This product is great, but it can be hard to track down, mostly because of the different spellings and packages.

Here’s a photo of a couple of versions:

We’re fortunate to have a couple of Korean markets very close to us. (Not to mention the huge Asian market up on north Lamar. Austin’s mini Chinatown.) In our local market they have 1/2 an aisle dedicated to this spicy paste, so you know it’s an important part of the Korean cuisine. Most of the packages we say were in the plastic tub containers — some of them HUGE. The medium-sized one I got (500g) should last me a year. Keep it in the fridge after opening.

If you can’t get this stuff locally, get in touch with me, and I can ship some out to you. A 500g tub costs $5. But look around first, if you have an southeast Asian community in your town, you should be able to find it.

I know that some of you might not want to deal with the bones / bother of using Chicken Wings in the Korean Fried Chicken recipe. That’s okay, I understand. They can be messy and very caveman like (though, that’s why I love wings). But sometimes you want something easier. So here’s a simple nugget take.

• In a large bowl, combine 2/3 cup of flour, 1 Tbl of cornstarch, and 2/3 cup of water. Whisk together. You want something the texture of pancake batter.
• If desired, add seasonings to batter. Salt, pepper, seasoning salt, Adobo, Old Bay. Whatever you like, but don’t go crazy. Probably 1/2 tsp of salt.
• Cut 1 large boneless skinless chicken breast (about a pound) into nugget sized pieces.
• Put chicken pieces into batter and stir so that everyone is well coated. You’ll probably have more batter than you need, but that’s okay, more is better.

Now it’s time to get that oil ready.

• Heat up about about 2″ of oil in a large pot. Your best bet is a cast iron / enameled dutch oven (one of my all-time favorite cooking vessels).
• Get oil up to 350 degrees. It’s going to be pretty hot. Watch it. Use a thermometer. The easiest way to screw up fried foods is to have the oil at the incorrect temperature. Temperature is absolutely critical in frying. Get it within a 25 degree window and keep it there (325 to 375). With some practice, you’ll know the setting on your stove and by the amount of food you add (adding food drops temp quickly).
• Put a batch of nuggets into the hot oil. Do not crowd. You’re probably going to have to do 3-5 batches, so take your time.
• Cook nuggets in oil for about 3 minutes, turning occasionally. Drain on paper towels laid on newspaper.
• Allow the oil to come back up to temperature.
• Cook the next batch of nuggets. And the next. Until everything has had its first fry

Not ready to eat yet! Now it’s time for the second fry.

• Once all the nuggets have been fried once, bring that oil back up to 350.
• Fry the nuggets, in batches, again. For 3 minutes per batch. They should turn very crispy and dark golden brown.
• If they get brown too quickly, take them out early, or slightly lower the oil temperature. Nuggets are small, so cook pretty quickly.
• Drain the freshly 2nd fried batches on paper towels.

Once the second fry is complete, you’re ready to go. Serve with fries or tots or whatever. Along with some dipping sauce.

(AUGH! WP ate my post. I’ll work on this more later.)

For a while now, there has been a recipe for Korean Fried Chicken floating around the internet. I think it was first published in Saveur, then made its way to many a blog (check out a good write-up on this one: The Bitten Word). I don’t want to re-hash what’s already been written, so just take a look at the link. But I will agree: It makes some awesome chicken wings. The key:

• Make a breading batter with equal flour and water and a bit of cornstarch. If it feels like pancake batter, it’s right.
• Double-fry the chicken. It takes time, but makes a huge difference. You aren’t cooking healthy. You’re cooking tasty.
• Use the Korean Chile Paste (known as gojujang, kochujang, or gochujang, among other spellings).

This was the first time I’ve used gojujang. If you go to a Korean market they will probably have 1/2 an aisle dedicated to it:

If you like hot/spicy food, but are looking for more complexity, try this stuff out. It’s great.

One heads-up about the sauce you’ll make for this recipe: It’s damn hot. Probably too hot for most people. Too hot for me. I suggest that you don’t toss the completed chicken in the sauce. Instead, serve it as a dipping / basting sauce at the table. That way people can adjust the heat as desired. Just brush on more at the table if you want it hotter.

