C. sapidus

Doddie: Beautiful bimbimbap! Last night: garlicky oven-roasted chicken and grilled zucchini from Into the Vietnamese Kitchen. Mrs. C made a delicious side dish – baby potatoes sauteed with ginger-lime dipping sauce. Basmati rice and cucumbers. Tonight: chorizo-fried rice; Thai sweet pork (mu wan); and stir-fried tamarind shrimp (from the Cradle of Flavor thread). For the sweet pork, we stir-fried tenderloin medallions with mashed garlic, fish sauce, palm sugar, and white pepper. Simple and quite good. The grownups enjoyed an Aviation with bitters after dinner. Stir-fried tamarind shrimp (udang asam).

Susan, besides envying your cilantro roots I also covet your access to water spinach – I’ve never seen any around here. Tonight we made stir-fried tamarind shrimp (udang asam), a variation on tuna goreng. The shrimp “must be in the shell” for this recipe, so I was excited to find head-on shrimp at the Mexican grocery (“Una media libra de camarones, por favor.”). Unfortunately, the shrimp turned out mushy. I am not certain whether it was bad shrimp or bad technique, but I suspect the shrimp - they smelled a bit, um, shrimpier than usual. I will try this again if I can find better shrimp.

Our house has a hall closet near the kitchen that we use as a pantry of sorts. This closet works well for dog food but is otherwise fairly useless. The closet is narrow and deep so things get lost, and opening the closet door blocks the main hallway (through the double doors on the right of the picture). When we renovated our kitchen we stole two feet from the narrow end of the dining room and installed Ikea cabinets with pull-out drawers. These cabinets hold a ton of stuff – dry goods, canned goods, small appliances, serving trays, and cookbooks in the glass-fronted upper cabinets. The countertop also works well for dinner parties. Shallow cabinets and/or pull-out drawers are the most efficient way to store things.

Between house guests and two new dogs we haven’t taken dinner pictures lately. Fortunately, the regulars and new contributors have more than picked up the slack. At our house guest’s request, tonight we made ginger chicken (kai phat khing) from True Thai. We stir-fried sliced chicken thighs with a sliced onion and lots of ginger, garlic, mushrooms, and scallions. The sauce contained black soy sauce, fish sauce, rice wine, and a fair amount of sugar. This was surprisingly popular with our ginger- and mushroom-averse boys, and out house guest loved it. I left the chiles out of the stir-fry, and instead made a dipping sauce with chiles, garlic, lime juice, sugar, and fish sauce. Cucumbers and jasmine rice on the side. Last night we grilled garlicky five-spice pork chops, adapted from Into the Vietnamese Kitchen. Despite changing the cut of meat and modifying the marinade, this was probably the best pork chop I have ever made – tender and juicy, and not the least bit dry. Mrs. C made buttery baby potatoes, and we had cucumbers and a green salad with ginger-lime dipping sauce.

Oh, that looks so delicious! Do you think they would survive in the mail?

Susan, I prefer cucumber relish with ginger, but only when the ginger is young and mellow-tasting. If the ginger is older, the flavor gets harsh and I agree that the cucumber relish is better sans ginger. Cucumber relish on scrambled eggs and tortillas – yep! I haven’t tried cucumber relish on a burger though (yet). I envy your cilantro roots, especially such nice-looking ones. We have to grow our own cilantro if we want roots. The sad thing is that the grocery store used to sell cilantro with roots, but that was before I knew that the roots were useful.

