What I Ate For Dinner

My adoration of all things braised has been documented here before, but I've recently come to question my faith in the slow roasts. Somewhere along the line, it dawned on me: this is boring. Braising, I reasoned, is a crusty method from the 18th century that produces uniformly subdued flavors. It lacks curb appeal. It feels like a brown plaid suit. If it were a car, it would be a Ford Granada. I mean, you can't make this stuff sexy, and I'm not going to be the first to try. So I broke it off with braising. I wanted revolutionary food! Food that's punk, food that pisses people off, veritable anarchist cuisine! I wanted to destroy the plate and palate. But then, staring apostasy in the face, I buckled. I came back around. Braised foods have heart. They've got warmth. They care, they really do. And I figured that if I could make them just a bit easier, maybe the low bar that separates success from failure with braising (and it can't get much lower) might become clearable almost as if by accident. Well, then, there'd be hardly any way to avoid it if it's this easy. Conservative cuisine; probably. A layup; sure, no argument. But it feels like home.

Since the last time I did lamb shanks, I've figured out a few ways to streamline the process, remove what I view as superfluous steps, and bring one of the easier dishes out there even closer to hand. So here's the lamb shank redux, which I think produces an identical flavor to the classical method (also paraphrased below) with even less effort.

Start with the shanks in a pan with a lid. A sauté pan works, as does a dutch oven or something of the sort. I've come to notice there's really no good reason to sear the shanks. It's a hassle, smokes up the joint, and produces a result that only melts away into braised oblivion in the end--so I say, forget it. Instead, just put a thick coat of beef or chicken stock in the bottom of the pan with the shanks. If you have no stock, just use white wine. Add a handful of chopped shallots, some fresh herbs if you have 'em, and season with salt and pepper. Throw the lid on, and pop it an oven preheated to around 325. That's it.

Turn the shanks every hour or so. Let them go for between three and four hours. You can go longer if you're really feelin' the braiseage.

Last time I did a sauce with the pan drippings and wine, which works great, but requires dexterous jockeying of a hot pan with lamb shanks waiting to slop out. To avoid an inelegant transfer, you might try this sauce du baron. Start by sautéing chopped shallots in butter. Once they start to color, kill the heat and toss in a half-a-handful of flour. Whirl it around with a wire whisk until the flour starts to clump up with the butter and shallots. Then douse with red wine--enough to put a thick coat (quarter-inch?) on the bottom of the pan. Top it off with a cube or two of demi (good glug of the darkest stock you have will also do). Turn the heat back up to simmer to cook off the alcohol, season with salt, whisk a few times, and you're done.

Gremolata has already been explained here, but I figured out an easier way to make that, too. Gremolata is typically lemon and lime zest, salt and pepper, and a few bits of raw garlic. First, skip the garlic. Second, use a vegetable peeler to get the zest off the citrus instead of a zester. Yes, this is a short-cut, and no, it's not exactly the same. But it's a lot easier. My zester sucks, and it takes forever to peel off tiny shards of zest from a lime. So, use the vegetable peeler and try to remove as thin a slice as possible. That is, get just the outer layer of the citrus peel. Then chop it up into the finest bits possible. They'll be more like flakes, but it's just as good. Season it up, and you're ready to roll.

Serve it up with a simple salad, or quick pickled carrots (julienne carrots, sprinkle with kosher salt, and allow to sit at room temp for 5 minutes to soften).

Duck legs can be vexing. They're about half the price of the breasts if you buy them separately, which tells you something about how the callous capitalist system regards them relative to their boneless brethren. The meat is great, succulent and rich, but the bones, tendons and cartilage that traverse the thigh and drumstick compose an anatomical dragnet that can be daunting to navigate with a knife and fork. So I wanted to figure out a way to make finger food out of duck legs without offending their dignity. What I came up with is a savory crepe dish that's easy to eat and still features the duck's essential unctuous qualities.

The duck is easy, and I've done it before on the blog. Score the skin several times to allow the fat underneath to render out. Season with salt and pepper, and place in a moderately hot skillet or fry pan. No need for oil in the pan since tons of duck fat will soon coat the bottom anyway. Allow the skin to turn golden brown, about 7-8 minutes. Then transfer to another pan and place in a 350 degree oven to finish off. Should take 10 or so minutes. You do want to transfer the duck to a separate pan before roasting so that the rendered duck fat can cool before you discard it or use for the crepes; if you throw it in the oven with all the rendered duck fat, it'll start smoking something awful.

Now to the crepes. You'll need three per serving, so for two servings, combine two eggs, about a half cup or so of milk and about a cup of flour, along with salt and pepper. Those are approximate measurements. The idea is to have a thick but pourable batter--just like pancake batter. Adjust as you go; more flour to thicken it up, some water or milk to thin it out.

In a non-stick pan, heat some of the duck fat (or butter) on medium high heat. Pour enough batter in to put a thick coat on the bottom of the pan. Swirl the batter around the edge of the pan two or three times to thin it out and increase the size of the crepe. As it sets up, the top of the wet batter will dry out and become like a moist sponge; bubbles will form and then break. Once the batter starts to dry on top, flip it. This seeems tricky at first, and it's basically sink or swim. The basic technique, though, is to slide the crepe forward and then cock the back end down, flipping the crepe 180 degrees back into the pan. You could slide the crepe out of the pan onto a plate and the flop it back in, raw side down, if you want to avoid the flip. It's a very useful skill to have, though. Let the raw side get a bit of color, which should only take a moment or two. Yank it out and repeat.

I've also done the pico de gallo here before. It's just chopped tomato (small dice), a modest amount of chopped shallot, lots of chopped fresh cilantro, lime juice and pepper. Serrano chili would add some heat if you want it.

The vinaigrette for the duck is key since it gives a sweet/sour tang to the final product. Mix one part hoisin sauce, one part vinegar (white wine vinegar or sherry vinegar or rice vinegar is fine), one part sesame oil and one part soy sauce. Emulsify them. Once you have the duck off the bone, chop it into bite-sized pieces, drench in the vinaigrette, and allow the excess to drip off for a few seconds as you pull it out. Place in a bowl lined with a paper towel so that they don't get too saturated with the vinaigrette.

Quick pickled carrots top it off. Just slice the carrots as into strips as thinly as possible, sprinkle with kosher salt and let sit at room temp for 5 minutes. Bean sprouts are great, too, and require no preparation.

Assembly should be obvious.

Pan-seared and oven-roasted duck breast is one of my favorites--right up there with sea scallops and braised lamb shanks. And with the graces of my Safeway Club Card, I've recently been able to secure morsels of my most beloved fowl at half the going rate. This, I should add, is one of my greatest coups to-date using my new shopping method. I used to go to the farmers' market and cruise the stalls, stalking the freshest produce and choicest cuts. That's a great way to cook, if you have the time and the cash. I don't always. So, I came up with an improvised (but still interesting) alternative: go to Safeway and buy whatever meat is cheap, and figure out the meal from there. Saves cash and obviates delicate deliberations. That's how I got into Tri-Tip. Same with Beef Ribs. And I'm still trying to figure out something to do with 13 pounds of pork shoulder, because that stuff is always on sale. La cuisine du marché be damned! This is La Cuisine Pragmatique de Safeway!

