until just softened.

Slice the pork chop (make sure to keep the bone), and add the entire thing, shingled neatly, to the simmering onion and dashi mixture. Let simmer for a minute before pouring in the beaten egg all around the pork chop. Allow to simmer for a minute or two, or just until the eggs are set.

Meanwhile, have a pot of rice going. Gingerly slide the pork chop, eggs, and onion sauce into a bowl over a bed of cooked jasmine rice. Dive IN.

Well this recipe isn’t quite how Trader Vic intended anyway. I’ve been messing with a bottle of Creme de Banane I bought after experimenting with some midwestern “supper club” cocktails for work. It has this rich, delightfully saccharine, caramelized banana flavor, and I thought it would be a fantastic addition to a classic Mai Tai spec.

It was! Find the recipe below. Take my rum selection with a grain of salt, there are one-million rum combinations to make a good Mai Tai but I am limited to the rums I already have™. That said, I think the high-esther volatile funk of the Wray & Nephew combined with the depth of a Hamilton Jamaican Pot Still Black make for a lovely pair.

Here is the recipe, exactly as pasted from my iPhone notes app:

Real good mai tai

3/4 oz Wray and Nephew

3/4 oz Hamilton pot still black rum

1 oz lime juice

1/2 oz curaçao

1/2 oz creme de banane

1/2 oz Orgeat

mint (for garnish)

shake and strain into a rocks glass or mason jar filled with more (ideall crushed) ice. garnish with a sprig of mint.

Apologies for the lack of posting on this Substack! As you can maybe tell from my rad new clip art logo, I plan to start posting here much more consistently. If there is anything specific you want me to cook, drink, or just write about please let me know!

The drive from Brooklyn to Asheville is 11 hours, if you’re lucky. A breathaking expanse of the Appalachian Mountain range, through wildflower meadows and peaks (some blue-ridged, some great and smokey). The songs I played in the car were written by the musicians waiting for me on the other end of the drive.

For the uninitiated, Wednesday is a North Carolina band making music somewhere in between country, grunge, and shoegaze. They formed in Asheville shy of a decade ago and initially caught my attention with their excellent 2022 cover album Mowing the Leaves Instead of Piling ‘em Up.

I was later enamored by 2024’s Rat Saw God and they’ve only refined their sound further with the release of this year’s Bleeds, the lead single of which is Elderberry Wine. With a name like that, I had an easy pitch to get the group to appear in my ongoing cooking with musicians series.

So I arrived in the hills of Western North Carolina with the goal to learn country winemaking. My teacher: Xandy Chelmis, Wednesday’s lap steel player and resident winemaker. I met up with Karly (lead vocals, guitar) and Jake (touring guitar) at the base of a steep and rocky road, where we were picked up in the bed of Xandy’s truck to head up a mountain that my 2014 Subaru Crosstrek was reluctant to climb.

After swimming in some rivers and sampling Xandy’s previous vintages of strawberry, goldenrod (pictured above), and peach wines, we got to work on brewing a batch with elderberries.

Most modern recipes for elderberry wine call for boiling berries to extract their juice and denature the small amounts of cyanide they contain. This also kills the robust wild yeasts living on the outside of these North Carolina-grown black jewels. We opted for a more old school approach, simply steeping the berries in a crock with water and sugar, and allowing the mixture to spontaneously ferment.

The fermentation process, especially when using cultivated elderberries containing lower amounts of cyanide anyway, will also break down those toxins over time, leaving the wine crushable and hopefully delicious.

The mixture continued to ferment for a week or so on the berries, long after I left town, before being strained and squeezed into a carboy and fermented a second time. That is where the wine sits now, the bubbles subsiding as the wild yeasts convert the remaining sugar into alcohol. From there the wine is to be bottled and aged for a year or two. I’ll have to make the drive again if I hope to try this batch, but just in case I’ve already started own in my Brooklyn apartment.

Seeing that the wine takes years to complete, we had some time to kill. The band and I raided Xandy’s garden and storehouse for a finale of summer veggies. We cooked down tomatoes, okra, and peppers with bacon for a vibrant veggie stew, roasted heirloom pink potatoes in lemon and herbs, deviled eggs from Xandy’s chicken coop, and churned foraged paw paws into a luscious and summery ice cream.

We ate together. North Carolina has a sound and a flavor, and I felt lucky to taste it with the band that calls this state home.

Check out my video with Wednesday here.

I hesitate to post this, only because there are so many great Jamaican beef patty recipes already out there. That said, this was a rare occurrence in my kitchen where I mostly freestyled a dish while also keeping relatively diligent notes on exactly what I did. These came out delicious and I have the ingredient amounts, so it feels wrong not to share.

Here are some other great recipes and videos to get you started! Take what you like from each, including mine, and make your dream beef patty :).

Beef Patty Resources:

How to Make Jamaican Beef Patties - Munchies

How to make Jamaican Beef Patties! - Deddy’s Kitchen

Travelandmunchies Recipe

@chefdwightsmith IG video

For 10-12 patties

Dough Ingredients:

3 1/2 cups AP flour

2 tsp salt

2 sticks butter, or 1 cup

1 1/2 Tbsp turmeric powder

1 Tbsp curry powder

1 cup ice-cold water

1 Tbsp white vinegar

To make the dough, add the dry ingredients to a bowl and whisk to combine. Put the butter into the freezer for 10-15 minutes to solidify and grate into the dry ingredients, tossing frequently to coat. Pinch the butter and flour briefly between your fingers to disperse evenly. Add in the water and vinegar and mix into a shaggy dough.