Hi, Jamie! Besides knowing the varieties, when you start chopping the chiles you can eat a tiny chunk from the stem end of the chile. The heat is in the seeds and ribs (placenta), so the tip may not be representative. You may want to have some yogurt or cheese on hand if you try this with bird chiles. For many Thai curries, you separate the cream and "crack" it (cook it until the oil separates) and then fry the curry paste in the oil. Frying the curry paste will mellow the flavors, giving a very different end result compared with boiling the curry paste. You can make sticky rice in a regular steamer. The kind that fits inside a large pot works best. Some folks line the steamer with cheesecloth, but I have not found that necessary. Kasma Loha-Unchit (click) gives instructions on her excellent site. Good luck!

nonblonde007: A belated thank you to a fellow nontraditional breakfast lover. stuart_s: That pastrami salmon look great. PercyN: I can almost taste your chile bean scrambled eggs with larb, I need to try that. The bold color and spicing of your Indian masala eggs is beautiful, too. What are alpha-alpha sprouts? Saturday morning I improvised a red curry paste - I think it had red chile, garlic, shallots, ginger, and shrimp paste. I fried the paste with palm sugar and leftover coconut milk to make red curry scrambled eggs. Sides were more leftovers - carrot daikon pickle and sauteed char siu pork. Edited to add palm sugar.

Thanks, Dejah. The sauce was even better the next day, and a bit more salt brought out the flavor nicely. I look forward to seeing your beef rendang and joong. Where has Tepee been, anyway? I always enjoy her posts and pictures.

Jamie Lee and Saucee – Welcome to Dinner! Marcia – They may be simple, but your grilled zucchini look so good. Mild dinner week, continued: Javanese chicken curry with fried shallots; stir-fried broccoli with garlic and soy bean paste (Susan’s “baby poop” ); eternal cukes; and jasmine rice. Details about the curry on Cooking With 'Cradle of Flavor' (click).

Tonight we made Javanese chicken curry (opor ayam) sprinkled with fried shallots. The aroma of simmering chicken, cinnamon, garlic, galangal, ginger, shallots, and kaffir lime leaves stimulated the appetite nicely. A mild, flavorful curry, rich with coconut milk, this was quite popular with the family and our house guests To avoid delaying dinner I made the flavoring paste this morning. I forgot to pick up lemongrass, so instead I zested a lemon and added extra kaffir lime leaves. Since Dejah mentioned having trouble browning the chicken, I browned half in the Staub and half in a nonstick saute pan. Surprisingly, the nonstick pan performed best at browning the chicken without burning the curry paste. I look forward to trying the spicy West Sumatran variation that Dejah made.

Ted - if you like Asian food, many Chinese stir-fry recipes work best for two people. Larger amounts of food tend to cool the wok (skillet, etc.) so that the food does not sear properly. If you like spicy food, I can strongly recommend Fuchsia Dunlop’s Sichuan and Hunan cookbooks. Most of her recipes are sized to feed two. Many Chinese, Vietnamese, and Thai recipes call for fattier cuts of pork, sliced thinly against the grain. This results in juicy meat that is not tough. Thai and Vietnamese meat salads are wonderful, and can be sized appropriately. Fried rice is also excellent for using up leftover meat (or anything else that may be hanging around your fridge).

Frege, here are a couple of threads: Induction / electromagnetic stoves, anyone gone ultra high-tech? Magnetic induction stoves, any cons to MI? For most efficient searching, use the "Search" link at the very top of the page (between "Help" and "Members"). Clicking on "Search titles only" will help focus your search. We struggled with a similar decision, and wound up with a six-burner Blue Star. If our kitchen was a little larger, we would probably have gone with a four-burner Blue Star and a double induction unit. Good luck with your renovation!

. . . and we haven't had crabs yet this summer. Continuing our mild dinner theme we made banh mi with grilled char siu pork, liver pate, carrot-daikon pickle, thinly-sliced cucumbers and jalapenos, Maggi sauce, and mayo. For bread, we offered a choice of hollowed-out mini-baguettes or roasted garlic ciabatta. Sliced cukes on the side, of course. We marinated strips of Boston butt for eight hours in five-spice powder, hoisin sauce, honey, garlic, sesame oil, soy sauce, black soy sauce, sugar, and Shaoxing wine. Here is the char siu hot off the grill, before resting and slicing. It turned out nicely - charred and full of flavor outside, tender and juicy inside. Gotta make something spicy this weekend, though.

That did the trick - thanks! Mmm, leek pie.

