Serious Eats |
- Make This Now: Peach and Ginger Crisp Pie
- Boston, MA: We Eat Everything from Mei Mei Street Kitchen Food Truck
- First Look: American Brasserie Fare at Sea & Smoke, San Diego
- Ask The Food Lab: Should I Brine My Corn?
- Open Thread: Best Rainy Day Eats in New York?
- Pin & Win with Kraft Cheese
- Ask a Sommelier: The Worst Food and Wine Combinations
- Portland: Come for the Cheeseburger, Stay for the Poutine at Sideshow Eatery
- First Look: Flavored Sugars and Mini Doughnuts at Doughnuttery, NYC
- A Sandwich a Day: Seared Whitefish on Pumpernickel at State and Lake
- Gadgets: Chef'n SleekStor Measuring Beakers
- Corn Week: Grilled Corn with Spicy Korean Miso Sauce
- Gloriously Cheesy Plantain Pupusas from Red Hook Ball Fields' El Olomega
- CheeseburgerOs, Campbell's New Cheeseburger-Flavored SpaghettiOs
- The Ramen Rater's Top 10 Instant Noodle Bowls of 2013
| Make This Now: Peach and Ginger Crisp Pie Posted: 24 Jul 2013 09:40 AM PDT [Photograph: Lauren Weisenthal] If peach pie and peach crisp met and had a baby, this crumble-topped pie might be it. What really makes this dessert worth making now is the twist of candied ginger. It's finely diced and added to the oat streusel, giving a zing to every bite. The result is a pie that's got sweet, baked peaches and a buttery, crumbly, bright and flavorful ginger oat topping all in one bite. We might go even further and serve it with a scoop of this bold ginger green tea ice cream. Get the Recipe!       |
| Boston, MA: We Eat Everything from Mei Mei Street Kitchen Food Truck Posted: 24 Jul 2013 02:02 PM PDT  VIEW SLIDESHOW: Boston, MA: We Eat Everything from Mei Mei Street Kitchen Food Truck [Photographs: Liz Bomze] If Boston were a desert island where I was to be stranded and had to pick one food truck to eat from indefinitely, Mei Mei would be it. Sibling owners Andy, Margaret (who goes by Mei, which is also the word for "little sister" in Mandarin), and Irene Li put out some incredibly imaginative and well-executed food, almost all of which has some roots in the Chinese cuisine they grew up cooking and eating with their family in Brookline. The menu, which changes daily—and is often tweaked between lunch and dinner shifts—features about half a dozen items, including their signature "Double Awesome" scallion pancake-poached egg sandwich. Even better, they're good people. Many of their ingredients (including all of their meat) come from local farms. Much of their serveware is made from compostable material. They're involved with Boston-based organizations like The Food Project that work to provide access to healthy food for local low-income communities. And they're just plain nice. When it came to picking a dish to feature from their truck, I couldn't decide. The Double Awesome is, indeed, awesome, but so are the braised beef dumplings with housemade pickles and the "magical" kale salad—my vote for the sleeper hit of the truck. The upshot: I ate—and photographed—everything they had one night. Click through the slideshow, get hungry, and then check their Twitter feed for their current location. Oh, and the best news of all: They're opening a brick-and-mortar location in Audubon Circle, hopefully by the end of the summer. Mei Mei Street FoodLocations vary (check their web page or Twitter); meimeiboston.com About the author: Liz Bomze lives in Brookline, MA, and works as the Senior Features Editor for Cook's Illustrated Magazine. In her free time, she freelances regularly for the Boston Globe, Boston Magazine, the Improper Bostonian, and Martha's Vineyard Magazine; practices bread-baking and canning; takes photos; reads; and watches baseball. Top 5 foods: fresh noodles, gravlax, sour cherry pie, burrata, ma po tofu.    |
| First Look: American Brasserie Fare at Sea & Smoke, San Diego Posted: 25 Jul 2013 07:40 AM PDT  VIEW SLIDESHOW: First Look: American Brasserie Fare at Sea & Smoke, San Diego [Photographs: Erin Jackson] With the opening of Sea & Smoke in Del Mar's Flower Hill shopping center, Executive Chef and owner Matt Gordon isn't just expanding his restaurant empire, he's also making a concerted effort to create a different experience than the one diners have at his two other restaurants, Urban Solace in North Park and Moonlight Lounge in Encinitas. Main patio at Sea & Smoke The 7,000 square-foot space designed by Bells & Whistles features several distinct dining areas, including a formal dining room, outdoor patios, and bar that's separated from the main dining area by a few steps. Gordon intends the American-style brassiere to act as an all-day living/dining room for locals—somewhere they can come for breakfast on the patio, a business meeting at the bar, drinks after work, or late-night bites. Executive Chef/Owner Matt Gordon Gordon and his team (including chef de cuisine Billy Geiger, sous chefs Michael Welch and