Turn out onto a work surface and work very briefly into a round, flat disc. Wrap in plastic and transfer the dough to the fridge for at least an hour or until ready to use.

Filling Ingredients:

1 chopped bell pepper

1 chopped white onion

3 chopped scallions

1 scotch bonnet pepper

1-inch smashed ginger

2 cloves smashed garlic

a handful of fresh thyme sprigs

4 Tbsp soy sauce.

1 lb. ground beef

2 Tbsp curry powder

1 tsp paprika

1 tsp garlic powder

1 tsp onion powder

1/2 cup fine bread crumbs

1 cup stock or water

1 egg for egg wash

Instructions:

1. For the filling, blend or food process the bell pepper, onion, scallion, scotch bonnet, ginger, garlic, thyme, and soy sauce together until chunky but mostly blended. Set aside

2. Heat a small amount of neutral oil in a wide skillet or sauté pan. Add the ground beef and let cook, breaking up into fine pieces with a spatula or wooden spoon. Once the beef is browned, add the curry powder, paprika, garlic powder, and onion powder. Let the spices bloom in the hot beef fat and oil before adding the blended fresh aromatics.

3. Add the breadcrumbs followed by the stock or water. Stir to combine and bring to a simmer, letting cook for 10 minutes or until just slightly thickened. Remove from heat and allow the filling to cool completely before assembling.

4. Once ready to assemble, remove the dough from the fridge and roll out with flour to around a 1/4 inch thickness. Use a 6 inch bowl and a paring knife or round cutter to cut out 6 inch circles of dough. Feel free to reroll any scraps, you should get enough rounds for 10-12 patties.

5. Add around 1-2 tablespoons of filling to each dough round, offset slightly. Run a little water around the edge of the dough with your finger so that when you fold the patties into a semi-circle, the edges stick and seal together. Press firmly around the mound of filling to squeeze any excess air out and crimp the seal with the tip of a fork. Add to a parchment lined sheet tray and brush with egg wash

6. Bake in a preheated 375°F oven for 20-30 minutes until the crust is just golden brown. Enjoy immediately or allow to cool and freeze for later.

I once spent some time trailing at a Michelin-star restaurant in New York City, observing and asking questions as the pros worked in the kitchen. I’ve always found this kind of immersion to be deeply instructive. I watched the sauté cook carefully heat small batches of stocks and sauces in little pots, just enough at a time to ration the product. I saw the pastry team temper their ice creams and sorbets in the fridge for a few moments before service, so they would scoop easily later with a heated spoon. I observed how the kitchen’s stations were laid out to roughly correspond with the courses of the meal, ensuring that the big pushes were staggered and dishes came up to the pass in a regular clockwise pattern.

I learned a lot. I watched the meat cook prepare for the onslaught of service with a balance of urgency and precision. Amidst the flurry of motion, burgundy-red duck breasts rendered slowly in copper pots on the edge of the French top. The skin crisped nearly golden brown, the dark flesh plumped slightly from the heat. It was early, and he was at least a half hour away from any orders coming his way, but already behind him laid a neat arrangement of meat resting on a wire rack, coming to room temperature.

Ever so common in restaurant kitchens and online recipe videos, I’ve always taken delight in challenging the outdated axiom that you must let your protein come to room temperature before cooking. Proponents argue that a tempered steak or roast will cook more quickly and evenly. I must acknowledge that this idea has been tested, reasoned against, and ultimately dismissed (by me) as a waste of time. That was before, however, I watched this grill cook carefully lay a strip of lamb tenderloin softly onto the rack.

I had contradicted myself. I’ve always believed that good cooking is superstitious. Searing a steak doesn’t “hold in the juices,” but boy does the Maillard reaction taste good. Sifting commercially refined flour into a cake recipe is likely unnecessary, but I think it shows a touch of dedication to the craft. Maybe taking the time to temper a steak is simply paying it a little more attention—executing with relentless and genuine care. Is good food rational? Maybe the idiosyncrasies that cooks pass around to each other have a flavor of their own.

I hold on to the quirks of those who have taught me how to cook. I think of the retired butcher who showed me how to sharpen a knife on a sideways whetstone. Or my first pastry chef, when I test the consistency of a boiling sauce or jam on a frozen plate. Or Chef John of Food Wishes, when I add a compulsory dash of cayenne to every recipe. I call them checkpoints—speed bumps that slow you down and make you think more carefully about what you’re cooking. Hopefully, the food that comes out the other end is that much tastier.

On the way to St. Louis, I made a pit stop in greater Indianapolis, for a breaded pork tenderloin sandwich. The hoosier-staple, known for featuring comically large slabs of fried pork chops on a bun, has been a pet interest of mine for a few years now. This is, believe it or not, my second pit stop in Indiana to try this sandwich, and unfortunately both versions have been disappointing. I hope to have better news to report next time, I haven’t given up hope.

I was at my hotel in St. Louis with a couple of hours to spare before dinner time. Despite the barrage of beef I was expecting to experience in the coming days, I was craving a burger. After a little research from my suburban hotel bed, I was back on the interstate headed towards South City. Destination: Iowa Buffet, the dive bar of my dreams. Dimly lit, neon signs, keno betting slips on the bar where napkins might go, a small tv-set over the bar played b-horror movies all night long. An increasingly frustrated couple to my left tried their best to order anything but Michelob Ultra. “Ah, we’re all tapped out actually on that grapefruit lager, … sorry, no Fireball either, will a Budweiser do?”

