C. sapidus

Genkinaonna, gorgeous lentil soup! Stir-fried salmon with chiles, Thai basil, and yard-long beans. Stir-fried Napa cabbage, snow peas, and mushrooms with garlic, fish sauce, and fermented soybean paste. Jasmine rice with coconut milk and chicken broth (the boys' favorite).

Dejah, menuinprogress, and EatNopales, thank you for the kind words! Red chile-braised chicken with potatoes and greens (adobo de pollo de lujo), also from Rick Bayless' Mexican Kitchen. Browned chicken and white onion, braised with chicken stock, red potatoes, Swiss chard, cider vinegar, and the remaining ancho-chipotle paste. White onions for garnish. Family approved! And, um, corn tortillas, rolled up in my left hand.

Sweet Freedom Farm (click) carries an impressive variety of dried chiles, mostly Mexican / SW, including a few Oaxacan chiles that I had not seen elsewhere.

No tacos for dinner tonight, but a delicious meal from Rick Bayless' Mexican Kitchen. Ancho-marinated whole roast trout, Oaxaca-style (pescado adobado, estilo Oaxaqueno): Whole de-boned trout were marinated in a paste of ancho and chipotle chiles, roasted garlic, Mexican oregano, cumin, cloves, black pepper, cider vinegar, chicken stock, and a touch of sugar. While the trout were baking, I made the sauce - fried onion rings, ancho paste, chicken stock, and the juices from the baking dish. Garnished with radish slices and cilantro. Mrs. C is a tough fish critic, but declared the trout perfectly cooked. Green Poblano rice (arroz verde al Poblano): Poblano chiles were chopped, simmered with chicken stock, and then blended togethr with a bunch of cilantro. Jasmine rice was fried with white onion and garlic, steamed with the green liquid, and then garnished with roasted chile Poblano rajas. Boys loved the rice, even though they claim to dislike cilantro. Busted!

Bayless recipe sounds like something I need to try. Go-to quick tuna salad: Drain tuna and mix with mayo, a big squirt of Sriracha, and curry powder. Add sweet pickle relish, maybe a little grainy mustard, and serve on toasted and buttered bread. Top with crunchy Romaine lettuce if available. Maximum enjoyment for minimal effort. If you have a little more time, Madhur Jaffrey has a nice recipe for tuna ki kara (curried tuna - click).

dcarch, absolutely gorgeous clams. Thank you! I have heard various stories about the derivation of vindaloo. The most seemingly plausible is that vindaloo came from the Portuguese vin d'alho (wine with garlic), morphing into vindaloo (vinegar instead of wine, different spicing, etc.) in Goa, which was controlled by the Portuguese for several centuries. Perhaps Gautam or another more knowledgeable poster can correct any disinformation that I might be spreading.

Sweet, I have not yet tried that one. If you get a chance, post on the too-long-dormant Thai Cooking at Home thread.

Waaay too many lovely meals, so let me just invite myself to each of your homes for dinner . . . RareRO, I sent you a PM on the bhaji. Hope you like it! Chicken vindaloo, from The Indian Spice Kitchen. Browned potatoes, onions, cloves, black peppercorns, cardamom, and slit green chiles, simmered with a paste of garlic, ginger, cumin, coriander, turmeric, cinnamon, and rehydrated red chiles, finished with vinegar and balanced with a touch of sugar. Even though it was quite spicy, the boys scarfed everything down in no time. Served with leftover mushroom rice and a green salad.

Your savory bread pudding already sounded good, and then you said the magic words . . . Now that sounds like breakfast to me. Did you make the jungle curry and prik nam pla?

Kim - Looks like you are enjoying your fried rice (I know I would). Ann_T - Gorgeous scallops and pasta, I would love to try that. Mrs. C made the main course tonight - baked salmon with a ginger-soy-maple glaze. She cooked the salmon to silky perfection while I made the side dishes. Still on a greens kick, so I made a riff on bhaji (braised greens) with Swiss chard, spinach, onion, ginger, garlic, tomato, chiles, and turmeric. I added some palm sugar (to offset bitterness) and creme fraiche (for richness), and the boys liked the greens better than usual (which, granted, isn't saying much). Basmati rice pilaf with smoked turkey stock, cumin, and ghee-fried mushrooms.

Hey, nice fish tacos - I wish I had throught of that. I am mildly jealous of your epazote. No stores around here offer it fresh, and when I grew epazote in the garden one year it produced a horrifying amount of seeds and tried to take over the world. Wonderful blog, thank you for sharing your humor and your delightful corner of the world. Enjoy your well-earned rest and give the vegetable dogs a scrunch (technical term) behind the ears from all of us.

Fish tacos with cubed potatoes and creamy salsa verde, garnished with onion, queso fresco, cilantro, and radish matchsticks. We poached a cod fillet in salted water, and then simmered the potatoes in the resulting fish stock. For the sauce, we simmered creme fraiche with salsa verde (delicious!). These were supposed to be enchiladas, but turned into self-serve tacos when a friend stopped by at serving time. Mrs. C made a delicious corn salsa with chipotle and serrano chiles, tomato, onion, and lime juice.

One hand, whack sharply (but not deeply) on the edge of a bowl to drive a manageable quantity of pathogens into the egg, toss in trash w/o wipe.