Some people carry travel guides during their road trips. You know, the books with local attractions listed. What do we carry? A list of the top 50 BBQ restaurants in Texas (as rated by Texas Monthly).

This list is extremely helpful to keep in the car, because you never know when you’ll be passing through a 700 person town which happens to have the best BBQ in the region.

BBQ can be quite regional. In the east you have a lot of pork, either pulled or chopped. In Texas, it’s very much beef. Brisket is king, but beef ribs and hot links (sausages) are also very popular. Pork is rare, though you might see a loin and some ribs here and there. (In most of Texas, asking for “ribs” is asking for beef, not pork.)

In Eastern Texas, around the town of Kilgore (population 12,000), you see the expected brisket, but you also get an idea of what East Texans can do with pork ribs. In particular, what the genius crew at the Country Tavern can do.

Let me set the stage: At FM 2767 (that’s Farm-to-Market for you Yankees) and Texas 31 is a red barn-like building. Walking inside from the late afternoon sun, you instantly go blind. Because the place is dark. Really dark. A waitress tells you to sit anyway, and you stumble to a booth.

We arrived at a weird hour (3 PM), so the place was nearly empty and spotless. I imagine it gets very busy and loud and dirtier during the rush, but we lucked out. The place was spotless, with black cloth napkins at each table.

The menu? There is none. You choose a plate: Ribs, Brisket, and Turkey-something — I think links. Evelyn got brisket, I got Ribs. Pork ribs. Because there are no beef ribs in this East Texas tavern.

You get a choice of two sides. Potato salad, beans, chips, and some other stuff I forgot because I don’t like it.

The plates arrive with the meat lying on a couple of slices of lightly toasted and buttered bread and a large amount of sliced pickles on the side. You get a decent amount of brisket and about 6 pork ribs.

The brisket is pretty lean, meaning it’s easy to overcook, and overcooked it was. The flavor was fine, the beef was good quality, but it was overdone. Enjoyable, but the brisket at Salt Lick, Cooper’s, County Line, and Kreuz Market are all better. It could have been that we came at a weird time (post-lunch, pre-dinner), but I’ve seen others unhappy with their brisket.

Evelyn’s side of over-processed potato salad was nothing to write home about. My chips were, well, chips. Fresh but they came from a bag. So we started on the beans.

Now you’ll see a couple of different kinds of beans out there. You get the plain “cowboy” beans at Cooper’s — basically pintos in a mild sauce. You get sweet beans (like baked) in some places. Most comes from a can, or at least taste like they do. Most of the time the beans are a letdown.

This is not the case at the Country Tavern. Their beans are, quite honestly, a revelation. They are the best BBQ beans that I’ve ever had. Why do I like them so much? Because they are so darn weird!

At your first spoonful you say to yourself: They brought me the wrong thing. They gave me a bowl of chili. Then the sweet notes hit you. And you realize: This is not sweet. This is not savory. This is some wonderfully weird combination.

It’s as if you put chili flavors / spices in baked beans, then threw in scraps of brisket and ribs for meaty highlights. It sounds a little odd, and kinda is, but the result is delicious.

How delicious? When they ask for sides, say “beans and beans”. And order a pint ($4.50) to-go. Don’t bother with the potato salad. Chips if you want them; maybe try the sides I don’t remember, but get at least one side of beans.

So here we have it: overcooked, but flavorful, brisket. Basic sides, with one very notable exception. Good, but not exceptional.

And then you pick up a rib.

And you realize: This may be the best pork rib I’ve had in my life. And I’m eating it in Texas.

Just enough crispiness on the outside. Lots of meat. Tender and juicy, but not greasy. No extra sauce required. Four of the ribs were perfect, two a touch dry. This is rib nirvana. Ribs so good you eat all your sides first, saving them for dessert.

Now maybe I’m loving these ribs because I haven’t had much pork recently. But, thinking back to the many pounds of pork ribs I’ve had in Chicago, I’ll say that these beat any I’ve had up there. A bold statement, I know. But remember, I’d brave bulletproof glass places like Lem’s on east 75th street, so I consider myself a dedicated rib man.

