C. sapidus

Tonight’s dinner was improvised five-spice chicken fried rice. The original plan was to grill five-spice chicken but when I opened the package it had a “foul” odor. Whoops, my bad – time to improvise. We had chicken tenderloins in the freezer and leftover rice. I thawed the tenderloins overnight in the five-spice marinade, and stir-fried the chicken with the marinade. Wow, the aroma was absolutely incredible – I definitely see five-spice chicken stir-fry in our future. Mrs. C made an apple, pear, and strawberry crumble with sugar-roasted pecans, crystallized ginger, and chipotle powder. She also made a sauce from the extra juice. The crystallized ginger gave the crumble an incredible kick. I know what I’m having for breakfast!

Doddie: Thank you for a delicious and delightful week, and for teaching us so much about your lives. You shared a diverse array of mouth-watering food, wonderful images, a talented husband, and cute-as-a-button kids, while providing a vivid slice of Korea and the Philippines. I need to try your “eternal” garlic fried rice, (probably with jasmine rice), but I’m still reeling from the array of banchan you showed at the restaurant. Maraming salamat (which I hope means “thank you very much for a fascinating and highly enjoyable week”, or something like that).

to look so good! ← Dejah: Thank you! Credit to Ms. Dunlop on the recipe, of course. I have yet to be disappointed by anything from Land of Plenty. After seeing XiaoLing's incredible CNY spread, I need to get Ms. Dunlop's Hunan cookbook, too.

Here you go, Dejah: spicy beef slices with tangerine peel (chen pi niu rou). I can't wait to see your feast tomorrow.

Dejah: Beautiful bao! Sheetz: I would love to see your curry turnovers. I smoked up the house seasoning a new 16-inch cast iron wok. The seasoning isn’t finished, but I used the new wok to stir-fry baby bok choy and broccolini while Fuchsia Dunlop’s tangerine beef simmered away in the old wok. Friends showed up for dinner, so Mrs. C made cheeseburgers, rice, and sweet potato fries. The tangerine beef was delicious, and the “generous handful” of dried chiles ensured that Mrs. C and I shared the dish without competition. Although too involved for a weeknight meal, tangerine beef will make an excellent spicy appetizer for dinner parties. I still feel strange taking dinner pictures when we have guests, but I will try to get a decent shot of the few morsels that were left over.

Agreed. Ample evidence demonstrates the steel in my mother’s spine, but some types of steel are more visible than others. My mother would chew off her arm before making others feel uncomfortable in any way, much less “brooking no nonsense, suffering no fools, kicking ass and taking names”. I'll keep an eye out for loquats this spring. Thanks for the article, and the kind words.

That would have been my mother, shelling peas or knitting to prevent idle hands and forestall the wrath of a formidable British aunt, who apparently made an indelible impression some seven decades previously. This amuses me greatly, as my strikingly mild-mannered mother belongs to the AAUW.You paint vivid word-pictures. Nicely done! I cannot recall trying a loquat before, but now I am curious. Do they travel well, or would that be missing the point?

Michael: I agree – I love to see pictures of Ann’s baked goods. Percy: Mmm, eggs and chorizo. What kind of chorizo did you use? I had an odd breakfast, but one of my favorite Mexican veggie dishes – chayote with shallots, chiles, and cilantro, topped with feta cheese and a squeeze of lime. With a nibble of a sausage patty that younger son made, that should hold me until dinner.

Gruzia: Mmm, enchiladas. Blether: Thanks! Wendy: Beautiful picture! Tonight we had chicken fried rice with sorta-Sichuan flavors. We stir-fried the chicken separately after marinating in soy sauce, toban djan, sugar, oil, and cornstarch. The boys’ batch of fried rice had garlic, ginger, chiles, shallots, roasted chile paste, fish sauce, egg, and scallions. Our batch had all of the above, plus edamame and cilantro. I enjoyed mine with Sriracha, hoisin sauce, and a squeeze of lime.

In Japanese it's called "mabo nasu". ← Awesome! Thanks, Rona. And the list of things to try grows longer . . .

