LetsLunch: Celebrating Asian American/Pacific Islander Heritage Month

Happy LetsLunch, everyone!! I am so excited about this month's theme: dishes to celebrate Asian American/Pacific Islander Heritage Month.

I've written many times about how I often feel trapped between the many cultures I belong to. I've never felt like I could truly identify with being Korean or truly Asian American, since I was not really raised in either culture.

But food has always been a way for me to feel a strong tie with my Korean roots. Would it have been nice to have learned how to make Korean bulgogi from my weihalmonie before she passed away? Of course. But, the beauty of the Internet is that I had Maangchi, right in my own home, acting as my own personal ajumma to teach me my favorite Korean foods, like bulgogi.

So without further ado, here's my quick and dirty guide to making Korean barbecue at home.

Much of Korean barbecue can be made up as you go. Everyone's mom and grandma makes it differently, as far as I can tell. This recipe relies on finely minced Asian pear and brown sugar for the sweetness. You can also use honey, mashed kiwi or even cola. This marinade, for about 1 lb of meat, is 3/4 cup soy sauce, 1/3 cup rice vinegar, 1/4 cup sesame oil, scant 1/4 cup canola oil, 3 TBS brown sugar, half an Asian pear (finely minced), all whisked together.

Korean barbecue has gotten quite popular, especially in cities with big Korean populations like Washington, D.C. (where I live) and New York City. Within a 20-30 minute drive from my house, there are literally dozens of kogijibs, or meat houses, where barbecue is the specialty. (Pro tip: if you're looking for an outstanding Korean restaurant, look for one that operates in the native Korean style of specializing in one dish or type of food.) I got an early start on this week's dish. The onion slices, mashed garlic and ginger, and some salt and pepper went into a bag with the meat a day or two before I was ready to cook. I added the marinade the morning I was going to grill.

Someday, I aspire to own one of those fabulous one-off butane grills and a tilted Korean barbecue grill like the ones they use at restaurants (or like this one). For now, I have a fabulous electric wok that I absolutely love, and it creates a really nice sear on meat like this. (if you're feeling curious about the meat, this happens to be skirt steak, but you can use almost any thinly-sliced, tender cut of beef you like. I've made it with everything from eye round to filet mignon)

While the meat was resting, I also grilled up the marinated onion slices with some lovely enoki mushrooms. Always buy twice as money enoki mushrooms as you think you'll need--they really shrink down when you cook them!

The benefit of making Korean barbecue at home is you can yank the meat off the grill while it's still medium rare. I'm not a huge fan of how long they usually leave the meat on your grill at Korean barbecue restaurants because it allows the meat to cook completely through. Snip the meat into bite sized pieces with scissors.

No Korean meal would be complete without panchan (two of these are storebought, one is homemade), so load your plate up and enjoy! At a restaurant, you might be given a basket of lettuce leaves (and bitter perilla leaves if you're feeling extra traditional), some sliced garlic, soybean paste and rice to make cute little lettuce wraps.

You can also sub little sheets of gim (this is actually nori, but shhh they're so similar) to wrap around your rice, kimchi and meat! I am fairly certain there is a Korean name for eating your food this way, but I've never managed to pick it up (as it's not something you would see on a menu in a restaurant).

So there you have it, the illustrated guide to Korean barbecue in the home. If you want to make kalbi instead of bulgogi, get short ribs instead of steak. You can get the kind that is pulled off the bone, or the kind sliced sideways, with the bone slivers still in tact.
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LetsLunch is a monthly meeting of food bloggers from around the world. We share themed blog posts via Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest. We would love to have you join us, just tweet using the hashtag #LetsLunch to introduce yourself!

Check back to see what the others are posting on Friday for Asian American/Pacific Islander Heritage Month:
* Lucy's Chinese Chicken Salad on A Cook and Her Books
* Lisa's Sesame, Eggplant and Noodle Salad on Monday Morning Cooking Club
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April Let'sLunch: Spring Break Foods

Happy April's LetsLunch, everyone!

I volunteered to act as our host this month and suggested the theme: "Spring Break Foods." I've been super excited the past few weeks, planning for my "adult spring break" trip to Disney World.

I didn't know I was going to make pizza as my Spring Break Food. But, as luck would have it, a friend gifted a set of Mickey pizza plates to me last week and I knew my LetsLunch was set.

There's nothing fancy about this pizza. I used a garlic herb crust from Trader Joe's, some whole milk mozzarella, and a simple homemade tomato sauce.

