All-purpose Sichuan stir-fry sauce

I make a lot of vegetable-heavy stir-frys, and my preferred method of seasoning them is with Sichuan condiments. Sometimes I just wing it, adding dashes of toasted sesame oil and rice wine as I go along, but lately I've been mixing up a quick, all-purpose sauce that I add to the vegetables at the very end of their cooking process, when they're already tender and just need to soak up some flavor. If I have extra, I simply transfer it to an airtight container where it will wait for me until I make my next stir-fry.

This sauce has all the flavor bases covered: it's full of rich umami from the soy; sweet from the brown sugar; sour from the vinegar; and hot from the spicy fermented bean paste. The potato starch (whose silky texture I prefer to gloppier cornstarch) thickens it up beautifully, creating a rich mouthfeel. Best of all, the sauce is neutral enough to go with pretty much any vegetable, although my favorite application for it is with eggplant.

To use, mix up the sauce, then fry your vegetables in a wok along with some aromatics: ginger, garlic, shallot, or whatever you prefer. You can add tofu, meat, anything you like in your stir-fry. About five minutes before everything is finished cooking, add the sauce, stir well to incorporate, lower the heat, cover, and simmer until the sauce is thick and glossy.


All-Purpose Sichuan Stir-Fry Sauce
Yields enough sauce for one large stir-fry or two smaller ones

*Note: visit your local Asian grocery before making this recipe: many of the ingredients are not available at the supermarket.  

Ingredients:

2 tsp. Chinkiang vinegar
2 tbsp. Shaoxing rice wine
3 tbsp. dark soy sauce
1 tbsp. fermented broad bean chili paste
1 tbsp. toasted sesame oil
1 tbsp. brown sugar
1 tbsp. potato starch

Preparation:

Mix all ingredients in a small bowl, using a whisk to make sure everything is well combined.

Chinatown, my love

Starting a couple of years ago after I read Fuchsia Dunlop's excellent food memoir Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper, then devoured her two beautiful cookbooks Land of Plenty and the Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook, I quickly became obsessed with Chinese cooking, and it's a trend that's continued--and grown--since then. I think Chinese food gets a bad rap--people say it's greasy, or bland, or makes them sick--and that's because they're thinking of the carelessly thrown together, cornstarch- and MSG-laden takeout on their nearest corner. It's simply not an opinion I understand, because true, artfully prepared Chinese food is so incredibly flavorful, bursting with spicy, salty accents and full of contrasting textures that, to my palate, at least, it's simply one of the best cuisines out there. (I should point out here that there isn't really one "Chinese cuisine"--as you may have heard, China is a big country, and there are many regional styles of food. I happen to be partial to the fiery cuisine of the Sichuan or Szechuan province, but then again I like any kind of well-made Chinese food.)

Although you might imagine them to be exotic or difficult, the Chinese recipes I've tried are actually quite easy. What they rely on is a well-stocked pantry: you need some basics such as different kinds of soy sauce, chile pastes, fermented vegetables, toasted sesame oil, etc., but once you have those items the actual preparations are quite simple. For the past few months I'd sort of fallen out of the habit of cooking Asian, and that was because during my last move, I misplaced my precious stash of special ingredients. When I started my internship at Serious Eats, whose offices are located in Manhattan's Chinatown, it was the perfect occasion to restock my cabinets.























Some staples I picked up recently included (from left): fermented broad bean chile paste; Chianking, or black, vinegar; Shaoxing cooking wine; and potato starch (whose silky texture and un-gloppiness I prefer to cornstarch). Don't you love the packaging? So colorful.

Speaking of great packaging, check out these preserved Szechuan vegetables. Drool and an enthusiastic thumb's-up? Now that's great advertising!

Once I had all my go-to ingredients, I put them to good use making a recipe by one of the Serious Eats editors, Kenji Lopez-Alt. Kenji's no slouch when it comes to perfecting recipes: in addition to years of restaurant experience, he's got a stint as editor at Cook's Illustrated under his belt. Having tasted some of the delicious dishes he's whipped up in our office kitchen, such as bok choy and black bean chow fun and tonkotsu ramen, I knew I could trust his recipe for braised eggplant and tofu in garlic sauce. The best tip I learned from this recipe was to steam the eggplant first: sometimes, eggplant takes a long time to break down and become soft and creamy, and getting it to do so often requires a lot of hot oil. The pre-steam allows the eggplant to soften before it gets incorporated into the stir-fry:























Next, I fried up some aromatics: garlic, ginger, scallions, and the preserved vegetables. This right here is why I love Chinese cooking: look at all the flavor packed in there! It doesn't really matter what you add next--that oil has so much going on, anything cooked in it is going to be good:























The steamed eggplant and some diced firm tofu get fried up in here, then cooked down with a richly flavored sauce made up of soy, vinegar, cooking wine, brown sugar and chile paste. Behold, the finished dish:
























Braised Eggplant with Tofu in Garlic Sauce
Adapted slightly from seriouseats.com
Serves 4

*Note: visit your local Asian grocery before making this recipe: many of the ingredients are not available at the supermarket.

Ingredients:

- 4 small or 2 large Japanese/Asian eggplants, rinsed and cut into large chunks
- 3 tsp. Chianking vinegar
- 1/2 c. Shaoxing cooking wine
- 1 tbsp. potato starch
- 4 tbsp. soy sauce
- 2 tbsp. brown sugar
- 1 tbsp. fermented broad bean chile paste
- 1 tbsp. sesame oil
- 2 tbsp. vegetable oil
- 2 cloves of garlic, smashed and peeled, plus 4 more cloves, minced or thinly sliced
- A 1-inch nub ginger, peeled and minced or grated
- 3 scallions, thinly sliced, whites and greens separated
- 2 tbsp. Chinese preserved vegetables, minced
- 1 package firm tofu, excess water squeezed out, cut into medium chunks
- 3 tbsp. chopped cilantro

Preparation:

1. Place eggplant in a large bamboo steamer set over a wok filled with 2 inches of water. Bring to a boil over high heat, reduce to a simmer, cover steamer, and cook until eggplant is completely tender, about 15 minutes. Set aside. (If you don't have a bamboo steamer, you can use a steamer insert in a large pot of water.)
2. Make the sauce: in a bowl, combine vinegar, wine, potato starch, soy, brown sugar, chile paste and sesame. Whisk until completely smooth.
3. Wipe out wok. Add oil and whole garlic cloves and cook over medium heat, turning garlic occasionally, until it is browned and fragrant. Remove garlic and discard.
4. Turn heat to high and add minced garlic and ginger, scallion whites, and preserved vegetables. Cook, stirring, about one minute, then stir sauce to recombine, and add to wok. Add eggplant and tofu and stir gently to combine. Bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer, and cook, stirring occasionally until thick and glossy, about 10 minutes longer. Garnish with scallion greens and cilantro and serve immediately with white rice.

Not your ordinary fish cake

OK, you've got me--I don't even really know what an ordinary fish cake would be. Fact is, you don't see too many people routinely whipping up fish cakes at home. I don't think. But they happen to be a delicious, inexpensive and easy dish that are all too easily overlooked by the home cook. Growing up, my mom routinely prepared salmon cakes using canned fish--unappetizing sounding, perhaps, but in fact they were delicious, quick to throw together, and because they relied on pantry staples, they could be made at almost any time.

