C. sapidus

I happily second the EdgePro recommendation. It did a great job on our sharpened-twice-in-twenty-years Chicago Cutlery set. The EdgePro also did a fine job on a new Hattori HD gyuto (the old knives got sharp, but the steel was not hard enough to stay sharp). EdgePro (clickety)

Klary: I didn’t give your beautiful spring/summer rolls a proper shout-out. As Marcia aptly put it, your picture is mouthwatering art. Judith: I’m intrigued by your parsnip chips – how inventive! Our dinner was kung pao chicken with cashews (gong bao ji ding). Everyone was coughing from the chile fumes, but it was worth it.

Pork belly, scallops, cookies, mapo tofu, shrimp – I love this thread! Our dinner was kung pao chicken with cashews (gong bao ji ding). From Fuchsia Dunlop, of course.

Judith: I’ll trade half of my shrimp for half of yours. I love the celery soup action photo, too. Christian Z: Awesome! Fuchsia Dunlop should get credit for the recipe, of course. Shaya: What an amazing spread! I love the picture of your boys eyeing the food intently. They look very, very hungry (for a very, very good reason). Tonight I made a super-simple recipe from James Peterson’s Fish & Shellfish: flounder fillets baked with butter and sherry. I overdid the butter a bit, but the flounder was delicious. We also stir-fried baby asparagus with lots of garlic, fermented bean paste, light soy sauce, Shaoxing rice wine, and Chinkiang vinegar.

“Millie Chan’s chile shrimp” from Breath of a Wok. More information on Chinese Eats at Home (post #479). Edited: oops, wrong picture.

“Millie Chan’s chile shrimp” from Breath of a Wok. Simple and easy: stir-fry the shrimp until pink, add Shaoxing rice wine, and remove from the wok. Stir-fry ginger, chilies, and scallions (we were out, so I used shallots), and then add soy sauce, sugar, and chile bean paste. Return the shrimp and rice wine to the wok and stir-fry until done. Good stuff. I love stir-frying shrimp in a wok. With the wok shovel, you can feel the shrimp’s resilience change when they are perfectly cooked. Edited: Oops, wrong picture.

Klary: Looks delicious, and I’m touched – this may be the first time I have inspired anyone's dinner. Nakji: No need to be humble – your red curry looks like spicy, salty, crunchy, tender scrumptiousness. Did the pickled bamboo lend a sour note to the curry?

nakji: Thank you for a fascinating, witty, and hunger-inducing blog. I would love, love, love to have access to the foods and ingredients that you have available. Perhaps the recently arrived Andrea Nguyen cookbook will help with the food, anyway. Many have used the word “fascinating” in expressing appreciation for your blog. This fascination reflects your remarkable ability to illuminate Vietnamese food and culture. Many of us are familiar with Vietnamese people and Vietnamese food, but information on Vietnam itself, especially at a personal level, has been sparse in recent decades. Kudos too, for the photography. Some of the images – the baskets of herbs and spices at your door, street scenes, expressions on faces, rows of tightly-packed scooters, and the kitchen balanced on a bamboo pole – communicate what no words can. Thank you!

I love Southern-style greens, especially collards, although I have never made them myself. Instead, we usually stir-fry greens in a hot wok. A wide variety of greens can be stir-fried successfully, from bok choy and water spinach to Swiss chard and mustard greens. Despite very different ingredients and cooking methods, Asian and Southern flavorings for greens show interesting parallels. For example, we made mustard greens last night. Wash, dry, and trim the greens, cutting the thicker stems in half. Smash garlic cloves, chop into rough chunks, and briefly stir-fry in peanut oil (with thinly sliced chilies, if you like) over medium heat. Raise the heat to high and add the greens. When the greens are almost done (in a very few minutes), add liquid flavorings of your choice. For me, a mixture of meaty fermented soybean paste, salty fish sauce, and sour-sweet Chinkiang vinegar gives a particularly satisfying flavor. Asian and Southern cooking each complement the natural bitterness of many greens by adding meaty, unctuous, salty, sour, and sometimes hot and sweet flavors. Does anyone else find this sort of thing fascinating? If not, we now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.

Thank you for taking pictures Ah Leung - that is exactly what they looked like. Cool, I learned a new vegetable! I'll be interested to see if they are labeled as Chinese leeks next time I'm in the grocery store.I cut the leeks on the diagonal and added them to the wok while the sauce was "dry-frying" - maybe 5 to 8 minutes total cooking over medium heat. They turned out nicely, and I liked the flavor. Are Chinese leeks typically stir-fried, or are they also prepared in other ways?

Why thank you, Klary! I googled “Fuchsia Dunlop” and “gan bian ji”, and the recipe popped up here (clickety). Scroll down to Monday, September 25, 2006 on the linked site. If that doesn’t work, I will be happy to send a PM. Otherwise, the recipe is from Fuchsia Dunlop’s wonderful Land of Plenty, which I believe is titled Sichuan Cookery in Europe.

Bruce: did you use the American (thick) leeks? Or Chinese leeks (much thinner)? I have seen Chinese leeks occassionally in my neighborhood Asian markets. The flavor seems stronger. They look like big green onions. ← The tops looked identical to thick leeks, but these leeks were thinner - probably about the width of a stubby carrot. Now that you mention it, they did look like green onions on steroids. Does that sound like Chinese leeks? I bought them from a regular grocery store, but I did not notice the label.

