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Recipe: chinese tea-smoked chicken

Sometimes I think I need to get out more.

Is there a recipe that you grew up with and loved, believing that it was some special family recipe, only to learn later that everyone knows how to make this dish and what? did you grow up under a rock? That seems to have happened to me on several occasions. The first one that I recall was when I was maybe 3 years old. My paternal grandparents were visiting from Taiwan. I didn’t endear myself to my Nai Nai (Chinese for paternal grandmother) at first because I kept hearing my parents talk about Yieh Yieh Nai Nai coming to visit. Yieh Yieh is what Kris and I were to address Grandpa as. But no one actually spelled this out for me. So the first I thing I said when they arrived was, “That’s Yieh Yieh Nai Nai,” looking at my Grandpa, “but who is she?” pointing to Grandma.

I fixed that blunder pretty quickly though. Nai Nai made some toast one morning and gave me a slice. I thought it was the best thing I had ever tasted and kept raving about it. Toasted Wonder Bread. I thought she was the only one who knew how to make this amazing snack. Toasted Wonder Bread. I’ll bet she got a kick out of that since she wasn’t really into cooking.

But my maternal grandma, Po Po knows how to cook. She made this smoked chicken on occasion throughout my childhood and knew it was a favorite of mine. Po Po lived with us for the first 9 years or so of my childhood (they tell me she arrived when I was 2, but as far as I’m concerned, she was there from the start) and she’s so much more than a grandma to me. When she moved to Michigan to live with one of my aunts, she used to make a batch of smoked chicken whenever Kris and I visited. She would laugh while Kris and I fought over how many pieces each of us was to get. My mom learned how to make it and then Kris and I would fight over the chicken when we went home to visit. It’s that good!

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Recipe: galbi (bbq korean short ribs)

I am a barbecue whore. I think it originates in part from my southern roots – growing up in southeastern Virginia you end up loving seafood, barbecue, white trash food, and good country ham among other heart-stopping delights. I also love Asian food because I grew up in a household run by Chinese immigrants (my parents and my grandma) who all three are fantabulous cooks. This summer has been my summer of bbq (and pastries, and whatever else I feel like trying to cook). When I declared the Summer of BBQ, I meant I wanted to get my bearings straight on the King of BBQ (pork – according to where I grew up) and its loyal subjects beef, and chicken. But… Sarah Gim piqued my interest in galbi (or galbee), that is, Korean bbq short ribs on one of her posts.

It sounded so good. I had to try it when my List of Recipes to Attempt and Master cleared out a bit. And so it was that earlier this week while grocery shopping in Boulder I met my first obstacle… that no one in Boulder knows what short ribs (according to the Korean style) are. Safeway’s “I don’t normally work this department” butcher led me to something that looked nothing like what I sought. In Whole Foods, I was pointed to beef back ribs which had a lot of bone and fat and not so much meat. Where the hell were all the beef rib racks? At least the butchers at Whole Foods are willing to do just about anything you ask. So I handed the fellow five pounds of the meatiest back ribs I could find in the case and asked him to please cut them across the bones. I got a funny look, but he obliged me. I should have asked him to cut each piece into 3 strips instead of 2, but I have issues with shouting to someone while they are operating a bone saw.

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