I was thinking about those salmon cakes about a week ago when, as I usually do during my half hour bus ride home from work, I was pondering what to make for dinner. It was getting late, I was hungry, and I wanted to make something fast and easy. On the other hand, I was in the mood for something a bit out of the ordinary. And finally, I was feeling like I should eat some fish. At this point in my life, I like most kinds of fish ok, but as a child I found them all to be disgusting, nauseating specimens and I couldn't believe that they passed as food. I remember that when I was young and my parents worked a lot, they designated certain nights of the week for certain foods, for example Pizza Friday, presumably to make the job of the babysitters feeding my brother and me a bit easier. Pizza Friday (always accompanied by a red Hawaiian Punch, in my case, except for that one week in 1992 when clear Pepsi was all the rage), in all its glory, shone even more brightly each week in comparison to the dreaded Fish Thursday. Much as the name implies, Thursday nights were reserved for fish, most often some bland tasteless fillet coated in breadcrumbs and fried in oil, but my delicate palate couldn't handle even that, and nearly every week I would feign illness or even lock myself in the bathroom pretending to throw up, attempting to weasel my way out of having to consume the fetid flesh. To no avail, I might add.

These days, I'll happily eat nearly anything put in front of me, and fish is no exception. And yet it's certainly never found itself on my list of favored foods. In fact, I often simply forget about fish and have to remind myself to eat it since it's light and healthy, and a good swap for meat when I'm not feeling like going totally vegetarian. It doesn't help that fish is often one of the worst purchases you can make these days, what with rampant overfishing and all, and that it can also be pretty pricey.

I'll readily admit that, like most people, price is what I think about before I consider the provenance of the fish and whether it's endangered or not. So that very night when I entered the grocery store and found cleaned, filleted lieu noir for something like 6 euro a kilo, making the one large piece I bought about $1.75, I scooped it up. Later, I did look up the fish--called Atlantic pollock in English (at least before a 2001 marketing campaign attempted to rebrand it colin)--and according to the Monteray Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch List, wild, net-caught pollock is a sustainable choice. So let's hope my lieu noir was, in fact, fished in that manner.

But on to its preparation. As I mentioned, I wanted something a little out of the ordinary, and decided that an Asian flavor profile was the way to go. Actually, since I cook Asian food at least twice a week, it's no longer that out of the ordinary for me personally, but those flavors--soy, sesame, cilantro, lime--never fail to taste beguiling and, yes, exotic. After choosing the pollock for its low price and neutral flavor, I picked up some baby spinach leaves and a carrot to cook with the rice I planned to serve alongside the fish cakes and headed home--all the rest of the necessary ingredients were already there.

After making sure my fish fillet was free of any lingering bones or skin, I cut it into large pieces and dropped it into the bowl of a food processor, then pulsed carefully to achieve a ground, but not puréed, texture. I transferred the fish to a mixing bowl and added salt, pepper, toasted sesame oil, fish sauce, minced shallots, a drop of rice vinegar and a small mountain of chopped fresh cilantro. I stirred this mixture with my hands until it just came together, then formed it into small cakes, rolled them in breadcrumbs, and let them firm up in the refrigerator before frying them in a hot pan. The result? Just as satisfying, and nearly as easy, as my mother's salmon cakes, and somewhat lighter and brighter. Call them fish cakes 2.0.


















Asian-Style Fish Cakes
Makes about 6 medium cakes, or 2 servings

Ingredients:

- 1 lb. neutral white fish, such as pollock, cod, scrod or tilapia, cleaned and filleted
- 1 shallot, minced
- 1/2 c. fresh cilantro, chopped
- 2 tsp. sesame oil
- 1 tsp. rice wine vinegar
- Dash of fish sauce
- Salt and pepper, to taste
- About 1/2 c. plain dry breadcrumbs
- Vegetable oil

Preparation:

1. Check fish for any remaining bones or skin and remove. Cut the fish into several large pieces and place them in the bowl of a food processor. Pulse carefully to achieve a ground, but not puréed, texture. Transfer to a mixing bowl and add the shallot, cilantro, sesame oil, rice vinegar, fish sauce, salt, and pepper. Mix gently just until everything comes together. Shape into 6 medium cakes, roll in breadcrumbs, and let rest in refrigerator for 30 minutes to an hour.
2. Heat a large, heavy-bottomed skillet over medium heat and add about 1/4 inch of oil. When oil is hot, add fish cakes and fry, turning as necessary to avoid burning, until completely cooked through, about 12 - 15 minutes. Drain briefly on paper towels and serve.

I'm back

Ahem. I apologize for the long delay between posts, but I was making some wonton soup and it took a long time.

I kid, of course. Well, not entirely. I did make wonton soup--that's what I'm here to tell you about on this sunny, mild Toulouse afternoon--and it did take a long time. But additionally, my less-than-a-year-old laptop decided to bite the dust several weeks ago, and after I sent it in to a repair center, I was left in the lurch, internet-less and unable to share my culinary creations. The cooking didn't stop--actually, I've been cooking more than ever lately--but I'll have to play some catch-up on the blog over the next few weeks.

So let's get right into that wonton soup, shall we? About 2 months ago, I posted about Paris Store, an Asian supermarket where I stocked up pantry essentials like fish sauce, sesame oil, sambal oelek and preserved vegetables. I also indulged in a few impulse purchases, such as Vietnamese nems, chewy sesame candies and a packet of wonton skins. When I got home that day, I threw the wontons into the freezer, not sure what I'd do with them, or when.

Inspiration struck about a week ago, when I was browsing the meat aisle at my local supermarket. As I've mentioned on the blog many a time, poverty frugality often guides me in my cooking. Though eating well is one of the most important pursuits in my life, I do not have a lot of money to spend on fancy ingredients, and so I seek out things that taste good but don't come at a high price. Rather than seeing this as some kind of hindrance, I actually enjoy the sport of bargain-hunting, and feel that it's a fun challenge. Spotting some random food item that has had its price slashed will often completely determine what I'll be making for dinner that night, as I scoop it into my shopping cart.

Such was the case when I decided to make these wontons. As I said, I was eying the meat offerings at the store when I noticed two items: first, a two-pound assortment of pork bones, labeled "Bones for animals," and priced at 55 cents; and second, a package of ground pork, on sale for 50% off, making its final price a whopping 2 euros. First a big pot of rich pork stock flashed into my mind (I love making stock, and do so often during the winter), followed by a vision of plump little pork dumplings floating in it. Later that afternoon, at the open-air market, I picked up the rest of the ingredients I would need--a knob of fresh ginger, a bunch of scallions and a small head of Napa cabbage--and I got to work.

