C. sapidus

A friend's daughter is living with us while her parent is stationed overseas. A few of the boys' friends have become honorary family members and live with us from time to time. Thanks, Shelby!

Wait, even better (or worse) -- bitter melon instead of Brussels sprouts.

Braised shallot confit (clickety), from Molly Stevens' All About Braising.

The children prepared and served a romantic dinner for two. The boys cooked and temporary teenage daughter served. We began with beer, wine, and shrimp cocktail in the “lounge” (ok, the living room couch). After being seated, we perused the printed menu by candlelight while enjoying the warmth of a roaring fire. To begin, we chose a green salad with slivered almonds and ranch dressing. For the main course, we selected steak burgers with bacon, Swiss cheese, and sliced avocado, accompanied by fried potatoes. Dessert was turtle cheesecake and chocolate-dipped strawberries with mascarpone cheese. Truly, this was one of the most enjoyable meals we have eaten at this establishment. We tipped generously.

Rocky road ice cream, Brussels sprouts, shrimp paste. If no shrimp paste is available, substitute sardines packed in mustard.

You are quite welcome, bobmac, and I hope you enjoy your wok. Batard is right, thin cast iron woks are reputed to be fragile. I am not especially gentle with ours, and we have had no trouble. As long as you don't sing like Frankie Valli.

Hmm, I see this thread as primarily about cooking Italian food, with a strong subplot of doing so in Japan. Besides, in a year or three nakji may be spending Tuesdays with Marcella in Phnom Penh, Vientiane, Bangkok, Shanghai, or . . . Anyway, I followed Marcella’s food processor method to make pesto for the first time. So easy and so delicious tossed with fettuccine and a little pasta water. I look forward to making pesto this summer with freshly-picked Genovese basil rather than plastic-packed basil from the supermarket. Has anyone tried making pesto with Thai basil? We accompanied the pasta with store-bought “Italian” bread and trout meuniere, which was cooked with sufficient butter to qualify for Marcella’s approval.

When I was single and burning way more calories, I used to make fettuccine Alfredo weekly. After a while I stopped looking at the recipe, stopped measuring anything, and even forgot where I found the recipe in the first place. This became a problem when I tried scaling up to family-sized portions. It never turned out quite right. We don’t make Alfredo sauce much any more, but I did finally rediscover the recipe. It came from a slim paperback Good Housekeeping cookbook that dates back to when I first started feeding myself. I cooked up a batch of fettuccine Alfredo not long ago, and the scaled-up recipe tasted as good as ever.

I do safety for a living, so risking life and limb for kitchen implements would be hard to justify. The calculus would be different if you asked whether I would save my vinyl records, though . . . Sigh. Okay, I’ll play by the rules. Assuming that insurance would cover replacing pots and pans, I would probably grab my gyuto. I can cook with any old pots and pans if necessary, but I hate working with crappy knives.

We have a 14-inch and a 16-inch “traditional cast iron wok” from the Wok Shop (click). These woks are made from thin cast iron. They are lightweight, season readily, heat up quickly, and seem to transmit heat better than our old carbon steel wok. The finish is a bit rough, and some don’t like that, but I love them and use them constantly.

Wow wow wow, what an amazing spread, and what gorgeous photos. How did you ever decide where to start digging in? I would go for one of the gorgeous shrimp dishes first. The difficult question would be what to enjoy next. Hmm, probably yue sang. I have never tried it before, but it looks like a fabulous mix of flavors and textures. Great action photo, too. Thanks so much for sharing!

claypot2, welcome! Is your collection diverse or specialized? Six more books on the way, for a net gain of five (one replacement). Cookbooks will displace another shelf of knickknacks. Monisha Bharadwaj: Indian Spice Kitchen: Essential Ingredients and Over 200 Authentic Recipes Camellia Panjabi: 50 Great Curries of India, Tenth Anniversary Edition Jaya Chaliha, et al: The Calcutta Cookbook [one of the Penguin India series] Rick Bayless’ Mexican Kitchen: Capturing the Vibrant Flavors of a World-Class Cuisine Diana Kennedy: From My Mexican Kitchen: Techniques and Ingredients Marcella Hazan: Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking [replacing a falling-apart 20+ year old paperback of The Classic Italian Cookbook]