So, I got the whole bird since it's only 8 bucks (that is, with your Safeway card; $16 normally). Slice off the breasts and that's all we need for this one. Save the thigh/drumstick nugget for another time.

Start by scoring the skin of the breasts several times to allow the fat below to render out. Then throw them in a sauté or fry pan heated to medium-high. I don't think you have to even put oil in the pan since you'll soon have duck fat rollin' out by the barrel. Render out the fat and crisp the skins. I usually remove the liquefied fat halfway through to reduce smokage/stinkage.

Once seared, the breasts will only take a few minutes (7-8?) in an oven preheated to 350. To allow for a margin of timing error, let them rest on the stove while you start the potatoes and carrots. Put a quarter-inch coat of the liquefied duck fat on the bottom of a skillet, and when heated to medium-high, roll in with a one-inch dice of potatoes and carrots. Sometimes they stick, so be sure to push them around a few times with a spoon as you season with salt and pepper. With the root vegetables, you're going for golden-brown on the edges of the potatoes. They should still be firm to the tooth when finished. Should take 10 or so minutes.

Throw the duck in the oven once you have the taters goin'. Look for doneness on the duck as you would on filet mignon. It should still be tender, even soft, to the touch and juicy when you pull it out. As I say, this won't take long in a preheated oven, so keep an eye on it.

Now the sauce. Sauté shallots in duck fat (you can't throw it down the disposal, so you might as well use it up now) until blonde. Then add two cubes of demi or a half-cup (or so) of beef or chicken stock. Bring to a simmer. While that's happening, place several blackberries (or raspberries) in a glass and fill with enough red wine to cover the berries. Smash the berries against the side of the glass with a spoon. You probably want to do this over the sink with the glass pointed away from you since any splatter quickly becomes an irredeemable stain. You don't need to purée this all the way; just get some of the berry liquid out and call it done. Consider it a rustic, provincial preparation. Pour the wine/berry mix in with the demi/stock and simmer for a few moments. Thicken if you need to with a simple roux (equal parts oil and flour), season and you're done. This sauce can go on most anything and is excellent with duck.

I finish this one off with green beans. Sauté them in duck fat on medium-high heat briefly (a minute or two) and then kill the heat and deglaze with a thick coat (half inch) of white wine. Turn the heat back on to medium and allow the beans to simmer in the wine until they green up (you'll notice a change in color) and become firm to the tooth. It should only take a moment. Et Voila!

One silver lining of the recession is that it offers a veritable open-mic night to less lovely, but altogether edible, foodstuffs. Instead of the old standards fillet and strip, for example, broke beef eaters remember during tough times that cows have more than those two muscles. True story. Other cuts are cheaper and oftentimes as (or even more) flavorful than the primetime playboys. Some of the best known of these "other red meats" are bavette (aka flank), hanger and tri tip, all of which happily occupy a sinewy ghetto on the belly of the beast. Fillet and strip would consider this fibrous neighborhood the wrong side of the bovine's anatomical tracks. If you're low on cash, though, such opinions of the effete bourgeoisie of beef might become a bit less persuasive, especially with these more economical nuggets vying for your attention. So don't get nervous about the raw characteristics of less "prestigious" cuts like tri tip or hanger steak: I'll describe an acidic marinade that can tenderize 'em, and how a slow grill over moderate heat can bring out the best of these "J.V." slivers. Compared to their more expensive neighbors, cheaper cuts like these are more interesting to cook, and therefore more rewarding, too. Keep in mind, though, that you don't want to cook them past medium-rare, or they'll toughen up something awful. (In my opinion, that's true for all cuts of beef, and especially for these.)

Tonight we're doing tri tip, which is the triangular hunk leanin' off the sirloin. Start with a marinade. Mix roughly one part soy sauce, one part vinegar (balsamic or white wine), one part oil (something cheap is good, like peanut oil), and a half part water. Season with fresh cracked black pepper, and whisk it up until the liquids emulsify. Then, place a ziploc bag inside a ceramic vessel (or something else that's leakproof), slip your beautiful tri tip wedge into the bag, and add the marinade. Seal the bag almost all the way, but leave an opening through which to squeeze out as much air from the bag as possible. This is basically home-style vacuum sealing, and it ensures maximum contact between the marinade and all surfaces of the beef but requires only the minimum amount of marinade for the purpose. I've marinated tri tip like this for anywhere between one and thirty six hours. Probably don't want to go less than one hour; no need to go thirty-six, though. Your call.

We've done grilling here before. For tri tip, be sure to bank the coals to one side in order to create a range of heat intensity. Lean the thickest end of the tri tip toward the center of the coals (where it's hottest), and let the thinner tail portion stretch into a cooler region. For a two pound slice, the grilling should take about 20-25 minutes.

Mashed potatoes are easy, but the method in Bourdain's cookbook improved my ole standard considerably, so I'll pass it on here. The key: boil the milk and butter first, then whip them in with skinned, fork-tender potatoes you've boiled in advance with a whisk, and season. I think boiling the dairy stuff first yields a more fluffy, creamy product. Be sure not to overwork them though, or you'll lose those assets. And take care not to splatter the boiling butter/milk--that's one of the nastier burns.

Leaner, tougher cuts like tri tip need sauce more than most. Here's an easy one: sauté shallots in butter until blonde, whisk in a judicious handful of flour to form a roux, and kill the heat. Deglaze with a healthy glug of red wine--get a solid half-inch or so pool on the bottom of your pan. Then, throw in some demi (bless you for making demi) or some beef stock (respectable substitute), and reduce by half. I guess the ratio of wine to demi/stock would be about 2:1. Season with salt, and balance with lime juice (if too sweet) or brown sugar (if too sour).

I serve it up with a simple arugula salad, dressed lightly with sesame oil, salt and a bit of lime juice.

Noodles are good to have in the repertoire: they're cheap, they keep and in most cases you can make a meal out of them with only a few adjuncts. So they're practical. But then there's the other part, which I used to hate but have grown to love. They can be kind of homely. You know, kinda greasy or saucy, a bit awkward to eat, bland and slurpy. At their worst, they used to make me wish I could photosynthesize and just skip the whole eating-food-thing altogether. But then I realized that noodles, especially like the ones I'm doing tonight, are kind of a joy because they're easy to get along with. They like my jokes. And they go good with beer. They're forgiving, compassionate, ever at the ready. These guys really deliver. They're like Rudy. All of which is to say that they edge out most people you come across. So perhaps noodles are some sort of super food. I guess that's over the top, but as someone who just spent three days making demiglace, I'm glad to know some noodles, too. This one's from David Chang's book.