Andrew Reyes, and pastry chef Jeff Bonilla) wanted to challenge themselves on the culinary front. Instead of replicating proven winners from the other restaurants like cinnamon rolls or cheddar and chive biscuits, Gordon says creating an entirely new menu was a way for the kitchen to think creatively. To that end, even though the centerpiece of the kitchen is a wood and gas-fired oven, no pizzas will emerge from it. "We're not doing anything remotely related to pizza—even though it would be easy to and we could probably do it well, it's too obvious," says Gordon. Instead, there's a selection of wood-fired meats and seafood, meant to be paired with sides like sweet corn skillet bread, charred green beans, and sweet and sour heirloom carrots. Sweet corn skillet bread ($6) "We always try to balance sweet, savory, salty, crunchy, soft, hot, and cold. So with that in mind, each dish can stand on its own, and there are very few flavors that won't intermingle," explains Gordon. "All of [the sides] are balanced dishes in and of themselves." The only set entrees on the menu are the vegetarian plates. Gordon says he wanted to be as creative as possible with these dishes, instead of taking "the easy route" by suggesting that vegetarians build a meal out of side dishes (even though only one of the 10 options contains meat). "Vegetarians are an under-served market in San Diego...our goal is to have some really thought-out dishes that aren't just grilled vegetables with rice," Gordon says. Check out the slideshow for a closer look at some of the dishes at Sea & Smoke >> Sea & Smoke2690 Via De La Valle, No. D210, Del Mar, CA 92014 (map); 858-925-8212; seaandsmoke.comBut wait, there's more! Follow Serious Eats on Facebook, Twitter and Pintrest! About the author: Erin Jackson is a food writer and photographer who is obsessed with discovering the best eats in San Diego. You can find all of her discoveries on her San Diego food blog EJeats.com. On Twitter, she's @ErinJax    |
| Ask The Food Lab: Should I Brine My Corn? Posted: 25 Jul 2013 11:43 AM PDT It's time for another round of The Food Lab. Got a suggestion for an upcoming topic? Email Kenji here, and he'll do his best to answer your queries in a future post. Become a fan of The Food Lab on Facebook or follow it on Twitter for play-by-plays on future kitchen tests and recipe experiments. "Should I Brine My Corn?"
—Sent by Captain Foodtastic First let's define exactly what we're talking about here. Soaking corn in water while still in the husk is old news. It's a good way to help your corn steam if you plan on throwing it directly on the grill (or onto a bed of hot coal), especially if your corn is slightly past its prime and its husk has started to dry. What we're talking about here, however, is something different. The suggestion is to brine shucked ears of corn in a salt or salt and sugar brine just like you would a pork chop or chicken breast to keep it moist while cooking. The technique first appeared around 2009, and has been making its rounds of the internet ever since. At first glance, the process makes sense. If soaking meat in brine makes it plumper and juicier after cooking, why wouldn't the same work for corn? Most sources seem to recommend a half cup each of kosher salt and sugar for a gallon of liquid, brining for anywhere from 30 minutes to 8 hours. For my first test, I tried following these instructions exactly, starting with one ear of corn at four hours, and comparing it to corn that was completely un-treated. Before cooking it, I noticed something strange with the brined corn: Its kernels had begun to deflate, just like little balloons. Cooking up the two ears side-by-side showed that the brined corn was significantly less juicy, with the kernels a little mealier and denser. Was it just a fluke? How could so many websites and magazines claim to have found positive results from brining when my quick test showed the opposite results? I decided to take a more rigorous approach to this and work systematically. Over the next couple of weeks, I tried brining ears of corn in brines of varying strengths (starting with plain water and going up to a fully saturated solution), and various lengths of time from 30 minutes to one day. I repeated each test three times using corn bought from different sources each time to ensure that all my bases were covered. Time after time I came up with the exact same results: The longer you brine and the stronger you brine, the dryer and tougher your corn becomes. And the difference is not just minor. It's dramatic. Take a look at the corn below, each brined for three hours in brines of varying strength. The ear on the left, a control which was soaked in just plain water, showed no differences from completely un-soaked corn, while as the brine got progressively stronger, the corn dried our more and more. Why