Besides the chance to enjoy a Bud in its hometown, the real reason I came to Iowa Buffet was, you’ll remember, a burger. The bartender here is a grill cook too, slinging four burgers at a time out of a squat tabletop broiler that is reportedly 70 years old. On occasion, when she opened the contraption to slide out the cast iron sear plate in order to flip the patties, smoke and flames would lick and shoot out of the sides. It was a wait for my burger but worth every minute. Grilled onion, ketchup, pickles, American cheese, the undeniable taste of char and the co-mingling flavors of every burger cooked on that same surface for 70 years. Divine.

The rotating cast of bar patrons around me did their best to steer me in the right direction for my short stay in town. They agreed with my initial plan to try St. Louis-style pizza, though they weren’t very optimistic that I would enjoy it. Unanimously, however, they thought I’d be smart to seek out what they called pork steaks, a barbecue cut unique to the city. Some threw out half-baked recommendations of where I might find one, but most conceded that this was more of a backyard BBQ, homestyle dish. No invitations followed. With much to consider, I headed home to rest for the day to come.

The next morning, I typed “pork steaks near me” into Google and the top result was Ms. Piggies Smokehouse. It was near enough to my hotel, so I thought I’d give it a go. I’m actually just learning now, as I’m writing this and checking out their website, but it seems that the owners, Kenneth and Anita Matthews, are retiring. Their Google Maps listing reads “permanently closed.” Can anyone on the ground confirm this? If true, I’m heartbroken.

For the kick-off of a BBQ tour, what a way to start. So pork steak, as they call it around these parts, is basically a thick cross-cut section of pork shoulder smoked (and sometimes braised) low and slow until tender. It’s like if you took the best parts of a pork chop and combined that with the best parts of tender pulled pork. To my surprise, Anita at the counter insisted I order my steak wet, that is, smothered with their sweet and tangy sauce.

One bite and a shot of potent, rich hickory smoke flavor and a basic fact about barbecue clicked into place. It’s in those barbecue cities that primarily utilize hickory wood, St. Louis, Kansas City, Memphis, etc, where the sauces tend to be ultra sweet and sour. Strong, thick, and rich. Together with that bold hickory flavor? Perfect balance. More on this in a later Texas installment, we’ll have to talk about the preference down there in Central Texas for a more mild post oak, and the stringent no sauce culture. Making sense yet?

Anyway, on to the main event: Nick and Elenas in Overland, MO for St. Louis-style pizza. This is one of many riffs on the Chicago tavern-style pizza you see in one form or another all across the Midwest. Cracker-thin crust, generously topped, but St. Louis differentiates their pie with the use of Provel cheese. This is a devious blend of cheddar, Swiss, provolone, rounded out by a perplexing hit of liquid smoke. The only way I can think to describe the texture when melted is … sticky. Like cheese glue, holding my sausage, pepper, onions, and bacon in place. It’s my understanding that this topping combination constitutes “the works” in St. Louis. For me, next time I’ll skip the bacon. A little salty given the sausage and character of these cheese. Beyond that, I don’t know what the Provel detractors are on about, this stuff rocks.

I picked up a slice of ooey-gooey butter cake at a cafe near Lafayette Park, just to mark it off the list, before hitting the road a little too late in the day en route to Kansas City. We’ll pick it up there next time.

@noahtanenROAD TRIP!! two weeks: brooklyn, columbus, st. louis, kansas city, okc, austin, memphis, decatur, nashville. couldnt see the whole country but this one was bbq heavy, would love to do a west coast thing next time :) #foodtiktok #tiktokcooks #roadtrip #bbq #texasbbq #oklahomaonionburgers

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Of all the comments I received, the overwhelming sentiment was for a more in depth look at my experience. Most requested a YouTube video, but guess what … it’s too late for that. We’ll have to make do with this Substack blog post.

So let’s start at the beginning. Why did I take this trip? It’s something I’ve been dreaming up for a while now. A seedling of an idea that I would sometimes idly draft in Google Maps late at night. The idea, originally a coast to coast and back tour of the entire U.S., was admittedly ambitious. I kept it in my back pocket for a future moment when I may have some extended time off, perhaps in between jobs or before a major move.

Suddenly, I did find myself in between jobs. I had a little free time, but frankly not as much as I had bargained for.

Could I cross the continental U.S. and return in only two weeks? I ran the numbers and technically, yes. Would I have had virtually any time to meaningfully explore new places and eat delicious food? Not really.

So I thought it might be better to pick a region, a smaller and more focused area to really dig into. The obvious choice seemed to be the Southeast, for BBQ. I thought I might start with the Carolinas, and move out towards Texas from there, but with road closures at the time from Hurricane Helene, and a little research into just how rich and complex that little slice of barbecue heaven is, it became clear that was its own trip for another time.

Instead, I decided to push west as quickly as possible, reaching St. Louis and eventually Kansas City. Then, I’d take a hard left south and travel on to Texas, eventually making my way back through the South, and home to New York. It was a perfect trip, a comprehensive survey of a quadrant of the country that encompassed multiple climates, cultures, and a whole lot of barbecue. Let’s break it down.

