Cooking at Home
I love simple dishes that require little effort and yield delicious results. This is most definitely one of those dishes. It is also a very simple way to prepare fish for folks who are not very confident in their fish-cooking ability. The basic technique is …
Hainanese chicken rice is one of my favorite “street” foods of all time. This dish is very popular in Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand. Each country has slight variations on the same dish (the accompanying sauces are what seem to vary the most), and they are …
I love dishes that are quick and easy to make, but deliver on flavor. I am much more likely to prepare them when I don’t feel like spending over an hour cooking dinner. This shrimp and crab spaghetti is light, yet satisfying and can easily …
There are a lot of really great Sichuan restaurants that have popped up here in Brooklyn Chinatown over the past few years. I eat at a few of them quite often. Many of these restaurants usually have a menu item that is often titled something …
Kung Pao Chicken is a classic Sichuan dish that is quite popular here in the US. That being said, the versions you often find here tend to lean on the sweeter side and often contain many additional ingredients such as bell peppers or carrots. While …
If you have never had Chinese-style steamed eggs (or its Japanese counterpart, chawanmushi), it is best described as a savory egg custard. In this version, eggs are whisked together with stock and some seasonings and then steamed until a soft custard has formed. This custard …
Pad Ka Prao is one of my favorite one-dish meals. It is simple, quick to throw together, and absolutely delicious. Minced meat (usually chicken, but you could do this with almost any protein) is stir-fried with basil, garlic, chilies, and fish sauce. This salty, savory …
Although braising is typically associated with long, slow cooking of tough cuts of meat, in the case of tofu it usually refers to briefly simmering chunks of tofu in a flavorful sauce. While there are countless braised tofu preparations out there, this is definitely one …
Whenever I see this dish on a menu at a Thai restaurant, chances are that I will order it. It is one of my favorite whole fish preparations and luckily, it is also one of the simplest to make at home. This dish can almost …
Thai-style crab fried rice, Khao Pad Buu, is a great dish to cook when you have some leftover rice and crabmeat on hand. You can also substitute the crab with any number of proteins…shrimp, chicken, pork…almost anything would work. If you have the rice already …
Twice cooked pork is a stir-fried dish from Sichuan that is definitely worth adding to your home cooking repertoire. The basic technique is simple. Pork is simmered, sliced, and then stir-fried with green garlic and aromatics. Served with a bowl of freshly steamed rice, this …
Let me preface this by saying that I am by no means an expert on this dish, I just love eating Dan Dan noodles and this recipe is about as close as I can get to what I consider “ideal”. I have eaten countless bowls …
Making fresh falafel at home isn’t nearly as time-consuming and labor intensive as it may seem. As long as you plan ahead and have the right equipment, falafel can easily be made in 30 to 45 minutes. You can make the accompaniments to your falafel as simple or complex as you like. Don’t let the perceived difficulty of making falafel steer you away from giving it a shot.
What is laap? Laap (aka laab, lahb, larb….) is a bit hard to describe to those who aren’t familiar this Thai/Lao dish. In essence, it is a ground meat salad. Ground meat is cooked, seasoned and then tossed with a number of different herbs and …
This is a spicy and addicting home-style Sichuan dish that is easy to put together for a weeknight meal. It goes really well with some steamed for a simple dinner, or as part of a multi-dish meal. The prep is relatively simple, just a little …
Making a green curry from scratch at home can take some effort, but the results are undoubtedly better than your typical take-out version. The nice thing is, much of the work goes into making the green curry paste and once you have made the paste, …
Lomo Saltado just might be my favorite dish of all time. I grew up eating it and to this day, I almost always order Lomo Saltado whenever I go to a Peruvian restaurant. The funny thing is that, at its core, this famous Peruvian dish …
A few words on Gai Yang – ไก่ย่าง Grilled chicken with papaya salad and a bit of sticky rice is easily one of my favorite meals on earth. Sitting outside on a hot day there is nothing better, especially if you wash it down with …