To make the sauce: heat 1 can of whole tomatoes, mostly drained, plus half an onion, and a pinch of salt for about 15 minutes. Remove about half of the tomatoes and most of the onion, and pulse with a hand blender, then break the remaining tomatoes gently with a spoon. Stir the blended tomatoes back into the broken ones. Add a splash of red wine and continue cooking at least 5 more minutes. If the sauce seems too thin, stir in some tomato paste, 1 TBS at a time. 

I pre-baked the crust for about 8 minutes with a little cornmeal underneath to add some texture. Then sauce and cheese (less of both than might think), and back in the oven at 475 for about 15 minutes.

And, this is the part where you get to see how ugly my pizza turned out. Which is fine, if you ask me. In the competition between food being delicious and beautiful, I'll take delicious. The cheese aggressively sliding off my slice just means it was a) abundant and b) incredibly melty.

So, I hope the rest of my LetsLunchers are finding ways to get away or find some R&R at home this spring. A week from today I'll be heading to Disney World (again!) to visit a friend of mine who works at Animal Kingdom.

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Let's Lunch is a monthly virtual lunch date made up of foodies and bloggers from all over. Want to join us? Send us a tweet to introduce yourself using the hashtag #LetsLunch.

Check out what everyone else made this month:

Jill's Basil-Infused Cotillion Cocktail at Eating My Words
Lucy's Pepperoni Pizza Swirl Muffins at A Cook and Her Books
Lisa's Beetroot and Salmon with Horseradish at Monday Morning Cooking Club
Linda's Instant Carrot Cake at Free Range Cookies
Karen's Sourdough Sandwich Bread at Geofooding
Linda's Guide to Eating in Cancun at Spicebox Travels
Ann Marie's Mofongo with Ground Beef at Sandwich Surprise

#LetsLunch: Super Bowl Wings, Two Ways

So far in the new year, I'm continuing to be sadly neglectful to this little blog. But, I was very excited to work on these tasty wings for Super Bowl Sunday last week! 

Our Lets Lunch group picked foods to eat while watching sports on tv this month -- just in time for last week's Super Bowl (or, the Stupid Bowl as I often refer to it).

I love Super Bowl wings. Ever year, whether I'm with a big group, a small group, or if, like this year, it's just me and my husband, I like to go all out for chicken wings for the Super Bowl. 

Some years I make buffalo wings, other year's I've made sticky teriyaki wings. This year I went with Korean Fried Chicken again and also pulled together a curry-spiced wing recipe for Lets Lunch. 

I borrowed some techniques for battering and frying chicken from this Serious Eats Food Lab post. I thought it worked well for the curry wings, but ultimately may not have been worth it for the Korean wings. 

To start, I gave each pound of wings a couple hours of soaking in a buttermilk bath spiced with salt, pepper and coarsely chopped garlic (about 8 cloves for each batch). The curry spiced wings also got a tablespoon of sweet curry powder. After a few hours, I drained the wings from the buttermilk.

This is the step I borrowed from Serious Eats: coating the wings in a mix of corn starch, baking soda and salt. I think for the curry wings it added a nice crispness to the end result. It made less of an impact on the Korean wings, because of the gochuchang sauce that gets added at the end.

The other aspect I borrowed from Serious Eats was in the batter, though, instead of following the recommendation for using half water and half vodka, I took a chance with a beer batter. This was absolutely the right choice (I used about 3/4 of a Blue Moon) and it was delicious. After prepping and frying the Korean wings, I mixed a tablespoon of Moroccan spice rub, a tablespoon of sweet curry powder, and a teaspoon of cayenne pepper into the batter for the second half.



It took about a bottle and a half of mixed peanut and canola oils to fill my wok to acceptable frying levels. In the past, I have sometimes steamed the wings first to ensure that they cook completely. This year, I went with a slightly longer frying time (around 10-12 minutes) to get a nicely browned outside on the wings.


In the end, the Korean wings get tossed with a sweet and spicy gochuchang sauce and topped with toasted sesame seeds and green onions. The curry wings get an aggressive salting as soon as they're removed from the wok.

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Lets Lunch is a digital monthly meet up of food bloggers and writers.