does this happen? Let's first do a quick recap of the basic mechanics of brining meat so that we can understand how the process applies to corn. When you submerge a piece of meat—say, a turkey breast—in a bath of sufficiently salted water, at first, some liquid will get drawn out of that meat through the process of osmosis, the tendency for water to travel across a semi-permeable membrane (in this case the turkey's cell walls) from an area of low solute concentrate (inside turkey cells) to an area of high solute concentrate (the saltwater bath). Subsequently, the salty brine will begin to dissolve proteins in the turkeys muscles (mostly myosin), which allows that structure to loosen up and reabsorb the liquid, taking some of the salt with it. Through this process, the salty liquid will slowly work its way into the turkey. Moreover, the turkey retains these properties even after cooking, resulting in a plumper, juicier breast. The graph above represents the weight gain and loss of turkey soaked in water, brine, and left au natural* *Please ignore the small hump in the "plain" line, it is an artifact of a poor curve algorithm choice With an ear of corn, we still get the first half of that process—the loss of water due to osmosis—but we don't get a subsequent re-absorption due to loosening of muscle fibers because, well, corn doesn't have muscles. So are there any actual positive results from brining your corn? Not really. The best you could argue is that the corn becomes more deeply seasoned, as some of the salty-sweet water works its way in between the kernels. But this is nothing that can't be compensated for by seasoning the corn itself right after it comes off the grill (or better yet, seasoning the butter that you're going to melt all over it). The real question that persists is: if we can prove over and over that this method produces inferior corn, then how the heck did it get printed in the first place, and why does it continue to be perpetuated? What we're really seeing here, folks, is a food myth in the making and it works the same way all food myths work. The myth is born and passed on from one in a position of authority to its disciples. Then, through a nefarious pattern of deviation in human judgment known as belief bias, people allow their beliefs of reality to cloud their perception of actual reality. My strong suspicion is that the original source of the corn-brining technique* did not sufficiently test their theory, or were perhaps inclined to ignore some testing results in favor of producing a story with a good hook, and that in all subsequent mentions of the results, nobody actually tasted the brined versus un-brined corn in a blind, scientifically valid taste test. *Who I won't name, but should be easy to figure out with a bit of reading and googling Let's nip this food myth-in-the-making in the bud and save ourselves some trouble in the process, shall we? For the best direct, out-of-the-husk grilled corn, skip the brine: use fresh corn, throw it over hot coals, and turn it until its done. Got a question for The Food Lab?Email your questions to AskTheFoodLab@seriouseats.com, and please include your Serious Eats user name in your email. All questions will be read, though unfortunately not all can be answered. About the author: J. Kenji Lopez-Alt is the Chief Creative Officer of Serious Eats where he likes to explore the science of home cooking in his weekly column The Food Lab. You can follow him at @thefoodlab on Twitter, or at The Food Lab on Facebook. Get the Recipe!    |
| Open Thread: Best Rainy Day Eats in New York? Posted: 25 Jul 2013 10:36 AM PDT Wonton noodle soup from Noodle Village. [Photograph: Robyn Lee] It's a surprise cool, rainy day in New York, and we're thinking about wonton soup. From Noodle Village to be precise—the first hot soup we've wanted in months. But on a cloudy, gloomy day like today, we'll take it. Some years ago we put together a list of ten meals perfect for rainy days, but it's time for an update, and we want to ask you: where do you go for a rainy day meal in New York? Hot chocolate? Chicken pot pie? Or are you getting some wonton soup of your own? Tell us in the comments.    |
| Posted: 25 Jul 2013 11:07 AM PDT This is an advertorial paid for by an advertiser; the contents of this post were provided by our advertising partner. Read more about our advertising policy here. Check out Kraft Cheese's Recipe for Summer Pinterest sweeps on their Pinterest page, where you'll find recipes, grill tips and inspiration for all your summer cook-out needs! Pin your favorites and you could win a $350 gift card and a Weber Grill® to bring your dream barbecue to life. Here's how it works: The final week's theme is "Block Party" so create your board of inspiration now and submit your URL here for a chance to win!    |
