C. sapidus

Tonight we had trout braised in chili bean sauce (dou ban xian yu), yard-long beans in spicy caramel fish sauce, and jasmine rice. The trout, from Land of Plenty, was tender and delicious, and the sauce was wonderful over rice. The yard-long beans had typical Thai flavors – spicy, salty, and sweet (thanks, Shaya!). This was the first time I had cooked whole fish in a wok. It was tricky to maneuver the fish, but my technique improved after tearing the skin on the first flip. Trout braised in chili bean sauce (dou ban xian yu)

nakji: I was hoping that you would answer the question about Vietnamese breakfast. Ann_T: Mmm, ham and cheddar omelet. I haven’t been able to cook for the past few days, so I made an, um, unusual breakfast: yard-long beans stir-fried with bacon, ginger, shallots, garlic, chili bean paste, fish sauce, hoisin sauce, and maybe some other things, and finished with Chankiang vinegar and sesame oil. I was probably trying to pack several days worth of flavor into one meal. Came pretty close, too. Breakfast went nicely with ca phe sua nong (hot Vietnamese coffee with sweetened condensed milk).

Sheena: Fish sauce definitely makes me salivate. Disturbingly, my brain now responds this way to other “fermented” meats. While cutting the grass last summer, I smelled what I thought was fish sauce every time I passed the open kitchen window. I thought that my wife was heating up leftover green curry, and my mouth began to water. When I cut a few more rows, it became obvious that the saliva-inducing aroma was not coming from the kitchen – it was coming from a dead and, um, fermenting bird. Even knowing the source of the odor, my mouth kept watering. As soon as the lawn was finished I ran inside and heated up some green curry (with extra fish sauce). No, I didn’t eat the dead bird.

Lonnie: According to Mai Pham, Vietnamese breakfast may include beef stew with star anise and basil (thit bo kho) and a French baguette, sticky rice with mung beans and fresh coconut (xoi dau xanh dua), or pho. I have also read that fried rice is a common breakfast in SE Asia.This morning we had King Arthur Flour's “biscuits for breakfast.” This time the dough was more firm, and the biscuits puffed up and flaked nicely (Ann_T – thanks for the helpful suggestions). A touch more cream would probably have helped the batter. I know that biscuits are pretty basic baking, but I’m a pretty basic baker so any success is quite encouraging. Mrs. Crab made cinnamon buttered honey to drizzle over the biscuits. Mmmm.

Bob: Thank you for sharing beautiful pictures, mouth-watering food, witty writing, and for opening some eyes (definitely including mine) to Turkish food and culture. I did not realize that chilies were used so frequently in Turkish cooking. Are many Turkish foods spicy-hot, or are they more well-seasoned without a lot of chile heat? Did you mention the derivation of "Sazji"? Thanks!

Dejah: That looks delicious, but I could not figure out which recipe you made. What is it called in the Land of Plenty? Thanks!

Our office has “breakfast club” every other Friday. This was my week to bring food, so I made three cheese pies: sausage and roasted Poblano chile (front right); jumbo lump crab and sauteed Shiitake mushroom (front left); and pure jumbo lump crab (back). I used Gruyere cheese, half milk and half heavy cream, and flavored with minced onions, salt, paprika, and cayenne. One of these days I'll try making a pie crust.

Gabriel: Cucumber salad (ajat dtaeng gwa) is infinitely variable, but here is a recipe (link) that is pretty close to what I make. I usually use bird chilies, but a milder chile would provide more chile flavor for the same amount of heat. Cucumber salad serves as a refreshing palate-cleanser, so keep the flavors light. The flavor profile that I like has a balance between sweet and sour, with heat in the background and just enough salt to balance the flavors. Kasma Loha-unchit has an excellent exercise in balancing Thai flavors (link). Do try ginger with the cucumber salad next time, it really adds a lot.

XiaoLing: Thank you for the information on Lao Gan Ma – could it be used as a more-flavorful substitute for chili oil (hong you)? Would Lo Gan Ma be used only on vegetable dishes, or is it also used on meat dishes? Thanks also for eggplant stir-fry example. It sounds delicious, but the rest of the family has an odd antipathy towards soft eggplant. That’s all right – I can make it for my lunch on the weekend.