Check out other posts from around the web here or on the hashtag #LetsLunch

Cheryl's Mongolian Buuz at A Tiger in the Kitchen

Annabelle's Idiazabal and Black Pepper Gougeres at Glass of Fancy

Grace's Taiwanese Beef Sliders at HapaMama

Jill's Spiced Pecans at Eating My Words

Karen's Sporting Eats at GeoFooding

Linda's Trio of Salsas from Oaxaca at Spicebox Travels

Lisa's Sausage Rolls at Monday Morning Cooking Club

Lucy's Crabcakes with Chipotle Mayo and Citrus Salad at A Cook and Her Books

Rashda's Finger Lickin’ Good Curried Ribs at Hot Curries & Cold Beer

January #LetsLunch: Trying Something New

This month, our #LetsLunch host challenged us to try something new in the new year. Many of us will be posting recipes we've tried for the first time, or something we've always wanted to tackle.

My parents came to visit over the summer and we went to a Washington Nationals baseball game. My dad got super excited when he saw the concessions stand was offering up gluten-free soft pretzels.

I decided to try and recreate those pretzels for my dad when I was home over Christmas last month. He seemed to really enjoy them, and mentioned how much he used to love soft pretzels when he was younger.

I adapted this recipe from Serious Eats, using the homemade blend of gluten-free flours my dad uses for baking. The original author calls for a blend of white rice flour, brown rice flour and tapioca starch. I used a blend of white rice, tapioca starch and potato starch and thought they tasted delicious.

What I liked about these pretzels was how simple they were to make. The biggest pain with them is the hour and a half of dead time while you're waiting for the dough to proof. The other downside is that you get a fairly small yield. The recipe calls for 12 pretzels, but they would be pretty tiny. I went with splitting the dough into 8 pieces.

When you shape the pretzels, I found it's better to make them a bit fatter and smaller, like the near one in this photo. You can see a skinnier, larger pretzel in the background there. Most of those were difficult to remove from the soda bath because the pretzels broke off into pieces (see below).

The other place I diverged from the original Serious Eats recipe is in brushing the finished pretzels with a little melted margarine. It gives them that extra layer of flavor you'll get in the ballpark -- a little buttery, a little sweet, a little oily.

You can see my experimentations with the sizes and widths of the pretzels here. The second batch I made were much more uniform in shape. Also, for a gluten-free snack, they were very delicious! I was tempted to eat some of these but decided it was best to save them for my dear-old-dad.

Overall, I would say this was one of my more successful attempts at gluten-free baking for dad. In the past treats have had that characteristically gritty texture or generally haven't held up well (the cinnamon rolls debacle of Christmas 2011 comes to mind). I think for one, the use of xantham gum in this recipe is a huge help in binding the dough and giving it some stretch. Secondly, I think my dad really has perfected the homemade blend of flours and starches. I had much better luck with his blend than using a store brand "gluten-free baking mix"for the cinnamon rolls last year.

RECIPE: Gluten-Free Pretzels -- adapted from seriouseats.com
3 3/4 cups homemade gluten-free flour blend (combine white rice flour, tapioca starch and potato starch)
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon xanthan gum
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup warm water plus 2 tablespoons
1 packet (2 1/4 teaspoons) active dry yeast
1 large egg
3 tablespoons light corn syrup
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1/4 cup baking soda
2 tablespoons sugar
4 tablespoons melted margarine

* In a small bowl, combine 1 cup warm water and yeast and stir until foamy. Allow to stand for three minutes while you whisk together flours, salt, xantham gum and baking powder. Add the egg, corn syrup, vegetable oil and yeast mixture to the flours and mix until a dough forms.

* Knead dough gently for five minutes until it becomes smooth. You may need to put a little white rice flour down to knead the dough (the kitchen I was working in had granite countertops and I didn't need it). Transfer to an oiled bowl, cover and allow to rise in a warm place for 90 minutes or more.

* Bring 4 quarts of water to a boil and preheat the oven to 425. While the water is coming to a boil, split the dough into eight pieces and cover with plastic wrap or a damp towel while you work. Take each ball one at a time, roll into a long skinny log, about 14 inches long. Twist into a heart-shape, then press the ends to the bottom. You may need to rewet the bottom edges and press firmly in order make them stick during the boiling process. (Serious Eats has a good photo slideshow of the shaping process)

* Add baking soda and sugar to the water bath. Boil pretzels one at a time until they float. If a pretzel looks like it is beginning to break, remove it immediately. Place boiled pretzels on a parchment-lined baking sheet and sprinkle with kosher or pretzel salt.

* Bake for about 25 minutes, rotating your baking sheets about halfway. Brush the hot pretzels with the melted margarine immediately and serve while hot. You can also freeze the cooled pretzels and reheat in a toaster over later.

