So Many Recipes, So Little Time
Cape Malay — savory, rich, and spicy curry from South Africa with rice, roti, and pickled tomato-onion relish. The list of ingredients is long but, an Ottolenghi-prepared mise-en-place-enthusiast, I breezed through it with pleasure. This is my favorite way to cook acquired years ago reading books by Fu Pei Mei, a distinguished Chinese culinary artist:…
In our family, fall is the season of birthdays and time to go out. Not that we don’t go out otherwise. It’s that these fall outings are more thoughtful and better justified — pleasures less guilty. The birthday boy chose the fusion of Latin and Chinese flavors on Upper West Side in Manhattan at La…
Birthday marathon in our family starts off at the twilight of summer and finishes just in time to start Thanksgiving-Christmas preparations. After Christmas, we rest, squeeze one more birthday at the peak of spring, and dive into the sunny season. It is October. Under cloudy skies we are marching across the Gowanus Canal to celebrate…
And she said she was in the mood for southern comfort. Grits, collard greens. Fried chicken. Where did that come from? Not sure I’ve ever even made it — still going strong in my Chinese and Asian zone. It’s her birthday. Who is going to argue. Red Rooster in Harlem it is. The restaurant is…
Yunnan at South of the Clouds in Jersey City. Bright, clean, efficient. Steamed pot chicken was fantastic. My late obsession is a good chicken broth — not easy to make, not easy to find. This one was good. Fantastic Yunnan style pork ribs with mint — smoky, charred. Great lotus fries — so crispy. Honestly,…
I am a die hard carnivore and love a good burger. Raised in a place where no burgers were served and steaks, loins, ribs, and chops were not on rotation, any burger was a good burger for me. Until recently. Instead of dwindling, my aging palate made a mistake and perked up starting to distinguish…
Playing Sicily on a Jersey porch. I grew up on what is called eggplant caviar, a rare delicacy available to a lucky few only a couple of months in a year after a lengthy wait in a grocery store line and a laborious process. The value and significance of the said caviar — way above…
Although Fuchsia Dunlop called a hotpotization of Chinese cuisine a step down from the wok mastery, for gatherings at home, hot pot is a huge step up. Here are some of the advantages of hot pot meals:— no skill is required, just planning and chopping; — most of the meal can be prepared way in…
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…