So Many Recipes, So Little Time
An absolute fish collar convert here. The amount of flesh in a collar is comparable to that of a filet but the texture of it is that of a cheek. Yes, there are bones to work around. Sometime ago, I read about Asian proclivity to and mastery with bones. A FaceTime chat with my daughter…
Tom loves Mexican. He always had. For our first wedding anniversary, he gave me a Mexican cookbook which is — thirty years later — still the best, most authentic, comprehensive, interesting, gimmick-free, doable in my now Mexican library. That is Rick Bayless’s Mexican Kitchen. Following the cues from the book, we found the best Mexican…
As many versions there are of French ratatouille, Italian caponata, or Greek tourlou, that many there are of Georgian ajapsandali. Georgians cook vegetables together with roots, add enormous amount of herbs and usually in two stages: when cooking and once finished. The dish is equally good hot, warm, or cold. It can stand on its…
Of all the conch fritters — from Florida, to Bahamas, to Jamaica, and around Caribbean — Antiguan looked the most appealing with all the vegetables and herbs added to the mix. Not a complicated recipe, as long as there’s an H Mart nearby to deliver the conch meat and Scotch bonnets. For the dip, there…
Erik Kim’s Pepperoncini Tuna Salad from The New York Times has been on my list since forever. But when the craving hit, it didn’t feel like fiddling with a can opener and draining. Summer laziness takes unexpected forms. That day, a piece of salmon in place of canned tuna — 10 minutes at 425°F on…
Another great find from my oldest Thai cookbook — Kaeng Jeut Wun Sen Muu Sap, or vermicelli soup with minced pork. No complicated ingredients or fancy techniques. Regular mushrooms can easily stand in place of black fungus and spaghettini or angel hair in place of bean threads. It seems that key ingredients to the flavor…
Dog days of summer — last Monday was officially the hottest day on record on the planet. Summer is sliding off the top of my list. The one good thing about it is less traffic where we live — schools are closed, everyone is traveling elsewhere. I miss cold weather cooking — long slow simmering, oven,…
Thai Khao Tom Kung Lae Kai, or rice soup with shrimp and chicken, is similar to Chinese congee but it is much lighter, brothier. Without any particular Thai ingredients — no fish sauce or lemongrass, no galangal, no lime or makrut leaves — it’s unmistakably Thai. This is probably the best soup I have ever…
Ruth Reichl’s My Kitchen Year resonates with me like no other book on food and cooking. The concept of kitchen year should be entered into a dictionary with a proper definition as a year of recovery, reset, a year of pulling thoughts and getting acts together — a preparation to move on in a different…
Accidentally stumbled on a package of salmon and tuna scraps at H Mart. My first thought was to greedily scoop them up with an avocado. As I was driving home, a thought came up to stretch the scraps for dinner and maybe even lunch. Here we go! In a nutshell, 3 cups of short grain…