Yield: 8 pretzels

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LetsLunch is a monthly meetup of food bloggers from around the globe. We post themed recipes on the first Friday of each month and share via Twitter and Facebook.

Want to join us? Send us a tweet using the hashtag #letslunch and say hello. I'm @emmacarew

Take a look at what everyone else has posted for this month's new recipes for the new year:

#LetsLunch December: Celebrations from around the world

So, after a long hiatus from this blog (and LetsLunch), I'm making my triumphant return.

What have been up to in the meantime? In September, I agreed to start developing a series of recipes for a friend's blog, Being Geek Chic. In October, I took a new job (actually, it's pretty much the same as my old job) at The Chronicle of Philanthropy. In addition to working on our signature surveys (collecting and analyzing data about the nonprofit world), I've been growing my skills at creating interactive graphics and contributing social media reporting. In November, Jake and I drove up to Penn State to watch my brother play a hockey series (it's his senior year), and I also spent Thanksgiving with my extended family in New Jersey.

And, I almost didn't make it to today's edition of LetsLunch.

My contribution to today's celebration lunch may surprise you: latkes. We're not Jewish, but my college roommate was, so I spent a good amount of time in college at the campus Hillel. Some of what we did there was relating to the culture, some relating to the religion. But what stuck with me was the food.

In the spirit of Hannukah, I decided to make some latkes last night. I had attempted latkes previously, first, in our college apartment, just winging it (they were too wet, too gummy and took way too long to hold our interest), then a couple of years ago using a recipe from Smitten Kitchen. They were easy enough to make, because you shredded the potatoes using the food processor, but I didn't love them. These were essentially hashbrowns.

So, last night, I went back to box grating. I kept the recipe small, only using three Russet potatoes. In exchange for the time it took to grate the potatoes, I skipped the steps that usually go into trying to keep the potatoes from oxidizing (cold water, ice, etc). I alternated between using a coarse grate and a fine grate. After using my flour sack towels to squeeze, squeeze, squeeze as much moisture from the potatoes as I could, I also added about 2/3 of a grated onion, an egg and about 2/3 cup of flour. If I had really planned ahead, I probably would have used matzoh meal.

What I liked about these is that they were crisp on the outside, and nice and potato-y on the inside. Three potatoes yielded about 20 latkes. They're best served immediately, while they're still hot (salt them immediately), but I had a few for breakfast this morning, and they heated up nicely in the toaster oven. 

You can see in the fun .gif file above, I fried mine in a shallow, nonstick pan in batches of about three or four. I used an ice cream scoop that was about 3/4 full for each latke. If you can, dip the spatula in the oil before pressing down on the scoop of potato batter to flatten, it helps with the sticking. 

I'm pretty basic with my latkes, so I serve them with sour cream and a little coarse salt.
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Check out the rest of the Let's Lunch posts today by following the hashtag #letslunch on Twitter or clicking through below. If you would like to join us next month, send us a tweet introducing yourself! I'm @emmacarew on Twitter.

Cheers to this month's host, Rashda! See all of the fabulous blog posts on her pinboard.

Annabelle's Pecan Slices at Glass of Fancy

Linda's Sorrel Cocktail at Spicebox Travels

Lucy's Ham and Cheddar Cheese Scones at A Cook and Her Books

Grace's Persimmon Salad at Hapa Mama

Joe's Orange Honey Cake

Korean snacks: deconstructed tteok-bogi and kimchi pancakes

Since moving to DC, most of my cooking has fallen into two camps: recipe testing for the newsletters I'm continuing to write for The Cooking Club and lots of Korean food. 

Jake made some baked tofu recently with a sweet and spicy gochuchang-based sauce. We used the leftover to make a tteok fondue of sorts. I had these extra long rice cakes in the freezer and I made them the Momofuku way for dipping in the red sauce. 

The rice cakes went into a very hot cast iron grill pan with vegetable oil until they started smoking. Once they were browned on all sides, I brushed them with sesame oil and took them off the heat. I served them with grilled odeng (the fish cake) and dipped them in the warmed gochuchang sauce.

The gochuchang sauce includes brown sugar, grated ginger, minced garlic, soy sauce, sesame oil and gochuchang. It's a bit stronger and sweeter in flavor, I think, that your typical tteokbogi sauce.

There comes a point in every jar of kimchi when you take a sniff and there's only one word to describe your result: funky. It's that point where the sharp, pungent taste of kimchi has ripened a bit over the edge. It's not that you can't eat the kimchi any more, it's just not as delicious as when you first break open a brand new jar.