The prep work is really the only work here. First, make the ginger scallion sauce with which you will toss the noodles. I make this in single servings and just toss up the noodles in the same bowl I use to mix the sauce. If you're doing a larger batch, you can make a bunch of sauce and then deploy it as needed. Your call.

Start by giving a good mince to some peeled ginger. Really chop it up, since big hunks of ginger are kind of a downer. You can also chop up some chilies if you want some heat. Throw a solid pinch (or more) of the ginger and however much of the chilies you want in a bowl. Add some chopped scallions, too. Follow that up with a good drizzle of sesame oil, just a bit of white wine or sherry vinegar, a drizzle of soy sauce and some fresh ground black pepper. I think a few drops of fresh lime juice really brings these flavors together, too. Mix that up with a whisk until all the liquids are emulsified.

A note about the sauce: This is obviously prepared to taste. If you're interested in ratios, here's what Chang has: 2.5 cups scallions, half cup ginger, quarter cup neutral oil (I subbed sesame), 1.5 teaspoons soy sauce, ¾ teaspoon sherry, salt to taste. Don't get hung up on these measurements; I've only provided them for referencing ratios.

Once you have the sauce knocked out, add a handful of noodles to the bowl with the sauce. You want something like ramen-lookin' noodles. You know the ones: long and narrow, not too substantial, eminently slurpable. Mix the noodles with the ginger scallion sauce, and then dump it out into a serving bowl.

Then top the noodles with whatever you have. I used bamboo shoots, which are easy. Just grab a can of the shoots, drain them, and let them stew in a saucepan with sesame oil and a few drops of soy sauce for (I dunno) 20 or so minutes. Low heat here. They should be tender and flavorful when you yank 'em out.

Quick pickled vegetables like carrot or celery are also great atop this dish. A few extra scallions earn their keep, too. As always, pork belly or a few shards of beef rib should need no invitation.

As mentioned already on this blog, when it comes to skewered and grilled chicken, you're really talking about sauce as substance. That's probably because chicken lacks a bit--really a lot--in the flavor department, especially if you're dealing with the white meat. And it needs something to protect it on the grill. This means it's condiment time. Under such circumstances, chicken satay delivers nobly, so it's worth having in the arsenal.

You could marinate your satay. You could, really. And classically you would. But I don't. I say just slather the sauce on the chicken, grill as such, and then spoon a bit more sauce on top upon service. Simple.

There're a buncha variations out there, but here's a general road map to get you to Sataydom, after which you can make whatever sorts of adjustments, amendments and bastardizations you prefer. With so many alternatives available, I'll relate the recipe in a sort of "get there fast and then take it slow" style.

Start with good peanut butter. You know what that rules out. You want the shortest path from peanuts to butter, so look for the grinders with big bins of peanuts on top that churn out fresh peanut paste. Look for unsalted, unadulterated varieties. That'll give you dominion over all seasoning decisions. King in the castle.

Spoon your peanut butter into a food processor or blender, and throw a bit of coconut milk in, too. You want this to be a smooth, medium thick sauce, so you'll need probably a whole can 'er so of coconut milk for a few cups of peanut butter. Now the spices. Add these to taste: basil, lime juice, chilies (more on these guys below), soy sauce, white wine vinegar, fresh-cracked black pepper, and brown sugar. Blend it up.

As I say, you're going for a medium build on your sauce. It should coat a spoon of course, but it should also drizzle down off the spoon in a smooth, viscous (though not goopy or gelatinous) stream. Taste it after blending, and adjust. Vinegar and lime juice will give a bit of sharpness and definition to an otherwise full bodied, creamy sauce. If you like heat, you may want to experiment with chilies north of Serrano on the Scoville scale. Serrano chilies are great, but I've learned that, in modest quantities, they're not really hot enough to puncture the creamy, buttery atmosphere of peanut sauce. If you like heat, a more potent pepper may be what you need.

Anyway, once you have the sauce, slather it on diced chicken (I go with thighs). Then skewer it up. Be sure to soak your skewers so they don't catch on fire (too much) on the grill. And never crowd chicken on the skewer. Grill on high heat until crisp or even charred (a little) on the outside, and serve with just a bit of the sauce spooned over the chicken. You don't want to go overboard with peanut sauce; this stuff can weary the palate in large doses. A little fresh lime juice is nice, too, on the final product.

The dark, roasty creaminess of satay calls for something sharp and crisp, I think. So here's a very simple salad that plays nice with satay. Slice jicama and carrot into strips about two inches long and a quarter inch or so wide (sort of like a julienne). Toss them with lime juice, pinch of salt and a judicious drizzle of sesame oil. You're going for light and crisp, so take 'er easy on the oil.

There ain't a lot of glamor in demiglace. It takes a lot of time. And a helluva lot of stock. No talent, very little technique, and if you save your kitchen scraps, very little expense--but time and stock you'll need in aces. And even once you've got a few rounds of demi finally in your clip, you still need something to cap, which means you've still gotta cook dinner. Now the good news: demi's easy to preserve frozen in ice cube trays, and a small amount of it will enhance the profile of your sauces immeasurably. Hell, it already is a sauce! With patience, your efforts will be spectacularly rewarded, for demi will put most any at-home hobbyist cookery on the fast-track to becoming truly great bistro fare. A nugget of demi, mind you, is the highly concentrated crystal of flavor slowly extracted from some of the best stuff out there: roasted bones, shaggy meat scraps, aromatic root vegetables and herbs. It might even be said that a cache of adoringly prepared demiglace confirms the kitchen workman's faith in the honesty of taste. At least, that's the sort of food-based, secular spirituality you'll start proselytizing after watching hours of slow reduction on your way to this blue-collar delicacy.

In the spirit of reduction, let me summarize the preparation: begin by making sauce espagnole, strain that, combine the resulting liquid with an equal portion of stock and reduce by half. That's it. Traditionally one uses veal stock, but in its absence, I'm working with beef stock tonight. Quantities are tough to estimate for this recipe since it depends on how much stock you have, so as usual, I'll stress ratios over quantities. The recipe in The Professional Chef calls for a total of two gallons (eight quarts) of stock to produce two quarts of demi. In my experience, this ratio basically holds up, so you can look forward to demiglace in the amount of one quarter of the quantity of stock you begin with. Given the time involved, I'd recommend making as much demi as you can in a batch. That'll free you up for more glamourous pursuits.

Sauce espagnole is a mother sauce, which means that chefs back in the day were 'bout it. Not so much anymore. Anthony Bourdain says nobody makes it these days, and so he offers a roundabout shortcut to demi that amounts to reducing stock and wine with some shallot. We're keepin' it classical here, though, so do start with sauce espagnole.

Predictably, sauce espagnole begins with mirepoix (50% onion, 25% each of carrot and celery): sauté the onions till browned, then add the carrot and celery. Let them all get some color, then throw in some tomato paste (a few healthy spoonfuls; remember, you can make your own by pureeing a tomato or two and cooking out as much of the water as you can). Let the mirepoix and toms get to know each other over medium heat. Your house should smell great by now.