First, I trimmed the pork bones of excess fat, then chucked them into a deep soup pot that I filled with cold water, brought to a boil, and dropped to a simmer. Then, I mixed up my wonton filling, seasoning the ground pork with salt, grated ginger, and sesame oil, and mixing in finely chopped scallions and cabbage. Then, I laid out my (defrosted) wonton skins on a clean, cornstarch-dusted work surface, 9 at a time, keeping the rest soft and supple under a damp paper towel. I filled each dumpling with one teaspoon of pork filling, no more, no less. You want a plump, juicy end result, but it's essential not to over-stuff your wontons, or you'll risk them bursting apart in your soup:

















Next, I dipped my forefinger in a little bowl of water, ran it over two sides of the wonton squares, then pinched the dumplings into a triangle shape, making sure to press out any air and to verify that the edges were well bound together. I attempted to make a pretty pleated dumpling but failed, so I sort of folded the dumplings into little envelopes, sealing with a bit more water once they were folded. You can make any shape you like, as long as everything is well sealed:

















With my dumplings done, it was time to finish my pork stock. I skimmed off any foam and fat that had risen to the top, then dropped in a knob of ginger, a halved onion, a chopped carrot and some peppercorns, and continued to simmer for another hour. I skimmed again, then strained the stock and returned it to the heat, adding dashes of soy sauce, fish sauce and rice vinegar. When it came to a gentle boil, I slipped the wontons in in batches, stirring gently and flipping them to ensure even cooking. When they were cooked through, about 8 minutes later, I scooped them out with a slotted spoon and tossed them with a little vegetable oil to prevent any sticking. I like to keep the wontons separate from the broth until I heat myself up a bowl of soup, so that they don't get soggy.

To serve, I heat the broth and dumplings up with a bit more shredded cabbage just until it's wilted, then stir in additional sesame oil and sambal oelek. Yes, it's a long process, but it results in a filling, delicious soup best tackled with a deep spoon and a pair of chopsticks:


















Pork and Cabbage Wonton Soup
Serves 8 - 10

Ingredients:

- 8 - 10 cups Asian pork broth (see recipe below)
- 1 package wonton skins
- 1 1/2 lbs. ground pork
- 1 scallion, thinly sliced, white and green parts
- 1 small head Napa cabbage, finely shredded and chopped
- 1 tsp. grated ginger
- 1 tsp. toasted sesame oil
- 1/2 tsp. salt
- Water
- Vegetable oil
- Additional sesame oil, for serving
- Sambal oelek, for serving

Preparation:

1. Prepare the wonton filling: in a medium bowl, combine the pork, scallion, 1 cup shredded cabbage, ginger, sesame oil and salt. Knead to combine. Set aside.
2. Make the dumplings: dust a clean work surface (counter, table or kitchen towel) with cornstarch. Lay out the wonton skins 9 at a time, keeping the remainder under a damp paper towel. Place one teaspoon of pork filling in the center of each wonton. Dip your forefinger in a bowl of water and run water over 2 edges of dumpling wrapper. Pinch the dumplings together into a triangle shape. Press out any air pockets and ensure edges are well sealed, then pinch or fold into desired dumpling shape. Place finished dumplings on a dish and sprinkle cornstarch over to prevent sticking.
3. Bring the pork broth to a simmer and drop in the dumplings, working in batches to prevent crowding. Stir the soup gently and flip the dumplings around so they cook evenly. When cooked through, about 8 minutes, remove to a dish with a slotted spoon. Toss dumplings with a small amount of vegetable oil, to prevent sticking.
4. To serve soup, heat desired amount of broth with dumplings and a handful of shredded cabbage per person. Divide soup among bowls and serve with additional sesame oil and sambal oelek.


Asian Pork Broth
Makes 8 - 10 cups

Ingredients:

- 2 lbs. assorted pork bones, trimmed of excess fat
- 12 cups cold water
- 1 onion, peeled and cut in half
- 1 carrot, scrubbed and cut into pieces
- 1 small knob of ginger
- 1 tbsp. whole peppercorns
- 1 bay leaf
- Light soy sauce
- Fish sauce
- Rice wine vinegar
- Salt

Preparation:

1. Combine bones and water in a large, deep stock pot. Bring to a boil, then drop to a simmer. Cook, uncovered, for about 3 hours, skimming foam and fat as it rises to the top.
2. After 3 hours, add the onion, carrot, ginger, peppercorns and bay leaf. Continue to simmer for one hour.
3. Skim any remaining foam and fat and strain stock to remove bones and aromatics. Return broth to pot and season to taste with dashes of soy sauce, fish sauce, rice wine and salt.

Paris Store

Upon arriving in Toulouse I was lucky enough to move into a house with an extremely well-stocked kitchen: pots, pans, dishes of all sizes, as well as a good selection of oils, herbs and spices. But there was one category that was sorely lacking, and that was the "International Foods" section. As I've chronicled on this blog, I've gotten very interested in cooking Asian food, particularly Chinese, over the past two years, and to suddenly find myself without my sesame oil, my sambal oelek, without even a bottle of soy sauce, was, to put it mildly, jarring. My number one fast, delicious go-to meal--fried rice--was suddenly out of reach. I was not pleased.

Happily, I found an ally in my roommate Ben, who's an accomplished cook and fellow admirer of spicy food (a true rarity in France). When I voiced my concerns to him he recommended we take a trip to Paris Store, a huge Asian food megamart in Mirail, the university district of Toulouse. And one cold Saturday about a week ago, that's exactly what we did.

















Paris Store is similar to the many Asian supermarkets I'm familiar with from Brooklyn and Manhattan Chinatowns. It's got a great selection of meat, produce, sauces, spices, preserved and frozen items, as well as an interesting array of serving dishes and cookware. With one difference: whereas in New York these stores' prices are bargain-basement, making it a challenge for even your most indulgent shopping trips to cost you over $20, the prices at Paris Store are the same as you'd find at any normal supermarket. Not expensive, but enough to slightly reduce the omigodthisisSOcheap thrill of its U.S. counterparts.

















Trust me when I tell you that I was thrilled nonetheless. This store really has everything. Need some MSG? They've got it. How about fresh durian? Or some jarred toddy palm paste, whatever that is? They've got that, too.



















































The expression "like a kid in a candy store" comes to mind here. As you can see, my roommates and I made out pretty well in the end:

















We picked up tons of stuff, but most importantly the five condiments that I consider the most necessary to basic Asian cooking: light soy sauce, fish sauce, toasted sesame oil, rice wine, the aforementioned sambal oelek (or any other chili paste). Finally, I was reunited with my beloved ingredients, and a whole new world of flavor was opened up to me! By the time we got back from our shopping trip I was famished, and set to work on a simple stir-fry as soon as we walked in the door. I started with the basics: fresh ginger, garlic, scallions and chilis, which I always find so beautiful all lined up and waiting to be deployed to a hot pan:

















These staples got fried up along with some gai lan, or Chinese broccoli, some cubed firm tofu, and the requisite lashings of several different kinds of sauces. Scooped over some freshly steamed white rice, it was the perfect bowlful. Absence makes the heart (and stomach) grow fonder, indeed.


















Stir-Fried Chinese Broccoli with Tofu
Serves 2 as a main dish, 4 as a side

Ingredients:

- 1 tbsp. fresh ginger, minced
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 3 scallions, finely chopped (white and green parts)
- 1 fresh red chile, chopped finely (seeds and ribs removed if chile is very hot)
- 3 tbsp. vegetable oil
- 1 head of gai lan (Chinese broccoli), chopped and leaves separated from stalks
- 1/2 package of firm tofu, excess water squeezed out and chopped into cubes
- 3 tbsp. light soy sauce
- 2 tbsp. rice wine
- 2 tsp. sambal oelek or other Asian chile paste
- 2 tbsp. Chinese pickled vegetables (optional)
- 2 tsp. toasted sesame oil

Preparation:

1. Heat the vegetable oil in a wok or large deep pan set over medium-high heat.
2. Add the chopped broccoli stems, ginger, garlic, chilis and scallions and cook, stirring or tossing frequently, until broccoli stems are slightly softened, about 6 minutes.
3. Add the chile paste and pickled vegetables, if using. Fry for 2 minutes.
4. Add the chopped broccoli leaves, tofu, soy sauce, and rice wine. Cook, stirring gently, until liquid has evaporated slightly and broccoli is cooked through, about 4 more minutes. Drizzle sesame oil over. Check for seasoning. Serve over hot rice.

