Recipes-not-recipes #9

Kie-Jo Sarsfield's Korean chicken aka getting mum to do my job for me.

Controversial opinion: hotel breakfasts are always good even when they’re not good. Something about runny, pale scrambled eggs served under a cloche and questionable looking sausages, tiny croissants, individual packets of jam and all you can drink orange juice that really gets me. Doesn’t have to taste good. Its mere existence is a triumph. It signifies a departure from real life. An arrival of holiday mode. An excuse to truly eat all you can. When else do you realistically go to a buffet these days? Anyway, that’s what I’m about to do, in a small hotel near Bangor, Wales. Not exactly a holiday, but a shoot with my closest friends, which in many ways gives off extreme holiday vibes.

As a result, I’ve asked my mum, the legendary Kie-Jo Sarsfield, to share her famous Korean chicken recipe with you all. It’s a dish we have almost weekly at home: a sticky concoction of soy sauce, ginger, garlic and sugar, baked in the oven and served with white rice and usually a tart cucumber salad to set everything off. What I respect most about my mum – other than her wardrobe and her relationship advice – is that her recipes are very direct. And also the chef’s note she makes at the end. Classic Kie-Jo! This Sunday’s essay is an ode to white rice and thoughts on Pachinko, so I felt like this recipe-not-recipe was fitting.