I have many favorite eggplant/aubergine recipes: fish-fragrant eggplant from Land of Plenty; makhua oop (“best eggplant dish ever”) from Hot, Sour, Salty, Sweet; and broiled/grilled eggplant with rosemary, garlic, and olive oil from Marcella Hazan. Asian Week (click) has plausible-looking recipes for the first two. Mrs. C makes an addictive babaganouj. It must be fairly labor-intensive because she hasn’t made it for a long time even though I drop regular hints about how much I like it. I wonder if eggplant could be substituted for tofu in mapo dofu (mapo makhua?). Gruzia: Your description of Georgian eggplant is making my mouth water.

Joe: Beautiful S&P shrimp! Kim: Have you tried using a small beanbag (or bag of rice) to steady your camera? As an, um, frugal person, I brace our point-and-shoot camera against any convenient solid object, usually the kettle handle. To keep this post on subject, yesterday’s dinner was stir-fried chicken and shallots over jasmine rice, and stir-fried cabbage with chiles and Sichuan peppercorns. Hmm, we have had many monochromatic meals lately – time for some fresh spring colors!

jmsaul: I’m not trillium, but we have been very happy with the Malaysian, Indonesian, and Singaporean recipes in James Oseland’s Cradle of Flavor. Here is an eGullet-friendly Amazon link (click). Tonight we made stir-fried chicken and shallots from Breath of a Wok, served over jasmine rice. This was my first experience with fermented black beans. They gave the sauce a fantastic depth of flavor, and the shallots provided a nice oniony contrast. For a veggie, we stir-fried cabbage with dried chiles, Sichuan peppercorns, and a pinch of salt and sugar, finishing the dish with soy sauce, Chinkiang vinegar, and sesame oil. No leftovers.

Until my mid-30s, water polo and other activities burned up so many calories that I could eat as much as I wanted. This was freaking awesome. After breakfasting on multiple bowls of Total or Product 19 cereal with whole milk, I would usually eat one huge meal and two light meals over the course of the day. The huge meal could be lunch or dinner, depending on the day’s activities. I often left the house early in the morning and returned home after midnight, so I became adept at navigating interstate highways while balancing Styrofoam containers of palak paneer, yedoro wat, or jerk chicken. I had a rubber-bottomed travel mug that endured a multi-thousand dollar rear-ending without spilling a drop of coffee. *Sigh*. I miss eating like that. Nowadays: Dinner: We eat our main meal together as a family, scheduled around the boys’ evening activities. Lunch: My wife and I usually eat workday lunches together. Cafeteria food or soup and salad are most frequent, but occasionally we enjoy a lunch date at a restaurant or grab a quick meal at home. Breakfast: Like Maggie, I often breakfast on protein-rich leftovers to prevent a mid-morning sugar crash. During the winter, steel-cut oatmeal with nuts also works well. Oddly, skipping breakfast and nursing cream-and-sugar coffee throughout the morning also does the trick. I can no longer manage carb-laden breakfast cereal, even those varieties that are reasonably low in sugar. Ah, well, no great loss. To summarize: 1) No more breakfast cereal. 2) Similar balance of protein, veggies, and carbs, but less cheese these days. 3) Greatly reduced overall volume of food. Edit: summary

Karen: Thank you for asking thought-provoking questions. It grieves me to think that your ex has tainted your devotion to preparing food for those that you love. It is easy to say that his actions should not reflect upon you, but I realize that feelings do not necessarily follow the same timetable as understanding. Our family cooking patterns have changed dramatically over the years. Initially, my wife and I shared the cooking pretty evenly. While I was in grad school and the boys entered our lives, she became the primary cook. Lately, we have switched roles and I make most of our meals. We share cleanup duties. I cook to please the family and any guests that show up at dinner time. Cooking for others provides a great deal of satisfaction, but does impose some constraints. I try to foster appreciation for (or at least tolerance of) the foods that I love, but I would be mortified to make a meal that no one else enjoyed. Honesty compels me to admit that I also cook for selfish reasons – cooking is a fascinating lifelong experiment. Fortunately, our family members (and most of our friends) are willing research subjects.