| Ask a Sommelier: The Worst Food and Wine Combinations Posted: 25 Jul 2013 12:05 PM PDT  VIEW SLIDESHOW: Ask a Sommelier: The Worst Food and Wine Combinations A sommelier's job includes trying to find the best wines to match with your meal, evaluating how a wine will complement the flavors of each ingredient, the preparation, the sauce... But what about the combos that just don't work? We asked a group of sommeliers from around the country about the worst food and wine pairings—from oysters and tannic Cabernet to dry Champagne and wedding cake—and why they're so terrible together. Which combinations just make them cringe? Check out the slideshow for a few wine-and-food matches that you should definitely avoid. So many drinks, so little time. Join us on Twitter and Facebook to find out what's good. About the Author: Maggie Hoffman is the editor of Serious Eats: Drinks. She lives in San Francisco. You can follow her on Twitter @maggiejane.    |
| Portland: Come for the Cheeseburger, Stay for the Poutine at Sideshow Eatery Posted: 25 Jul 2013 08:27 AM PDT [Photographs: Erin Jackson] Sideshow EaterySW 9th Ave & SW Washington St., Portland OR 97205 (map); 503-208-6681; sideshoweatery.com For lunch in downtown Portland, there's no better place to go than the food carts. Throughout the city center throngs of local, independent purveyors of tasty eats are arranged in pods, selling everything from big, juicy bratwurst to heaping containers of pad thai. With such an international array of items offered, it may seem counter intuitive to get a burger, but the grass-fed, fast food-style burger at Sideshow Eatery makes a worthy argument for keeping things simple. Besides, there's also poutine. In keeping with the "test the baseline burger before going bananas" principles of AHT reviewing, I went with the most basic burger ($5): a griddled 1/4-pound patty with the standard roughage and a gob of housemade burger sauce, which tasted like a spicy take on Thousand Island dressing. The thin grass-fed beef patty, sourced exclusively from Cascade Natural Beef, was nicely seasoned and lightly browned, with a fattier, less grassy flavor than most grass-fed beef I've tasted. If you need a little something extra, you can always add bacon, pork belly, or a second patty. For a classic cheeseburger, it's great. All elements are executed well, and that little pop of spice from the sauce is a welcome addition. There's also the Fancy Burger ($9.50), a more gluttonous option features a 1/3-pound patty cooked in duck fat and topped with arugula, white cheddar, Gruyère, and white truffle mayo. But going with the most standard burger presentation felt like the smart option since I also ordered what felt like a pound of poutine ($5). Behold, the glory that is fries doused with gravy and topped with a pile of cheese curds! Sideshow does this iconic French Canadian dish up a bit differently. Namely, the gravy is a vegetable stock thickened with a roux, and the curds are cheddar. Owner Jason Myers explained that he's tried to find a source for fresh curds (and has even attempted making them himself), both to no avail. Even though the curds aren't fresh enough to squeak, they stand up to the warm gravy, holding their shape and maintaining a chewy texture. There's also a ton of them. My best estimates put the fry-to-cheese ratio at about 60/40. Conclusion: Sideshow's poutine may not be by-the-book traditional, but it was more than good enough for me to holster my index finger, which I'm normally tempted to wag in the face of all poutine imitators. Translation: poutine good, Canadian reviewer approves. If by some miracle you've saved room for dessert, there are beignets and soft serve. I can't comment on either since I was reserving any excess stomach real estate for poutine. I suggest you do the same. About the author: Erin Jackson is a food writer and photographer who is obsessed with discovering the best eats in San Diego. You can find all of her discoveries on her food blog EJeats.com. On Twitter, she's @ErinJax Love hamburgers? Then you'll Like AHT on Facebook! And go follow us on Twitter and Pinterest while you're at it!    |
| First Look: Flavored Sugars and Mini Doughnuts at Doughnuttery, NYC Posted: 25 Jul 2013 10:11 AM PDT  VIEW SLIDESHOW: First Look: Flavored Sugars and Mini Doughnuts at Doughnuttery, NYC [Photographs: Lauren Rothman unless otherwise noted] Note: First Looks give previews of new dishes, drinks, and menus we're curious about. Since they are arranged photo shoots and interviews with restaurants, we do not make critical evaluations or recommendations. The bakery business is in Evan Feldman's blood, or at least in the blood of the family he married into. For years, his wife's family ran a bakery, and some of Feldman's fondest memories are of holidays spent pitching in to help manage the busy season, when Feldman (a former finance guy), his