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This is how I learned to make Thai curries, when I was about 10 and living in Thailand. All of the Thai cooks I know make it like this: Assuming you are using canned coconut milk (and not fresh coconut cream and coconut milk), make sure that you do not shake the can before using. Open the top of the can and carefully spoon the thick cream on the top into a pan. Cook the coconut cream until it is bubbling and starts to separate, and then add your curry paste. Once this is aromatic, stir in the coconut milk. Once this is hot, add your meat, and when this is cooked, add your veggies. Taste and add some fish sauce and a bit of sugar (but not too much). I think the most common curry I ate in Thailand was green curry with chicken. We tended to eat at "local" restaurants (frequented by very few farangs), so the chicken was not the boneless breast pieces that are most common in the U. S. Rather, they would "dice" an entire chicken -- skin, bones and fat -- into about a 1-2" dice. The most common vegetables in this were either bamboo shoots (cut into matchsticks) or those golf-ball sized green and white speckled/striped eggplants, halved or quartered, depending on size. Lots of Thai basil at the end. Especially in small towns, we rarely ate curry with pork or beef -- these seemed to be more commonly used in stir fries. Fish was, however, was common, especially in southern Thailand. Masaman curry (same basic preparation, just using masaman curry paste) was always made with beef or lamb, and had potatos and peanuts in it. Another favorite "curry" preparation was made with ground pork and long beans. Heat a little oil in a wok or skillet, add some curry paste, and when fragrant, add ground pork. When cooked, add longbeans cut into 1-2" lengths. In Thai homes, and in little "holes" in the wall, it was not uncommon for these dishes for these dishes to be served at room temperature; the "hot" (temperature-wise) dishes tended to be the soups, stir-fries, fried fish dishes. And, at least in Bangkok, most home cooks did not make their own curry paste -- you purchased hand-made curry paste at the market. They had huge bowls of the stuff. The vendor would scoop out however much you wanted and wrap it in a banana leaf. About the time I left Thailand (late 70's), canned curry paste was becoming more popular, and the first widely available brand was Maesri.

Any suggestions on temperature and time? A low temperature longer cooking time or quick and hot? Would a longer cooking time kill the flavor of the curry or improve it? Or would a wok style high temperature flash stir-fry be better?

I want to try a recipe from Martin Yan's new Chinatown book, Wok-Braised Lobster in Creamy Rum Sauce, for a dinner Saturday night. I have a chance to buy lobsters at a great price if I get them by Friday. But 24 hours seems a long time to keep lobsters alive in my refrigerator. Should I kill the lobsters on Friday and keep their tails on ice? Or kill them and partially steam the meat on Friday? Does anyone have advice? Also, I've never used any method of dispatching a lobster besides dropping it into steaming water. (I've been a coward). Any advice on the method I've seen illustrated, of sticking a skewer into the lobster behind the head? Is that from the back of the neck (so to speak) or from the underside?

Rumor has it Dan and Mike are doing "Stuffed Pain Perdu" with roasted local apples and gingerbread ice cream, Suvir said he's considering his special version of apple halwa made in a wok and Meredith is planning on "Quince 3 ways" with a concord grape sauce made with saba [aged grape must.] Some of the dishes I've heard about for Monday's demo are pretty interesting--I'll let the pastry chefs involved reveal the final versions ahead of time if they so choose. You know how chefs are--things can change right up until the last moment. Suffice it to say Chefette has had me taste versions of a white corn flan/creme brulee, caramelized popcorn and a corn cob foam this week; Patrice was planning a goat yogurt and nutmeg panna cotta with butternut squash pulp, sweetened with maple syrup finished with a green apple foam and some apple julienne, served with a pistachio/butternut squash macaron.