Night 1: Columbus, Ohio

After picking up a rental Chevy Traverse and hitting the road for a nine hour sprint out of Brooklyn, I arrived in Columbus, Ohio late at night. The drive winds through the tunnels and ridges of the Appalachian mountains, and I’ll spoil that it is already one of the most beautiful legs of the entire trip. Pennsylvania is a gorgeous state to drive through, but the scenery flattens a bit as you move into Ohio. The drive into Columbus, at night, seems an endless and disorienting display of suburban lights and roadside signage.

While this is meant to be a quick overnight stop en route to St. Louis, a little rest stop googling south of Pittsburgh made me hungry for some local Ohio delicacies: namely Columbus-style pizza and Skyline Chili. We’re far from Cincinnati, but my first stop is the popular Midwest chili chain to try the titular city's chili, as a four-way. For those unfamiliar, that is a Cincinnati-style chili (1), mild and inflected with warming Greek spices. That’s over top of spaghetti (2) with white onions (3) and a mountain of shredded cheddar (4-way). Perhaps it was the 10 pm dinner talking, but this was some serious shit. Truly delicious. Comforting, rich, and personally validating in the amount of cheese added. I ate every last bite.

Before I headed to my hotel, I made one last stop at a local pizza chain, Massey’s, for a taste of thin-crust pizza, Columbus style. The defining characteristic of this regional pie is far too many toppings, pepperoni cups overlapping each other, cheese pooling and overflowing under a buckling crust. It was, much like the chili, everything I needed at that particular moment. The crust was crisp, flaky, and ultra thin. I ate almost the entire pizza in my rental car, in front of a camera.

That night, I slept in a newly constructed hotel, disconcertingly decorated with flat Corporate Memphis iconography of local landmarks, and flat screen TVs flashing Columbus, OH trivia in the lobby. I slept like a rock.

The next morning was free continental breakfast and an early start on the road to St. Louis. More to come.

Hey folks! Long time, no post. Apologies. Luckily we have a fun one today. By the time this is published, I will have posted a video to TikTok and Instagram of me making delectable burritos with Sarah Tudzin, of the LA-based tenderpunk outfit illuminati hotties!

I’ve been on the hotties wave since their debut album Kiss Yr Frenemies back in 2018. They’re out with a new album now, called POWER, which I highly suggest you listen to.

It was such a pleasure to meet Sarah, and always surreal to meet someone whose music has been so present in my life. Thanks, Sarah for stopping by!

I think writing out a burrito recipe with as many components as we used would be clunky and impractical. A burrito, after all, should be modular, and customizable to your tastes. I don’t feel a need to measure the exact amounts of every ingredient going into every burrito, and I won’t insist that you do either. However, I will give you a couple of recipes below for some of the more consequential components, as well as a breakdown of the general construction. From there, make your burrito as you wish, and with what you have at your disposal!

The Burrito Construction:

start with a warmed flour tortilla, for ease of wrapping.

lay down a small handful of cheddar cheese.

follow with a generous scoop of steak, cooked medium rare or medium and marinated in the Carne Asada recipe below.

a few spoonfuls of seasoned rice, recipe below.

a helping of cooked black beans, recipe below.

a layer of pico de gallo, recipe below.

a large dollop of guacamole, which is not something i ever follow a recipe for. mash some avocados, add some red onion, maybe some tomato, and season with salt, lime, and hot sauce.

I find it helpful to add the ingredients in relatively even layers, offset from the center slightly towards you on the tortilla. To wrap, fold in the sides, and fold the side of the tortilla nearest you totally over the mound of ingredients before rolling tightly to seal. Give it a quick sear, seam-side down first, on both sides to crisp and warm the burrito. Enjoy with a little hot sauce or sour cream!

Carne Asada Marinade:

for 2 lbs of steak. something thin and with a long grain. skirt, flank, flat iron, and hanger steaks all work great.

1 tsp salt

1 tsp whole cumin seeds

1 tsp chili powder

1 tsp black pepper

2 tsp oregano

1/2 cup cilantro, chopped

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 Tbsp oil

juice of 1 orange

juice of 1 lime

1/2 cup of light beer

2 Tbsp of soy sauce

Add steak to a bowl or lidded container and add all the ingredients. Marinate, ideally, overnight. Cook on a grill or a cast iron skillet to medium-rare or medium.

Seasoned Rice Recipe (this rice is extremely delicious):

1 Tbsp lard or a neutral oil

1/2 of a large onion, diced

3 cloves of garlic, smashed

2 Tbsp tomato paste

1 cup of long-grain rice, such as basmati.

2 cups chicken stock

1 bay leaf

Add the lard or oil to a wide, lidded pot or sauté pan. Add the onions and cook, stirring, until translucent and fragrant. Add in the garlic and cook for about a minute, or until fragrant. Add in the tomato paste and cook, stirring, just for a minute or until darkened in color. Follow this with the rice, and cook the same way.

Add the chicken stock followed by a bay leaf. Bring to a simmer, cover, turn the heat to low, and let cook for 15-20 minutes. Fluff up the rice with a fork or spatula and reserve until needed.

To cook dried black beans:

Get some high-quality dried black beans, (I prefer Rancho Gordo). You can cook according to the package instructions, which usually means simmering at low heat for about an hour until tender. I like to just cook the entire bag and freeze what I don’t use for another time. Always check at least five beans, to be sure they have cooked evenly. For flavor, add a roughly chopped onion, about half of a jalapeño, and a few heaping spoonfuls of lard or olive oil if lard isn’t available.