Okay, so here is the food summary: The Country Tavern is well worth the visit. However, don’t bother with the brisket. Get the pork ribs with beans. This is a pork rib place, not a beef place. And what it does, it does very very well.

Some downsides? Because there are no menus, you are left in the dark a little about the prices, but you can always ask. The plates are about $15 each. The pork ribs is worth it, the brisket a little high (being overdone — maybe next time will be better). A pint of beans to-do is $4.50, which is high, but worth it. Drinks are overpriced at $2.50 each. Our bill was $42 for two people, which is high-ish, but not horrible for Texas BBQ. (We can rarely get out for less than $30 for two, and if we get a lot of meat, we’ll easily spend $60. Though you’ll have leftovers for at least two more lunches.)

The place is very dark on entering, but you get used to it pretty quickly. The dining room was nicely laid out, with booths along the walls and tables in the middle. It was quiet when we were there, but I’m sure lunch and dinner will be loud.

Nice touches? At the end of your meal your waitress brings you a hot towel to clean up with. This is something I’ve seen at higher end places in Chicago, but never at the other BBQ joints I’ve been to in Texas. (Probably because I’m a picnic table BBQ place guy. They are the best anyway.)

And let’s not forget the bathrooms. Spotless, with black toilets and red tiles. Wooden doors on the stalls with faux-ivory / horn knobs. Kohler custom stuff. It’s not often that I walk into a washroom and say “wow” but theirs are great. This is a bathroom to fall in love with. I know it sounds odd, but its these sorts of touches which show that thought was put into this (newish) building. (Again, I was in there during quiet times, so I probably have an overly positive impression.)

Country Tavern — a couple of miles West of Kilgore, Texas on Texas 31. Get the ribs and the beans, both of which I can highly recommend.

If you are in the southeast and looking for a chicken joint, check out Bojangles’. We stopped at a newly opened one and got one of their tailgate specials. We got twelve chicken strips, two sides (a pint each), four biscuits, and a 1/2 gallon of tea for about $20. It feeds four people easy (we made two meals out of it).

How does it rate against other chains? Well, it easily beats KFC, Church’s, and Popeye’s. The chicken is good, breading tasty without being overpowering, and the sides are excellent. We had Dirty Rice and Mashed Potatoes. The Potatoes come with real gravy — no KFC strained crap and the Dirty Rice easily beats Popeye’s. Next time I want to try their Pintos, which are supposed to be excellent.

I dare say I prefer Bojangles’ chicken strips to our other favorite, Raising Cain’s. Their strips are both excellent, with Cain’s being a bit spicier. However, Bojangles’ beats Cain’s when it comes to the sides, and I’m mildly allergic to the Cain’s mayo sauce, so prefer the BBQ from Bojangles’.  Plus, you can get regular bone-in fried chicken at Bojangles’.

Highly recommended. They are now my favorite chain chicken joint.

I realize that there are a bunch of marinates out there, and I’ve tried more than a few. Recently, I’ve cut back on the complex stuff and let the veggies and meat stand on their own more. More of tasting the nicely charred food and less burnt spices.

This is an easy “middle Eastern” one that goes well with a side of couscous.

1/4 cup good olive oil
1/4 cup parsley, minced
2 cloves of garlic, pressed/minced
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon allspice, sometimes I use Ship Curry Powder instead
1/4 teaspoon cayenne

In a small bowl, mix together above marinate ingredients. Make sure they are well combined. Don’t bother with measuring spoons, just do it by palm & eye.

Cut up a chicken breast into chunks. Cut up red (or white/yellow) onions into quartered chunks. Cut up some peppers (bell, or whatever you have) into quartered chunks. If you have other kebab type veggies, do some of those. Everything should be about the same size, and big enough to put on a wooden skewer.

Put the meat and veggies in a airtight container, pour marinate over, shake around so everything is well coated. Let sit while the grill heats up. (Since there are no acids in here, you can keep overnight without “cold cooking” the chicken).

Alternating veggies and meat, thread onto wooden skewers. Cook on a hot covered grill, turning every couple of minutes, until charred and cooked through. You know your grill best, so just keep an eye on them and keep turning until they look delicious.

