The beefery

This month in [Culinate](http://www.culinate.com/):

[Steaking a claim](http://www.culinate.com/read/bacon/aged_beef)

> But beef, in particular, is improved by taking a large piece of the carcass (in professional terms, a side or primal) and hanging it in a cold, humid, drafty place for one to eight weeks. In the process, the meat loses weight due to evaporation, acquires a moldy, leathery crust, and basically takes on the appearance of Keith Richards.

This one was fun to write because, wait, do I really have to explain why?

Quick chick

I made a quick Thai-inspired chicken recipe tonight and thought it came out really well. Iris ate a big square of crispy chicken skin.

Combine half a 14-ounce can of coconut milk with minced stems of one bunch cilantro, one stalk sliced lemongrass, a few grinds of pepper, three tablespoons fish sauce, and three cloves minced garlic. Use this to marinate four bone-in chicken thighs. Remove the chicken from the marinade and place on a foil-lined baking sheet. Roast for an hour at 400°F.

We didn’t have any on hand, but you should serve it with that Mae Ploy sweet chilli sauce.

A conversation after lunch

Iris and I made up a story in which the pirates were pursued by an evil ice cream cone. Except every time Iris said “evil ice cream” I started laughing.

> **Me:** Tonight in the bath we should play ice cream, and there will be three flavors: chocolate, strawberry, and evil.

> **Iris:** Evil doesn’t sound very tasty.

Butter (with corn)

As soon as I saw the recipe for pasta with corn, pancetta, and sage in the Zuni Cafe Cookbook, I knew it was going to be awesome. It wasn’t until I got to making it that I realized just how much butter goes in. I ended up using, uh, fourteen tablespoons.

Here’s the recipe.

Make this before corn season is over, and before I use up all the butter. On earth.

Laurie pointed out that a bowl of buttery corn with sage and pancetta would be fine without the pasta. Possibly better. I will investigate.

Yaki

There are more teriyaki restaurants in Seattle than all the burger chains combined. But nobody ever talks about teriyaki. Nobody, other than college freshmen, compares teriyaki places the way people hunt for the best banh mi or pad Thai. It is totally uncool. My favorite is Nasai, on the Ave.

This week’s Seattle Weekly takes teriyaki seriously in a big cover story by critic Jonathan Kauffman. He traces the history of Seattle’s favorite food from its 1976 genesis to the present. My only beef with Kauffman’s story is that he mentions his favorite teriyaki places, but not by name.

He remedied that on the Weekly’s blog. One of Kauffman’s favorites, Teriyaki Madness, is right down the street from us. I’ll take Iris there for lunch soon. Grilled chicken on rice, plus soy sauce. How could that be wrong?