In Good Taste #16: Kimchi Butter (and what to do with it)
Dairy + kimchi = delicious; the psychic pitfalls of the 90s revival; Christian Marclay and other bits of cultural fun
Well, hello there! How are you?
Good I hope. Thank you so much for being here.
Sorry this week’s issue is late. I was all set to give it the once over and send last night but then got my phone stolen so had to spend the rest of the evening cancelling things. Anyway. Here’s what you ought to have got last night:
(Not up for the chitchat? Completely get it. Click email title to go to the web-based version then jump straight to the Kimchi Butter recipe or Cultural Fun)
Did you survive the heatwave? I dealt badly with the summer’s unexpected encore because, psychologically at least, I’d already moved on to autumn. I describe myself sometimes as having a wide mental turning circle, i.e. I’m not good at sudden change. I need multiple moments to adjust to a course alteration. I’ll get there but it takes me a while. In this case, my thoughts had turned to boots and butternut squashes. It was a bit of a wrench to bring them so suddenly back to lollies and sundresses. Definitely happier that things are a little breezier now.
But speaking of sundresses, the ongoing 90s revival is wigging me out a bit. I saw a young woman walking down the street the other day wearing a satiny, bias-cut shift dress and had a sudden, visceral sense memory of a similar thing I owned and wore to death in my early teens. A fabric flashback.
I guess I’m a “Xennial”: a member of that weird little sandwich generation between Gen X and Millennials, defined by the fact that our childhoods were analogue but our adulthoods digital. A lot has been written, post-#MeToo reassessing the pop culture of the 90s and finding much of it problematic. Most obviously the treatments of Britney Spears and Monica Lewinsky but plenty else besides. But, that’s the late 90s. Us Xennials turned teen in the earlier years of the decade when the tail end of rave culture was meeting grunge and Riot Grrrl. Indie kids, greboes, boths, shoegazers etc. abounded. It seemed a safer, more idealistic time that those snarky, laddish later years.
Despite that, I’m not really ready to fully nostalgise the 90s which is why it was so weird to be taken back there so vividly. The clothes are so intertwined with how I felt when I was wearing them. That distinctive cocktail of teenage insecurity and callow solipsism. And now, second time around, the discomfiting notion that the signifiers of my salad days now belong to someone else. My youth is coming back to haunt me but I hadn’t even realised it was dead!
Coming Up
I’m back at the Garden Museum in Vauxhall later this month, taking part in their (free!) Branch Out programme. I’ll be doing two “creative krauts” sessions on the 28th. One 11am-12pm and one 1pm-2pm. Do come along!
I’ve also go classes coming up at Borough Kitchen on 3rd, 10th and 11th October and 2nd November. More Dusty Knuckle dates are coming soon too, as well as some home kitchen classes.
Private lessons are also available, in your home or mine. A voucher makes a great present. Someone contacted me the other day wanting to give one for their 8th wedding anniversary - salt - which I thought was wonderful.
I’m also looking for (indoor!) venues for autumn/winter supper clubs. Get in touch if you can think of a good match. And make sure you’re subscribed to be the first to know about all of it.
On to the recipes…Did you make some kimchi last week? If you did (and are based in the UK) you probably found that it got fizzy really quickly in the heat so I hope you followed my advice to to put it on a plate or tray to catch any leakage and were careful whilst opening the jar.
Obviousy kimchi is great as a side dish or condiment. It goes will all sorts of things, not limited to Korean food. I love it in a toastie with strong cheddar or ontop of some scrambled eggs and avocado for weekend brunch.
But today and in the next couple of weeks I’ll be offering a few other ideas of what to do with it. If you didn’t make some, don’t worry, they’ll work just as well with a shop-bought jar.
Recipe: Kimchi Butter
This makes quite a lot so feel free to scale it down. But it keeps for at least a week in fridge and freezes extremely well. Flavoured butters are wonderful things to have around and bring a bit of luxury and interest to all sorts of dishes. Use some to baste a steak, fry eggs, melt over vegetables, enrich rice, toss through popcorn, etc. etc.
Ingredients
250g butter
50ml sesame oil
150g kimchi (drained)
Method
Put the butter, oil and kimchi in a food processor and blitz until well mixed. (In the gif, my kimchi is already in small bits as I had shredded it up for a different dish. It’s fine to use bigger bits. Just make sure it’s well drained of brine and keep going until the buter is reasonably smooth.)
Taste and add more kimchi/salt to taste.
Lay out a large square of clingfilm or greaseproof paper and spoon the butter into the middle, roughly in a 6” line. Then roll it up and twist the ends of the wrapping to turn it into a nice neat sausage shape.
Store in the fridge until needed.
Notes (If Ifs And Ands Were Pots And Pans…)
If you’re not going to use it all within a week or so, the butter stores realy well in the freezer. Just use a sharp knife to slice off a round as needed.
You can add extra flavourings if you like. Gochujang, garlic, ginger, fresh chillies or more gochugaru would all be great options. But I prefer to keep this base butter quite simple and adapt as I go.
If you keep the brine when you drain your kimchi you can use it for soups, stews, salad dressings etc. Or, as I intend to, pickling eggs - an idea I got from James Read’s book of Cabbages and Kimchi which I mentionned last week.
