What is it that inspires you to get off your ass and try an ambitious dish? For me, an incorrigibly lazy cook, it takes something close to a cosmic alignment of proper planets, already stocked pantry items, outdoor humidity, and ideal hair greasiness levels to get me to try something big.
The stars shifted ever so slightly when Narinda came to town a few weeks ago, and this was the result. From Bon Appetit’s cover to my kitchen, with Narinda’s confidence pushing me past the stuff that would easily scare me off. (Mainly: taking a chance on a big hulking piece of meat.)
And guess what, the dish turned out not to be nearly as ambitious as it seemed. There was so very little to it. And I loved that Sohui Kim packed SO much flavor into a dish using East Asian kitchen basics. What a little ginger (key), red wine (pungent), sugar (sweetening), and hours on the stove (crucial) can do for a dish! It’d been a while since I’d taken a bite of braised meat so tender and so laced through with fat that the whole bite melted in my mouth.
Alas, as is our custom, we ended up not eating until close to midnight. Was still worth it, I think. Thank you, Sohui Kim.