So Many Recipes, So Little Time
Donabe winter months go on. That was the day to pull out Mushi-nabe — a steamer kind of day. Steamed Shrimp on Tofu from Classic and Modern Japanese Clay Pot Cooking. These are absolutely ingenious shrimp tofu bites — chopped salted and peppered shrimp mounded on bite size pieces of tofu. Sprinkled with potato starch…
What can I say — the moment if feels everything has been said about potatoes, Nopi potato salad shows up. Crushed potatoes with caper berries, pink peppercorns, and roasted garlic. Exactly what it is in the title, that what makes this salad stand out: garlic roasted with herbs in oil, caper berries, pink peppercorns. Every…
Last night it was back to Elmhurst. The food scenery there is hard to beat. We loaded up on fermented tea leaves and crunch for lahpet thoke, watched an amazing street al pastor activity, scouted for sambals at a local grocery. A few weeks ago, we came here specifically for a restaurant from our list…
As long as I remember myself, Uighur food has been one of my favorites. It is forever associated with Central Asian republics possible only during summer vacations, mom and dad off from work, vegetables unavailable in cold Moscow, exotic flavors. Inside the Iron Curtain, from Moscow, -stan republics and their food were the mysterious “Abroad.”…
Although geographically moving West from my childhood home, somehow my mind has always been drawn East. Probably like the place where I come from — neither West or East, or both. When we moved from Manhattan to suburbs to start a family, one of my very first friends was Japanese. An artist by training, she…
After seeing a lot of deconstruction happening lately in a cooking community, I’ve decided to deconstruct something of my own. To experiment, I pushed off Anya von Bremzen’s recipe from Please to the Table. Dishes from this book taste exactly like what mom used to make back in Moscow when she did all the cooking…
It all started 30 years ago in Manhattan. A year later, we found each other. Another year, and we made it official. One more, and we moved. One more, and a little Japanese restaurant opened on our block in a strictly residential area of our village starting an omakase tradition for this February day. If…
After having spent a year and some to recap the adventures of our ten day trip to Russia, it seems appropriate to save some recipes this trip came with. One of the things I could never get used to in the US is having cereal for breakfast. It just doesn’t do it for me —…
Bigos is one of those Eastern European dishes that has as many versions as borscht. And debate about its origins can only be compared to arguments what pizza is better. It is also one of those meals that can go a Rolls-Royce route or a pickup truck one. A few years ago, for a family…
Diana Henry’s savory pies have such an unmistakable signature of comfort, flavor, and practicality. They are doable and luxurious, uncomplicated and lavish at the same time. Just tasty. And, considering the presentation, you’d never tell that often they are just an elegant way to clean up the leftovers. This is a Russian chicken pie from…