Recipe: Kimchi Butter Spaghetti
What can you do with your butter? All sorts of things. May I suggest this simple but satisfying supper? It is a chimeric cross-cultual mash up so look away now if such things offend you. But it is tasty. Not dissimilar to Nigella/Anna del Conte’s Spaghetti with Marmite with the kimchi providing umami but also an extra spicy kick.
Serves: 2
Ingredients
150-200g spaghetti (depending on how hungry you are)
75g kimchi butter
50g Parmesan (or other hard cheese) plus extra to serve
1 courgette (optional)
2 handfuls frozen peas (optional)
gochugaru (to serve)
Method
Boil the spaghetti in plety of well-salted boiling water according to packet instructions. You want it al dente.
Meanwhile, if using the courgette, use a julienne peeler to turn it into strands, stopping when you get to the spongy core.
Add the peas to the pasta water 1 minute before the end of cooking time.
When the pasta is ready, drain it, reserving about 100ml of the starchy, salty cooking water. Put the pan back on the hob over a medium-high heat and add the kimchi butter. Let it melt.
Return the pasta to the pan along with the peas, courgette, cheese and about half the starchy water. Working quickly, agitate everything fairly vigorously with a wooden spoon or pair of tongs so the butter, water and cheese emulsify into a smooth sauce that coats the spaghetti. Let bubble for a minute, adding more water if necessary to get a single cream consistency that sticks to each strand.
Serve immediately, with a little more cheese and a sprinkle of gochugaru flakes.
Notes (If Ifs And Ands Were Pots And Pans…)
If you don’t have or fancy spaghetti use whatever pasta you have to hand.
I feel a bit weird eating any meal that doesn’t have green things in it but you can swap the courgette and peas for any other veg you fancy or just leave them out and enjoy pure cheesy, buttery, spicy comfort food.
Recipe: Kimchi Butter Roast Chicken
Spatchcocking your chicken helps it cook more quickly and evenly. You get tender thighs but the breast stays juicy and doesn’t dry out. For an explanation of why it works so well, have a look at this piece by the always-informative Kenji Lopez-Alt. Using baking soda with the seasoning is another trick I learned from him - it creates tiny bubbles so helps the skin get really crisp.
A meat or instant read thermometer is really useful here. Every bit of meat is different so cooking times in recipes are really only gidelines. Only internal temperature can tell you when your chicken is properly cooked. If you don’t have one then check done-ness by making sure the juices run clear.
Serves 4 (with sides)
Ingredients
1 chicken, spatchcocked
100g kimchi butter
1 tsp baking soda
salt
Method
Set the oven to200°C.
To spatchcock the chicken, remove the backbone with a pair of kitchen scissors (keep it for stock). Then press down on the breasts to flatten the chicken. There’s a more detailed explanation of how to do it in the Kenji article I linked to above.
Carefully loosen the chicken skin over the breat and legs and push the butter between the skin and the flesh. Massaging over the skin to spread it around evenly.
Sprinkle over the baking powder and a couple of tsps of salt and massage them into the chicken skin. Go easy on the salt becasue there’s some already in the kimchi.
Put the chicken on a wire rack over a baking tray and roast until the internal temp is 66°C in the thickest part of the breast and 80°C between the thich and body - about 45 mins.
Let rest for 5-10 mins then carve and serve.
Cultural Fun
We went to see the new Christian Marclay work Doors at White Cube Mason’s Yard. His previous installation The Clock was a real-time, 24-hour “clock”, a montage of film snippets, each showing a time. It was at the Tate Modern in 2018-19 and I went twice, once in the afternoon, all people leaving work, getting on trains, arriving home etc. And once at about 6 in the morning when it was alarm clocks and rude awakenings. Really mesmerising.
Doors is again a montage of film clips but this time just of people entering and exiting doors. Between portals people change gender or race, one man becomes two or even a whole group. Yet the editing is so clever that you get a sense of something ongoing. It’s sometimes funny, sometimes dramatic and eventually slightly sinister and nightmarish.
Past Lives is one of the best films I’ve seen in ages. Beautifully shot and acted and so moving. I complained last week about the lack of films where people just talk about stuff and yet here was a perfect example. So subtle and assured. I can’t believe it was the debut feature for writer-director Celine Song.
A few comedy recommendations. This time not for things I’ve seen but for things I have tickets for which I’m assuming will be good so wanted to tell you about incase you wanted to book too.
Tonight we’re off to see Kieran Hodgson at the Soho Theatre. All of his previous shows have been wonderful, especially Lance. He’s got a big YouTube following from impression skits. I particularly like his take on Happy Valley:
And last year’s Prince Andrew: The Musical.
Anyway. I’m not entirely sure what to expect from his latest but I’m sure it will be good.
Next week is Mike Birbiglia’s The Old Man and the Pool. I saw an early version of this show last year so am really excited about catching the final version. It’s about ageing and mortality (but funny!). If you’re not familiar with his work then I really recommend checking out one of his comedy specials on Netflix. They’re all great but The New One is particularly perfect.
Bye! See you soon!
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In Good Taste is a Sycamore Smyth newsletter by me, Clare Heal.
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