Just like the old Reese's peanut butter cup commercials - "Hey, you've got fish-fragrant eggplant on my mapo tofu." "Hey, YOU'VE got mapo tofu on my fish-fragrant eggplant." I love both, so I bet the combination was quite delectable. I believe it - sounds really good.

Prawn, your improvised carnitas mole thingie sounds scrumptious. Nothing like adding a little high-wire excitement to mealtime. This week's theme has been combining vegetables into the main course (a fancy way of saying one-pot meals). Tonight, a severe case of co(ok)itus interruptus developed. Prepare the mise - run elder son to school - cook the rice - oops, gotta watch Big Bang - and then, finally, cook the curry and enjoy a very late meal. Bay scallops in spinach-tomato curry sauce, with garlic, ginger, cayenne, turmeric, cumin, coriander, black pepper, mustard seeds, and coconut milk. Mixed vegetable pilaf, with basmati rice, onion, chiles, black cardamom, cumin, garam masala, yogurt, and chopped broccoli, cauliflower, and carrots.

Glorious meals, all, with particular shout-outs to Ann_T's beautiful halibut and dcarch's gumbo enveloping the great pyramid. Computer time is limited because the family is sharing one computer at the moment, but here are dinners from the last two evenings: Keema matar - ground beef, peas, tomatoes, onion, ginger, garlic, yogurt, chiles, lemon juice, cilantro, and the usual pantry full of spices (cayenne, cumin, coriander, turmeric, and garam masala). One of our favorite weeknight meals, although I prefer ground lamb when available. Basmati rice and eternal cucumbers. Chicken tacos with salsa verde, Swiss chard, and queso fresco - a remarkable amount of this disappeared, even though younger son picked out most of the greens. Corn tortillas for the grown-ups; flour tortillas for the boys.

Pierogi, this has been an absolute delight so far, and I shall savor the dwindling days. Our family is sharing one laptop at the moment or I would be littering your delightful foodblog with questions and comments. Let me just say that I enjoy lovely food sprinkled with sharp wit.

Gorgeous meals, all. Dakki, that's a particularly beautiful and colorful taco. Stir-fried beef panang curry, from Thailand the Beautiful. Thinly-sliced sirloin, sliced shallots, red bell peppers, and Poblano chiles with lime leaves, ground roasted peanuts, and a sauce of coconut milk, palm sugar, and fish sauce. Delicious, and super-easy if one is willing to cheat with canned curry paste. Served with jasmine rice. Mrs. C put together a salad with baby romaine, jicama, kohlrabi, and a pear vinaigrette. Elder son missed out on tonight’s dinner, but younger son approved and Mrs. C licked the plate when she thought we weren’t looking.

Thank you, Darienne. Sure, stop on by.

Another meal from Rick Bayless’ Mexican Kitchen. Arrachera con chipotle y ajo: Seared skirt steak, roasted garlic, white onion, cumin, black pepper, beef broth, and the rest of the roasted tomatillo-chipotle sauce. Skirt steak was pretty chewy – I think next time I would slice it across the grain between searing and warming in the sauce. Roasted Poblano and red bell pepper rajas, with white onion, garlic, thyme, and Mexican oregano. Quite delicious. Not pictured – salad with grape tomatoes and jicama.

Dejah, you and future s-i-l chose new family members very well from a food perspective. Was there a cooking test involved? Menuinprogress, those enchiladas look delicious. What kind of sauce did you use? Ann_T, fabulous meals as always, but Gorgonzola garlic bread has my mouth watering.

Janeer, thank you! The sauce had tomatillos and tomatoes, but the tomatoes were in chunks so they were easier to see. The tomatillos were roasted and blended into a salsa with chipotle chiles and roasted garlic.

Calabaza guisada al chipotle: Browned cubes of pork shoulder and fried onions braised with cubed pumpkin, roasted tomatoes, chicken stock, and roasted tomatillo-chipotle salsa. We used pumpkin wedges from the Latino market. Served with arroz blanco and our usual sliced cucumbers. I’m a big fan of pork and pumpkin. Recipe from Rick Bayless’ Mexican Kitchen. Not sure why my pictures are showing up so small.

Gorgeous meals, all. It is nice to be able to post pictures again after a computer crash. Oven-baked spicy chicken (bhooni murg), a simple recipe from The Indian Spice Kitchen. Chicken drumsticks were briefly marinated in a paste of cayenne, turmeric, allspice, garam masala, garlic, ginger, and lemon juice. The chicken was wrapped in foil, baked, and then unwrapped and broiled to crisp the skin. The process yielded tender, juicy chicken with a spicy crust. Pilaf-style basmati rice with onion, cloves, cardamom, garam masala, chicken stock, and peas. High scores from the boys, as usually happens when we have a late dinner, hunger being the best pickle and all.

Lies! Lies, I say! Holy crap this was spicy. When you throw 2 oz (over 50 grams!) of dried chiles and a tablespoon of sichuan peppercorns into a hot wok it's like getting hit with pepper spray. And that heat does NOT stay in the chiles, contrary to Dunlop's assertion in the writeup. No, this dish was insanely spicy, no two ways about it. The taste was fabulous, but this is definitely not designed for the western palate. I can't make it with this level of chiles again: maybe a quarter as many would be more reasonable. This is one of our family's favorites, so I am sorry it did not work out for you. You may want to try again with milder chiles - we use an un-named red chile from the Indian market that has a nice mix of flavor and heat. And, as Nakji says, this stuff is designed to be eaten with lots of rice.