Good morning. I’ve been cooking outside as much as I can these last few weeks, turning meats and vegetables over fire. Sometimes the fuel is wood, other times charcoal, many times propane. Grilled food is the song of my summer.
I’m not alone in feeling that way. It seems my whole neighborhood is smoke-scented these days: the dude across the street with the Big Green Egg on his roof making short ribs; the couple down the block at it with their slab of salmon on the gas grill in the yard. I ran into one family coming up from the park after dinner with a kettle grill mounted to a pushcart from the local grocery store. They’d made burgers, they said, and would be back the next night to make ribs. “Beats cooking at home,” the dad said. “I’m mobile now. Cook wherever I want.”
Here’s a recipe for him, then, and for anyone cooking in a park or at a campsite, on a patio, fire escape, deck or sidewalk: huli huli chicken (above), a taste of Hawaii wherever you stay. The name comes from the Hawaiian word for “turn”; the chicken is marinated in soy sauce, brown sugar, rice vinegar and ketchup, with plenty of garlic and ginger for bite. Grilled over a hot fire (huli the meat a lot to prevent it from scorching), it’s a perfect Sunday dinner alongside mac salad and a platter of green beans.
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Huli Huli Chicken
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As for the rest of the week. …
Monday
This colorful radish, cucumber and farro salad from Yasmin Fahr has a punchy acidity that comes from chopped pepperoncini and lightly pickled vegetables. While the grains are cooking, toss scallions, sliced radishes and cucumbers with parsley and white beans in a sherry-Dijon dressing amped up with the peppers. The combination is, as the poker players say, aces high. You could add some feta, too, or torn mozzarella.
Tuesday
There’s a lightness to Melissa Clark’s recipe for gingery meatballs in tomato sauce that makes for a wonderful weeknight meal: briefly cooked fresh tomatoes seasoned with ginger, cilantro, lime juice and a sprinkle of cumin, and meatballs made with whatever protein you prefer. I like pork, but I had it once with balled vegan crumbles and it was pretty fantastic. You do you.
Wednesday
I like Alexa Weibel’s cooking for its brash simplicity and deep flavor, both of which are on display in her terrific recipe for caramelized corn and asparagus pasta, bright with turmeric and heady with vermouth. It’s “AMAZINGLY delicious,” one of our readers said. I’m in agreement.
Thursday
Here’s Melissa again, with a definitive take on the classic shrimp scampi: garlic, white wine, butter and shrimp taken to their highest states, a perfect foil for spaghetti and warm bread. My advice: Cook the shrimp for less time than you usually do and you won’t be sorry.
Friday
And then you can head into the weekend with Millie Peartree’s terrific recipe for Jamaican curry chicken and potatoes, which employs one of the great ingredient techniques of Caribbean cooking: a whole Scotch bonnet pepper, pierced so that it releases only a warming heat to the dish and not the full force of the chile. It’s great on its own, but I like it best with coconut rice.
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Now, it’s nothing to do with capers, capons or caramelization, but Sarah Lyall, for The New York Times Book Review, assayed three high-octane summer thrillers you may wish to read in the coming weeks. I’m starting with “The Winner,” by Teddy Wayne.
I liked Hannah Goldfield on “the era of the line cook,” in The New Yorker.
I may not make it to Berlin to see the Bode Museum’s exhibition “Sticky Fingers-Counterfeit Coins: The Dark Side of Numismatics.” But I sure enjoyed looking at the pictures of fake coins and criminal embossing machines on the museum’s website.
Finally, Patrick Clark has a whale of a tale in Bloomberg Businessweek, on the rise and fall of a Florida real-estate tycoon. The story begins on Cabbage Key, in Pine Island Sound, Fla., a place you should endeavor to visit even if you don’t have a yacht. Read that after dinner and I’ll be back next week.