Yum! Yum! If I recall, reheated Celebration Rice was just fine for breakfast. If the recipe calls for coconut milk, then I would shake up the can unless you had a particularly thick layer of coconut cream. Yum! I have added urap to our list, and I agree about nasi goreng - good stuff, and yours looks scrumptious. We hope to cook from Cradle of Flavor this weekend.

Hi, Jessica: It sounds like your home turf overlaps with my sister’s (although the link in your first post just showed North America). I used to visit the East Village/LES twice yearly, usually Labor Day and sometime during peak rose season at the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens. It has been way to long since my last visit, so I’m very interested to see your take on the ‘hood.. Your spicy soup sounds delicious, your store looks like great fun, and having a second fridge is da bomb. Blog on!

Looks delicious! I'm jealous that you can double the chiles, though. We have been chile-deprived lately to accommodate house guests. Making a spicy dipping sauce is not the same as having delicious chile flavors thoroughly permeating dinner. Some perfume company is missing a golden opportunity. I would buy five-spice chicken perfume for Mrs. C in a heartbeat.

Bruce, do you normally stirfry or poach the meat? . . . Susan, I have only made larb twice so I have not yet established "normal". Both versions so far have been stir-fried, but my next attempt will be poached a la David Thompson. We both seem to prefer a juicy larb. I am quite certain that you are right about personalizing larb. My goal is to try a variety of larb recipes until I get the hang of the dish. I have a taste memory of certain restaurant larbs that I would like to emulate and then improve upon. Eventually, larb will probably join fried rice, stir-fried shrimp, SE Asian dipping sauce, Thai-style grilled meat salad, etc. in the pantheon of wing-it meals. I'm funny about raw meat. I once had kitfo (Ethiopian steak tartare), and alternated between enjoying the delightful spicing and weirding out over eating raw meat. I have no such issues with sushi or ceviche, though - logic apparently does not apply when it comes to raw meat.

You know that I enjoy spicy food year round, but summer seems to call for grilled meat salads loaded with chiles, mint, cilantro, Thai basil, and lots of lime juice. Mmm, larb. Mosquitoes willing, as frequently as possible we spend summer evenings on the carport, tending the grill while cooled by the hilltop breeze and a 60-foot tall oak tree. A Dark & Stormy with extra lime or a nice hoppy beer helps, too.

Dave: Thank you for the lovely visit to your village. The food reminds me of a visit to my half-French cousin's house in California. They served a simple, delicious meal, accompanied by ample quantities of well-chosen French wines. Two decades later, I can still remember their grilled zucchini. Fresh ingredients cooked well, and a refreshing story told well. I am sorry to see it end.

Continuing to cook mild for house guests, we grilled five-spice chicken thighs, sliced cucumbers, and made a green salad. Jasmine rice, steamed broccoli, and nuoc cham dipping sauce/salad dressing were hiding out of the (blurry) picture. I made the five spice powder this morning, and it tasted so much better than store-bought. The nuoc cham featured our first garden chiles of the summer – Santa Fe Grande and Thai Hot Dragon.

Fuchsia Dunop's Land of Plenty is an awesome cookbook, and one of my favorites. I prefer it slightly to her Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook, although you can't go wrong with either one. The deciding factor would be whether you like the mouth-numbing (and to my taste, mouth-watering) flavor of Sichuan peppercorns.

Three more: Thailand the Beautiful Cookbook by Panurat Poladitmontri et al. True Thai: The Modern Art of Thai Cooking by Victor Sodsook et al. Mexican Everyday by Rick and Deann Groen Bayless

I love the “Mexico bug” that’s going around, and welcome back to Marlene. For July 4th I smoked pork spare ribs with a Memphis dry rub . . . . . . and made collard greens with smoked ham hocks. Mrs. C baked skillet cornbread, made devilled eggs, and mixed up dark & stormys. Our house guest made stovetop beans and a second batch of ribs in the oven. Watermelon for dessert, plenty of leftovers for tomorrow, and fireworks in the driveway between thunderstorms.