wife (a therapist), his brother-in-law (a consultant) and his father-in-law (a lawyer) would take some time off from their day jobs to push up their sleeves and help Feldman's mother-in-law with all aspects of the bakery, from boxing and selling to chatting with customers. "It was a real departure for me," Feldman told me recently as we chatted at a table in front of his new business, Doughnuttery, which opened in Chelsea Market in February. "It was so much fun. And it made me think, what kind of food would I want to sell?" "I always wanted to have some kind of food business," Feldman continued. At the "tail end of the cupcake craze," he said he settled on doughnuts as another sweet, portable comfort food, but one that hadn't been explored in New York as much as he thought it could be. "I saw a hole in the doughnut market," he said. "I thought there was an opportunity there for someone to do something fun with doughnuts in this city." Doughnuttery owner Evan Feldman shakes up some sugared mini doughnuts. Last November, Feldman took the plunge when an opportunity to move into a stall at foodie haven and popular tourist attraction Chelsea Market opened up to him. The catch? It was a tiny space. In response, Feldman altered his original idea from large filled doughnuts and settled on Doughnuttery's menu of mini, 1.5 inch doughnuts. Since the fritters were too small to be filled, Feldman thought about what else he could do to flavor the classic cake doughnuts, which are fried right in front of customers in a Donut Robot similar to the one at 606 R&D in Brooklyn. The Doughnuttery's Donut Robot can churn out up to 1200 mini doughnuts per hour. Photo: Niko Triantafillou He settled on flavored sugars as an ideal method for distinguishing the doughnuts. "Since the doughnuts are coming out of the machine fresh and hot, they really absorb the sugars well," Feldman said. But these aren't your ordinary sugars—at least, for the most part they're not. The Doughnuttery's menu offers four "Classic" sugars—cinnamon sugar, powdered sugar, vanilla glaze, and rainbow sprinkles. Feldman says those flavors are the most popular with customers because they remind them of their childhood. "People will say to us, 'Oh, I ate this at the fair as a kid,' or 'Wow, my grandmother used to make doughnuts just like that,'" he said. But more adventurous doughnut-eaters have plenty to choose from in the "Specialty Sugars" part of the menu, with flavors such as "Cacaoboy" (cacao nibs, chocolate cookies and mesquite); "Purple Pig" (maple, bacon and purple potatoes); and "Paris Time" (lavender, pistachio and vanilla). In May, Doughnuttery moved into a slightly larger space into the market, and the increase in real estate has got Feldman thinking about ways to expand the menu. "I'd like to start offering egg creams," he said. "And we definitely have a doughnut dog in the works." Click through the slideshow to see more of Doughnuttery's flavored sugared donuts. DoughnutteryThe Chelsea Market, 425 West 15th Street, New York NY 10011 (map) About the author: Lauren Rothman is a former Serious Eats intern, a journalism student, and an obsessive chronicler of all things culinary. Try the original recipes on her blog, For the Love of Food, and follow her on Twitter @Lochina186.    |
| A Sandwich a Day: Seared Whitefish on Pumpernickel at State and Lake Posted: 23 Jul 2013 09:41 AM PDT [Photograph: Amber Gibson] I'd never given much thought to State and Lake at theWit Hotel in the Loop. So when I stopped in with a friend for lunch, I was pleasantly surprised by the menu. A cobb salad gets an upgrade with Sheboygan sausage, and if you're looking for starters, the trio of jars (sweet & sour beets, chunky chickpea with marmalade and chili, and fig and pepper bacon jam) to spread on grilled polenta bread is a must. The decor is almost like a mancave, with dark wood paneling and roomy leather booths. They even have 60-inch flatscreen TVs that rise like magic from behind the banquettes to show any major sports games. However, even for two ladies, this is a great meeting spot for lunch in the Loop. They have a variety of options and their sandwiches all sounded stellar. The seared whitefish ($13) was a great choice, and larger than I anticipated. The fish is flaky and juicy, and the spices used in searing lend great flavor to the skin. A generous helping of arugula along with smoked tomato aioli round out the sandwich nicely. I especially enjoyed the pumpernickel oat roll since it wasn't too salty as pumpernickel sometimes can be, and was fluffy enough that you could squish it down to eat the rather large sandwich by hand. Each sandwich comes with your choice of sides, from fries to healthier options of dressed greens or melon and berries. The greens, with radishes and pea tendrils, were a delicious light side to accompany the hearty whitefish sandwich. State and Lake201 N State St Chicago, IL 60601 (map)    |