To make pico de gallo, combine:

2 medium sized tomatoes, diced

1/4 cup red onion, finely diced

1 jalapeño, finely diced. seeds and ribs removed according to spice preference.

the juice of 1 lime

a pinch of salt

1/4 cup of chopped cilantro

Long-time viewers might be familiar with my clam roll obsession. Around two years ago, the summertime favorite of my (albeit inland) New England childhood came drifting up from my subconscious. It was a brutal, unyielding craving and I was living in Philadelphia, where clam rolls are unpopular. In fact, I quickly learned that the soft-shelled, whole-belly Ipswich clams required for a fried clam roll were impossible to source in the city. I can’t speak to the situation now, but in 2022 I visited countless seafood markets and eventually spoke with representatives from the major fish wholesalers in the region. They confirmed what I had already discovered, that there was not a single Ipswich clam in Philadelphia.

The only way to satisfy my craving was to buy in bulk. So I did what any sensible young cook with a small social media following would do: I hosted a pop-up. I ordered clams by the case, baked dozens upon dozens of split-top rolls, nailed a tartar sauce recipe (that was probably too complicated and is simplified below), and posted about it incessantly on my social media.

The day arrived, and I’m not sure I have ever been so nervous and thrilled in my life. I showed up early at The Lunar Inn, a now-closed bar in the Port Richmond neighborhood of Philadelphia. This would be the venue. In a state of desperate optimism, I had spent days prepping double the amount of clam rolls I had been asked to make. That morning, I wasn’t certain that had been smart. Friends and family had come from all over and out of town to support me (and I’m so grateful to them), but I wasn’t convinced anyone else would show.

I was wrong and now I’m bragging. There was a line down the block and we sold out of nearly 100 clam rolls in under two hours. There was a couple who saw the videos on TikTok and impulsively drove the Philadelphia to Chicago to have a clam roll. It was lovely and it was madness and the deep fryer could barely keep up.

It was very hard but I did it, and I remember it fondly. I would like to do it again sometime. This past week I bought a quaint two pounds of Ipswich clams and dusted off the old recipe. It is as follows.

For the Clams

2 pounds softshell or Ipswich clams, this amount will serve two people

1 can of evaporated milk

To begin, check that the clams are alive. The best way to do this with softshell clams is to poke at their siphon, which is often hanging outside the shell. They will generally retract their siphon when poked, but as long as the clam physically responds to being touched in some way, it is alive.

Next, whisk a generous helping of salt into a large bowl of cold water. The water should taste as salty as the ocean. Add the clams and let sit for 30 minutes. They will spit out any sand or grit in this time, this process is called purging. Gently lift the clams from the water, add to a colander, and rinse.

If you have never shucked an Ipswich clam before, I’m not sure a written description will help. It takes a bit of practice, but blanching the clam for about 30 seconds in boiling water helps tremendously. I found this video extremely helpful when I was starting.

To blanch, bring a large pot of water to a boil. In batches, add the clams to the pot for 30 seconds before transferring immediately to an ice bath or bowl of cool water. Shuck as demonstrated, being careful not to rupture the belly.

Transfer the shucked clams to a lidded container and cover with evaporated milk. Let soak for a few hours before frying.

My Standard Seafood Dry Dredge:

3/4 cup flour (pastry flour is preferred, but all-purpose will do)

3/4 cup corn flour

1/2 tsp cayenne

1/2 Tbsp black pepper

3/4 Tbsp kosher salt

3/4 tsp msg (!!!!!!!)

When ready to fry, mix the above ingredients in a large bowl or pan and bring a pot of neutral oil to 375°F. Use a larger pot than you think, the oil level will rise while frying. Drain the clams of the evaporated milk and toss thoroughly in the dry dredge. Take care in making sure the clams don’t stick together, as they tend to. Fry in batches, so that the temperature of the oil doesn’t dip dramatically, until just golden brown and crispy. Transfer to a wire rack to drain and season with salt immediately. Once fried, serve overflowing on butter-toasted split-top buns with a lemon wedge and a side of tartar sauce.

Tartar Sauce

Simply equal parts mayo and relish with a little squeeze of lemon juice, if desired. I have found Wickles brand relish to be the ideal flavor an consistency for tartar sauce.

Split-Top Buns (makes 10)

225 grams of water

15 grams of milk powder

15 grams of melted butter

35 grams of neutral oil

1 whole egg plus 1 egg yolk

500 grams of flour

10 grams of salt

5 grams of instant yeast

Note: you can optionally add a tangzhong to this dough for a more moist and longer lasting product. Reserve 65 grams of the water and 13 grams of the flour to do so. I always use this microwave method from America’s Test Kitchen.

Begin the dough by adding the water and milk powder to the bowl of a stand mixer. Add in the melted butter, followed by the oil and eggs. Whisk to combine.

Whisk the flour, salt, and yeast together in a separate bowl. Add to the wet ingredients. Mix on speed 2 for 8 minutes. Turn off the mixer and let the dough rest in the bowl for 5 minutes. Mix for a final 8 minutes on speed 2. At this point, the dough should be sticky but workable and elastic. Turn it out onto a table, using a little flour if necessary, and form it into a ball. Transfer to a lidded container with enough room to rise. I usually put it back into the stand mixer with a plate on top to cover it. Let proof for an hour at room temperature, or overnight in the fridge (BETTER FLAVOR THIS WAY).

