Chang’d: Grilled Chicken Parts with Salsa Roja, Sauteed Corn with Miso Butter

Corn! It’s great. No one’s denying that. But you can do a lot more with it than simply boiling or grilling it. When I saw this post on Emily Gould’s tumblr, I knew I had to try David Chang’s recipe for Roasted Sweet Summer Corn, originally served at Noodle Bar. Luckily it is in the Momofuku cookbook, so I was able to recreate it with a certain amount of accuracy (though I fudged a couple steps).

First, make the miso butter: mash together 2 tbsps. butter and 2 tbsps. miso paste (I only had red on hand, so that’s what I used). Chang warns against streakiness in the book, so make sure it’s good and blended, though I doubt it’s really necessary.* Take five or six ears of corn and cut the kernels off. Cook chopped up bacon, I’d say 1/4 lb. of it, but really, are you worried you’re going to put too much bacon in here? That’s silly. Cook the bacon ’til crispy, then remove it from the pan and set aside. Then throw in the corn, and saute until it’s starting to brown a bit. Next, I guess you add some roasted onions or something? I don’t know, I skipped that component. Return the bacon to the pan along with the miso butter and a bit of stock to deglaze the pan (I used water, which worked fine; Chang has you using broth that takes an ungodly amount of time and supplies to prepare, but water works great). Taste it and adjust seasoning; between the miso butter and the saltiness of the bacon, it probably doesn’t even need any more salt. For more on this recipe, check out this post on Momofuku for 2, the blog where Stephanie Le is cooking every recipe in the book. Also, check out the rest of her site, it’s beautiful and informative and fun to read. Plus, she’s almost there!

Because this is still a blog about cooking every recipe in How to Cook Everything, I served it with Simply Grilled Chicken Parts, just rubbed with salt, pepper and olive oil and cooked up in a cast iron grill pan until cooked through and nicely crispy on the outside. I topped the chicken with some Salsa Roja, the cooked salsa recipe that you’ll be hearing more about later. Rounding things out was a salad topped with a simple green vinaigrette (some olive oil, sherry vinegar, yogurt, salt, pepper and a good amount of chopped chives). All in all, this was one of the best meals I’ve ever made, and one of the simplest.

*I found myself wondering if they had to be combined at all; why not just use equal parts butter and miso paste in the recipe?