Tastes like french fries...

That's not usually something you want to hear from someone eating your food, but when my 6 year old (Bridget) commented on the roast potatoes I made with dinner tonight, I knew it had to be my title.

Cooking in summer is sort of like cheating. There's not a lot of work involved in making a good meal. It's basically "grill , cook in a way that doesn't obscure its freshness, and add a starch". Bang, you're done.

Tonight, following that formula, I came up with:

• grilled 5-spice chicken legs with a honey-soy glaze


• sauteed bok choy


• roasted potatoes

The chicken legs were a piece of cake. I took some organic chicken legs, trimmed off what little excess fat there was, and rubbed them all over with 5-spice powder and salt, and left them to sit for a bit.
Once I'd gotten everything else prepped, I just lit up the grill, and grilled the legs until they were done and the skin was nice and crispy (first searing at high heat to get the skin crispy and then cooking at a lower heat to finsh the meat). Then I brushed them with a simple honey/soy glaze (1 part honey:1part soy sauce + hot pepper flakes for flavor) on one side, let that cook for a minute, and then did the same to the other side.

For the potatoes, I chopped up 6-7 red potatoes, tossed them in olive oil, salt and pepper, and then put the potatoes in a 450deg oven. I followed the Cook's Illustrated scheme of "covered pan - 20min, shake, 10min, and uncover and roast for another 10min". It's pretty foolproof, and elicited the "french fries" comment. In this case, it's high praise.

For the bok choy, I broke up the bok choy into leaves, and sauteed in a wok with a little olive oil, and equal parts soy sauce and white vinegar (1 tsp, maybe 1 1/2 tsp each). I cooked it until the greens were wilted but the stalks were still crunchy