Once proofed, transfer the dough to a work surface, keeping the smooth surface on the top of the dough intact. Pat down the dough, smooth side up, roughly into a rectangle. Using a bench scraper or knife, cut the rectangle into 10 smaller rectangles. Place each portion, one at a time, smooth side down and use a rolling pin or your hands to flatten to about a centimeter’s thickness. Roll up into a tight log and roll the log back and forth underneath cupped hands, seam side down, to extend to the desired length. About 6-7 in. Set the buns into a high walled baking tray like a casserole dish or hotel pan, close enough so that they will rise into each other as they bake. Brush with egg wash (1 egg whisked with 1 tsp water).

Let proof for an hour or so (they should puff up a bit), brush again with egg wash, and bake at 425°F for 25 minutes or until golden brown and baked through. Rotate the tray halfway through to ensure even browning. Brush immediately with a little but of melted butter. Let cool and slice the top open with a bread knife. Make sure to lather the exposed sides in butter and toast in a hot skillet before using.

I’ve been on vacation, fittingly enjoying mountains of fried clams by the sea, but now I am frantic to release this installment. The softshell crabs don’t stay soft forever, but there is still time in this early stage of summer to enjoy them.

I imagine this as the first part of a fried seafood double feature, that is if I ever get around to filming a clam roll video in the coming week. I have been exacting my craft concerning crispy shellfish on plush bread with a creamy-zingy mayo-based sauce for years now. It’s a culinary world I thrive in. My first pop-up EVER was a Clam Shack Brunch at the now-closed Lunar Inn in Philadelphia. I am planning (hopefully) to bring the clam roll back to life this summer, location pending. For now, I enjoy these sandwiches at home. Maybe you can too.

This recipe is organized by its component parts. It always starts with bread. A soft potato or brioche bun from the store will do in place of homemade. Hey, don’t sweat it.

Soft Sandwich or Burger Bun Recipe (makes 6):

225 grams of water

15 grams of milk powder

25 grams of melted butter

25 grams of neutral oil

1 whole egg plus 1 egg yolk

500 grams of flour

10 grams of salt

5 grams of instant yeast

Begin by adding the water and milk powder to the bowl of a stand mixer. Add in the melted butter, followed by the oil and eggs. Whisk to combine.

Whisk the flour, salt, and yeast together in a separate bowl. Add to the wet ingredients. Mix on speed 2 for 8 minutes. Turn off the mixer and let the dough rest in the bowl for 5 minutes. Mix for a final 8 minutes on speed 2. At this point, the dough should be sticky but workable and elastic. Turn it out onto a table, using a little flour if necessary, and form it into a ball. Transfer to a lidded container with enough room to rise. I usually put it back into the stand mixer with a plate on top to cover it. Let proof for an hour at room temperature, or overnight in the fridge (BETTER FLAVOR THIS WAY).

Once filled with gas and significantly risen, turn the dough out onto a work surface. Divide into 6 equal portions and form into balls. To do this, flatten the dough out into a rough square with your hands and pinch the corners together. Turning the dough over onto its seam, spin the dough around and around in circles with a cupped hand. Make sure there is no flour on the table, as the friction of the wet dough against the table is what creates tension in this shaping process. There are videos of bakers doing this online, you’ll get the idea. Lay out the dough balls on a parchment-lined sheet tray and brush with egg wash (1 egg whisked with 1 tsp water).

Let proof for an hour or so (they should puff up a bit), brush again with egg wash, and bake at 375°F for 15-20 minutes or until golden brown and baked through. Rotate the tray halfway through to ensure even browning.

Old Bay Remoulade:

1/2 cup mayo

1 Tbsp Creole or whole-grain mustard

1 tsp hot sauce

1 tsp chopped capers

1/2 tsp Old Bay

1/2 tsp Worcestershire sauce

1/2 Tbsp lemon juice

Add all the ingredients to a small bowl and mix to combine. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Set aside.

To prepare the crabs, I add them to a bowl with a pinch of salt, a few dashes of hot sauce, and enough buttermilk to completely submerge. I’ll let this soak for at least an hour. I haven’t tested for an upper limit here, but if I’m having this for dinner, I’ll marinate the crabs in the morning.

Dinnertime! I put a pot of neutral oil on the stove, and bring it up to 375°F Once I’m ready to fry, the crabs are pulled from the buttermilk and tossed in …

My Standard Seafood Dry Dredge:

3/4 cup flour (pastry flour is preferred, but all-purpose will do)

3/4 cup corn flour

1/2 tsp cayenne

1/2 Tbsp black pepper

3/4 Tbsp kosher salt

3/4 tsp msg (!!!!!!!)

Once thoroughly coated, drop carefully into the hot oil to fry. Remove once golden brown and crispy, seasoning with a touch more salt or even Old Bay while hot.

To assemble, slice open a bun and toast in a skillet with butter. Add a bit of remoulade to the bottom bun, followed by the fried crab and then another spoonful of remoulade. Optionally top with a tuft of green onions (cut very thinly on an extreme bias) and (non-optionally) the top bun. Enjoy!

As a project of personal (and potentially pop-up related) interest, I’ve been poring over the menus of Portuguese and Cape Verdean restaurants along the coast of New England. I’m mostly looking for oddities, fusions, and generally dishes that could only exist in New Bedford, MA, and the context of the Portuguese diaspora.