While the vegetables are simmering, start your roux. Mix either oil or clarified butter with an equal amount of flour and cook over medium heat. Stir regularly until chocolaty brown. You'll only need about a cup of roux for about a quart of sauce espagnole. It's important to cook your roux at this point for two reasons: first, a cooked roux has less thickening power than its uncooked counterpart, which means the sauce will thicken without becoming too gelatinous, and, second, a cooked roux will deepen the color and flavor of the finished product.

Once the mirepoix and tomatoes have turned a rusty brown color, add enough stock to more-than-submerge them. The Professional Chef calls for 1.5 gallons of stock to make 1 gallon of sauce espagnole, which gives you some sense of the proportions you're dealin' with. Once you have the stock in, bring it up to a simmer and whisk in the roux. Add a few whole peppercorns and some fresh herbs (thyme sprigs are great), too. Simmer for an hour, skimming fat off the top as needed.

To finish the sauce espagnole, strain through a double thickness of cheesecloth slung over a colander. Make sure you've got a pot to catch the sauce down below the colander when you start pouring. Or you're ganna be pissed.

Next, combine the strained sauce espagnole with an equal portion of stock. Reduce by half. Skim the fat. On low heat, this step took me about and 90 or so minutes. Strain it when you're done for clarity. Allow the demi to cool, then freeze in ice cube trays. And. You're. Done.

Demi is a sauce, so you could just thaw a cube or two and throw it on beef, chicken, pork, lamb, etc. You can also use it to deepen the flavors of soups. And here's how you can make a simple sauce using the pan encrustations left from searing pork, lamb, or most other meats: sauté shallots in the same pan you seared the meat in, sprinkle in a bit of flour, then deglaze with just enough red wine to coat the bottom of the pan. As the wine reduces, throw in a cube or two of demi. Season with salt and pepper. Taste, adjust.

They say Champagne is the only wine that goes with everything. Maybe so; but it's not the only sauce that enhances almost anything. In its smooth subtlety, demi, too, has earned an honored place in the pantheon of epicurean delights. Unlike Champagne, however, demi does it with roots and bones. It will win few beauty contests. But by turning kitchen scraps into the most important of French sauces, perhaps you'd agree that demi's about as close as Western civilization has come to alchemy thus far.

Tonight I'm bangin' out the brasserie standard steak au poivre with pommes lyonnaises. The throngs of zealous readers who devour this blog weekly will notice that I reproduce some of the basics of last week's preparation of fig confit with pork tournedos. Some might even aver that such a redundancy constitutes a lack of imagination--no more than a tired baron mailin' it in. But I say to you, in the Liverpudlian brogue of Sir Paul McCartney: get back. The point, rather, is that learning the French culinary canon sometimes amounts to stackin' up proficiency in core concepts of flavor conservation and augmentation, and then gettin' funky with different ingredient line-ups. On that score, this preparation is a variation on the ole' sear-roast-deglaze-for-a-sauce progression introduced last week, but one, I would hasten to add, that yields a different profile than we tasted with the fig confit and pork. So strap yourself in for a wild ride through this remix edition, based on Anthony Bourdain's recipe.

Steak au poivre can be made with any beef cut: sirloin is typical, filet mignon shows up, and I'm using strip steak tonight. Start by cracking fresh black pepper on one side of the steaks. A coarse grind will bless your beef with crunch and pop, or what the French call "pizzazz." Sear the beef in a bit of oil with the peppered side down, all the while peppering the naked side staring at you. Be sure not to have the heat up so high that it will burn the encrustations that collect under the steak. Such will lend a burned taste to your sauce, so keep the dial tuned to medium or medium-high. Once you get a good sear on one side, flip it over and do the same for the other. When the searage is done, transfer the beef to a roasting pan and throw it into an oven preheated to between 300-400 degrees. Where you drop the needle in that range depends on a) how quickly you can prep the sauce and potatoes (slower means you want a cooler oven; faster means you can probably manage in the upper reaches) and b) how well-done you like your beef (more well done means higher temperature; better beef, which hangs out on the rare to medium-rare end, is easiest with lower heat). Or you could just ballpark it and set the volume to 350.

Now the glorious sauce. As with the fig confit, start by sautéing chopped shallots in the same pan in which you just seared the steaks. When they get some color, stir in a half-handful of flour and allow your workman's roux to cook on low or medium-low heat for a minute or two. Then deglaze with beef stock and reduce by half, running a wooden spoon around the pan to release as many of the encrustations as possible. When the beef stock has reduced by half, add a happy helping of cognac (as always with hooch: good stuff is better). Bourdain says that you'll need four oz of stock (before reducing) and one oz of cognac for this recipe, so that gives you a sense of the ratio. Reduce the cognac by half, season and taste. If you need to thicken it up more, stir in some roux (equal parts oil and flour).

A note about thickening sauces: when a sauce boils, the roux has done its job and you can assume that the sauce is as thick as it's going to be at that temperature. Like any liquid, however, a sauce will coagulate as it cools. So if your sauce is too thin after reducing the cognac, like mine was, stir in roux with the assumption that the sauce will continue to thicken as it cools. A slightly thin sauce will likely be perfect by the time you're ready to serve it, whereas a perfectly thickened sauce could go goopy in the same interval.

The pommes lyonnaises can be prepared while the sauce is reducing and the beef is finishing off in the oven. Start by blanching eighth-inch slices of potatoes in boiling water until about halfway cooked. When par-cooked, the potatoes should be supple, almost like a slab of rubber. Be sure to dry them off well after you drain them since they'll be getting fried. Water and hot oil ain't no fun for no one.

Once you have your pommes blanched, heat peanut oil in a sauté pan. Start by sautéing chopped green onions for a minute or two, then add the potatoes. Ideally, each potato would interface flatly with the hot oil on the bottom of your pan. The more potato-y surface area you can put in contact with the hot oil on the bottom of the pan, the sooner your potatoes will crisp up. Allow the potatoes to remain in one position for a minute or two before stirring them up. To get some good browning and crisping, frying should take 5-10 minutes. Time of course depends on how many potatoes you have, how thick you cut 'em and how hot your oil is. Season the potatoes with salt and pepper while they cook, and don't hesitate to add more oil or butter if necessary. A cast iron skillet would be perfect for this sort of a dish.

Serve it up with a simple salad, and you've got 'er dun.

The French call stock one of the "fonds de cuisine," or foundations of cooking. Without it, many soups, sauces, braises and the like would be unthinkable. A lovingly made stock will reward its producer with color, aroma and flavor unattainable by any other means. What's more: stock requires little expense, technique or equipment. All you're doing is transferring flavor from solids (vegetables, bones, meat) to a liquid (water). Over the centuries, a few helpful do's and don'ts have emerged, making it a pretty-close-to-fail-proof operation, but it does take a hell of a lot of time. Mostly unattended, but time nonetheless. The following preparation would work for veal or chicken stock, too, with the only difference being a substitution of bones.