Thankfully, there are plenty of options for extra ripe, funky kimchi. One option, great for the fall and winter months is to make a steaming, bubbling pot of kimchi chiggae. Better for the summer months, I'm a fan of kimchi pajeon (above).

I also had some homemade Korean radish pickles in the fridge that had also gotten a little funky, so I chopped it up with the kimchi and mixed them into the pancakes. It's always hard to get these crispy enough (as soon as you put them on a plate, the steam trapped between the hot pancake and the plate condenses), but they are fabulous dipped in soy sauce and sprinkled with toasted sesame seeds.

Korean snacks have definitely been one of the highlights of moving back to DC this summer. Enjoy!

#LetsLunch September: three grandmothers' recipes

This month for Let's Lunch, our group decided to post recipes from our grandmothers to honor our friend Pat, whose book The Asian Grandmothers Cookbook came out in paperback recently.

What I like about this book is that it's a great primer to Asian cuisine. Pat includes a sections on techniques and common ingredients in addition to the great recipes. 

I felt like a kindred spirit to Pat reading the introduction of the book, growing up in a country away from her heritage. Like Pat, I also learned to connect with my culture through food, she via her mother, me via a mishmash of culture camps, dance moms and later, blogs and YouTube videos.

I grew up far away from all of my grandmothers. My paternal grandmother died when I was very young, and we lived halfway across the country from my maternal grandmother. I only met my Korean grandmother a handful of times before she passed away last year. 

So, needless to say, I'm not exactly a wealth of family recipes. My favorite recipe from my Nan is her Irish Soda bread, which I posted last year for Cheryl's Family Recipe Day. 

I've made this bread time and time again since first receiving the recipe for it in college. The oven temp is boldly written at the top of my recipe book page because the first time I made it, I misread the emailed instructions and baked my bread at 450 for an hour. Not quite "burnt" but definitely tougher than expected. 

I didn't spend much time around my dad's mother -- in fact, I'm not sure I can even remember having a meal she cooked. But I know that she used to cook Polish food, a nod to a small slice of her heritage. 

Two years ago, I jumped at the chance to head north a day early to help my aunt make stuffed cabbage rolls and pierogies for Easter. I had never gotten the chance to do this with my Grandma, but this was the best substitute I could have had. 

(These are the actual cabbage rolls we made for Easter two years ago, and the pierogies on the right are ones I made last summer. Recipe is here.)

And, being an adoptee who has searched for and found my biological family, I'm in the strange position of having had three grandmothers during my life.

My wei-halmonie, my birth mother's mother, first came into my life in 2005 when I went on my first trip to Korea. She made dinner for my mom and I when we went to visit the family's home in Inchon. The dish I hoped to someday learn to make is captured in my chopsticks above. I'm not entirely certain sure what they are called, but they're sort of a small, Korean vegetable/fish pancake thing. They're about the size of a silver dollar and awesomely delicious.

Next time I'm in Korea, hopefully someone in my family can teach me how to make them, since my halmonie passed away last spring. I'm also hoping to learn the name of these yummy nibbles.

So, cheers to our friend Pat and do check out her awesome book, The Asian Grandmothers Cookbook.

Check out the rest of the Let's Lunch posts today by following the hashtag #letslunch on Twitter or clicking through below. If you would like to join us next month, send us a tweet introducing yourself! I'm @emmacarew on Twitter.
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Karen's Ode to Nana on Geofooding

Linda's Taiwanese Oyster Omelet on Spicebox Travels

Lisa's Polish Potato Cake on Monday Morning Cooking Club

Cheryl's Gambling Rice on A Tiger in the Kitchen

Jill's Stuffed Cabbage on Eating My Words

Charissa's Gluten-Free Depression-Era Cake at Zest Bakery

Pumpkin Pasties

Harry Potter is one of my favorite books ever. I've read them each about 100 times and have the British version of all seven audio books, which I've also listened to about 100 times each.

So when my recipe testing last week turned up an extra half can of pumpkin, I knew exactly how I wanted to use it up: Pumpkin Pasties.

Last year, Serious Eats did a "Cook the Book" series from an unofficial Harry Potter cookbook that included a recipe for Pumpkin Pasties, one of the treats Harry buys on the train during his first journey to Hogwarts.

The basic gist of the recipe is to make a homemade pie crust and fill it with pumpkin-y goodness. Mine were a little smaller than the Serious Eats ones, I think, so I baked them at 400 degrees for 20 minutes.