This dish is not really any of those. It is straight from Portugal, pretty traditional, though also evidently popular in Cape Verdean cuisine by way of Portuguese colonization. It showed up on many menus and distracted me from my rigorous research. I decided to give it a try and it’s a dish that is hard not to love. Braised pork, seared in its own fat … paprika, white wine, and I have a soft spot for clams. I’m sure this is particularly delicious with littlenecks pulled from Cape Cod Bay.

This serves two.

Ingredients:

1 lb pork butt or shoulder, cut into 1-inch cubes. reserve the fat cap, if there is one.

salt

1 Tbsp. paprika

a good pinch of cayenne pepper

1 cup of white wine

1 Tbsp. olive oil

Around 1 Tbsp. of lard, or diced pork fat to render in the pan. use the fat cap, if there is one.

Half an onion, diced

1 Tbsp. tomato paste

2 small Yukon Gold potatoes

More lard or oil for frying

1 pound of littleneck clams.

Cilantro for garnish. Optionally you can also garnish with giardiniera (the pickled cauliflower, carrot, and pepper sort) along with Kalamata olives or, more ideally, Portuguese black olives.

NOTE: this dish is more traditionally made with a Portuguese pepper paste called massa de pimentão. I could not find it, but that doesn’t mean you can’t. Between the paprika, garlic, wine, and tomato paste, I do think this gets pretty close.

Recipe:

Add the cubed pork to a medium bowl or lidded container. Season with a good pinch of salt and add the paprika, cayenne, white wine, and olive oil. Mix to combine and let the pork marinate up to overnight.

Heat a wide, lidded sauté pan or Dutch oven over medium heat. If you have rendered lard, add it in now. If you don’t, and your pork came with a fat cap, you should reserve and dice it and add that to the pan, stirring frequently until the fat renders. You could use oil I guess.

Once there is fat in the pan, add the pork. Use a spider to lift and drain it of the marinade, but DO NOT DISCARD THE MARINADE. Cook the pork, stirring occasionally, until browned on all sides. Remove the pork from the pan and add in the diced onion. Cook while stirring until translucent. Add in the tomato paste and let cook, stirring, until darkened slightly in color. Add back in the pork followed by the reserved marinade. Turn the heat down to low, cover, and let simmer for 45 minutes or until the pork is just tender. Check on it every once in a while and add some water or more wine as needed.

In the meantime, dice up the potatoes into chunks slightly smaller than the pork. Transfer to a container and cover with water for at least 30 minutes, or until ready to fry. Put a pot of lard or neutral oil over medium-low heat to come up to frying temperature.

To clean the clams, simply add to a bowl with cold water and a few heavy pinches of salt. This is called purging, the clams will spit out any sand they are holding inside. Lift from the water after 30 minutes and set aside.

This dish should come together all at once. Bring your oil up to frying temperature (around 350°F) and drop the potatoes with 10 minutes left on the braised pork timer. Fry until golden brown and cooked through, starting earlier to fry in batches if necessary. Set on a wire rack to drain and season with salt while still hot.

Once the pork is tested with a knife or fork to be just tender, kick up the heat and add the clams to the pan, with a little water if necessary. Cover and cook for 3-5 minutes or until the clams have all opened. Transfer everything to a bowl or casserole dish immediately for serving. Top the pork and clams with the crispy potatoes, cilantro, and optionally giardiniera and olives to your liking! Dig in.

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This is what I grew up calling Goulash. I don’t mean to upset those more familiar with true Hungarian goulash, nor do I mean to upset those who grew up calling this American Chop Suey, nor do I mean to upset those who may be confused as to why or how this could ever be referred to as Chop Suey … nor do I ….

The lineages of these two names are separate, even if they ultimately resulted in the same dish. It would seem from reading through the compiled historical recipes of both American Goulash and American Chop Suey by The Passionate Foodie, that the histories of both are constituted by a harsh Americanization of their original dishes. It’s a tale of two stews: Chop-Suey, a Chinese-American invention, and Goulash, a Hungarian delight. Both became, after some time, an identical dish. It’s like the crab thing in evolution, everything naturally wants to become a bowl of ground beef, noodles, and tomato sauce.

While this American school lunch classic is often billed as a New England specialty, both dishes have been made in some form all around the country since the early 1900s. That said, I am thrilled to report that one of the earlier recorded recipes for “American Goulash” was published in the newspaper of my Vermont hometown: The Rutland Herald. Although it is supposedly much more common for New Englanders to call this dish American Chop Suey, perhaps this explains why I can’t seem to accept that name and would prefer to keep calling it Goulash.

From The Passionate Foodie:

This dish comes in many other names and variations: Slop Pot, Johhny Marzetti, Beefaroni, and I’m certain it has only been so ubiquitous in the U.S. because it is cheap, filling, and frankly delicious. A childhood classic for me that I thought surely had fallen out of favor. However, the more I think about it the more sure I am that there are people all across the country who still make this in regular rotation, or at least something similar. I can’t speak to the popularity of it as a school lunch these days, but it is surely eaten today for the same reasons people have always eaten it: it is a good way to feed yourself or your family for not a lot of money.

I don’t write out all my recipes, but I knew I wanted to write this one. It is dead simple, inexpensive, and extremely satisfying. You likely have most of the ingredients you need, and those that you don’t have are easily acquired or substituted. Dishes do not get more useful than this, so I hope somebody uses it.