If you could make only one stock, it would ideally be veal stock. That's the versatile, classic French brown stock, as well as the traditional base of demi-glace, the versatile, classic French sauce. The thing is, unless you have a caged calf or two in your backyard that you feel like slaughtering, you may have some problems getting your hands on the eight or so pounds of veal bones requisite for stock-making. Call around to butchers and see what they're charging. For me, veal bones are out of the question if they're going to multiply the cost of the stock by several times. Stocks, after all, are supposed to be cheaply had as the metabolism of kitchen detritus (veggie scraps, knuckly bones, etc). Paying a butcher several dollars a pound for bones seems to violate the spirit of things.

The CIA's cookbook, The Professional Chef, tells us that "bones from younger animals [like veal] contain a high percentage of cartilage and other connective tissues that break down into gelatin during simmering and give the stock body. Knuckle, back, and neck bones are good for stock making." If you have all manner of bones to choose from, heed this sage advice. If your goal is to make a stock that uses up kitchen scraps, though, you might try to make something the night before that will yield a stockable bone or two. Roast a whole chicken, for example, braise some shanks, or roast a rack (or two) of beef ribs. Any of these will provide you with a bunch of bones to use for stock. Slow and steady more your pace? Then "stockpile" bones in your freezer like a serial killer. You want a lot of bones: eight pounds of bones per gallon of stock would be a ballpark number, but in practice, you basically want as many bones as will fit into your stock pot. A little meat on those bones is good, too.

Once you have your bones in order, rinse 'em, dry 'em and roast 'em. You want a deep brown color, but no burned blackness. This should take around 30 or so minutes at 350.

Then, place them in a stock pot and fill 'er up with enough cold water to slightly submerge the bones. Leave some clearance for the vegetables you'll add later, too. You must use cold water in stock. Cold water is more limpid than warm or hot to begin with, and second, cold water allows for a slower rise in cooking temperature, thereby allowing impurities in or on the bones to float to the surface where they can easily be skimmed off.

While the bones and water are heating up, sauté mirepoix in a separate vessel (mirepoix is a rough dice of 50% onion, 25% carrot and 25% celery). You want to sauté these until the onions get some good golden coloration. Once the mirepoix is well colored, slather a few spoonfuls of tomato paste over them and cook for a minute or so. As the tomato paste cooks, it will give a rusty, burnt orange color to the mirepoix.

At this point there are two schools of thought. The Professional Chef says that you should deglaze the mirepoix pan with enough simmering stock water to submerge the vegetables, and then simmer the mirepoix and bones in liquid separately for five hours. With this method, you only combine the vegetables and the bones for the last hour of simmering. Says the august cookbook: "adding the aromatics [to the pot of simmering bones] at this point [after five hours of separate simmering] will allow enough time for the best flavor to be extracted but not so much time that the flavor is broken down and destroyed."

The CIA is probably right and we should probably simmer two separate pans for five hours. I cheated, though. After adding the tomato paste, I deglazed the mirepoix pan with a bit of water from the stock pot, ran a wooden spoon around the bottom to release as many of the encrustations as possible, and added the mirepoix to the stock pot with the bones immediately. Whichever method you use, add a few sprigs of thyme (well rinsed), and a few whole peppercorns once you have the vegetables and bones in the same pot. Bay leaf would be a good idea, too.

There are a few things to keep in mind while simmering your stock. You want the lowest simmer possible. A few bubbles breaking the surface from time to time, and that's it. A vigorous boil will disperse fatty globules throughout the stock, lending a greasy feel to the final product. If you keep it on a low simmer, you'll be able to easily skim off the fat that floats to the top. Skimming the scuzz is only necessary about every hour or so. Never add salt.

Let the stock simmer for about 6-8 hours, if not longer. For beef stock, some recipes say to go as long as ten hours. I let mine go for around seven. Taste it regularly to get a sense of how the flavors are coming together. When you're done simmering, you need to filter out as much particulate as possible. Particles in the stock not only detract from its clarity, but also shorten its shelf life because they turn sour. To strain, sling a scrap of cheesecloth over a colander set atop another stock pot. For extra peace of mind, secure the cheesecloth with a rubber band or kitchen twine. Remove the bones before straining. Then pass the liquid through the cheesecloth and into the second pot in a slow, steady stream. Repeat this two or three times to maximize clarity. Any remaining fat will float to the top under refrigeration and can be easily skimmed off as a solid.

Stock, as you've probably noticed by now, is not the sort of thing you'll feel like making everyday. Having some on hand is a great asset, but when you don't, you still want to make sure to steer clear of canned or dried bullion if at all possible. Those guys are just too salty. If you're interested in shorter cooking times, consult Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything. He has an expedited chicken stock, for example, that he says can be done in an hour. I've never tried it, but since time is the only thing between you and great stock, it might be worth a shot. Another shortcut: find someone who sells good stock. Anything commercially packaged (either in cardboard canteens or cans) is bound to be of inferior quality, but some butcher shops sells passable (if not better) stocks. If you happen across one, try it out to see if their stock is worth a damn.

It seems to me, though, that some flavors can only emerge with time. There remain few shortcuts by which to imitate the depth and complexity of a sauce or soup made with a slow-simmered, lovingly tended stock.

Only in the over-hyped, under-ventilated, inbred and narcissistic world of food celebrity can figs cause a commotion. Perhaps that's a measure of our postlapsarian age, for Adam and Eve deployed figs--or, at least their leaves--out of modesty. Now they're the nukes of cross-continental epicurean chest thumping. New York chef David Chang, as is well known, humorously accused San Francisco chefs of a lack of imagination last year, calling to the witness stand the bay foodie favorite figs on a plate as he did so. One of his SF book talks was canceled. California foodies got defensive. SF was pissed. We're sophisticated, the threatened left-coast cooks proclaimed. It ain't New York, but we're as haute as any of ya'll cuisiniers, they demanded. Chang scoffed, and flexed his religious studies degree with a theologically rigorous retort. SF chefs stood by their plated figs--and the dish became a veritable thumb of the nose across the continent.

Fig confit is a classic French condiment that predates these petty squabbles, while also responding to them: it features the lush flavors and essential qualities of the fig (thereby bending toward the California minimalist crowd) and shows how they can be enhanced with a bit of preparation (perhaps satisfying East Coasters like Chang who stress technique). It's simple really: soak the figs in some booze, use the booze to deglaze an encrusted sauté pan, thicken, and then throw the woozy figs in the game at the last minute. Since the fig season is short, I'm using the dried variety for this one. Fig confit is versatile, so slather it on pork tenderloin (as I am tonight), beef or lamb without reserve, or apology, no matter with which (if either/any) coast your allegiances reside.