Just saying no to takeout

I'll admit it: I love takeout. I live in New York, and there is no shortage of reasonably priced local restaurants whose varied cuisines I would be more than happy to see arrive, like magic, at my doorstep. For me, ordering takeout is akin to what I imagine getting room service to be like: a luxurious, I'm-just-going-to-sit-here-watching-movies-while-someone-else-prepares-my-dinner type of indulgence.

That being said, I can probably count on two hands the number of occasions that I have actually gotten takeout in the past 2 years. Not only am I ridiculously cheap frugal, but I also, obviously, love to cook, and therefore rarely do my stove the dishonor of letting it stand idly by while I eat the fruits of some stranger's labor.

One of the best things about becoming confident in your cooking is that, eventually, you'll probably be able to recreate or at least approximate some of your favorite dishes in your own home, without having to waste money on (nor unwittingly ingest the various chemical additives of) takeout. Anyone reading this blog of late will have noticed that I have become extremely enamored of cooking Asian, particularly Chinese, cuisines. And my increased facility with once-mysterious ingredients such as fermented black beans and preserved vegetables is perhaps my best armor against the siren song of restaurant food. That is because for me, and, I would wager, for a lot of people, my number one takeout craving happens to be Chinese food. Nowadays, in moments of tired-after-a-long-day-at-work weakness, I can look into my pantry and avoid the (you know you have one) takeout menu/miscellanea drawer.

Earlier tonight I was sorely tempted by thoughts of the excellent Thai restaurant down the street from me. But before I picked up the phone I checked out what was in the fridge: a lone lean pork chop and the last remaining member of a bunch of Japanese eggplants. Suddenly I was all caught up in a craving for Chinese eggplant with garlic sauce, with tender slivers of pork throughout. I was now committed to the cause, and duly chopped my ginger and garlic and set my wok to heat up. Working very, very loosely from a recipe I found online, I was soon rewarded with a plate full of creamy, tender eggplant and soft bits of pork suspended in a pungent, slightly spicy sauce. Delayed gratification, in this instance, was just as satisfying--if not more so--than the instant kind.



















Eggplant and Pork in Chile-Garlic Sauce
Serves 3 - 4
Adapted from The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Ingredients:

3 medium Japanese eggplants, about 1 pound
2 thin, lean, pork chops, trimmed of fat and sliced into small strips
1 tbsp. plus 2 tbsp. light soy sauce, divided
1 tsp. sesame oil
1 tbsp. plus 2 tbsp. rice wine vinegar, divided
1 tbsp. plus 2 tbsp. rice cooking wine, divided
Red pepper flakes
2 tbsp. chile garlic sauce
1 tbsp. sugar
2 tbsp. finely minced ginger
2 tbsp. finely minced garlic
2 scallions, thinly sliced
Vegetable oil for frying

Preparation:

1. Marinate the pork: In a small bowl combine the pork with 1 tbsp. soy sauce, 1 tbsp. rice wine vinegar, 1 tbsp. rice cooking wine, 1 tsp. sesame oil and a dash of red pepper flakes. Stir to combine and set aside.
2. Slice the eggplant into thick (about 1/2") medallions. Discard stem.
3. Make the sauce: in a small bowl, combine remaining soy sauce, vinegar, cooking wine, and sugar.
4. Heat a generous amount of oil (about 3 - 4 tbsp.) in a wok set over a high flame. Just before it begins to smoke, add the eggplant. Cook, stirring or shaking constantly, until eggplant starts to soften, about 8 - 10 minutes. Remove eggplant to a plate.
5. Add one more tbsp. of oil to the wok and heat over a medium flame. Add the garlic and ginger and cook briefly; then add the pork and cook, stirring, until it is no longer pink, about 3 minutes.
6. Add the eggplant back to the wok and stir in the sauce. Reduce heat to low, cover, and cook for about 8 - 10 minutes or until pork is cooked through and eggplant is very tender. Garnish with scallions and serve with rice.

Simple but good

When people are first getting to know me, they discover pretty quickly that I'm obsessed with really into food, and they invariably ask me this question: "So what's your favorite thing to cook?" I never know quite how to respond to this, because I really, truly, don't play favorites with my food. What I enjoy about cooking is the creativity and invention at work in it; the sense of freedom that I feel in choosing ingredients that I think might go well together and then attempting to unify them, sometimes successfully and sometimes not, with the flavors and cooking techniques that I surmise will do the most justice to those ingredients. What I'm trying to say is that 99% of the time when I'm cooking, I'm just winging it: not following recipes and rarely making the same dish on a regular basis, because what I love most about the process of cooking is how it's new every time.

Since that's a pretty long answer, what I usually say goes something like this: "Well, I like to cook lots of different things, but what I like best is simple food." And it's true. Though there are exceptions to the rule, you'll notice that most of the recipes I share on this blog are very intuitive, with few steps: the kind of food that even people with little cooking experience could make easily. For me, it's a kind of bang-for-your-buck thing: with the type of food I make, a relatively small amount of planning and labor can often yield an extremely satisfying result. I try not to get too touchy-feely about the process of cooking when writing on this blog, but the truth is that sometimes it seems almost magical, like some sort of alchemy: putting in but salt and heat and time, and then sitting down to something that is truly complex, with layers of flavor and shades of richness.

The following recipe definitely fits that description. The ingredients are as follows: chicken, soy sauce, brown sugar, star anise and lime. Count 'em: 5. I just made it up one night when I had some chicken thighs to use up (as I often do), and a craving for Asian flavors (as I often do). It won't deplete your pantry, and it'll take about 15 minutes from start to finish: it's simple, but it's good.



















Soy-Braised Chicken Thighs with Star Anise and Brown Sugar
Serves 1

Ingredients:

2 chicken thighs
Salt
Pepper
Vegetable oil
Dark soy sauce
2 tbsp. brown sugar
2 star anise pods
Water
Half a lime

Preparation:

1. Generously salt and pepper both sides of the chicken thighs and sear them in a wide, heavy pan set over high heat until well browned on both sides, about 6 minutes. Remove chicken from pan and set aside.
2. Drop the heat under the pan to medium. Add about 1/2 a cup of water to the pan and stir to deglaze. Add about 2 tbsp. soy sauce, the brown sugar and the star anise; stir to dissolve the brown sugar, then drop the heat so that the mixture bubbles slowly. Add the chicken, cover, and cook until chicken is tender, about 12 minutes.
3. Remove the lid and allow sauce to evaporate until it is quite thick and coats the chicken in a sort of glaze. Taste for seasoning. Eat the chicken over noodles or rice, squeezing the juice of the lime over it before you do.

Tofu for carnivores

I love tofu: firm or silken, smoked or not, freshly made or prepackaged, I'll happily take them all. I also love meat. I happen to really, really like tofu and meat together, as in, in the same dish.