SWEET PEPPER BIRIYANI WITH BLACK MUSTARD SEEDS AND FENNEL Serves 6 to 8 I came up with this recipe one night when I had a houseful of vegetarian friends who love to eat. Although Indian cuisine is known for it’s vegetarian food, before that night, I didn’t have a recipe for a really delicious vegetable biriyani. Vegetable biryani that was not just based on the recipe for a meat one. I had just made a batch of tomato chutney that day so I used some to flavor the bell pepper mixture. You can either use the chutney recipe in this book on page 000 or buy a commercial tomato chutney. SPICE POWDER 1 tablespoon coriander seeds 1 teaspoon cumin seeds 1 teaspoon black mustard seeds 1 teaspoon fennel seeds 1 whole, dried red chili 2 cups basmati rice 1/4 cup canola oil 1 teaspoon cumin seeds 3 whole, dried red chilies 1 large onion, cut into 1-inch dice 1 1/2 teaspoons salt, or to taste 2 garlic cloves, minced 5 bell peppers of various colors (i.e., 2 red, 1 green, 1 yellow and 1 orange) stemmed, seeded and cut into 1-inch cubes 1 tomato, chopped 2 tablespoons Tomato Chutney (page 000) 3/4 cup chopped, fresh cilantro 1/2 cup water 1. Bring 10 cups water to a boil over high heat in a large saucepan. Add the rice and stir gently so that it doesn't stick to the bottom of the pan. Return to a boil, turn the heat down and simmer vigorously, partially covered, 6 minutes. Drain, return the rice to the pan and set aside until ready to use. 2. For the spice powder, combine all of the spices in a spice grinder and grind to a powder. Set aside. 3. Combine the oil, cumin and chilies in a large frying pan, wok or kadai over medium-high heat. Cook, stirring, until the cumin seeds darken slightly, 1 to 2 minutes. 4. Add the onion and salt and cook, stirring, until the onion is softened, about 5 minutes. 5. Add the garlic and cook, stirring, 30 seconds. 6. Add the spice powder and cook, stirring, 30 seconds. 7. Add the peppers and cook, stirring and scraping the bottom of the pan to pick up any spices that stick, about 1 minute. 8. Add 1/4 cup water and continue cooking, stirring, until the peppers are softened and beginning to stick to the sides of the pan, 6 to 7 minutes. 9. Add the fresh tomato and tomato chutney and stir to blend. Scrape the bottom and sides of the pan well to pick up any spices that stick. Then cook, stirring, 5 more minutes. Taste for salt. 10. Preheat the oven to 350?. 11. Spread about 2 cups of cooked rice over the bottom of a large, oven-proof casserole, preferably one with a lid. Spoon about half of the pepper mixture over the rice and sprinkle with 1/4 cup of the cilantro. Cover that with about 1 1/2 cups more rice, spreading the rice evenly. Layer the remaining pepper mixture over the rice and sprinkle with another 1/4 cup cilantro. Spread the remaining rice over the top. Drizzle the water in a thin stream around the edges of the casserole and then over the rice. Cover the dish tightly with foil and then with the lid, if there is one. Bake 35 minutes. Remove from the oven and let stand 10 minutes at room temperature. Sprinkle with the remaining 1/4 cup cilantro and serve hot.