The Cookbooks & References forum has an excellent compendium of cookbook threads (clicky), including two threads on Thai cookbooks. Thai cookbooks, lookiing for the real stuff "Thai Cooking", by David Thompson The two Thai cookbooks that we use the most are David Thompson's authoritative Thai Food and Thailand: The Beautiful Cookbook (multiple authors), chock full of enticing pictures and brief but reliable recipes. Kasma Loha-Unchit's site, Thai Food & Travel, has some excellent tutorials and numerous recipes from her excellent but unfortunately out of print cookbooks.

Hi, turando, and welcome! Here are two recipes that we have enjoyed very much. If you try them, please let us know how they turned out for you. Austin's Panang curry with beef (click) Hot and sour prawn soup, from Thailand the Beautiful Cookbook (click) I'm still searching for a green curry that really hits the spot, so I will be interested to see what folks recommend.

dividend, I wish you the best of luck in finding a balance that works for you. When my cooking obsession threatened to interfere with other parts of life, Mrs. C and I worked out a compromise. Monday through Thursday she cooks the protein and starch; I contribute a vegetable or salad. Friday through Sunday I am free to cook to my heart’s content. This arrangement provides me with more time to plan weekend meals. On weeknights, I get my cooking fix without the three-ring circus of producing a full meal before basketball or boy scouts while discussing the day at work, helping children with homework, adjudicating disagreements, planning family activities . . . Um, my family hasn’t quite given up hope that someday I might come to my senses.

Susan, here you go: Fried catfish with chile. Clarias fish is catfish, so this appears to be the same product with a different label.

On merstar’s recommendation I made curried cauliflower soup with coriander chutney (with lime juice instead of lemon juice because that's what we had on hand). The roasted cauliflower tasted delicious but the finished soup seemed a little bland, so I added cayenne, garam masala, and more curry powder. The coriander chutney (subbing coconut milk for yogurt) pulled things together nicely.

faine and scubadoo, thanks for the kind words! Susan, yes to the bird chile sauce. Nuoc cham also hits the spot.

kalypso, enjoy your trip to Veracruz. You make a compelling case for mole de Xico. My book already had an asterisk by the recipe, but I added another. What meat did you grace with your mole?

Some of you (including our boys, unfortunately) may be sick of my fried rice. We usually riff off the recipe in Hot, Sour, Salty, Sweet, as described in my foodblog (clicky). Constants include eggs, scallions, fish sauce, lots of garlic, and either roasted chile paste, red curry paste, or sriracha. Chorizo, if we have any, is a lovely (if nontraditional) addition. If the fridge fails to yield leftover meat or fish, we usually stir-fry a batch of salt and pepper shrimp. For example: The accompaniments are half the fun. Apparently on this particular evening cleaning out the fridge yielded Thai basil, cilantro, cucumbers, lime wedges, tomatoes, and shredded green mango. Nasi goreng is always welcome . . . . . . as is curry fried rice with fish fillets, bacon, and coconut milk . . . . . . and crab fried rice is wonderful when we are feeling extravagant: Hey, I resemble that remark. Five-spice chicken fried rice: Fish fried rice with chorizo: Bacon fried rice with Poblano chiles, orange bell peppers, and roasted chile paste: Ancho chile shrimp fried rice with roasted Portobello mushrooms. And finally, this is what happens when I am waiting for a dishwasher repairman:

Have you ever tried this soup with blood orange juice? I'm thinking strictly from a color viewpoint. ← I have not tried blood oranges, but they would probably suit this soup nicely. I will make a note for next time, whenever that might be . . . Tonight I made pumpkin soup (click) from Sweet Hands: Island Cooking from Trinidad & Tobago. This is a savory soup with chicken stock, coconut milk, onions, garlic, lots of green herbs, and a shot of hot sauce. Instead of using cilantro, we made a batch of "green seasoning" (clicky) a paste of garlic and fresh chives, thyme, oregano, parsley, and “shado beni” (culantro or sawtooth coriander). This takes me closer to my goal: reproducing a hauntingly delicious pumpkin soup that we enjoyed in Barbados. Not there yet, but closer.

