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Showing posts from August, 2016

All Under Heaven by Carolyn Phillips

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I was 12% into this book when I knew I wanted a copy for myself. I was 20% into it when I realized I needed to preorder multiple copies for everyone I know who cooks Chinese food. I've got several Chinese cookbooks and had sworn off ever buying any more. My favorite, The Key to Chinese Cooking by Irene Kuo, never lets me down and has a lot of variety packed into it. However, All Under Heaven was written with the same sort of clear instructions and approachable style. Additionally, it looked at the usual Chinese regional cuisine divisions (Sichuan, Hunan, Cantonese, etc.) more closely than I'd ever seen. This means than you don't just read about Cantonese or Southern Chinese cooking, but also get to try typical Hakka dishes or try that of Taiwan's military families who came from different provinces and then gave everything a big stir to create their own distinctive cuisine. Some of the dishes sound like a familiar twist on our favorites like Silk Road Fajitas,

Green Onion Pancakes

These are one of my favorite things to make, because they can be appetizers or a main course, they take very few ingredients, and they're very easy to make. It can be a little tedious to roll them out, but even that doesn't take very long. And as a bonus, people are usually very impressed both with the execution and the result. The first time I made green onion pancakes was with a different recipe than the one I'm giving here. It didn't specify that the water for the dough should be boiling, and it didn't have the multiple roll-outs of the dough. These things make a huuuge difference! As did an old gas range and a powerful, newer one, but that was just a benefit of moving. Now, this recipe is from Serious Eats by J. Kenji Lopez-Alt Pancakes: 2 cups all-purpose flour 1 cup boiling water Up to 1/4 cup toasted sesame oil (I actually like regular sesame oil better) 2 cups thinly sliced scallion greens Dipping sauce: 2 tbsp soy sauce 2 tbsp Chinkiang or ri

Crab Mac and Cheese

One of the most consistently good cookbooks I've ever gotten was from Julie when I got married. It's Nigel Slater's Eat . All of the recipes are simple, not too many ingredients, and written in paragraph form, which I found off-putting at first but quickly learned to love. So here is one of the first things I ever made out of it: crab mac and cheese. Crab Mac and Cheese 8 oz medium-sized pasta (penne, serpentelli, macaroni) 10 oz lump crab meat 1+2/3 cup milk 1 cup heavy cream 1 tbsp Dijon mustard 2 tbsp whole-grain mustard 1/2 cup fresh white bread crumbs 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Boil pasta in a large pot of well-salted boiling water for about 9 minutes, til tender. Drain and return to the saucepan, then add milk, heavy cream, Dijon mustard, and whole-grain mustard and bring to a boil. Lower the heat, stir in crab meat, and simmer gently, stirring often, for about 5 minutes. Check the seasoning, then transfer to a dee

Best Mapo Tofu

Hi! I'm Hannah, Julie's daughter, who now has access to this blog to post all my favorite recipes! So to start off, here is a recipe for Mapo tofu from Serve the People: A Stir-fried Journey Through China by Jen Lin-Liu. Now, I will say that one ingredient we used is probably not what the recipe actually intends. The recipe calls for broadbean paste (doubanjiang), which exists in plain and spicy versions. The way the author calls for chili sauce in equal part to broadbean paste in other recipes in the book makes me think it's meant to be the plain version. I couldn't find a kind that didn't have chili in it at the Vietnamese or Thai grocery stores I go to, so I just used Lee Kum Kee's chili bean sauce, which has broadbean paste in it but also a hefty dose of chili. So my husband was a big fan, partly because he takes very spicy food as a challenge, but I like it with a little bit less chili bean sauce. I could have tried a Chinese market, but I'm no

Texas Hash

Anyone who didn't grow up in Texas is going to think of something like Corned Beef Hash and say, "What? Hash has chopped potatoes." But in Texas, it has rice instead. And ground beef. And a Mexican flair, if you are lucky. After being introduced to the Davis family Texas Hash, I tried began adapting it for our family's preferences. Delicious! Texas Hash 1 pound good store bought Chorizo 1 medium onion, chopped 2 garlic cloves, minced (or use 1 cup pico de gallo instead of garlic and the tomatoes below) 2 small tomatoes, preferably Roma, chopped (or canned, diced tomatoes) 1-3/4 cup uncooked rice 1/2 tablespoon chili powder 1/4 teaspoon cumin 2 cups chicken stock 2 tablespoons chopped cilantro In a large oven-proof skillet, preferably cast iron, brown chorizo over medium heat, breaking it into small pieces. Pour off the accumulated fat as necessary to leave no more than about 1 tablespoon. Add the onion, garlic, and tomatoes to the chorizo and contin