Cook's Country June/July 2018

WHEN I WAS a kid, I used to compare notes with my friends about our favorite ways to doctor up supermarket macaroni and cheese. You know the kind—those blue boxes with the powdered cheese mix. Sure, you could eat it as is, but why not stir in a handful of peas, a can of tuna fish, or maybe some cut-up hot dogs? We were odd children. Odd or not, I loved these conversations. I was proud to announce that my favorite add-in was canned green chile peppers. I loved the mild spiciness, the faint sweetness, and the bold green flecks. They made that bowl of mac and cheese special. It was my mac and cheese. I’m not sure I realized it then, but these conversations were the first time I’d…

Summertime Hues Is there a flavor difference between yellow watermelon and red watermelon? –Isabelle Spector, Evanston, Ill. While you usually see only red watermelon at the grocery store, there are many more varieties of this fruit, offering orange, yellow, pink, and white flesh. The yellow-fleshed variety is the second most common type, and many supermarkets carry it in the summer. To see if there were any flavor or texture differences between red and yellow watermelons, we tasted each plain and in our Watermelon-Tomato Salad (August/September 2016). Overall, the yellow watermelon had the same signature juiciness and texture that we love in red watermelon, but it lacked some of the red’s intense melon flavor. Tasters found it plenty sweet but “more mild” and “dull” compared with its red cousin. That said,…

Quicker Kebabs Nolan O’Brien, Fort Worth, Texas This only really works for pork tenderloin, but it’s an awesome trick. I start with two tenderloins and cut each in half lengthwise into two long strips. I then cut each of those strips in half crosswise, which leaves me with eight rectangles. I line up those pieces so their long sides are touching, send in the skewers from the side, and finally, cut between the skewers. Now I’m ready to marinate and/or grill with much less fussy assembly work. Perfect Peeling Oona Matthews, Montpelier, Vt. Trying to peel a whole or halved onion can be tricky—the papery skin invariably flakes away just when I think I’ve got a good grip on it. But a friend showed me a better way to peel.…

LIGHTER FLUID CAN impart unpleasant flavors to grilled food, so we use a chimney starter to light charcoal. These simple devices generally consist of a cylindrical body with a handle and two stacked chambers: the top one for charcoal and the bottom one for the fuel used to light the charcoal, typically newspaper. Since our last testing in 2009, our previous winner, the Weber Rapidfire Chimney Starter, has been slightly updated with a more ergonomic handle, so we saw an opportunity to retest it alongside other new models. We rounded up six widely available chimney starters, priced from $14.99 to $29.95, and commenced testing. We lit 3, 6, and 7 quarts of charcoal in each starter and poured the briquettes into different formations to represent the many ways we grill—from…

IF YOU’RE ORDERING the house special hot roast pork sandwich at John’s Roast Pork in South Philadelphia, you don’t have to wait in line; that deeply satisfying sandwich of roasted pork, braised spinach, and a noticeable kick of black and red peppers can be made in short order, and you’re allowed to weave through the lunch-rush crowd and up to the counter. You can be out the door while the other guy is still getting yelled at for ordering his cheesesteak all wrong. (“American wit’ extra” is the way to go [“extra” = onions].) At midday, John’s is a noisy place, thanks mostly to the yelling between the cashiers, line cooks, and back kitchen staff all jammed into a tiny shoebox of a building. By contrast, the cavernous Reading Terminal…

YOU HEAR PHILADELPHIA, you think cheesesteak. But it’s time to shine the spotlight on the cheesesteak’s porky counterpoint. A Philadelphia roast pork sandwich is a glorious beast: thinly sliced seasoned pork; bitter, garlicky greens; a rich, herby jus; and a fluffy roll topped with sharp provolone cheese (and optional hot peppers). It’s not a shy sandwich, boasting a bold personality full of different flavors. It is a local triumph and a point of pride. After sampling many of these sandwiches in Philadelphia (see “Philly’s Other Sandwich”), we wanted to re-create them at home. I made five different recipes, two of which were modeled after the famous sandwiches from DiNic’s Roast Pork and John’s Roast Pork, both located in Philly. One recipe called for braising a boneless pork butt roast in…