Serve with a bed of couscous.

I usually like a little sauce on my eggs. Tabasco or Frank’s Red Hot are both good, but sometimes a little to vinegary for me.

On the recommendation of our acquaintance who runs Say Hi, we picked up a bottle of Mae Ploy “Sweet Chili Sauce” — he was raving about it — “great on eggs!”

Was he right? Absolutely. You can tell by how empty the bottle is (it’s the size of a wine bottle). We pour it over scrambled or over-easy eggs, served over some hash brown patties (frozen are fine — easy in the morning). And don’t forget the side of bacon.

What makes this sauce neat is that it’s sweet. You get some heat, but mostly sweet. Now remember a key cooking concept: Sweet + Savory + Salty = Really Fucking Good. The saltiness of the bacon, the savory eggy eggs, the foundation of the potatoes, and the sweet sauce. It’s a potent combination.

If you are looking for a new topping for eggs, and are tired of savory salsa or ketchup or whatever, try and find a bottle. Even if you don’t use it on eggs, you can use it as a dipping sauce for chicken nuggets or something.

I admit, I was skeptical at first, but was quickly won over.

I’ve talked about no knead bread before, but it’s only now that I’ve taken a reasonable photo of a complete loaf. This one just came out of the oven.

I’ve been interested in cooking for a long time. For a long while it was a study of the cuisines of China (with all their varieties). There was a foray into classical (French and Italian), traditional Mexican, and some Japanese for good measure.

While all of these have been fun, my daily life prevents me from doing a proper job of any one of those cuisines. At the end of the day, I need three meals on the table, none of which come from a box or take-out. That’s my goal.

And, honestly, I’m a fan of the jumbled world of American Comfort Food. Cooking fish inside 5 pounds of kosher salt might be cool, but I just want some roasted chicken thighs with a potato side. Some home made Sloppy Joes. A quick and easy Kung Pao Chicken (Chinese, like just about every other “ethnic” dish you eat here, is heavily Westernized).

There are three books I go to time and time again. The first is Bittman’s “How To Cook Everything”. I go to this book for technique. The hows and the whys. Plus, it has an excellent range of recipes. Need to learn how to roast chicken? Go here. Need a bread stick recipe? Go here. What’s a good simple red sauce? Go here. This is my “Joy of Cooking”.

How to Cook Everything (Completely Revised 10th Anniversary Edition), Completely Revised 10th Anniversary Edition: 2,000 Simple Recipes for Great Food

A runner-up for this role is the gigantic America’s Test Kitchen “The New Best Recipe”. I’m a big fan of Test Kitchen, and Cook’s Country, because they mash the food science of McGee with traditional American recipes. An excellent source for “why we do things this way” — it takes the magic out of cooking and replaces it with science. If you like the show, get the book.

The New Best Recipe: All-New Edition

When I want to try something new, I reach for my copy of Rosengarten’s “It’s All American Food”. Rosengarten dives deeper into the different cuisines that make up American cooking. You get closer to true Japanese, without having to invest heavily into it. You learn how to make an “all day” red sauce. And he has some complicated stuff (as does Bittman and America’s) which can challenge you without frustration. His chatty and honest style help to welcome you into the different kitchens. Unlike most cookbooks, you can read this as a book and not just a collection of recipes.

It’s All American Food: The Best Recipes for More than 400 New American Classics

One thing I should point out is that “How To Cook” and “New Best” are big books with almost no photography. I’ve always been leery of “picture book” cookbooks. I’ve gotten the most use, and best recipes from, the big tomes.

The executive summary: If you want to learn more about good cooking, get a copy of the “How To Cook Everything” or “New Best Recipe”. To expand your knowledge, and pick up some neat new recipes, augment with “It’s All American Food”. If you like American food, you’ll like these books.

I’ve made these a couple of times and they have always come out well. Very soft — perfect of dipping into soup (reminds me of that a French Dip, in a way).

I just wish baking didn’t take so darn long. Two to three hours of work, and you devour the results in a couple of minutes. (You can see I’ve already scarfed down three of them.)