Too hot to cook indoors? Head for the grill and make some Cornell Chicken with Cornell Grilled Corn.
Yep, the summers are getting hotter and our cooking interests wane as the temperature rises. Here are a few easy to prepare and mostly stove-free dishes we find ourselves repeating.
Cornell Chicken. This goes on the grill so it’s technically cooking, but there are a couple of features that make it easy. Unlike most marinated foods, it needs only an hour in its sauce; in fact, the food scientists at Cornell warn it should never marinate past two hours. Second, because of the low oil content of the marinade it’s less likely to burn on the grill. And this stuff is delicious: grab a jumbo pack of chicken thighs and see for yourself. Bonus feature: you can run farm-fresh corn on the cob through the marinade for Cornell Grilled Corn.
Tabbouleh
Tabbouleh. We’ve started making half portions of our recipe and seems like as soon as one tub is gone, we want another. A big bunch of Italian parsley is enough for three of these half size salads. One Roma tomato, seeded and chopped, is just the right amount for one. Fresh mint grows in abundance outside our kitchen. Easy, cool and refreshing.
Gazpacho. A flavorful and painless way to eat your vegetables. We nearly always have a beaker in our fridge these days. Resist the urge to gulp it down as soon as it is blended; the flavor will change (improve) dramatically after it sits a few hours.
Ultimate Gazpacho
Hot dogs with the works. Ball Park franks and buns have been on sale most of the summer at our local supermarket and we have succumbed to their siren song. We dress them one of two ways: with Stewarts-style meat sauce, hot relish, pickled onions, sauerkraut and stone ground mustard, or else with dirty water sauce, sauerkraut and yellow mustard. Pop a bun into the toaster oven, microwave the tube steak with the kraut and meat sauce for 90 seconds, and in under five minutes you have a mini feast.
A well dressed tube steak with hot dog meat sauce.
What’s cool to eat when it’s too hot to cook in your house? Suggestions appreciated!
Nice post! Cornell chicken trivia: Marinate is never mentioned in Dr Bakers original
pamphlet. Basting, and some version say COOKING. There is a flavor difference but minimal. https://archive.org/details/cornell-chicken-origin
BMF archives: https://burntmyfingers.com/?s=Cornell+Chicken
By golly, you are right about not mentioning marination vs basting. So have you tried it both ways? Seems to me the time in the marinade is like a quick pickling with both salt and vinegar present and should make a big difference.
By the way, my original writing on Cornell chicken linked to this article https://www.timesunion.com/default/article/Chicken-barbecues-we-love-have-roots-in-New-York-4656899.php by my friend and fellow food writer Deanna Fox. Except she describes the recipe as developed in the 1940s while the attribution on archive says it was copyright 1914. That is the date Cornell Extension was chartered; Dr. Baker who wrote the pamphlet was not born until 1921. The art style of the drawing on the cover is a mid century style so I suspect Deanna is correct. Also, fun fact, Dr. Baker also invented the chicken nugget.
Update! The pamphlet I included in my first post on Cornell chicken is NOT the same as the one you linked to. Check it out: https://burntmyfingers.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/cornellchickenpamphlet.pdf
It is a 1960 update and DOES mention marinating the chicken with the sauce. So there you go!
I missed that! I like it because it’s a scan, “a photocopy”, of an actual pamphlet. The first time I saw one with a marinating reference. I will have download all the Archive.org ones and look further. Now, do we trust an urtext , or the later revisions?
Yes, a difference if you marinated, but for two hours? I admit I was a 8+ hour guy. The difference was there. Better or worse?….
Now I will clear my mental palate with a shot of Chicken Cock and continue the search.. Don’t wait up 😉