| Gadgets: Chef'n SleekStor Measuring Beakers Posted: 24 Jul 2013 01:58 PM PDT Are we done re-designing liquid measuring cups yet? Apparently not. It should be simple. The container needs to hold liquid, and you need to be able to read its measurements. But there's so much more you can add to a measuring cup that makes it so more useful. Or silly. Or annoying. One of my favorite measuring cups is near the end of its days because the numbers and lines are starting to wear off. Its replacement already has a chip on the rim, which is spectacularly annoying. Another cup that is functionally just fine has a handle that makes it storage-unfriendly because it won't nest nicely. I guess I'm still on a quest for the perfect set of measuring cups. I doubt there is such a thing. The SleekStor Measuring Beakers ($30 for a set of three) from Chef'n can brag that they're innovative. The three-piece set—4-cup, 2-cup, and 1-cup—nests for storage, and each cup has its own lid so you can store things in them. They're heat resistant to 650°F, so dishwashers and microwaves are no problem. Instead of the usual spout, they've got a "pinch" feature so you kind of squeeze the beaker to make a spout for pouring. It works as well as any other spout, with the slight advantage that you can pinch more for finer drizzling, if that's something you need. The thing I like best about these, though, is that all the measurements are in one place, with lines that make it easy to see that 3 cups is 24 ounces, which is pretty close to 700ml. With some of my measuring cups, metric measures are on the opposite side from US measures so you can't see both at once. It's handy to be able to see both for recipes that list both, just to make sure someone's math was correct. The downside to the set compared to other cups is the lack of a handle, but because they're tall rather than wide, handles aren't entirely necessary. I can easily hold the 4-cup measure in one hand. So far, I like these, with the only question being the durability. How long will it take before the numbers begin to fade? Will that pinch feature eventually cause the cups to crack? Considering the durability of some other silicone kitchen tools I own that I've mercilessly abused, these should have a reasonably long life. These aren't so innovative that I'd suggest throwing out your existing cups to buy them. But if you need an extra set, I'd suggest looking at these. The lids, in particular, make them handy for foods you might measure, mix, and store. About the author: Resident yeast whisperer and bread baking columnist Donna Currie also has a serious gadget habit. When her father-in-law heard about this column, he upgraded the nickname for her kitchen from "gadget world" to "gadget heaven." You can find her on her blog, Cookistry or follow her on Twitter at @dbcurrie. Disclaimer: Testing samples were provided to Serious Eats.    |
| Corn Week: Grilled Corn with Spicy Korean Miso Sauce Posted: 25 Jul 2013 07:50 AM PDT [Photographs: J. Kenji Lopez-Alt] Welcome to Serious Eats' Corn Week 2013. All week we'll be featuring recipes, techniques, and how-tos about how to get the most out of the sweet summer corn that should soon be flooding our farmers' markets, including a new grilled corn topping idea each day. Are you the kind of person who likes dipping your french fries in your milk shake, ordering Big Mac sauce on your McDouble, mashing up croissants and doughnuts into newer, more expensive pastries? These just may be the corn for you. The idea started out when I spotted a little container of leftover Korean Fried Chicken I'd made earlier just as a few ears of corn were coming off the grill. Would a corn and Korean fried chicken mashup actually work? Not really. The overt sweetness of brown sugar and the tang of rice vinegar in the sauce work well for chicken but can overemphasize the corn's natural sweetness. But it was a good starting point. Through a series of tweaking and streamlining, I arrived at a much better blend for corn-coating. The base is still gochujang, a thick, sticky paste made with chilies, glutinous rice, and fermented soy beans. It's lightly sweet, a touch spicy, and packed with umami flavor. To cut back a bit on the sweetness and heat, I cut it with a bit of miso paste. As both pastes are made with similar processes and boast similar savory flavors, the two blend nicely. To get it to coat my corn evenly I tried cutting it both with water and with oil, but a touch of mayo—just enough to loosen up the mixture—was the way to go. Lemon juice was a much more complementary acid for corn than rice vinegar in this case. A handful of finely sliced scallions and cilantro, and my mashup was complete. Get the RecipeGrilled Corn with Spicy Korean Miso Sauce More Grilled Corn Recipes!