Start by searing the tournedos of pork (or whatever meat you're dealin' with) in a sauté or fry pan. The tournedos should be about 3 or so inches thick since you want to sear 'em well in the pan while still leaving the mid-section raw. That way you'll have moist meat throughout. Also, you need that delicious browned encrustation on the bottom of the pan as a base for the confit, so be sure to give the pork a good sear on both sides (n.b., if you cut the meat too thin, serious searing like this could dry it out). I usually throw in some carrots with the pork right around the time I turn the tournedos and start searing the second side. Once the pork searage is complete, put them in some sort of an oven-able dish (fry pan, roasting pan, whatever) along with the carrots. Throw the whole shebang into an oven you've preheated to around 350.

Now for the confit, patterned on Anthony Bourdain's recipe. Traditionally, confitting was a method of preservation. So, this one starts with a nod to that inheritance: soak a few dried figs in about a cup of Port for two hours (keeping it an all-French affair, Bourndain calls for Banyuls, not Port). This is a sort of vestigial step held over from the pre-refrigeration epoch, but it still makes sense as a reciprocal, symbiotic flavor exchange. The Port will get figified, and the figs will get Portified. Win-win, nah?

Now, once the pork is in the oven and you're left with a beautifully encrusted pan, start by sautéing shallots over the brown crusties. Add a bit more oil if necessary. After the shallots turn blonde-brown, indicating some caramelization, add a half a handful of flour. Stir the flour, shallots and oil around on low heat. You're making a roux, big'n.

After a minute or so of the roux roast, deglaze with the figified Port, but be sure to reserve the figs for the end. Allow the port to reduce by half. Then add stock (chicken or veal is traditional). In the video, I cheat embarrassingly with white wine. No, it ain't the same thing. No, it's not something I felt good about. What can I say: I did it. It was bad. Be better than me. Balsamic is optional at this point. Allow this second round of liquid to reduce by half, scratching the bottom of the pan with a wooden spoon to agitate those encrustations.

By now your sauce should be thick, dark and tasty. Taste and adjust the seasoning. Finish with chopped mint and the portified figs. Throw in a knob of butter and use a whisk to stir it all up.

If you've timed it right, the pork and carrots should be perfect by now. The pork, after all, only needs between five and ten minutes in the oven. You can also throw some of the pan juices from the pork into the sauce. I served it up with balsamic mashed potatoes.

Now you know: the warmth of a mother food canon will protect you from the stupidity of celebrity "debates."

So I wanted to innovate. You know, church up something I've always adored. And I wanted to learn how to make cheap meat taste good. And I wanted to get in on the hanger steak fad. High hopes all around.

I figured I'd do some tacos with hanger steak, using the marinade in David Chang's Momofuku. Makes sense: carne asada is usually made from flank steak, and hanger is flank's anatomical neighbor down there on the belly of the beast. So it should have worked out great. And if only I had a snazzy retrofitted RV in which to cruise about, it would have been the sort of thing I could sell to hipsters for 12.99 at lunch. Thing is, I couldn't find any hanger steak in my postal code. I know it's out there. Lurking. Waiting. Yearning for my touch. Maybe I should make a posting under Craigslist's "Missed Connections" tab.

Basically, this preparation is a carne asada taco made from scratch. On that score, I've failed in my wondrous ambition to do anything original. Perhaps, though, I can comfort myself with the knowledge that this post has a higher calling than "innovation," that almost impossible goal for any epicure. I'll call it a preservationist labor of love. In light of Taco Bell's new "Cantina Tacos" (touted as "based upon authentic-style Mexican street tacos"), I figure it's only a matter of time before this titan of cheap gourmet fades to a distant cultural memory. Think that's a cheap shot, no more than an overprivileged, condescending fooidie's expression of self-importance? Well, consider this: SF Chronicle online readers were recently asked about their favorite bay area french fry. Turns out that more food wonks gave top billing to McDonald's french fries than to any other variety available in this supposedly sophisticated market. So maybe fast food does shape expectations about classic cuisine. I can only hope that this blog post will be displayed in the Smithsonian, next to Julia Child's kitchen, as a small reminder of the once-legible line between noble tacos and whatever the hell "authentic-style" means.

The meat is cheap and easy, but it takes a minute (actually a day). As I say, I'm sure hanger steak would be wondrous, but I'm using flank, a traditional carne asada cut. This is tough meat, so you must marinate it. I admire David Chang's recipe for hanger steak marinade for its simplicity and flavor, so here are the measurements he provides in Momofuku (for those who measure). As usual, ratios, not measurements, are the vital thing here:

2 cups apple juice (read the label and make sure you're buying apple juice with precisely one ingredient)

½ cup soy sauce

½ yellow onion, thinly sliced (I subbed two or three chopped shallots)

5-6 garlic cloves, thinly sliced

1 teaspoon sesame oil

1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Four 8-oz. hanger or flank steaks (serves 2-4).

Mix up the above, seal in a freezer bag and place in a larger ceramic or plastic container to avoid leakage. Refrigerate for 24 hours.

To finish off the beef, all you need to do is grill it to rare. Flank and hanger steaks toughen up quite a bit if you cook them much past medium-rare. Cutting against the grain of the beef will help tenderize the final product, so identify the direction of the sinewy grains and cut either at a 45 degree angle against them, or go crazy and cut directly against them by moving the knife through the meat perpendicular to the grain.

Now for the pico de gallo. Combine chopped tomato (at least one roma-sized tom per person, but if you're like me, probably more than that), chopped shallot, chopped cilantro (lots!), lime juice, and a pinch of salt. Mix, taste, adjust.

Fresh tortillas really make this meal, so I highly recommend doing them if you have the time. Start with sifted flour (a few cups), add a pinch or two of baking powder, some knobs of butter, a little olive or peanut oil (optional) and mix with your hands. You want to have enough fat (oil/butter) in the mix to produce a flaky texture. Many recipes call for shortening, but I think it's gross, so I avoided it and used other fats. Once you have some good flakiness, add water a bit at a time and continue mixing the dough until it is firm and malleable enough to mold into a ball. Cover the ball of dough with plastic wrap and/or a towel and let rest for 20-30 minutes at room temperature.

Then, carve off a golf ball sized sliver and roll it out into a tortilla on a floured workspace. Thin is good. Then fry lightly (or "toast in oil") either on a cast iron skillet (ideal) or a nonstick pan until they get some color.

Assembly should be obvious. One embellishment that falls outside of the usual tacovian ambit is bean sprouts. They add a light crunch and some color, so I think they make the cut. Anyway, put your tacos together, pour a Tecate (one of the most underrated beers out there) and count your blessings.

