You’ll find these juicy, sticky, charred wings at Singapore’s hawker centers (or food courts), where there’s usually at least one vendor flipping them over a charcoal grill. The chicken wings are marinated in dark soy sauce, oyster sauce, and garlic, then served with a spicy dipping sauce made of chiles and lime.
This is a perfect brunch party dish when served with shrimp and a poached or fried egg on each plate. Leftover grits can be used to make griddled grit cakes or saved and warmed for later.
Brother Pedro Alvarez, a monk in his mid-twenties from Mexico, introduced his favorite dish to the monks at Saint John’s. Brother Pedro lived in a Russian Orthodox monastery in Mexico City before relocating to central Minnesota. But this isn’t a recipe he learned at the monastery; he learned it from his grandmother.
As is the case with recipes that travel, this tinga reflects not only its Mexican origins but also its current home in Minnesota. Tinga is typically slow-cooked, shredded meat—anything from beef to pork to chicken—layered with the flavors of chiles, onions, garlic, and tomatoes. Brother Pedro replaced the chicken with wild turkey from central Minnesota. None of the monks hunt, but they do welcome the bounty donated to them from hunters in the area. The honey is the monastery’s own and gives the dish a sweetness that provides the perfect counterpoint to the chiles. Tinga is comforting in the winter and fun for a summertime barbecue, too. Brother Pedro’s advice is to “take it slowly, let the house fill with the smoky aroma. It will bring everyone to the table.”
My aunt Phoebe’s late husband, Uncle Samy, was a passionate cook who had a knack for turning the simplest ingredients into a meal. This five-ingredient chicken was one of his signature dishes that my cousins and I always looked forward to.
The key to perfecting this dish is to make sure the onions are cooked down and caramelized to a deep golden brown, while being careful not to burn them. Just watch and toss the onions around, managing the heat until they are ready.
Here I serve it over a big salad with blocks of feta, bread, and a bowl of Torshi (page 261). If Uncle Samy saw it this way, he’d teasingly say I ruined it with all the embellishments, and we’d have a big laugh. Every time I make this chicken, I think of him.
We like to make up big batches of this homey chowder when the local sweet corn is at its peak. Do not toss out those corn cobs; they make a fabulous stock that gives this soup its wonderful corn-y flavor.
I absolutely love making this soup now that I have figured out how to make it using my food processor. It used to be quite labor-intensive to cut all the vegetables by hand. Now, I just throw them into the food processor to chop into small pieces, then toss them into my Dutch oven. So quick, so simple, and I also vastly prefer the texture of the soup prepared this way to the traditional way I was taught to make it. The vegetables don’t all come out the same perfect size, which I like, and the rice or pasta is cooked at the same time, making it possible to get my soup on the table pretty quickly.
You can, literally, put any vegetables in soupe au pistou. In spring, I add asparagus and loads of fresh peas. In summer, more ripe tomatoes. In fall, I add butternut squash. It is a substantial soup, and served with a baguette, it could easily be the meal’s main course. A green salad is a nice accompaniment.
SOUP BASE
This dish is the star of thickening sauces. At the end of cooking this meal you will have a mouthwatering sauce, but it will need to be thickened. Once you learn this skill, you’ll never look back.
This dish comes together very quickly, so make sure you prep everything before sautéing the chicken.
I will probably get a lot of flak for this recipe. ‘What?! You’ve taken us through this entire exercise and now you’re giving us a recipe that is not authentic?’ I know, I know, but I call it Gateway for a reason. As a nice entry-level weekday cassoulet, this is not bad. Try it, tweak it, double it for your friends, and then, when you are ready, go tackle the real thing!
INGREDIENTS