SWEET PEPPER BIRIYANI WITH BLACK MUSTARD SEEDS AND FENNEL Serves 6 to 8 I came up with this recipe one night when I had a houseful of vegetarian friends who love to eat. Although Indian cuisine is known for it’s vegetarian food, before that night, I didn’t have a recipe for a really delicious vegetable biriyani. Vegetable biryani that was not just based on the recipe for a meat one. I had just made a batch of tomato chutney that day so I used some to flavor the bell pepper mixture. You can either use the chutney recipe in this book on page 000 or buy a commercial tomato chutney. SPICE POWDER 1 tablespoon coriander seeds 1 teaspoon cumin seeds 1 teaspoon black mustard seeds 1 teaspoon fennel seeds 1 whole, dried red chili 2 cups basmati rice 1/4 cup canola oil 1 teaspoon cumin seeds 3 whole, dried red chilies 1 large onion, cut into 1-inch dice 1 1/2 teaspoons salt, or to taste 2 garlic cloves, minced 5 bell peppers of various colors (i.e., 2 red, 1 green, 1 yellow and 1 orange) stemmed, seeded and cut into 1-inch cubes 1 tomato, chopped 2 tablespoons Tomato Chutney (page 000) 3/4 cup chopped, fresh cilantro 1/2 cup water 1. Bring 10 cups water to a boil over high heat in a large saucepan. Add the rice and stir gently so that it doesn't stick to the bottom of the pan. Return to a boil, turn the heat down and simmer vigorously, partially covered, 6 minutes. Drain, return the rice to the pan and set aside until ready to use. 2. For the spice powder, combine all of the spices in a spice grinder and grind to a powder. Set aside. 3. Combine the oil, cumin and chilies in a large frying pan, wok or kadai over medium-high heat. Cook, stirring, until the cumin seeds darken slightly, 1 to 2 minutes. 4. Add the onion and salt and cook, stirring, until the onion is softened, about 5 minutes. 5. Add the garlic and cook, stirring, 30 seconds. 6. Add the spice powder and cook, stirring, 30 seconds. 7. Add the peppers and cook, stirring and scraping the bottom of the pan to pick up any spices that stick, about 1 minute. 8. Add 1/4 cup water and continue cooking, stirring, until the peppers are softened and beginning to stick to the sides of the pan, 6 to 7 minutes. 9. Add the fresh tomato and tomato chutney and stir to blend. Scrape the bottom and sides of the pan well to pick up any spices that stick. Then cook, stirring, 5 more minutes. Taste for salt. 10. Preheat the oven to 350?. 11. Spread about 2 cups of cooked rice over the bottom of a large, oven-proof casserole, preferably one with a lid. Spoon about half of the pepper mixture over the rice and sprinkle with 1/4 cup of the cilantro. Cover that with about 1 1/2 cups more rice, spreading the rice evenly. Layer the remaining pepper mixture over the rice and sprinkle with another 1/4 cup cilantro. Spread the remaining rice over the top. Drizzle the water in a thin stream around the edges of the casserole and then over the rice. Cover the dish tightly with foil and then with the lid, if there is one. Bake 35 minutes. Remove from the oven and let stand 10 minutes at room temperature. Sprinkle with the remaining 1/4 cup cilantro and serve hot.

