Tuesday, June 12, 2012
Party Mix Totally Fried But Not Really: The Recipe Recap [Cooking at Bonnaroo]
Posted by Sean Maloney on Tue, Jun 12, 2012 at 2:20 PM
This year's big challenge was figuring out a workaround for our lack of grill on days one and two. Yeah, I forgot the grill — it was right next to the blanket, pillows and waterproof shoes that I also left at my house. The workaround eventually ended up being in Team Cream's RV — who knew those things had ovens? So I spent the better part of Friday broiling chicken in tiny pans in a tiny oven in an RV with no air conditioning. Clearly, not an optimal situation unless you're the kind of cook who enjoys flavoring their food with sweat and delirium. But the chicken was great! And I lost about 10 pounds while cooking it, so I suppose it was a double win.
Saturday was far less of a weight-losing venture, what with a borrowed grill and a nice open space. The only problem was cleaning up the mess from breakfast — Mercy Lounge's Matt Friction made breakfast on the generator-connected griddle, which involved my pouring an entire martini shaker full of pancake batter on myself and a game of "hot potato" with fresh eggs that went about as well as it can when a guy with no depth perception is allowed to throw eggs. (There's a reason I'm not an athlete, folks.) But after about a half-container of disinfectant wipes and a lot of elbow grease — egg dries so quickly in the sun! — we were ready for grilling some short ribs for Korean tacos. Short ribs, I should mention, that had been marinating for almost three days by the time they hit the grill – probably my favorite part of the festival that wasn't named D'Angelo or Lionel Richie.
After the jump is a rough approximation of the recipes for roughly everything we ate. I say roughly because, after four days at Bonnaroo, everything is pretty rough.
And just to warn you,my usual penchant for chaos and anarchy extends all the way to the kitchen, so use your better judgment when attempting these at home.
White Pea Hummus with Rosemary and Roasted Garlic
1 lb. dry white peas
2 heads of garlic
1 cup of tahini
1 fistful of rosemary, finely chopped
6 lemons, juiced
¼ cup of olive oil
maybe some white wine vinegar if you need to brighten it up a bit
Soak the peas overnight, and then simmer in the same water for, I dunno, three or four hours, so they're really good and squishy. Roast garlic for approximately, um, two record reviews. (For those that aren't on the record critic time-scale, probably about an hour at 425.) Then throw it all together — water from your soaked/boiled peas as well and blend the ever-loving-shit out of it. Bam! You got hummus! Serve with chips or, if your chips are locked in the van, Cheez-Its and carrot sticks.
Mint-Pesto Pasta Salad
1 lb. pasta shells
1 heaping colander of mint (It's overtaking my garden! I had to do something!)
½ head of garlic
1 cup of walnuts, chopped
1 cup of fresh grated Parmesan cheese
olive oil
Cook your pasta, rinse the pasta and put it aside. Remove all the stems from your mint, rinse and and then chop it like your name was Jackie Chan. I like to get a coarse chop on the mint and then add the garlic, walnuts and Parmesan and chop them down to molecular level by hand. You could probably use a food processor to do the same thing, but why deprive yourself of the simple joy of playing with knives? Toss your finely chopped pile of goodness into the pasta and mix in just enough olive oil to coat the pasta.
Spiced Peach Barbecue Chicken
10 lbs of drumsticks
1 big old can of plain tomato sauce
1 jar of spiced peaches from the farmers market
¼ cup of soy sauce
½ cup of white vinegar
2 T garlic powder
2 T chili powder
2 T cumin
Puree your peaches like your were trying to exact revenge upon The Presidents of the United States of America. In a sauce pan, combine everything but the chicken, then simmer for about an hour. Let the sauce cool and add it your chicken. I had all of the meat in double-bagged in freezer bags, so I just poured the sauce in the bag and let them marinate for a day and half.
Korean Tacos with Vinegar Slaw
Meat
10 lbs. boneless short ribs
1 8 oz. jar of Huy Fong Chili Garlic sauce
½ cup soy sauce
½ cup rice vinegar
Slaw
½ head of cabbage, shredded
3 carrots, shredded
1 medium onion, shredded
½ cup rice vinegar
2-3 T molasses
red pepper, to taste
tortillas
gochujang
Meat: Put all that shit in your freezer bag and shake it up. When it's grill o'clock, let them go for an hour and half, two hours in low heat. When they're good to come off the grill, let them settle and chop them finely. Put it in a tortilla and top it with the vinegar slaw and the gochujang.
Vinegar slaw: Mix everything in bowl. Put it on your tacos. Mmm, tacos.
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