If this pairing seems incongruous to you, then you've probably missed out on many of the best dishes that Asian, particularly Chinese, cuisines have to offer. You see, in America tofu has acquired a pretty poor reputation for being the wan, tasteless, colorless and textureless ingredient that people sub in for meat, resulting in such unfortunate products as Tofurky, Boca Burgers, and the like. You can't taste the tofu in these things at all; it's covered up, hidden away behind a thick veil of salt, herbs and spices.

Asian cooking takes a different stance on tofu. It's a revered ingredient, one whose smooth texture and clean flavor is as at home nestled in among a medley of vegetables as it is sitting shoulder to shoulder with, say, some pork...shoulder. Rather than attempting to substitute tofu for meat, Asian recipes oftentimes place the two together--a sort of yin and yang, if you will forgive the terrible, terrible pun, a harmonious, balanced relationship that allows both ingredients to shine. Some of Asia's most famous dishes--such as Chinese mapo dofu, Korean kimchi jjigae, Filipino tokwa't baboy, and Thai pad thai--all call for both meat and tofu. All are delicious.

It was from Asia that I took my cue last night when I decided I wanted to have a light, flavorful and balanced soup for dinner. I had made some Chinese-style chicken earlier in the week, and as a result I had a whole potful of chicken broth flavored with ginger, scallion and Szechuan peppercorns leftover. To give my soup a sort of Thai inflection--bearing tom yum soup in mind--I heated up the broth with some crushed lemongrass, poaching some additional chicken thighs at the same time. When the chicken was cooked through, I shredded it and added it back to the broth, along with some sliced shiitake mushrooms, some diced drained tofu, and some soba noodles. When the noodles were just cooked, I added dashes of dark soy sauce, sesame oil and rice wine vinegar to taste and topped off my bowl with some thinly sliced scallion. Utilizing Chinese broth, Thai herbs and Japanese mushrooms and noodles, this soup was definitely all over the map. But the one thing about it that I think all those various nations could appreciate is its perfect union of meat and soy.



















Asian Soba Noodle Soup with Chicken and Tofu
Serves 4

Ingredients:

4 cups chicken broth, preferably homemade, if possible flavored with aromatics such as ginger, scallion and garlic
1 stalk fresh lemongrass
1/2 a block extra-firm tofu, or use smoked tofu
2 chicken thighs, bone-in, skin removed
8 - 10 shiitake mushrooms, cleaned and sliced
1 generous handful Japanese soba noodles
2 scallions, thinly sliced
Dark soy sauce
Sesame oil
Rice wine vinegar
Salt

Preparation:

1. Drain the tofu: cut the half block of tofu in half again, this time lengthwise. Place the two pieces on a deep plate lined with paper towels, then put a heavy plate on top. Weight it down; I used a large can of tomatoes. Place in fridge and allow to drain for at least a half an hour.
2. Heat the chicken broth. Add a length of lemongrass that you have crushed with the back of a knife. Add the chicken thighs. Bring the broth to a gentle simmer and cook until the chicken is cooked through, about 8 - 10 minutes. Remove the chicken with a slotted spoon and let cool in fridge.
3. When chicken is cool, shred it with your fingers and place the meat back in the pot. Remove the tofu from the fridge and cut it into small, evenly sized cubes. Add them to the pot. Add the sliced mushrooms and bring the soup back to a simmer.
4. When soup is simmering, add the soba noodles. Cook until they are al dente, about 6 - 7 minutes. Discard lemongrass. Add dashes of soy sauce, sesame oil and rice wine vinegar to taste. Salt to taste and garnish soup with sliced scallions.

Thanksgiving leftovers, Chinese style

After all the shopping, preparation and cooking, Thanksgiving is over and everything has returned to normal (except, perhaps, our waistlines). If you hosted or even attended the holiday meal, it's a pretty sure bet that you've got some leftover turkey in your fridge at this very moment. Not to fear: at this time of year, food publications all over the country are printing recipe after recipe designed to make use of the excess bird: some more traditional, some less so. The recipe I'm sharing today definitely falls into the latter camp. Now don't get me wrong: my favorite Thanksgiving leftovers are, most certainly, of the traditional ilk. My personal choice has always been, and always will be, a sandwich of turkey and cranberry sauce on rye (the only appropriate bread for a Jewish Thanksgiving gathering). But I have to admit that after eating one, two or three of these beauties and still being left with turkey to use up, my tastebuds start to crave something a little less familiar and a little more exciting.

Such was the position I found myself in earlier today. With stomach grumbling, I opened the fridge door and noticed two items: a Ziploc bag of sliced turkey meat generously gifted to me by my grandmother, and a small container of white rice that I had prepared earlier in the week before going out of town for the holiday. Instantly I had it: fried rice. Leftovers, basically, were created for fried rice: I've talked about it on here before, and I'm sure I will again. That's because once you've got a standing supporting cast of Asian condiments like soy sauce, sesame oil and chili paste on hand, the glory of fried rice can be yours at almost any moment: nearly any kind of protein, no matter how it was originally seasoned, or any kind of cooked vegetable, can be cut up and thrown into fried rice, and it will taste good. Take my word for it. Or go a step further and try this recipe yourself.



Turkey Fried Rice
Makes 1 serving

1. Cut a small portion of leftover cooked turkey meat into a small dice. Set aside.
2. Defrost a generous handful of frozen peas or frozen mixed vegetables by placing them in a bowl and covering with hot water.
3. Mince 1 - 2 garlic cloves and cook in vegetable oil in a large wide skillet or wok set over a medium flame.
4. After 2 minutes, add a serving of leftover cooked rice. Heat through, adding soy sauce, sesame oil, sriracha or chili paste and Chinese preserved vegetables, if available, to taste (about 1 teaspoon each).
5. Drain the peas and add them to the pan. Add the turkey meat to the pan. Stir frequently to heat everything through.
6. In a small bowl, beat 1 egg. Add it to the pan, stirring constantly, to break up and cook the egg. Taste the rice for seasoning and serve with a handful of chopped fresh cilantro.

Why I love leftovers

I've never understood people who don't like leftovers. Whatever their reasons may be--that the food they prepare will never taste as good as it did when it was made fresh, that they get sick of eating the same thing (no matter how delicious it is) two or three times in a row, that they simply don't have the refrigerator space--I don't get it. I love leftovers. Leftovers, actually, sort of define my cooking style. I don't often follow recipes, preferring to rifle through my fridge (and freezer), taking stock of what needs to be used up and how it would best be transformed into something else. Leftovers don't bore me; they inspire me.

I even like leftover food that I didn't make in the first place. Working at a food magazine and also in catering, I'm often sent home with extra food that might otherwise get thrown out. Such was the case last weekend when I worked a fancy, exclusive party on Fire Island. A ton of perfectly cooked, expertly seasoned filet mignon remained unserved at the end of the night, and I packed away two particularly succulent-looking steaks to bring on the bus ride home. They made their way onto my dinner plate a few nights later when Gideon (of Snackin' with Steinberg fame) came over to eat. While he made his excellent rendition of guacamole, I sliced the steaks thinly and laid them over a salad of soft romaine and slivers of red onion, heaped them with fresh cilantro and chopped salty peanuts, then dressed the whole with a mixture of lime juice, fish sauce, sugar and vegetable oil. And so out of distant French origins, a delicious Thai beef salad was born. You still don't want your leftovers? Pass 'em over to me.


















