Korean Pulled Pork Sandwiches with Kimchi Slaw, Grilled Sweet Corn on the Cob with Salty Coconut Cream

I had been wanting to take another shot at replicating the Korean Pulled Pork Sandwiches with Kimchi Slaw from Heirloom Market BBQ – especially because I had found the recipes for the slaw, spice rub and sauce since my last attempt. Although the recipe for the slaw doesn’t mention carrots, I add some because a friend had sent me a picture of his lunch at Heirloom the day before – and you could see that there are carrots in the slaw. Like last time, I served it with Pok Pok‘s Grilled Sweet Corn on the Cob With Salty Coconut Cream – also known as Khao Phot Ping. You can find that recipe in the Pok Pok cookbook.

For dessert… My wife made some Thai Cashew Butter Cookies, using this recipe – but replaced the peanut butter with cashew butter. I’d recommend doubling the amount of curry paste…

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I picked up two bottles of the Carpe Diem Mañana from The Ale Apothecary last month specifically for this occasion. With dessert, we had a bottle of Xocoveza from Stone.

Roast Beef, Rice and Gravy with Sautéed Spinach

Since it was my birthday… I cooked this. You can find the recipes here.

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Decided to go with a 2012 bottle of Block 15‘s The Demon’s Farm – a dark ale aged 40% in bourbon barrels and 60% pinot noir barrels with cherries – that I found not too long ago… And for dessert, I had a five year old Bourbon County Brand Stout with some Pistachio Toffee from Alma.

Fried Chicken, Collards & Chorizo

I’ve been hankerin’ for some fried chicken.

I wanted to just use thights, since they are the tastiest piece of the bird and I had found this recipe by Michael Ruhlman. But the main reason I wanted fried chicken in the first place was because of our trip to Memphis last year where we had Gus’s Fried Chicken (and I had recently found their recipe). So I grafted those two recipes together, then I ended up going all crazy with the seasoning instead of using just black pepper, cayenne, paprika and salt… Of course, I had to have collard greens to go with this.

½ cup milk
½ cup Greek yogurt
4 to 6 boneless, skinless chicken thighs
2 cup flour
2 tsp gochugaru
1 tsp pimentón
2 tsp sea salt
1 árbol chile
¼ tsp black peppercorns
¼ tsp long pepper
¼ tsp Sichuan peppercorns
¼ tsp white peppercorns
peanut oil as needed

Whisk the milk into the yogurt in a nonreactive bowl until you have a smooth, viscous liquid. Place chicken in mixture, cover and refrigerate for at least 2 hours or as long as overnight.

Put the árbol pepper, black and white peppercorns, long pepper and Sichuan peppercorns into a spice grinder and grind into a fine powder. Combine pepper mixture with the flour, gochugaru and pimentón in a large plastic bag and shake to mix.

Preheat oven to 250˚F.

Heat 3/4″ peanut oil in a cast-iron skillet over medium-high heat.

Shake each piece of chicken in bag of seasoned flour until well coated.

When the oil is very hot (just before smoking), lay the chicken pieces in. When they are nicely browned on one side, two or three minutes, flip them.

When they are uniformly browned, place chicken in a small pan with a grilling rack and put the skillet in the oven for up to 30 minutes while you finish the side dishes.

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Ended up going with my last bottle of last year’s run (a.k.a. “Batch 2”) of the Maybelle – a farmhouse ale aged in Adelsheim Vineyard chardonnay barrels – from The Commons Brewery.

Beef Stroganoff and a Salad

As usual, I cooked this for my wife’s birthday. You can the recipe here.

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I went with my last bottle of the Sole Composition Pinot Cherry Four – a wheat based table saison aged with cherries in Pinot Noir barrels – from Upright Brewing. My wife went with a Tart of Darkness from The Bruery.