Gotta say, I've never been a huge fried chicken fan. Sure, I've had some of the good stuff, but it brings back too many stinky and unglamorous memories to do it myself. Back before the bright lights, fat paychecks and adoring fans of the blogosphere, I worked the ole' Sunday brunch for a couple of years. One of my duties was the fried chicken station: introduce the chicken to the egg wash, bludgeon in seasoned flour, fry mercilessly, and repeat. I felt like I was a "culinary undertaker": the chicken had so much potential, so many possibilities, so much to look forward to, but it always wound up leathery, fatty as all hell, thick crusted and nasty. Oh, yes, and then there's the matter of sifting pounds of seasoned flour at a time to avoid clumps, and then at the end of the shift, filtering several gallons of 350 'er so degree fryer grease. So, to say the least, I've long been a bit put off by this southern standard.

Until now! David Chang has a wonderfully ingenious method that minimizes the time the chicken spends swimming around the fryer, and still produces maximum flavor and texture. And there's no breading to worry about. Instead, this preparation features a three-step process, and it's simple. I use bone-in thighs, though breasts, wings and drumsticks would also work well.

Start by brining the chicken for at least an hour in a mix of water, salt and sugar (Chang's recipe calls for 4 cups lukewarm water, half cup of sugar and another half cup of kosher salt for a brine suitable for an entire 3 to 3.5 pound chicken). Be sure to seal up the chicken and brine in a lidded container or freezer bag, and then let it marinate in the 'fridge.

Then yank out the pieces of chicken, remove them from the brine, and steam 'em. The idea is to cook the chicken the whole way in the steamer, which (depending on how much you're dealing with) can take in the neighborhood of 30 minutes. Then stick the steamed chicken back in the 'fridge. Chang says to leave the pieces of chicken in the 'fridge for two hours or overnight, and then to let 'em rest at room temperature for 30 minutes before frying. But a Baron is a man of many obligations and anxieties, so I shortened the prep time to about 20 minutes in the 'fridge and 10 minutes on the counter. And the produce of my abbreviated labors was still amazing.

Now you're ready to fry the chicken. I use peanut oil in a medium saucepan. Heat the oil to 375 degrees (F), just enough to allow the chicken to be mostly submerged. I also use wooden chopsticks to handle the chicken in and around the fryer, which minimizes splatter. Be sure to pat down the chicken with a paper towel before frying, or you're ganna have hot grease all over the place.

The pieces of chicken are already cooked, so just let 'em fry until deep brown. That took about four or so minutes per piece for me. Be sure not to crowd the fryer. It shouldn't take too much time at all since they've already got the brown sugar in 'em, and as that caramelizes in the fryer, they'll crisp up and go brown. Yank 'em out when beautifully browned and let 'em hang out on some paper towels. Serve hot. If you have to do these in batches, which is likely, you might use a warm oven to keep the early finishers warm while those bringin' up the rear finish off at the spa.

Chang suggests a vinaigrette for the chicken, and it is a must. This stuff is serious--and simple. For a cup (which is more than you'll need for two people), his recipe asks you to combine the following in a bowl large enough to vigorously whisk the mix (sotto voce: you don't really have to measure, but the ratios are important, so I'll include the volumes listed in Chang's recipe here. I've modified a few elements, but the spirit remains the same. Like most things in life, this one's to taste):

2 tablespoons finely chopped garlic
2 tablespoons peeled and finely chopped ginger
¼ teaspoon of finely chopped chilies (I used Serrano)
¼ cup rice wine or white wine vinegar
¼ cup soy sauce
2 tablespoons neutral oil (Chang suggests grapeseed, though I used peanut)
¼ teaspoon sesame oil
1½ tablespoons sugar
Some freshly ground pepper.

Whisk the above together. Taste, adjust and repeat until perfect. Smile.

To serve, toss the fried chicken with the vinaigrette in a bowl and serve warm. If you're a conscientious host, you'll throw a little of the vinaigrette out for dipping. And there you have it, fried therapy for a fryer-weary Baron. Man, do I hate fryers. But this one mitigates the usual humiliations of the industrial, or even at home, fryer, and delivers nobly.

Béarnaise sauce could be considered a "daughter" to the "mother sauce" Hollandaise. Both feature egg yolks and butter, but béarnaise is considered the derivative daughter sauce because it is adulterated with vinegar, tarragon and shallot, thereby breaking from motherly tradition and becoming a renegade condiment that is actually interesting. Apropos of lexicon, however, I must mention that, for me, béarnaise has a more vixenly quality that seems to fall outside of the placid and inert kinship appellations "mother" and "daughter." I think of it as more of a mistress to the solid but stolid, "well-respected-sauce-about-town" hollandaise. Sure, slather some H-sauce on the 'ole Eggs Benedict, and you've got a $12.99 brunch entrée, but you'll find that béarnaise packs its bags with so much more intrigue, danger and allure that you'll have a hard time maintaining interest in brunch fare. So don't tell your cardiologist, or your brunch buddies (with whom you are, most likely, getting fleeced, if you're the type to go out to brunch); this siren of a sauce likes you all to herself.

Béarnaise usually shows up on grilled beef, so tonight, I'm doing a strip steak on the grill, which I serve with lightly fried potatoes and a salad of fresh greens. Steak grillery is pretty easy. Throw it on, turn it, yank it off. Like a record. I prefer to treat steak almost like sashimi and just carve off small, nearly raw slivers from the mother lode. La méthode de Baron, shall we say?

For the sauce, start by sautéing shallots and tarragon in olive oil in a medium saucepan. As the shallots get some color and turn translucent, season with salt and pepper and add enough white wine vinegar to coat the bottom of the sauce pan. Reduce until there is just enough vinegar in the pan to form a small puddle when the pan is tilted sideways; to put it another way, reduce until there's about a tablespoon or so vinegar left and the shallots have gotten a good soaking. Kill the heat and allow the pan to cool. This is crucial, since you don't want to wind up with scrambled eggs. Again, this ain't brunch.

As the saucepan cools, beat two egg yolks in a bowl with a little bit of water (two or three tablespoons, I'd guess). Beat with a whisk until foamy on top, and then pour the egg into the cool saucepan.

On the lowest possible heat, beat the eggs, shallots etc. on the stove constantly until the eggs thicken. Do not, under any circumstances, stop beating them before they thicken, or they will scramble and you'll be at brunch. Which would suck. On my stove, it took about a minute for the eggs to thicken, although yours may be different. If you have trouble moderating the temperature, or you have an intense (if unstated) fear of failure, hedge your bet and remove the saucepan from the heat from time to time. A few moments on, then a few moments off. All the while whisking, of course. This is a sort of sissy way to do it, but it works.

Once the eggs come together and thicken, taste the sauce. I usually add more tarragon at this point, and re-season with salt and pepper. If you want more sharp acidity than the vinegar has already given you, then you can squeeze some citrus juice into the sauce now, too. All seasoned up? Now throw in a few hunks of butter. If the butter is at room temp to begin with, then it'll melt in easier. At any rate, set the heat to the lowest setting and stir the butter in until it's melted. Taste. If you want more body, go for more butter. Serve immediately.