Thai Beef Salad with Lime Dressing
Serves 2

1. Wash and dry two generous servings of romaine or red leaf lettuce, about half a large head. Tear them into large pieces and divide between two plates.
2. Thinly slice 1/2 of a large red onion and divide it between the two plates, distributing it evenly over the lettuce.
3. Thinly slice one medium to large portion of rare, seasoned steak--the cut is not that important as this is a dish to make with leftover meat--and fan the slices out over the salads.
4. Take a good handful of fresh cilantro--stems and all--and tear it up, sprinkling it over the salads.
5. Coarsely chop a large handful of roasted salted peanuts and sprinkle them over the two salads.
6. Make the dressing: in a small bowl, combine the juice of two limes with about 1 tsp. soy sauce, 1 tsp. fish sauce, 1 1/2 tsp. sugar, a pinch of salt and about 3 tbsp. vegetable oil. Whisk mixture and taste; you might need to adjust the ingredients if the dressing is too sour, too sweet or otherwise unbalanced.
7. Dress the salads, drizzling the dressing evenly to ensure that all the ingredients are well coated.

More Chinese food

A few months ago, I read the excellent food memoir by British author Fuchsia Dunlop entitled Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper. In the book, Dunlop, who by now has made a career of eating her way through China and writing about what she finds, goes back to the beginning of her story, relating how she first landed in the country and how--by ducking into noodle shops, flagging down street food vendors and inviting herself into the kitchens of local restaurants--she discovered her true calling. Dunlop has traveled all over China and has written magazine articles and cookbooks describing the cuisines of many of the country's diverse regions, yet the one location that she considers her true home abroad is the Sichuan (or Szechuan) province. It is while living in its capital, Chengdu, that she truly falls for Chinese food, characterized, in that region, by prodigious use of spicy, warming ingredients such as Szechuan peppercorns and chiles of all varieties. Though I had some prior knowledge and appreciation of Sichuan cuisine (a restaurant called Szechuan Gourmet is one of my favorites in New York), reading Dunlop's impassioned and evocative descriptions of the local fare left me completely tantalized--and wanting more. I didn't just want to eat Sichuan food; I wanted to cook it myself. Luckily, Dunlop is also the author of an incredibly comprehensive, highly regarded and easy-to-follow compendium of Sichuan cuisine entitled Land of Plenty. Minutes after finishing Dunlop's memoir, I was online ordering her cookbook.

While I waited for it to arrive, I set out to obtain all the sauces, seasonings and ingredients I would need to prepare the recipes. Though Sichuan cuisine is best known for its numbing peppercorns, fiery chiles and hot, deep red oils, the style of cooking relies on several more key ingredients in order to achieve the incredible fullness and depth of flavor that characterizes true Sichuan food. In order to stock my pantry, I ventured into Brooklyn Chinatown (one of my favorite places in the city to explore) and picked up Szechuan peppercorns, dried red "Heaven-facing" chiles, fermented black beans, light and dark soy sauces, toasted sesame oil, Chinese sesame paste, Chinkiang vinegar, Shaoxing rice wine, Sichuan chili bean paste, pickled chili paste, Tianjin preserved vegetables, potato starch and dried star anise. All cited by Dunlop as key ingredients in Sichuan cuisine, the items in this haul cost me about $17 total. Now I was ready to cook.

So far I've tried two recipes from Land of Plenty, and both have been extremely quick and easy, with delicious results. The first was Dry-Fried Green Beans. In this dish, trimmed green beans are fried in hot oil until slightly browned and softened, then removed from the pan and set aside. In the same pan, you then stir-fry ground pork with a small amount of garlicky, gingery preserved vegetables and a bit of soy sauce. Once the pork is cooked through, the beans are added back to the pan, and the whole dish is finished with a drizzle of sesame oil. That's it. The whole thing takes about 10 minutes to prepare, and is lip-smackingly good. I first prepared this for dinner with Gideon while he was in town, and a few days later made the same dish for lunch for myself, using broccolini in place of the green beans and eating it over white rice--authentic, no, but delicious, yes. Here are the green beans from that first go-around:

















The second dish I made from the cookbook was Gong Bao, aka Kung Pao, Chicken. An iconic Sichuan dish that combines a thick, sweet and sour sauce with spicy Szechuan peppercorns and dried chiles and adds the salty crunch of peanuts for good measure, Gong Bao chicken is a Chinese takeout staple but is very simple (and cheap!) to prepare at home. You start by marinating cubed chicken breasts in soy sauce, rice wine and potato starch, thereby "velveting" the chicken, a technique that ensures tender, juicy meat and also aids in thickening the final dish due to the inclusion of starch. As the chicken marinates, you stir together a sauce of sugar, more potato starch, soy sauce, vinegar, and sesame oil and set it aside. When you're ready to cook, you heat the peppercorns and chiles in oil, toss in the chicken and its marinade, add chopped garlic, ginger and scallions and stir-fry until the chicken is cooked through. Finally, you pour in the sauce, which, as it hits the heat, turns beautifully glossy and thick. Toss in a handful of peanuts, serve over hot, sticky white rice, and you've got a meal that's bound to impress your friends as much as it did mine--in this case my roommate and her boyfriend:

















Because I think it's only fair to adhere to copyright law, and because I really think Land of Plenty is a book worth purchasing, I can't include Dunlop's exact recipes here on the blog. However, I urge you to buy the cookbook--or at least check it out from your local library. If you like Chinese food even a little bit, you won't be disappointed--and, moreover, you'll probably learn a lot.

O give me a home...

Working--even just interning--at a food magazine has its perks. So far, at Food & Wine, I've gotten to sample (and take home for dinner later) countless numbers of delicacies that the test kitchen turns out daily; I've picked up a bunch of loot (a set of drinking glasses; some delicately painted Japanese plates) that the magazine had to give away when its offices changed floors; upwards of 15 bottles of wine. Not too shabby, right? Yet another perk concerns the large quantity of product samples that various food producers send to the editors to test out. Often there is far too much food for just one person, so an editor will share the wealth among the staff, asking only for our opinions in return. Last week, one of the editors received a large shipment of buffalo (or bison) meat products, and passed along both a package of sausage and a tenderloin to me. I was more than happy to put them to use in my kitchen.

I've eaten buffalo a number of times; my dad really likes it, and often uses the ground meat to make burgers. It's leaner than most cuts of beef, and, to my taste, has a more intense flavor--possibly because it's not churned out in the massive quantities that beef is today. I'd only ever eaten it in the aforementioned burgers, though, so I was eager to see how it held up in other applications. With the sausage meat, I mixed up a meatball-type stuffing with egg and breadcrumbs and packed it into halved tomatoes and zucchini for stuffed vegetables (tasted delicious but photographed poorly; otherwise I'd share). For the tenderloin, I threw together a marinade of soy sauce, sesame oil, Chinese cooking wine and red pepper flakes, then tossed the meat into a smoking hot cast-iron skillet, cooking it until it was just medium rare, about 3 minutes per side. I let it rest for a few minutes, and then sliced it into thin strips. The meat was incredibly tender--buttery would be a good descriptor--and had taken on the marinade really well; it was salty, smoky and spicy. I served it up with a quick Asian slaw of carrot, daikon radish, red pepper green onions and cilantro; cool and crisp, it was the perfect counterpoint the the warm, savory buffalo slices.



