This thread continues to inspire. Two-egg omelet with Gorgonzola cheese, sauteed shallots, and heavy cream. Coffee and a banana. Mad Professor dubbing in the background. I love taking a day off from work. Sorry about the sloppy plate - I was hungry! Edited to finish the thought.

I believe in setting achievable goals . . . In 2007, I will eat fresh fish and shellfish from the roadside stand that we discovered one week before it closed for the winter. I will make Julie Sahni’s delicious vindaloo for the first time in years. Where did I put that mustard oil, anyway? I will find a reliable local source for dried Thai long chilies (phrik haeng) – a kitchen essential if ever there was one. I will learn to make simple baked goods – biscuits, maybe even no-knead bread. This is the year I will try making mapo tofu. I will taste bitter melon at least once, probably when cooking for myself. I will also taste really good and salty to the dogs after I play volleyball. I will use asafetida. I will give more time to my family. I will add at least one new vegetable to the boys’ “eat willingly” list. We will invite friends and family over for dinner more often, and in smaller manageable groups rather than huge unwieldy invasions. My kids will continue to tolerate, and often enjoy, their dad’s weird cooking. I will teach my kids to expand their cooking skills beyond grilled cheese, scrambled eggs, and omelets. I will read Jeffrey Steingarten or Anthony Bourdain, perhaps both. Also, I will read the introductions to my old cookbooks, many of which contain fascinating culinary and cultural information. Apparently, long ago I read cookbooks strictly for the recipes. Can you imagine? Edited for clarity - the dogs don't play volleyball.

We grilled sirloin steaks for the boys and one of their friends. One of the steaks was pulled early and sliced thinly, mixed with mint, basil, and cilantro and doused in a sauce of lime juice, fish sauce, sugar, and roasted chile powder. Afterwards, I realized that I forgot the shallots and roasted rice powder. Oops. To clean out the fridge, we also made Thai fried with shrimp, sausage, egg, scallions, roasted chile paste, fish sauce, and lots of garlic. Beef salad (nahm dtok) and fried rice (kao pat)

rarerollingobject: Thank you! No, the sauce was added last. I heated the dry chiles in the oil; browned and removed the chicken; stir-fried the aromatics, returned the chicken to the wok; and then added the sauce and cooked until chicken was done - maybe 5 minutes total. The wok was so hot that the sauce reduced to a near-glaze on no time. I’ve never had xiao long bao, but yours look beautiful – impatience and greediness seem totally appropriate under the circumstances.

(Answering for Ah Leung) The tutorials are pinned to the top of the China and Chinese Cuisine forum.

sheetz: Wow, indeed. That’s beautiful. Wow. Chicken with Sichuan peppercorns is a favorite from Breath of a Wok. Last time it was a bit mild, so I increased the chile oil and dry chilies. The delicious sauce contains white pepper, black soy, Chinkiang vinegar, sesame oil, chicken broth, ginger, garlic, scallions, and ground roasted Sichuan peppercorns, cooked down to concentrate the flavors. The bell peppers were dead simple: sliced, stir-fried, and tossed with rice vinegar, sugar, salt, and sesame oil. The recipe called for steaming/boiling and peeling the peppers, but I was lazy. Chicken with Sichuan peppercorns; sweet and sour red bell peppers

Yeah, what Snowangel said. Some simple yet highly flexible Thai stir fries were described a few posts back (and in subsequent posts). Also, a wide variety of vegetables can be served raw, boiled, simmered in coconut milk, grilled, deep-fried, or pickled to accompany a Thai meal. One of my favorites is Thai cucumber relish - boil rice vinegar, sugar, water and salt, and pour over thinly-sliced cucumber, shallots, ginger, chilies, and cilantro. Simple and delicious.

Thank you, Ah Leung. I value your perspective. Sure, eggplant softens to some degree when cooked. I make a grilled/broiled Italian eggplant with garlic, olive oil, and rosemary that my wife loves. Grilling or broiling softens the eggplant, but the texture is more dry than wet. Apparently, that makes all the difference. Thanks, TP! I have been using Mai Pham’s Pleasures of the Vietnamese Table, which has a lot of wonderful recipes and stories. I am hoping to supplement it with Andrea Nguyen's Into the Vietnamese Kitchen..