About the author: J. Kenji Lopez-Alt is the Chief Creative Officer of Serious Eats where he likes to explore the science of home cooking in his weekly column The Food Lab. You can follow him at @thefoodlab on Twitter, or at The Food Lab on Facebook. Get the Recipe!    |
| Gloriously Cheesy Plantain Pupusas from Red Hook Ball Fields' El Olomega Posted: 25 Jul 2013 08:46 AM PDT [Photograph: Max Falkowitz] I never visit the Red Hook Ball Fields without stopping at El Olomega, the silver truck with the blue banner menu specializing in all manner of pupusas—Salvadoran griddle cakes stuffed with everything from pork or beans to chilies and cheese. The line is conspicuously longer than the nearby Solber Pupusas, and it moves slower, because the regulars know that these are some of the finest pupusas in town. Not that Solber's bad, mind you—they're awesome—but El Olomega's reach that extra height of griddle-toasted crispness on their edges with a custard-like creaminess inside. Street food doesn't get better than this. At least I thought it didn't, until a friend on a recent outing came back to our picnic table with about 10 steaming-hot pupusas, and one that didn't look like the others, which he ordered out of curiosity. It's what you see above: a sweet plantain pupusa stuffed with stretchy, salty cheese, for about the same price as the corn-based cakes—and it's magical. The thick cake gets a serious char on the crust, but its thick, creamy innards (about double the thickness of a standard pupusa, with more filling) are like the softest, sweetest mashed sweet potatoes you've ever had. The cakes fall apart easily for lack of any structural cohesion—no filler, just sweet plantain glory. The quality of these plantains should come as no surprise to anyone who's ordered a side of their super-caramelized maduros with crema, but the pupusas' heft and fillings make them worth an order of their own. Inside you'll find a small lake of stretchy, salty, chewy white cheese that perfectly offsets the plantains' sweetness. Add touches of funky, oregano-spiked cabbage curtido, silky crema, and mild tomato sauce, and you find yourself with a pancake of surprising nuance. They aren't a replacement for the truck's first-rate chili, cheese, and pork corn pupusas, but since there's no such thing as too many pupusas at the Ball Fields, make room for both. A note about the Red Hook Ball Fields: As mentioned in the article above, the term on the vendors' six-year permit for their space expires this summer. This permit is expensive, as it runs year-round, even though the vendors are only there during the summer and early fall. Due to dwindling crowds, the vendors are questioning whether they should go through the trouble of renewing their permit. So what can we do to keep their business going? Visit early and often, and eat our weight in pupusas. About the author: Max Falkowitz is the editor of Serious Eats: New York. You can follow him on Twitter at @maxfalkowitz.    |
| CheeseburgerOs, Campbell's New Cheeseburger-Flavored SpaghettiOs Posted: 24 Jul 2013 01:27 PM PDT [Photographs: Robyn Lee] Campbell's has taken yet another step in the world of SpaghettiOs. They've already mastered spaghetti you can eat with a spoon with their original SpaghettiOs. They've even tackled adding meat in the mix with SpaghettiOs Meatballs and SpaghettiOs Sliced Franks. But this time, they're going even further with CheeseburgerOs, the first new SpaghettiOs flavor in over 20 years. Bowl of CheeseburgerOs. We tasted CheeseburgerOs against SpaghettiOs Meatballs. The first major difference is the size of the meat nubs. CheeseburgerOs has tiny bits of meat, while SpaghettiOs Meatballs has rounded half-inch balls of meat. The other visual difference is the color of the sauce. CheeseburgerOs has this almost neon orange color and SpaghettiOs Meatballs had a more traditional red sauce color. Now for the taste. I'm not quite sure why they're called CheeseburgerOs because they don't taste anything like any cheeseburger I've ever had. Instead, the tomato-based sauce has a sweet, not especially meaty or cheesy flavor. The meat bits are pretty small and unimpressionable. The pasta O's have that mushy, overcooked consistency that I presume all SpaghettiOs get from can-life. The SpaghettiOs Meatballs has a thinner sauce and a blander flavor than the CheeseburgerOs, but it also has more meat. The meatball nubs have a peppery taste with a slightly chewy texture. CheeseburgerOs far from satisfies a burger craving, but it might satisfy that need for a quick meal in a can on a lazy afternoon (or, in Kenji's experience, a quick meal when you're hungover and lying on the couch in your underwear at 3 p.m.). As for me, I don't think I'll be opening another can of CheeseburgerOs or any other SpaghettiOs variety anytime soon. I'd rather a straight up cheeseburger or a straight up bowl of spaghetti, not a combination of the two. About the author: Amalia Safran is a recent graduate from Lehigh University where she majored in journalism. She is currently a Serious Eats intern. Love hamburgers? Then you'll Like AHT on Facebook! And go follow us on Twitter and Pinterest while you're at it!    |