Asian Vegetable Slaw
Serves 2 - 3

1. Peel and trim 1 large carrot and 1 large daikon radish. Cut the vegetables lengthwise into thin planks and then cut them again, into thin matchsticks. Place in a bowl. Remove the seeds from 1 large red bell pepper and cut it to match the carrot and daikon strips. Add to bowl.
2. Slice 4 - 5 green onions (white and green parts) thinly. Add to bowl.
2. Dress the slaw with 2 tsp. sesame oil, 2 tsp. light soy sauce, and 2 tsp. rice wine vinegar. Taste and adjust seasonings.
3. Chop about 1/2 cup washed cilantro and mix it into the slaw. Place in refrigerator and allow to chill for about 15 minutes, then serve.

A craving, satisfied

I don't think there's anything more satisfying--when eating, at least--than recognizing a craving, shopping for the ingredients needed to prepare it, cooking it, and, finally, sitting down to enjoy the fruits of your labor. Sure, it's a great feeling to go out and order a juicy, medium-rare burger when you get a sudden yen for beef, or to hunker down in a diner booth and slurp an icy chocolate milkshake when it's late at night and you're looking for some comfort food. But to really take that craving into your own hands--to see it through start to finish, making little tweaks here and there to ensure that what you'll eat is tailored precisely to your craving--for me, that's where it's at. Sometimes, when you have to work for your food, the payoff is that much greater.

That was precisely my experience earlier this evening, when, arriving home with an empty stomach, I was met by the sight of an equally empty fridge. Since I have to go shopping anyway, I thought to myself, I might as well figure out exactly what I'm in the mood for, and then shop around my craving. I wanted something light, crisp and refreshing; my usual winter go-to of a soup or a braise felt too heavy for the unseasonably warm temperatures in New York this weekend. I also wanted to make something packed with vegetables, as I planned to stop by Rossman Farms, an incredibly cheap, 24-hour fruit and vegetable wholesaler and retailer located right nearby on 25th Street. I thought noodles sounded about right, and an Asian-style rendition was particularly appealing. I had it: cold sesame noodles. A staple Chinese takeout favorite, I knew I could make my own for a lot less money, and that I could adapt the standard recipe to better suit my tastes--namely, by making it less sweet and gloopy than many of the versions I've tried in restaurants.

I already had peanut butter, sesame paste, and various Chinese seasonings in my pantry, so at Rossman's all I needed to pick up was a box of spaghetti, a red bell pepper, a bunch of green onions, a carrot, some cilantro, and, finally, as an impulse purchase, a daikon radish, a vegetable that I love but with which I'd never cooked. At home, I set a pot of water to boil, and then I set to work on my ingredients. I sliced up a chicken breast and slipped it into a quick marinade of soy sauce, sesame oil, Chinese cooking wine and red pepper flakes, and then I cut the bell pepper, carrot and daikon into long, thin strips, and sliced a few green onions into thin rounds:

















After I added the pasta to the water, I mixed up my peanut sauce, which I've made a few times before and can by now more or less improvise. What I chose to use was a mix of peanut butter, Chinese sesame paste (akin to tahini, but with a sweeter, darker-roasted flavor), light soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, sugar, and fresh ginger, plus hot water to thin the sauce out. What you're looking for is a smooth, thick (but still pourable), creamy paste that's sweet but not overly so. To that end, you will need to continually taste it as you mix it, adding more soy sauce if it's not salty enough, more vinegar if it needs some bite and acidity, and more hot water if it's too thick. Here's the finished concoction (please forgive the splatter-stained bowl; it's a messy, sticky process):

















When the noodles were just al dente, I drained them and rinsed them well under cold water, both to cool them down as well as to stop them from sticking. I tossed them with the sauce and added the prepared vegetables, and then I stuck the bowl into the fridge to chill it well. While waiting, I sauteed the chicken slices and laid them out on a plate to cool. Finally, I arranged my portion in one heaping bowl, showered the whole with more green onions and some torn cilantro, and dug in with my chopsticks:

















As I had hoped, the toothsome noodles were cloaked in a velvety, peanutty smoothness which was punctuated by the crisp, cool sweetness of the pepper and the carrot, as well as by the peppery bite of the daikon and the green onions. The juicy chicken, although a nice touch, is not absolutely necessary here, and this dish would make a fabulously satisfying vegetarian option, either with or without some cold, pristine cubes of tofu. The one element that I forgot was a scattering of chopped, salted peanuts. Don't make my mistake: they would have contributed a rich, salty crunchiness. No matter, though: this meal was still absolutely delicious--craveable, even.


Cold Sesame Noodles with Vegetables
Serves 3-4

1. Set a large pot of water to boil.
2. If using chicken (optional), slice one chicken breast down the middle lenthwise, and then slice again, into small strips. Place chicken strips in a bowl with 1 tbsp. Chinese cooking wine, dry white wine or sherry; 1 tbsp. soy sauce; 1 tsp. toasted sesame oil; and a pinch of red pepper flakes. Set aside.
2. Slice 1 large bell pepper into thin, narrow strips. Peel 1 small carrot and 1 small daikon radish; carefully cut them lengthwise into long, flat planks and then slice them into long, narrow strips. Set vegetables aside.
3. When the water reaches a boil, salt it and add 1/2 pound of spaghetti, whole-wheat spaghetti, or Japanese soba noodles. Cook until al dente, about 8 - 10 minutes.
4. In the meantime, mix the peanut sauce: in a small bowl, combine about 2 tbsp. all-natural creamy peanut butter and 2 tsp. Chinese sesame paste or tahini. Alternatively, if you do not have sesame paste, you can use a mixture of about 3 tbsp. peanut butter and 1 tbsp. toasted sesame oil. Combine well, and then, using the hot pasta cooking water, add it about 1 tbsp. at a time, stirring all the while, until the paste is smooth and uniform. Add about 1 tbsp. light soy sauce, 1 tbsp. rice wine vinegar, and 2 tsp. granulated sugar. Mix well and add more hot water, if needed, to achieve a sauce that is thick but still pourable. Taste the sauce and adjust it by adding more soy sauce, vinegar, sugar or hot water, if needed. Add 1/2 tsp. grated fresh ginger and stir.
5. Drain the pasta and rinse it well under cold running water. Drain and then add the peanut sauce, tossing to coat. Add the prepared vegetables, stir, and place in the fridge to chill, about 20 minutes.
6. If using chicken, heat 1 tbsp. of vegetable oil in a heavy skillet set over a medium flame. Add the chicken and cook, stirring, about 6 - 8 minutes. Spread out on a plate to cool.
7. Serve noodles in bowls, adding chicken, if using, and garnishing with torn cilantro leaves, chopped scallions, and chopped salted peanuts.

The gift that keeps on giving

No, this isn't a holiday-themed post. But I'm choosing to use that familiar expression as a metaphor for...soup. Yes, that's right, soup. Because in the same way that a good gift continues to bring happiness long after it is given, a good pot of soup continues to nourish for days or even weeks after it is cooked. Sometime last week I decided I wanted to make soup. It was cold, and I wanted to be warmed, and I wanted to have a big pot of something tasty waiting in my fridge for me to partake of whenever I wanted. Also, I had a frozen chicken carcass lying around, and it was high time to convert it into some homemade broth.

