Gochujang Is Always a Good Idea

Good morning. The dogs ran for miles in the snow, and then snoozed deeply in the back of the truck while we ate pizza at Lucia in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, while we drove to Villabate for pastry afterward, when we got home and napped ourselves. It was a perfect weekend day for them, for me, for the family.

For dinner that night and your dinner this weekend (have pizza and cannoli for lunch!): Eric Kim’s gochujang potato stew (above). The dish is as perfect a use of baby potatoes as has ever been devised, with mountains of kale and cannellini beans in a fiery, sweet, savory broth that takes well to a dollop of sour cream when you serve the dish alongside rice and, if you like, a bowl of kimchi.

My dreams that night were as vivid as reality, and I traveled through time. I hope the same for you.

Featured Recipe

Gochujang Potato Stew

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These deep winter weekends are excellent for project cooking, too. I recommend a run at the British chef Fergus Henderson’s trotter gear, a secret ingredient to add to soups and stews, to Guinness pie or steak and kidney pudding, to any dish you think would benefit from the truly lip-smacking unctuousness of the gear itself, a kind of Madeira-spiked jelly of flesh and fat and meat. (Nestle some chicken thighs into a couple of cups of it, then salt them nicely and roast in a hot oven until they’re crisp — you’ll see!) Freeze your results in two-cup containers and you’ll be set for months.