As for the potatoes: traditionally, a steak like this cries out for steak frites. Well, turns out they're kind of a hassle. I want to do them for the blog sometime, but for tonight, we have a low-oil, low-stink alternative. Cube up some potato and blanch them in ice water. Then slice the cubes thinly so you have little tiles of potato. Then fry those up, being careful not to crowd them, in about an inch of oil. Yank 'em when golden brown, salt 'em, and y'er ready to rock.

This weekend, as Americans kick their already red-lining nationalism into high gear and laud the grandeur of war by blowin' stuff up, some Bud Light Lime-woozy, smoke-choked minds will hungrily turn to a more genteel arena of combustibility: the grill. But not everyone will be blarin' the J.P. Sousa and cruising around, Burt Reynolds-style, with the T-tops off in an '88 Pontiac Firebird on the fourth. As regional royalty, you see, I can't help but view American independence and the whole democracy thing as sort of a mixed bag: progress some say, sure, but it well nigh put we barons outta business. Some people don't even believe that I am low-level nobility, and no one on my block responds to my requests for land tax. Philistines, you all! But I've got a skewered counterpunch with which to serve the Home of the Brazen its comeuppance, au style du Baron. Today, my feeble resistance comes in the form of Japanese food for the Fourth of July weekend. Such blasphemy (the cuisine of a former enemy as communion in the holiest cathedral of jingoism!) probably puts me on some CIA watchlist.

Yakitori is one of the most common--and delectable--staples of Japanese pub (or izakaya) food. This idea is just to yaki (grill) your tori (chicken) on a skewer. Tonight, we're knocking out a typical variety called negima, which is just chucks of chicken grilled on a skewer with scallions. That's pretty straightforward: just be sure to soak the skewers in water for 20 or so minutes so they don't get blow'd up on the grill, and don't crowd the chicken onto the skewers. Honor the homesteaders by giving those dogs space to roam.

Gotta say, though: Chicken skewers are great 'n all, but they're really just a vehicle for the sauce. And this sauce is versatile, since you could use the ingredient line-up as a marinade for the chicken, or thicken it up with roux (as I do) and slather it on the chicken before service. Or you could Double Down and do both--if you like livin' on the edge.

Ideally, tradition tells us, you've got some mirin (sweetened rice wine mix-mash) or sake around to use as a base. I don't because I can't stand the flavor of either. So, I start with white wine, add some soy sauce, hoisin, grated ginger, wasabi and/or siracha. Whisk those together and season with salt and pepper. You can also add chopped green onions if you're looking for something to do with the pieces you didn't put on the skewers. At this point, you've got what could be a marinade.

To sauce 'er up, throw the above mash into a medium saucepan and bring to a simmer/low boil. Let the flavors come together for a moment, and then taste. Too sharp? Add more sweet stuff like hoisin or brown sugar. Too bland? Re-season with salt and pepper, as well as some more ginger and wasabi. Pretty damn delicious? Go blow something up to celebrate.

Thicken it up with a roux (equal parts oil and flour), and let the sauce overcome the chicken skewers like an illegal occupying force deployed by a cowboy-president backed by a knuckle-dragging electorate and a spineless congress. Your sauce should not be the edible equivalent of a non-binding resolution.

I served this up with a light, crispy summer salad. Combine sliced jicama, cucumber and carrot in a bowl and sprinkle with salt and brown sugar (this is the quick pickling method of David Chang). I'd probably go two parts salt to one part sugar. Refrigerate for 10 'er so minutes. Eat.

See? It tastes good to not be a provincial nationalist!

Well, the pork buns were a delight, but what to do with the leftover pork belly? Fortunately, David Chang has another simple recipe in his Momofuku cookbook that features the fatty slabs---this time, fresh off the grill. It's called ssäm, and it's sort of like a Korean burrito. Sort of. Not really, I guess. But I'm told its origins are Korean, and insofar as it's wrapped, it could just as well have burrito-ian cousins. I guess what's most important is that the idea is to wrap fresh lettuce around grilled pork, along with perhaps some veggies, then slather with pickled mustard seed sauce and devour.

The lettuce is easy: Chang recommends bibb, but I couldn't find any so I went with butter. Basically, you just want something leafy and supple, which I guess rules out spiny varieties like romaine. The pork's easy, too (we cooked it before in our previous post on Steamed Pork Buns). Once you've roasted it, cut it into half-inch wide strips about two inches long, and throw it on a hot grill until it starts to color a bit. Then yank it off and serve. So, we're already most of the way there.

The pickled mustard seed sauce is a bit more involved, but still manageable, especially given the simplicity of the rest of the dish. I cut Chang's recipe for a cup yield in half, so I'll give those measurements. If you want more or less that the half-cup I'm settin' you up for, do the math.

Start by pickling yellow mustard seeds. Combine one half-cup of yellow mustard seeds in a medium saucepan with ¾ cup water, ¾ cup white wine or rice wine vinegar, ¼ cup sugar and salt to taste. Bring it up to a very gentle simmer on low or medium-low heat and allow the seeds to pickle, plump and cook while you stir frequently. This could take as long as 45 minutes, but be sure to taste regularly so that you have a sense of where the seeds are. I went for a soft outer shell on the seeds and some crunch in the interior. If the pan starts to dry out, just add more water.

Once you've got your pickled mustard seeds, things get easier. For about a half-cup of sauce, Chang's recipe would call for 3 tablespoons of the seeds, 1½ tablespoons Dijon mustard, a half-tablespoon of Chinese hot mustard (which I replaced with siracha), 1½ tablespoons mayonnaise, some sliced scallions and chopped quick-pickled cucumbers (which we did for the pork buns), as well as salt to taste. Just mix 'er on up and you're ready to roll.

Now, a word about the sauce. These aren't flavors I'm altogether familiar with (by which I mean I've never pickled mustard seeds before), so I probably should have followed the recipe more closely. But I hate store-bought mayo, so I made my own, which meant that I had more yield on the mayo than I needed for the sauce. Not wanting to waste too much, I threw a bit of extra mayo in. This made my sauce thinner than what Chang's recipe would give you. Still delicious, mind you, but more of a sauce than a paste. So if you want to play around with the consistency by adding more or less mayo, I think this ingredient line-up can work in different ways. Obviously, the less mayo you add, the chunkier and more paste-like your sauce will be; but a thinner (but of course not too thin), sauce-lookin' sauce worked great, too, and still hit a lot of robust notes. I also like some heat in the sauce, so I think that wasabi or siracha go well in this one. As for the photo: I ran out of pork belly and substituted pork tenderloin, although make no mistake, pork belly is way better in ssäm. Oh, and I forgot to mention it in the video, but the quick-pickled cucumbers and carrots that I used on the pork buns go great on this, too.

Anyway, once you've got the pork, lettuce and mustard seed sauce together, the assembly should be obvious. I love this dish for its simplicity as much as I do for its complexity: the grilled pork goes great with the spicy, smooth and tangy mustard-seed sauce, and the dynamic textures of the lettuce, grilled pork and seed studded sauce put ssäm light-years ahead of many of the burritos I've come across.