So that's where I started. Making chicken broth is easy and you can basically do it however you want to, adding whatever seasonings or aromatics that you happen to have on hand. What I did was place the frozen chicken carcass in the biggest, tallest pot that I own, filled it almost to the top with about 10 cups of cold water, added half an onion, a bunch of fresh parsley, and a small handful of black peppercorns. I covered the pot and turned on the heat, and when the water came to a boil I uncovered the pot, turned it down to a simmer, and left it alone for about 3 hours, or until the broth had reduced to about 8 cups of liquid. At that point I turned the heat off, skimmed the top of the broth of any foam or excess fat, then seasoned it with a good amount of salt and a little bit of black pepper. Then I reserved the 6 cups I needed for my soup and transferred the rest to containers to let it cool.

Then I did something I don't often do--I followed a recipe. Doing so was, in fact, kind of counterintuitive, because making soup is so simple that you can usually just wing it. But I felt like making a bright, flavorful soup, not your run-of-the-mill chicken noodle variety. So I found a recipe at epicurious.com for Thai Chicken-Coconut Soup, made of a base of chicken broth and coconut milk and featuring lively additions such as lime juice and zest, chilies, cilantro and fish sauce. The soup turned out just as I wanted it to: spicy, complex-tasting, and filling. And the pot lasted me about six or seven meals--I just ate it continually for a few days in a row, never tiring of its flavors, which intensified as it sat in the fridge. The best part? There's still one serving left, sitting in my freezer waiting for a day when, lazy and hungry, I'll still be able to enjoy a complete meal in about 5 minutes. That's a lot of payoff for not a lot of work.

















Thai Chicken-Coconut Soup
From epicurious.com
Makes 6-8 servings

Ingredients:

4 oz. cellophane noodles
6 cups low-sodium chicken broth
1–2 red Thai (or jalapeño) peppers, seeded and finely chopped (plus slices for garnish)
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1 tablespoon grated ginger
2 teaspoons grated lemon zest
1 teaspoon grated lime zest
1/4 cup fresh lemon (or lime) juice
4 tablespoons Thai fish sauce, divided
1/2 pound shiitake mushrooms, sliced (3 cups)
2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts (about 5 ounces each), cut into 2 1/2-inch-long by 1/4-inch-wide strips
1 cup light coconut milk
2 cups baby spinach
2 tablespoon chopped cilantro (plus sprigs for garnish)

Preparation:

Place noodles in a bowl; add enough warm water to cover and let sit until soft, about 15 minutes. Drain. Combine broth, pepper, garlic, ginger, lemon zest, lime zest, lemon juice and 3 tablespoon fish sauce in a medium saucepan. Season with salt. Bring to a simmer, add noodles and cook 3 minutes more. Using tongs, transfer noodles to a bowl and cover with foil to keep warm. Add mushrooms to broth; season with salt, if desired; simmer 3 minutes more. Add chicken and coconut milk and simmer, stirring, until chicken is just cooked, about 3 minutes. Stir in spinach until it begins to wilt, about 1 minute. Add chopped cilantro and season with remaining 1 tablespoon fish sauce. Using tongs, divide noodles among 4 bowls. Ladle soup into bowls and garnish with sprigs of cilantro and slices of pepper.

Quick and healthy

After gorging on such varied items as jerk chicken, beef patties, fajitas and cream puffs at a free all-campus lunch yesterday afternoon, my friends and I found ourselves a bit too stuffed to consider making anything very involved for dinner last night--in fact, none of us really wanted to think about cooking at all. However, I had a pound of green beans left over from last week's co-op pickup that were begging to be used before they went bad, so we soldiered on in the name of the blog. We wanted something quick and light and found the answer, as it so often is in such cases, to be Asian (or Asian-style) food. I improvised a recipe for baked marinated tofu, which we enjoyed with the green beans, stir-fried with garlic, ginger and sesame seeds, as well as Korean-style white rice, which has barley in it and is delicious. On paper (or on screen, as the case may be) this meal may sound like a bland 70s-style health food experiment gone wrong, but I assure you that everything was flavorful and satisfying. Even Malcolm, a consistent skeptic of soy products, approved of the tofu. Our appetites were sufficiently revived, and we even found room for a dessert of Kahlua-doused ice cream.

Baked marinated tofu: thick slices of extra-firm tofu marinated in a rather imprecise mixture of soy sauce, sesame oil, honey, rice wine vinegar, fresh garlic and ginger, and red pepper flakes. I also added a dash of Veri Veri Teriyaki Sauce to ensure a good balance of flavor. The tofu sat in the fridge, covered, for 2 hours, but overnight would be even better. Afterwards, I drained the marinade off of the tofu and reserved it to spoon over the finished dish. I coated the tofu with olive oil on both sides and baked it at 375° for 45 minutes, turning once. The final product is crisp on the outside and surprisingly meaty and chewy in the middle: it's really the perfect dish for people who think they don't like tofu. Finished with a scattering of scallions and toasted sesame seeds:
















Green beans, stir-fried for 8-10 minutes with fresh minced ginger and garlic, as well as the usual suspects of soy sauce, sesame oil, and the aforementioned teriyaki sauce:
















Simple and satisfying Korean rice, rinsed well and made in a rice cooker with a 1:1 ¼ ratio of rice to water:
















Surely too good to be called health food.

Got rice?

The broccoli from the co-op ended up in an (admittedly bastardized) fried rice. My housemate, Kat, is Korean, and her fried rice is pretty incredible. She's shown me a few times how to prepare it just right, but even so, my version never comes out tasting quite like hers. That's OK by me--it tastes good in its own right. And that's kind of the whole idea of fried rice, isn't it--to be a quick dish that uses up all the odds and ends hanging around in your refrigerator, to be easily adaptable to whatever seasonings you might have on hand (whether they're strictly "Asian" or not), and to turn out well regardless of your culinary background. It's not a very authentic dish, and that's exactly what I like about it; I like flexibility in cooking.

Here's how I made it (one serving, eaten with chopsticks at a leisurely pace if you're lucky, or scarfed down with a fork in front of your computer as you put the finishing touches on an overdue Powerpoint presentation if you're not):

Cut one boneless, skinless chicken breast into chunks and place them in a bowl with some soy sauce, a dash of sesame oil, and some red pepper flakes. Allow the chicken to marinate as you cook your rice (if you don't have any left over) and get your other ingredients ready.

Cut some broccoli into bite-size pieces and blanch them in salted simmering water, cooking them for 4-5 minutes. During the last minute of cooking, add a handful of frozen peas and carrots, and then drain all the vegetables. I run them under cold water to stop the cooking.

Heat some vegetable oil in a large skillet and add the drained chicken, cooking it all the way through. Set the chicken aside. Wipe out the skillet and return it to the heat. Add about a tablespoon more oil and a goodly amount of finely chopped garlic. Cook for 30 seconds, then add your rice (I used short-grain brown rice). Fry the rice, seasoning it with soy sauce, sesame oil, and gochujang, if you have it (which I did, thanks to aforementioned Korean housemate). Add a beaten egg, stirring rapidly so the egg breaks up and cooks through. Add in the chicken and vegetables, season more to taste, and heat mixture through.

Or, you know, just go with your instincts, like I did.