I mixed my half-can (the big size) of pumpkin with some cinnamon streusel topping that I also had leftover from recipe testing last week. I used a butter pie crust recipe from Michael Ruhlman's Twenty, brushed with an egg wash and sprinkled with sugar. The result was a nice, not-too-sweet filling with a flaky pastry.

If you don't have leftover cinnamon streusel, I would guess mix about 1/3 cup brown sugar, 1/4 cup rolled oats, 1/4 cup diced pecans, 2-3 tsp cinnamon, 1 tsp nutmeg and stir into the pumpkin.

Mango Salsa and Chipotle Black Bean Tostadas

I made a big batch of mango salsa last week but have been a little slow eating it up, so I picked up a sleeve of tostadas to put the salsa to good use. I layered seasoned black beans, 4-cheese blend and a squeeze of lime with the salsa to make these for a quick dinner.

Start by warming the tostadas for about 5 minutes in the toaster oven at 375 F.

Spoon seasoned black beans over the tostada shell. I cooked 2 rinsed cans of black beans (to attempt to lower the sodium) with 1 small can of chipotle peppers in adobo for about 20 minutes, then used an immersion blender on the beans.

Sprinkle with cheese and a squeeze of lime juice. I only had 4-cheese blend but crumbled queso fresco would have been nice too.  

Finally, pile on the mango salsa and enjoy! 

RECIPE (makes about 6 cups of salsa)

Mango Salsa

4  to 6 ripe mangoes (should be very soft to the touch)

1 can petite diced tomatoes

1/2 medium red onion

1 bunch cilantro

1 jalapeno 

2 limes (more if they're on the small side)

pinch of cayenne pepper

salt to taste

Dice the mango and squeeze the lime juice over. Set aside while you chop the remaining ingredients. 

Rinse the tomatoes well and add to the mango. 

Dice the red onion and jalapeno (remove seeds if you like it less spicy), then finely chop the cilantro. 

Toss with the mango and tomatoes and season with cayenne and salt to taste. 

The flavors in this salsa are better the next day. Keep refrigerated up to one week. 

#LetsLunch: miso-glazed grilled veggies and polenta

Happy July edition of #LetsLunch!!

This month's theme for my LetsLunch group is grilled foods. I was a little bummed when we first chose this, because in our move we had to leave our giant grill behind during the move last month.

But, as my LetsLunch friends pointed out on Twitter, it just meant that much more of a creative challenge.

So, I broke out my cast iron grill pan and went to work in my new smallish, DC kitchen.

First, I made some polenta and chilled it for a few hours. I grilled the pieces on both sides, using my other cast iron as a weight.

I whisked together a quick garlicky honey-miso glaze and grilled spears of eggplant and zucchini squash in batches, soaking them in the glaze before throwing them in the pan.

Use the left over glaze to brush the polenta and sprinkle the veggies with toasted sesame seeds just before serving.

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LetsLunch is a monthly "meeting" of food bloggers from around the world. We select a theme and each blog our lunch on the first Friday of every month. Interested in joining? Just search #letslunch on Twitter and send us a tweet introducing yourself!

Recipes:
Grilled Polenta Wedges
(Adapted from Mark Bittman's The Minimalist)
2 cups coarse ground cornmeal
2 cups water (or milk for creamier polenta), plus 1-2 cups more
Optional: 2 bouillon cubes
4 TBS olive oil or butter
1/2 tsp red chile flakes
salt to taste

Melt butter (if using) in a medium saucepan, otherwise bring the water and olive oil to a boil.

Lower heat slightly and add the bouillon (if using), a generous pinch of salt and the chile flakes, then pour in the cornmeal while whisking continuously.

Continue stirring the polenta, adding more water a few tablespoons at a time as the mixture gets too thick. Cook 15-20 minutes until the polenta tastes cooked.

Pour into a cake pan or pie plate and chill for a couple hours. Slice into 8 wedges.

Brush a cast iron grill pan with oil and heat over medium high heat. Grill polenta wedges 2-4 at a time, using a second pan to weigh them down. After five to seven minutes, flip the polenta and grill the other side.

Keep warm until ready to serve.


Honey Miso Glaze
2 cloves garlic, minced
3 TBS miso paste
1/3 cup soy sauce
2-3 TBS honey
1 tsp red chili flakes
up to 1 TBS water (to take the salty edge off, add slowly to taste)

Whisk ingredients together, brush on zucchini and eggplant spears before and after grilling.

Brush onto polenta just before serving.

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