Susan: Each shrimp dish spent about four minutes in the wok. I made the shrimp with garlic sauce for younger son – it had no heat, but the chicken broth, rice wine, soy sauce, sugar, white pepper, garlic, ginger, and scallions gave it a pleasant flavor. The sauce for the chile shrimp had a nice mix of hot, salty, and aromatic, with a meaty fullness from the chile bean sauce (toban djan) and just enough sugar to round out the flavor. You can probably guess which one I liked best. Quote from Mrs. C while “deveining”: “Boy, some of these shrimp are really full of sh*t.” By the way, your potstickers are things of beauty. Edit: verb-noun agreement. Yeesh!

Tonight we made two shrimp dishes from Breath of a Wok: Millie Chan’s chile shrimp (left) and shrimp with garlic sauce (right). I liked the chile shrimp best, of course.

Daniel: Where ya been, man? Blether: Welcome to Dinner! I look forward to seeing more of your cooking. Marlene: You have been busy in the kitchen. Beautiful biscuits! We made shrimp two ways: Millie Chan’s chili shrimp (left); and shrimp with garlic sauce (right); both from Breath of a Wok. Chili bean sauce, ginger, chilies, and scallions gave the chile shrimp a particularly nice flavor. Mrs. C. made basmati rice and roasted asparagus with lime juice. Edited 'cuz sometimes I don't talk good.

Ooh, I would love that dinner. The fermented soybean stuff that looks like baby poop is one of my favorite ingredients, especially with veggies. Ok, you are very convincing - garlicky roast chicken is penciled in for Sunday.

Yesterday we visited friends for fondue. I made baklava for dessert, but only four pieces survived the evening – elder son ate about seven pieces by himself. No pictures, unfortunately. Tonight we made spicy fish curry with coconut milk (pa sousi haeng), sauteed bay scallops with garlic and parsley, stir-fried Napa cabbage, and jasmine rice. More about the fish curry in Thai cooking at home (click),

Tonight we made spicy fish curry with coconut milk (pa sousi haeng), from Hot, Sour, Salty, Sweet. This is a dry curry from Laos and NE Thailand. The spice paste contained dried chiles, shallots, and scallion bulbs, and we finished the dish with Kaffir lime leaves and chopped scallion greens. The scallions gave the curry a refreshing and unusual flavor – we will definitely make this again. ETA: With minor modifications, this recipe should also work nicely with shrimp, scallops, chicken . . .

Though I'm not Doddie, I hope you'll allow me to recommend Memories of Philippine Kitchens by Amy Besa and Romy Dorotan of New York's Cendrillon restaurant. I've heard nothing but rave reviews about this cookbook and am really looking forward to attending to a cooking workshop tomorrow evening with the author. ← Joie: Thank you for the recommendation. I have added Memories of Philippine Kitchens to my ever-expanding list of books to get. Lucky you to be attending the cooking workshop, too.

Doddie: I am so glad to see you blogging and I hope that you wake up headache-free. Philippine (Filipino?) food sounds delicious, and I look forward to learning more about it this week. I am also a big fan of Korean food, but I have not (yet) cooked any at home. Can you recommend an English language cookbook on Filipino or Korean food? That is a priceless picture of your handsome boys in their impregnable pillow fortress. Have they taken an interest in cooking? Are cooking duties divided by gender in Korea or the Philippines? I couldn’t tell from the picture - is your stove gas, electric, or something else? The one Korean restaurant in town closed a few years ago. The food was really good, but finishing the generous portions was nearly impossible. This was a problem because the owner became visibly upset if customers asked for a doggie bag (“I carried that rice back from Korea by hand. It will not taste good tomorrow, you should eat it now”). Was that a quirk of the owner, did we run afoul of a cultural taboo? I know, I'm asking a lot of questions - please answer if you get a chance, but don't if you don't.

Joisey and ludka: Thanks for the tip about when to salt mushrooms -- I did not know that. For hongos al vapor, the goal is to steam the mushrooms in their own juices, so salting at the beginning makes sense (hongos al vapor = steamed mushrooms). Now I’m curious – next time, I’ll try salting at the end (hongos no vapor?).

To use up mushrooms languishing in the fridge, I made an unusual breakfast: hongos al vapor (adapted from Diana Kennedy). I sauteed Shiitake and trumpet mushrooms with cilantro, garlic, shallots, and Thai chilies, steamed the mushrooms in their own juices, and topped everything with feta cheese and a squeeze of lime. I left the mushrooms fairly intact, but one can also cook them down to essence of mushroom.