Szechuan dry-fried chicken (gan bian ji). Yes, again. This time we followed Ms. Dunlop's suggestion and substituted leeks for celery. Leeks are definitely better.

Shaya: Congrats on the double win – conquering the veal and the anti-anchovy faction. Who would have guessed that veal in wine and stock would turn out the same color as chicken in chile bean paste and black soy sauce. This salad rocks: Happy new year, Nishla! This rocks, too:

Szechuan dry-fried chicken (gan bian ji), jasmine rice, and sliced raw cucumbers and turnips. For the chicken, we used leeks rather than celery as the vegetable. Leeks are definitely better. The turnips were very sweet.

A drupe, also known as a stone fruit, is a "fleshy fruit with a central hard core containing one or more seeds." Typical examples include cherries, peaches, and plums; atypical examples include coconuts and almonds. Information about drupes at answers.com

Thank you, Suzi. Your foodblog conveyed glorious scenery, beautiful food, family warmth, and a wonderful sense of place.

Welcome back, Shaya! You and your dinners were missed. We had another Cradle of Flavor dinner tonight. Fried potatoes with chile-shallot sambal (kentang balado - Indonesia - front right): deep-fried baby Yukon Gold wedges topped with a fried chile sambal. We will definitely make this again. Pan-seared flounder (chuan-chuan – Malaysia - middle): The recipe called for mackerel, but when we defrosted the mackerel it was, um, gross, so we used flounder fillets. The topping was delicious: ginger matchsticks sauteed with slices of red onion, garlic, and chilies, and finished with black and regular soy sauce, sugar, black pepper, and Chinkiang vinegar. Stir-fried baby bok choy with garlic and chilies (tumis sayur - back left): Pretty self-explanatory.

No problem - you should have a PM in your box. Thanks for sharing your continuing series of mouth-watering breakfasts, especially the crab Florentine eggs Benedict.

nakji: Thank you for showing us a fascinating culture through your enlightening photographs and witty prose. Several Vietnamese families lived in our neighborhood growing up, but at the time we didn’t have the good sense to cadge a dinner invitation. We were fortunate to have lots of Pho joints and delicious, hole-in-the-wall Vietnamese restaurants in the neighborhood, though. Your blog reminded me of an incident from my childhood that gave me some perspective on cultural differences. My parents had a huge schefflera plant growing in a pot in the foyer. To us, the schefflera was a beautiful, exotic plant. In contrast, our Vietnamese friends couldn’t understand why we were growing a jungle weed in our house. How did you come up with the name nakji? I love this picture:

Ann_T: Thank you – that lobster looks delicious! Megan: Welcome back – it looks like you had some hearty food over the holidays. Truc: Welcome to eGullet and to Dinner! Red-braised beef with daikon (hong shao niu rou), stir-fried Swiss chard with garlic, and microwave “Texas mashed potatoes”. More information on Chinese eats at home, post #442 (click).

Mizducky: That looks delicious! In a similar vein (probably both of us were inspired by sheetz) . . . . . . we made Sichuan red-braised beef short ribs with daikon, and stir-fried Swiss chard with garlic. We simmered the short ribs with beef stock, Sichuan chile bean paste, Shaoxing rice wine, ginger, scallions, dark soy sauce, star anise, Sichuan peppercorns, and cardamom. After two hours we removed the beef, skimmed most of the fat, and strained and reduced the remaining sauce. We then cooked the daikon radish until tender in the reducing sauce. This was the first time I made a red-braised dish, but it won’t be the last. I don’t have access to cao guo, so I substituted green cardamom pods. Does anyone know how the taste of cao guo compares with that of cardamom? I had mixed feelings about skimming the fat – it had a lot of flavor, so I drizzled a little over the beef on the plate. Are Chinese braises normally skimmed and strained, or is that more of a European thing? Red-braised beef with daikon (hong shao niu rou), stir-fried Swiss chard with garlic, and microwaved“Texas mashed potatoes”

Yes, there was salt in the dish, although it wasn’t particularly salty. Should it have been? The sauce was brown from the shrimp paste, but I used Thai (gapi) rather than belacan. Our Asian grocery does carry belacan. I wonder how different kinds of shrimp paste affect the final flavor of the dish.Percy: Thanks! Enjoy the subtropical sun, return home, cook and take lots of pictures. Doddie: Thank you! If you are willing to travel from South Korea to Maryland, we would be most ungracious not to make dinner for you. Marcia: Nice-looking meals!

Ordered seven new (to me) books, courtesy of Christmas gift cards: Into the Vietnamese Kitchen – Andrea Nguyen Modern Art of Chinese Cooking – Barbara Tropp Fish & Shellfish – James Peterson Exotic Ethiopian Cooking – Daniel Mesfin On Food and Cooking – Harold McGee Joy of Mixology – Gary Regan The Man Who Ate Everything – Jeffrey Steingarten Thanks, Santa!

Fish sauce and a wide variety of Asian cookbooks - sounds like my kind of place! I noticed a few Indian cookbooks - do you cook Indian food often, and do you have any trouble getting ingredients for Indian food?