Ingredients:

1 Tablespoon oil

1 small yellow onion, diced

1 bell pepper of any color, diced

About 1 lb ground beef

3 cloves of garlic, sliced or minced

2 1/2 Tablespoons paprika

A pinch of cayenne pepper

1 teaspoon dried oregano

1 teaspoon dried basil

1 bay leaf

Salt and pepper, to taste

4 cups chicken broth

1 28-ounce can of tomato product. diced, whole, puree, use whatever is in your pantry and suits your texture preference. If using whole canned tomatoes, break them up with your hand or a blender before adding.

2 cups water

1 1/2 Tablespoons each of fish sauce and soy sauce. Traditionally, you would add 1 Tablespoon of Worcestershire Sauce and that will work great too.

1 1/2 cups dried macaroni OR if using a larger, fancier shape such as this Toscani, about 12 oz.

Sharp cheddar cheese, preferably Cabot, for garnish.

Start by putting a heavy-bottomed pot over medium heat. Add in the oil, followed by the onion and bell pepper. Hit with a pinch of salt and cook, stirring, for a minute or two, to start sweating out a little moisture. Try not to brown the vegetables.

Add in the beef and break up with a spatula into the smallest pieces you can manage. Cook, stirring and avoiding any hard browning, until the meat is cooked through and releasing fat. Add in the garlic, paprika, cayenne, oregano, basil, bay leaf, along with some black pepper, and a little more salt. Add the tomato paste and cook, stirring, until the spices are fragrant and the tomato paste has fully incorporated and darkened in color slightly.

Add the chicken stock and tomato. Rinse the tomato can with the water and add to the pot as well, followed by the soy sauce and fish sauce (or Worcestershire sauce). Bring up to a simmer and turn the heat down to low. Cook gently for 20 minutes or so to bring all those flavors together. You can let this go longer but you may have to add a little more water when it is time to cook the pasta.

Speaking of! Once the ingredients of this stew have gotten to know each other, it is time to cook the pasta. Turn the heat up a touch and make sure you feel good about the amount of liquid in the pot, adding water if necessary. Dump in the pasta and stir. Let cook, stirring occasionally until the pasta is fully cooked and the sauce has thickened up. It may take a minute or two longer for this to happen than the pasta’s package says, but just taste and be the judge.

Ladle your serving into a bowl and grate over a touch of cheddar cheese, preferably from the great state of Vermont, and enjoy!

This one could be pretty easy, if you already happen to have sofrito (homemade or otherwise) and Sazón on hand. If you don’t, it becomes more complicated .. but fear not!

Sofrito is something I’ll make in large batches, whenever I decide to cook a dish that requires it. I’ll take whatever is leftover and freeze it in an ice cube tray or flattened in a ziploc bag for easy breakage. I typically eyeball this kind of thing based on what I happen to have, so I don’t have much to give you in terms of my own recipe. That being said, here are a couple to point you in the right direction:

Authentic Puerto Rican Sofrito Recipe

Homemade Dominican Sofrito

I did, however, write down my Sazón recipe. I didn’t make my own Sazón because it is better or healthier this way, but rather because I didn’t happen to have any on hand. If you’ve already got some kicking around, don’t worry about it.

Sazón Recipe:

1 tsp annato seeds

2 tsp coriander seeds

1 tsp cumin seeds

1 tsp garlic powder

1/2 tsp msg

1/2 tsp salt

Put everything into a spice blender and blitz until fine. If using a mortar and pestle, pound out the whole spices first before mixing through the garlic, msg, and salt.

Alright, you’re ready for the main event!

Asopao de Longaniza Recipe

Ingredients:

1 Tbsp oil

10 oz package of Dominican-style longaniza sausage, it would be fun to mess with other fresh, highly-spiced sausages here if you have trouble procuring longaniza.

4 cloves of garlic, minced

3 Tbsp sofrito

1 small red onion, diced

1 cubanelle pepper, chopped into large pieces. a green bell or poblano would suffice

1 rib of celery

1/3 cup olives, sliced

2 Tbsp capers

3/4 cup long grain rice, rinsed

2 cups of squash (kabocha, butternut, calabaza), chopped into large chunks

a bunch of cilantro, and very optionally culantro

4 cups chicken stock

1 lime

Sliced avocado for garnish

Grab a relatively large pot and put it over medium heat. Add in the oil, followed by the sausage. Let cook, stirring often, until nicely browned all around.

Add in the garlic and let cook for 30 seconds or so, until fragrant. Add in the sofrito and cook for another 30 seconds. Add the onion, pepper, and celery all at once. Stir and cook for a few minutes, until just softening. Add the Sazón and let cook for 30 seconds or so, we want those spices to touch that hot oil and rendering sausage fat briefly. Now it is time to add the olives, capers, rice, squash, and herbs (if using, wrap your cilantro bunch with a culantro leaf for easy removal and extra flavor).

Immediately add the chicken stock (ideally already heated) and mix all together. Bring up to a hard simmer, turn the heat down a touch and cover to cook for 40 minutes. Check and stir the stew frequently, especially towards the end, to make sure nothing is sticking and you’re not losing too much liquid. Add more stock or water as needed. The final texture should be thick, but not so thick that you could eat it in anything but a bowl. Cut the heat, remove the herbs, and squeeze in the juice of one lime. Garnish your bowl with a few required slices of avocado, and enjoy!