Main Dishes

An American-British Fish Pie

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A bowl of fish pie with fork and spoon

Fish pie might seem like an essentially British recipe, but there’s no reason why it can’t be made in America. By finding your best local options for fresh fish and using your grill or smoker to enrich salmon, you’ll end up with a great catch!

Loaded Summer Nachos with Grilled Corn and Bourbon BBQ Chicken

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Loaded Summer Nachos with Grilled Corn and Bourbon BBQ Chicken

We take what we love about most about nachos (crunchy chips and an unapologetic amount of cheese) and loaded them up with the best flavors of summer. Grilled corn, fresh tomatoes, avocado, pickled radishes and shredded chicken with bourbon-brown sugar BBQ sauce. 

I don’t know about you, but spring was something of a damp squib. It seemed to rain pretty solidly throughout April and May (you know the old rhyme: “April showers, May even more showers, let’s just forget about June entirely”) and while the garden is now as lush as it’s been in years (“July – finally! – flowers”), we hadn’t had much of a chance before the outset of summer to get out there and enjoy it. Now, at last, the heat is on, the tees and shorts are in rotation, and we’re fully into the swing of the season.

So we wanted to celebrate with something that represented all the things we love about summer eating. The flavors of outdoor grilling and BBQ. The fresh seasonal produce like corn and tomatoes. The potential for spending an evening on the deck with friends and easily-shareable finger food. Wasps. (Just kidding, we hate wasps.) And so our mind, as it often does, turns to nachos. Now, there may be many of you for whom nachos are irrevocably twinned with cool weather sports events or movies. And that’s fair enough – you’re in front of the TV, and you want something you can make a meal of without tearing your eyes away from the action. But for us, celebrating summer means taking it outside. (Also, we’re terrible game-night dunces, and only annoy our more sporty friends with idiot questions such as “How do they choose which team has the brightest socks?”)

Note: This recipe is part of our ongoing collaboration with Serious Eats. 

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Bulgogi Burgers with Kimchi Mayo

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Bulgogi Burgers with Kimchi Mayo

When we want the flavors of bulgogi and the convenient outdoor grilling method of a burger, there’s an easy solution: combine them. By sticking with the tried-and-tested burger, glazing it with a spicy soy-ginger-garlic-gochujung sauce, and stacking it with kimchi mayo and pickled daikon radish, you can keep the best of both worlds without offending culinary purists.

This recipe was originally written for Serious Eats.

We’ve all experienced what I like to call “fusion fails”. Two culinary concepts which, taken individually, are perfectly respectable, but in combination create a whole that is … let’s just say less than the sum of its parts. For example, I love fruit, I love cheese, but bits of fruit IN cheese? No thank you. I love bacon, and I’m a fan of vodka, but bacon-flavored vodka (yes, this exists)? I’ll pass. The most successful fusions take two examples which aren’t so far separated on the food spectrum that you have to take a leap of faith that the result is even edible, let alone worth the trouble of combining them. Croissants and doughnuts can at least both be found on the bakery shelf, and thus we have the cronut. And bulgogi, the Korean staple, uses thin strips of beef that are marinated and seared, so why not apply those flavors to a perfectly grilled burger? To be honest, making up names like “cronut” and “flagel” isn’t our forte, so we’re simply calling this the “bulgogi burger”. If you’re as nerdy as we are, you might like to call this a “crossover episode” – where stars from two different shows team up to make a delicious dinner! (This is why we don’t write TV shows.)

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Vietnamese Grilled Pork Chops (Thit Heo Nuong Xa) with Cold Rice Noodles

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Vietnamese Grilled Pork Chops (Thit Heo Nuong Xa) with Cold Rice Noodles

Thit heo nuong xa – grilled pork chops – are a staple in Vietnamese restaurants. But they’re so easy to make that there’s no reason why you shouldn’t bring this classic dish home. Traditionally, they’re grilled, so we thought it was the perfect excuse to eschew the burgers and hot dogs for one weekend and kick off our summer grilling season with something a little more flavorful. 

The noodles make it the ultimate refreshing summer dish, almost a noodle salad of sorts. Between the sizzling charred chops, the chilled rice noodles, plenty of fresh and quick-pickled vegetables, and the nuoc cham, a bracing savory-tart dressing, it’s everything you want on a hot day.

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Kimchi Pancakes with Shrimp

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Kimchi Pancakes with Shrimp

Kimchi Pancakes are the kind of fast food we can really get behind. Packed with spicy kimchi and fresh shrimp, these crispy treats make a fantastic appetizer, snack or light dinner. 

We are almost never without a large jar of kimchi in our refrigerator. Even our resident Brit (who was initially, shall we say… resistant) has become addicted to the stuff. It’s not just a great condiment for traditional Korean dishes like Bulgogi, it also makes a fantastic cooked ingredient in all sorts of dishes. Its distinct tart-spicy flavor is a great addition to fried rice and stir fries, as well as in less traditional dishes, like grilled cheese sandwiches and compound butter.

You may notice that as kimchi ages, it continues to ferment. The cabbage will soften and become spicier and more tart. At some point you’ll find quite a bit of liquid from the vegetables mixed with the brine in the bottom of the jar. Don’t throw it way! In fact, do a little happy dance because you can use it to make kimchi pancakes.

Note: This recipe is part of our collaboration with Serious Eats. 

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