So Many Recipes, So Little Time
Another fantastic discovery in the city — Blue Willow, Hunan/Sichuan. Amazing food, dreamy sensuous Wong Kar-Waiesque ambiance, and extremely reasonable for midtown Manhattan prices. Just be sure to make a reservation, which with Resy is really stress-free. We debated between the ma la pot and farmhouse pork belly choosing the latter only because it…
Honestly, the picture of the reddish brown mass called carcamusa in Milk Street Magazine didn’t excite me. Besides, I am not even good at imagining flavors by reading the ingredients. It just happened that all the parts were on hand and we had to have something for dinner and tomorrow’s lunches. My excitement started building…
For almost thirty years, several times a week, I have been driving by this place on my way food shopping, to the bank, to the airport for pick ups and drop offs, giving tours to house guests, and for almost every other errand saying to myself each time: we have to try it. Tom literally…
We’re lucky to live in the area where many different cultures are within a close reach. Not only in Queens, Brooklyn, or the Bronx which are a bus and a subway ride away but also in Paterson, NJ that takes minutes by car. The prospect of shopping for clothes depresses and terrifies me. Shopping…
We’ve been to Razza in Jersey City before when they just opened and were on a first-come-first-serve policy. That day, we arrived by opening time and somehow wiggled ourselves in. The memories of the food were great but overall experience not so. Last week, the stars placed us in Razza vicinity with some time…
Quite an undertaking for an average weekday dinner. Nevertheless, a woman of purpose and power, she persisted and, after six hours, we had a Jordanian Maqluba on a Tuesday night. This version is a compilation of different recipes but the main one I pushed from is Maqlubet el Foul el Akdhar from Falastin. Maqluba means…
Steamed Crab and Pork Shumai flavored with ginger, shallots, and scallions are much quicker to shape compared to regular dumplings. And only eight minutes in a streamer. WHAT WENT IN— small wonton wrappers (about 3” in diameter or across if square) FOR THE FILLING— 6 oz lump crabmeat— 6 oz ground pork— 1 Tbsp minced shallot— 1…
Savory Snow Balls. These pork and shiitake meatballs covered in sweet rice do look like mini snowballs and make the table so festive. They take under ten minutes in a steamer and can be steamed at the table. WHAT WENT IN— 3/4 cup sweet rice, rinsed and soaked in water for 2 hours— yuzu-kosho, for…
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…