Why are British/Austrailian accents so prominent in these infomercials? I guess they are better than those American Testostorone Screamers that hawk edged weapons/sporting memoriabilia. LOL I have to admit, I'm a real sucker for that Wok infomercial. And I already own one!! LOL Mike {Proud owner of the worthless Titanium-coated Ginzu chef knife }

For those of you that like to shop at the mammorth Palisades Center on the weekends, which is conveniently close to both NYC and Northern NJ, you may want to consider one of these two mongolian BBQ restaurants as lunch and dinner choices: Stir Crazy http://www.stircrazy.com (in the Palisades Center Mall itself. Read epinions.com review of this chain) Khan's, on route 303 in Blauvelt (about 2 minutes down the road from the mall) *** Being that we were in the mall, we decided to try Stir Crazy for lunch. The place bills itself as "fresh asian cuisine" and is a chain restaurant that has been around for quite a few years now, although it is new to the Tri-State area. Conceptually, its similar to mongolian barbeque, which is essentially that you have a raw bar of various ingredients (veggies and meats and sauces and seasonings) that you throw in a bowl and the cook throws onto a large circular shaped griddle and stirs up for you -- except in this case, the meat portion is controlled by the restaurant and instead of a griddle they throw it in a high heated wok for you to watch behind a plexiglass splatter screen. Being an expensive mall-type gimmick restaurant, the decoration has all the bells and whistles of similar type asian joints for the masses like Ruby Foo's, with giant chopsticks being suspended from the ceiling, orange and black decor, knicknacks hanging from the walls, you know the deal. The menu consists of the aforementioned stir frys, which range from $12-$16 depending upon which meat you pick to go with your other ingredients. You also at order time chose whether or not you want noodles to be thrown in (there are 3 to chose from, lo mein, chow fun and shanghai) or rice to be served on the side. In addition to various appetizers, there are also stand alone dishes you can order, most of which come from the same pool of ingredients in the "market" that you could otherwise throw together yourself in the stir frys, although they go for a few dollars less. If you get a stir fry, you're issued a small metal wok about the size of a soup bowl which you are told to throw all the vegetables you want into. Indeed, the raw "market", which is laid out like a salad bar, contains an array of very fresh sliced and julienned vegetables. After you've shoved as many veggies you want into the wok, you go to the sauce bar, and are instructed to put two ladles of one of the dozen pre-mixed sauce combos into the small sauce cup attached to the wok. You're advised not to mix the sauces. For our trial, we used strictly "szechuan" sauce which was a soy and chili base. We further spiced this up by adding a ton of fresh minced garlic and minced ginger, as well as some whole dried sichuan chile peppers that we crushed up into the mix. Other sauces: Classic Chinese Thai Barbecue Thai Curry Garlic Ginger Kung Pao Black Bean Szechwan Spicy Basil Teriyaki Szechwan Black Bean Sweet & Sour Peanut The stir fry came out pretty damn good, although a bit watery, as they add water when doing the stir fry as well as a slurry of cornstarch as they see fit, and we used a decent amount of spinach which probably contributed to the wateryness -- upon seeing our choice of veggies, the cook should have compensated with less water accordingly, but he did not. This particlular stir fry we chose flank steak, which the chef added from a little baggie from his mise-en-place as the whole thing was thrown into the wok. The steak was of good quality albeit of miniscule quantity. We also tried two of the off-the-shelf dishes, kung pao chicken, and a basil chicken with noodles. Suffice to say, the kung pao, which was billed as a "double flame" dish indicating its level of spicyness, was pretty wimpy. The portion of meat itself was a bit lame for a $9 dish, although the chicken and veggies were of good quality. The same could be said of the basil chicken noodles, which needed some additional chile oomph. I suggest that if you are going to bother to eat at this place, you go the do it yourself route. Overall, I'd say if you are in the mall, are tired and hungry, the place is worth a visit, and a good alternative to the food court, but keep in mind we think its a bit of a rip off considering its mongolian restaurant roots, which are much more affordable. *** As a comparison, for dinner we tried Khan's, a traditional mongolian restaurant, a few minutes down route 303. The beat-up looking chinese restaurant has been there since the late 80's, so no gimmicks here. You are charged $15 per person and its all you can eat -- you shove as much meat and veggies as you want into a bowl and you go up as many times as you want. This place is totally no nonsense and the food is great. The service is attentive and they start feeding you the second you sit down. For appetizers, we were given a healthy complimentary dish of peel and eat shrimp with cocktail sauce, a lettuce vinagrette with chopped peanuts, a order of steamed pork siu mai dim sum (tasty), and your choice of soup -- wonton, seafood or hot and sour. Jon and I had the hot and sour, which I thought was a pretty good specimen but I opted not to fill up on it. Rachel had the seafood, I didn't try it. The meat bar consists of troughs of frozen thinly sliced ribeye steak, chicken, lamb, pork and small peeled shrimp. Everything tasted pretty fresh, including the shrimp, so I presume it all goes pretty quickly because the restaurant was really busy. The veggie bar was pretty standard fare, consisting of carrots, scallions, mushrooms, mini corn cobs, carrots, onions, broccoli, cabbage, sliced bell peppers, bokchoy, lomein noodle, chowfun noodle, medium firm tofu cubes, green chile pepper slices, and a few other things that escape me, I'd say about 16 items in all. Then theres the liquid bar, which allows you to tweak the seasonings -- rice wine, sugar water, soy sauce, oyster sauce, fresh ginger, fresh garlic, sesame oil. Once you toss all of this into a bowl, you tell the chef which choice of sauces you want -- teriyaki, sweet and sour, bbq, black bean, chef special (the last two being the spicer options) and he throws it all on the circular griddle. Not to be missed are the taiwan-style sesame "buns" which are brought to table to be used to stuff your stirfry into. These are chewy, with a toasty sesame flavor albeit a bit doughy, so you might want to pull out some of the interior before stuffing them. For dessert, theres sliced fresh fruit (watermelon and honeydew and an assortment of other stuff) and also ice cream. They serve a killer coconut ice cream, with real coconut peices in it, and a very good orange sherbet, which tastes like orange creamsicle. They also had the green pistachio and chocolate flavors, which we didnt try. All in all I would say this place is a definite go, we'll be coming back to this one for sure. If you walk out of this joint still hungry, there's something wrong with you.