| The Ramen Rater's Top 10 Instant Noodle Bowls of 2013 Posted: 24 Jul 2013 03:23 PM PDT Instant noodles come in many different packages: pillow packs (like Nissin Top Ramen), cups (like Maruchan Instant Lunch) and bowls (like Nongshim Bowl Noodle). How do they differ? The cups and bowls use a method known as steeping; rather than cooking stovetop in boiling water, water is brought to a boil and then added to the container. Noodle bowls can deliver a lot of character and travel easily for a quick work lunch. They're truly effortless, if not literally 'instant'—even the blocks of noodles found in cups and bowls are designed to allow the water to touch all surfaces, hydrating without any stirring required. Earlier in the year, I shared my top ten list of pillow pack instant ramen. Now for the other side of the coin; after sampling over 1,100 instant noodle varities over the years, I've narrowed down my top ten instant noodle bowls of 2013. Check 'em out below! #10 JFC Japanese Style Noodle Soup Curry Flavour (South Korea) Fresh udon noodles and a curry sauce that's thick and luxuriant. If you're in need of a curry fix, look no further! Every time I see it on a store shelf, I get this kind of warm, fuzzy feeling. #9 Ottogi Spaghetti Ramen (South Korea) A fun bowl filled with thick South Korean ramyun noodles, a sweet powder, and a sweet-and-slightly-spicy spaghetti sauce. A nice twist on a classic. #8 Little Cook Spicy Beef Flavor (Thailand) This one features firm noodles, a spicy broth with beef and curry notes and fake meat that's surprisingly good. The myriad different components collide in an irresistible way. #7 Nongshim Chapagetti Roasted Chajang Noodle (United States) Although Nongshim originated in South Korea, they've since moved their base of operation to Southern California. Chajang is a traditional Chinese black bean sauce that's wonderful with noodles; this particular variety is the first I've ever actually seen in a bowl. What's more, it's easy to make and has an excellent, hearty flavor to compliment the great noodles. #6 Paldo Kokomen Spicy Chicken Flavor King Cup (South Korea) Kokomen is a South Korean ramyun with a light or white broth. It's got a chicken and jalapeno kind of flavor that's really quite excellent. The translation from pack to bowl is exemplary, losing none of the quality. #5 Little Cook Mushroom Vegetarian Premium Noodle (Thailand) A combination of high-quality noodles and nice broth is one thing, but these guys also include a pouch packed with really nice vegetables, for a more gourmet feel. I've never been a big fan of mushrooms, but I have to admit that these are really quite good. #4 Yamamoto Ponpoko Tempura Udon Fried Noodles Bowl (Japan) Thick, slightly chewy noodles and a broth with bold soy flavor. Tempura adds a satisfying crunch. Check out the original review to see why this one's got a great name. #3 Maruchan Midori No Tanuki Instant Soba Bowl (Japan) The only one from last year's list to remain. Although it slipped out of first place, this is a seriously excellent bowl of noodles. The buckwheat noodles have a delicate crumble and the broth is nice and rich. The disk of tempura is a real treat. #2 FoodMon DJ-DOC Instant Ramen Rice Toppokki (South Korea) Topokki are like really thick, chewy short noodles. They're usually served with a spicy red sauce; here they join instant noodles along with the spicy sauce to make a succulent kind of South Korean lasagna-esque feast. #1 Nissin Raoh Rich Soy Sauce Flavor (Japan) All I can say is that this stuff is epic. The noodles are extremely good and of very high quality. The broth is as rich as the name purports, as well. What's more, it comes with a slice of roast pork which hydrates nicely, with impressive texture and flavor. This is where it's at! For more info about these and the over 1,000 different other varieties, check out The Ramen Rater.    |
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