Mmmmm, delicious-looking dinners and fascinating history. Sometimes it is difficult for those of us living in the “new world” to remember that history goes back much further in other parts of the globe.Half of last night’s dinner was Chinese: Fuchsia Dunlop’s fish-fragrant eggplant (yu xiang qie zi). The eggplant was deep-fried until soft and golden, then drained, tossed briefly with the sauce, and finished with sesame oil. I found it delicious, but the rest of the family had issues with the soft texture. Is eggplant normally soft in Chinese cooking, or should I have left more “chew”? Description from the Dinner! thread: Vietnamese pork in claypot was delicious, too, but the family didn’t like the chewy rice noodles. Guess I need to work on their appreciation of different textures.

Teepee: Thanks! I do like some heat with my dinner, but the beef turned out to be flavorful but fairly mild. Heck, even our youngest son, the least chile-tolerant in the family, didn’t complain.

The National Kitchen and Bath Association recommends the following minimum widths: 36” for walkways; 42” for single-cook work aisles; and 48” for multiple cook work aisles. Providing adequate passageways may not leave much room for an island in an 11x14 kitchen unless the long side is open. Our 10x12 kitchen opens to the dining room on the short side. Pre-renovation, a peninsula between the kitchen and dining room was a major bottleneck. After evaluating several island and peninsula configurations, we decided that a galley layout was the most efficient and functional. Good luck!

Teepee: Your photography is amazing, and your dinners look delicious (especially the pork ribs). Please keep posting. Our dinner may have been fusion rather than Chinese, but we had “Genghis Khan” beef and Sichuan dry-fried yard-long beans. The beans were nearly authentic (including ya cai – Tianjin preserved vegetable), except I used our abundant supply of Italian sausage instead of ground pork. The beef was cubed flank steak with hoisin sauce, soy sauce, sambal oleek, sesame oil, scallions, Thai chilies, and about a head of sliced garlic. Next time I’ll give it a bit more heat by increasing the sambal oleek or mincing the chilies. Out of curiosity, does anyone know why Chinese stir-fry recipes (at least those in English) often call for whole chilies? I understand that the chilies are supposed to flavor the oil, but that can be done much more efficiently by mincing (or even bruising) fresh chilies or by reducing dried chilies to a paste or powder. Those methods allow the chile flavor and heat to spread uniformly through the dish, rather than remaining concentrated in chile land mines to surprise the unwary. ETA: oops, forgot the picture.

Christian Z: Wow, that is an awe-inspiring pictorial. Your dedication to authenticity while dealing with ingredient limitations is truly inspiring. The finished meal looks absolutely delicious. I’m drooling here. Wow. Mole poblano is one of my favorite things on earth, and I haven’t made it for way too long.

man, i'd completely forgotten that book! i've got one from the '60s or '70s and it really is the bible when it comes to my new mexican cooking. in other words, that's where i learned to make my red and green sauces. ← This one? A Taste of New Mexico Kitchens (Bolerum Books)

Marcella Hazan has a wonderful, simple fettuccine Alfredo. It takes maybe two minutes beyond the time to cook the fettuccine - the residual heat from the fettuccine and from the pot will do all of the cooking necessary. I have been making this so long that my method has probably strayed from the original, but it goes something like this: 1. Cook fettuccine in boiling salted water and strain in a colander 2. Melt butter using residual heat from the pot. 3. Add cooked fettuccine to the pot with the butter and mix. 4. Add heavy cream and mix. 5. Add freshly grated Parmesan a little at a time while mixing. 6. Season with freshly ground pepper and nutmeg, if you like. Since cost is a factor, tell your friend that the recipe also works with asiago cheese (but don’t tell Marcella).

When I have a home office again, it will be decorated with pictures of chiles, crabs, dogs, gardens, and old vinyl album covers – the finer things in life, y’know. I would love to take photographs that were good enough to display.