How Kay Chun Plans a Week of Easy Dinners

Maggie Hoffman (0:00)

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Welcome back to The Dinner Plan where we start every week with fresh cooking inspiration. I'm Maggie Hoffman and this week I'm so excited to talk to Kay Chun, a chef and recipe developer whose byline I've been relying on for years. Her recipes have appeared in The New York Times and Gourmet Magazine plus Bon Appétit and Food and Wine. And now she has a wonderful cookbook out called Gather Around My Table. Simple, flavorful recipes from My Global Pantry. Hey, thanks so much for coming to the studio today.

Kay Chun (1:31)

Maggie, thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure.

Maggie Hoffman (1:34)

So let's start right in your kitchen. What have you been cooking lately?

Kay Chun (1:38)

So I have been really embracing braising greens and kind of having that in like a brothy kind of soupish way. You know, it's really warm and comforting but not too heavy. And it lends itself to any protein. So whatever you're in the mood for, you know, whether it's beans or if you want to make little meatballs, you know, or cube up some tofu, it's so open to whatever you have and whatever you're craving.

Maggie Hoffman (2:03)

I always want little meatballs.

Kay Chun (2:05)

Right? And, you know, it's super easy to build that base. All you need to do is like whatever onion you have. Shallots, scallion, leeks even. And you just want to give it a little saute and some olive oil with some garlic and kind of let that all come together.

Add a little tomato paste. And, you know, you let that caramelize and right there, you already have the base for your broth. So use, you know, whatever broth you have, chicken, vegetable, beef, mushroom. I mean, you can really take this in any direction and throw in your greens and just let it go.

Usually 15 minutes, it's kind of tender, soften a little bit, but it has some texture still. So, you know, at that point you add your protein, you know, finish with maybe a squeeze of lemon, some grated parm, and, you know, you've got this wonderful meal. And I've just been kind of enjoying that a lot lately.

Maggie Hoffman (2:57)

Which greens are you into right now?

Kay Chun (2:59)

So I kind of like mixing them up. I always have kale and spinach. Sometimes it'll be collard greens or Swiss chard. So it's really kind of... I actually like having a mix. It gives you different textures in the broth.

Maggie Hoffman (3:14)

So there's a certain day of the week where I always look at my fridge and like, okay, you have half a bag of mustard greens and half a thing of this. And that's when you do that.

Kay Chun (3:22)

Right, there's always halves of everything, right? Especially cabbage, which I love. And so that's also a perfect place to throw that in there. So yeah, it's a great flexible meal anytime.

Maggie Hoffman (3:32)

I know this is meant to be because I also have cabbage all the time.

Kay Chun (3:36)

Yes. I wanna know what you're cooking these days.

Maggie Hoffman (3:39)

I did something kind of fun last night. We had some friends over and I made this sort of interesting chili crisp from Molly Baz. I don't know if you saw this, but it's a pistachio chili crisp with like a ton of fennel seeds. So you are frying the fennel seeds, shallots, pepper flakes, and then you take a bunch of lemons and use a vegetable peeler to take the zest off. So you're not getting a ton of the white pith, but it's not just zested with a microplane, and you chop that really fine, and you put that in a bowl, and after you're done frying and straining the shallot fennel seed situation, you are pouring the hot oil onto that lemon zest, and so it becomes hugely aromatic. Yeah. So it's like a super nutty pistachio crunch with a ton of lemon and fennel. So it's just different from anything I'd ever done. And so I put it on roasted chicken thighs.