Indian cuisine is wildly diverse. Can you give some examples of what you are interested in? The following thread has several annotated lists of recommendations that you might find helpful: Indian cookbooks, how many do you own? (click). I only have a few Indian cookbooks, but I can second the recommendation for Julie Sahni’s Classic Indian Cooking. We have also been delighted with Niloufer Ichaporia King’s book of Parsi recipes, My Bombay Kitchen.

We invited an allegedly chile-loving guest to dinner tonight. The plan was to get KFC for the children and their friends, and to make a full-on Thai dinner for the grownups. I spent the afternoon happily chopping chiles, garlic, lemongrass, galangal, etc., grinding curry paste, cracking coconut cream . . . The guest never showed up. With plenty of food for the smaller-than-planned crowd, we decided to skip KFC and invite the boys and their friend to share the Thai meal. I issued copious warnings to mix everything, especially the curry, with plenty of rice. Younger son immediately filled half of his plate with Panang curry, added a small spoonful of rice, and dug in. He looked as if he had eaten high-level radioactive waste. After dinner, one of our neighbors stopped by to take younger son to a movie. She tried some of the Panang curry and loved it. Her husband likes spicy food even more than she does. Apparently we are inviting the wrong people to dinner. Anyway, here is the meal. Austin’s Panang curry with beef (clicky): This started out sneaky-hot, and then rapidly dispensed with the subterfuge. Terrific flavor, but unfortunately too much chile heat for most of the family. My favorite of the meal, though. A finishing shot of tamarind added a subtle tang. Garlic-black bean pan-fried fish fillets, from Dancing Shrimp. The fish is deep-fried until partially cooked and then finished with a sauce of ginger, cilantro stems, salted black beans, dark soy sauce, Shaoxing wine, a little roasted chile powder, and a whole head of garlic. Plate-licking good, this was the crowd favorite tonight. Hot and sour shrimp salad with roasted chile sauce, also from Dancing Shrimp. Barely-poached shrimp tossed with lemongrass, shallots, mint, sawtooth coriander, and one of my all-time favorite dressings – lime juice, fish sauce, sugar, bird chile rounds, and roasted chile paste. Relish of garlic and chiles, from Thai Food. This turned out to be superfluous because no one felt a need to make tonight’s meal *more* piquant. I’ll keep it around to perk up any humdrum weeknight meals. Grandma prepared a salad plate of cucumbers, iceberg lettuce, yard-long beans, cilantro, and Thai basil. Mrs. C drove kids around all afternoon and made the rice. Edited to add a picture of the leftovers, which made a lovely breakfast with leftover turmeric rice.

I have become quite fond of cheap bamboo spoons. Two are P-shaped, and fit nicely into a wok or curved sauteuse. Two are flat with squared off ends, good for scraping fond from flat-bottomed pans. The bamboo spoons have survived many trips through the dishwasher, and can be replaced easily if they crack. I have a heavy wooden spoon with a bowl and squared-off end, perfect for making (and tasting) mole. I used to use it frequently, but it seems too nice to cook with so it has migrated to the bottom of the wooden spoon and wok utensil drawer. Wooden spoons give Mrs. C the willies, so she uses silicone or plastic.

I googled some random recipes, and lemon juice seems to be the most common acid added to sweet potato soup. Other recipes included sherry, yogurt, and/or sour cream. Bourbon and orange juice consort nicely with sweet potatoes, and tamarind might be interesting. Bittman has a sweet potato soup recipe with curry powder and apricots, which sounds fun. Please do report if any of these suggestions are helpful (or if they are disastrous, but that would be a different thread ).