About the potato/cauliflower dish: There's no need to boil your potatoes first (according to Madhur Jaffrey). Cut them in thirds (like big french fries) and throw them in the hot oil, using your wok; set aside then proceed the same way with your cauliflower; I also like my cauliflower a little crunchy, certainly not mushy. My motivation for cooking Indian food was very similar to yours and I've been enjoying it for quite a few years now. Keep learning and experimenting as they have been doing it for at least 6000 years!

Interest has been kindled in me about my relative ignorance of Indian cuisine by various posts in this forum. After countless dinners out, I grew tired of the limited variety and lack of adventure in the local Indian restaurants and promptly bought an Indian cookbook and borrowed two others. We had a few friends over (mostly to critique) and I decided to relate my virgin cooking experiament. I decided to start with basic dishes as when I make my mistakes I would like to be able to identify where they took place and know...somewhat...what the dish SHOULD look and taste like. I prepared Lamb braised in yoghurt with clove fennel cumin and tumeric. Eggplant roasted with onion and tomato. caulifower potato. and Naan. Eggplant: This dish was definately the best executed of all the dishes. It was lightly spiced and relayed the inherant goodness of its ingredients. Cauliflower and potato. The spicing was successful. I believe the recipe was from a Madhur Jaffrey cookbook. The potatoes were boiled and were firm. A quick dish, the easiest of all to prepare. Criticism: I cooked this dish in a wok because of 1)lack of room on the crowed range and 2) lack of enough pans large enough to contain this double-recipe quantity of ingredients. The caulifower was sufficiently crisp and tasty, but I did not achieve the carmalization on the outside that I was seeking. Next time I need to use much higher heat and if I am cooking in the same quantity probably cook in two batches. Naan: I got this recipe from the Food Network. It was a disaster for various reasons. Luckily I saw this coming and bought some pre-made naan (read pita bread ) that sufficed. There were several problems with the recipe and myself. The dough called for only one cup of flour to, I believe, 3/4 cup water and ghee. I realize that with flatbreads in general (I make various flatbreads all the time) you will usually uptick the flour by as much as 1/4 a cup, but this recipe needed at least 1/2 a cup more flour to make the dough even managable. The recipe also called for a 400 degree oven to be baked for 12 minutes . I thought it sounded a little off for my desired consistency and, with a dough this wet, it was. My first batch ended up like a cracker or wafer. The rest of the evening I used the same temperature for six minutes and achieved the desired chewiness but little to no color. The next time (tonight? I've got lots of leftovers) I will use a 500 + degree oven and vary the time until correct. Posibly further modify the recipe as well. Lamb and yoghurt: In my mind this was the most successful dish. The braising sauce consisting mostly of yoghurt and a little water was perfectly seasoned and divine. The lamb was the problem, but I knew it would be; my local (it really wasn't even THAT local) Indian grocer only had leg of lamb in his store, I of course wanted shoulder, doubly so after tasting the dry, somewhat crunchy meat. Nevertheless, I will definitely cook this dish again with a more suitable cut. Lessons learned. 1. Make Naan every night this week till I get it right. 2. Always use appropriate cuts of meat for various cooking techniques. 3. Not enough can be said for hot pans. 4. Use sufficient trepadation when tasting unknown ingredients. I had never had pure Asafoetida before and before adding it, surely I must taste it. About 1 1/2 teaspoons later, you can imagine my reaction. Any comments or suggestions are definately welcome as I am about as ignorant as they come. If anybody is interested in specific recipes, I can post them tonight or possibly tomorrow. Suvir: you had mentioned your sister lived in Dallas; Where does she shop for her indian staples? I had no problem with the location I went to, but one storefront is hardly a sufficient sample.

Dave the Cook: More on the recipe: In Chinese stir-fry, supposed to plan the shapes of the ingredients. Okay, the theme I am using is flat rectangular pieces for the pork, onions, and carrots. The broccoli or green beans are in 'contrast'. To get roughly flat rectangular pieces of yellow globe onion, I start with a large onion, call the root end the south pole, cut through the Arctic circle and the Antarctic circle, discard the two pole pieces, cut the through the equator, and, for each resulting half, make a shallow cut along a line of longitude and peel the half. Then I cut a few layers deep along lines of longitude and separate the pieces between the layers. The main tool used is just an old Veritable Breswick Sabatier Paris - France Chef au Ritz carbon steel chef's knife with a blade about 10" long and a plastic cutting board. For the carrots, I start with relatively large carrots, peel them, and slice them with, for each carrot, the plane of the knife perpendicular to the long axis of the carrot to form truncated cones with altitude about 1.5". Then I get out two small wooden boards (redwood, hope it's not toxic) and, for each carrot piece, hold it between the two boards and make several parallel equally spaced cuts with the plane of the chef's knife parallel to the long axis of the carrot. The result is flat rectangular pieces maybe 1/8" thick and about 1.5" long. For large quantities, a mandolin cutter would work better for the last cutting operation, the one exploiting the two boards. To cut the pork into pieces something like the onions and carrots, I start with a 2 pound piece of pork loin as described in post above. The piece will be about 6" long and have roughly oval cross section. I make cuts with the chef's knife parallel to the long axis of the backbone of the hog so that the resulting pieces have cross section about what I want for rectangular pork slices. From each of these pieces, I trim and discard the thin layer of fat. The result is some pieces, each piece about 6" long and with cross section about like the carrot or onion pieces, say, 1" by 1.5". Some of these pieces have some separate muscles joined with connective tissue; for those, I separate at the connective tissue, trim it, and discard it. The only step left is to slice the pieces with the plane of the knife perpendicular to the long axis of the hog. The dish is supposed to be 'meaty' so I don't try to make the slices as thin as most lunch meat or cheese slices. Maybe the slices are 1/8" thick. I try to work quickly, and I find the results okay. In some Chinese cooking, the meat is so thoroughly cut and looks so much like the vegetables that it is difficult to find in the final dish. With my dish, the pieces of meat are shaped about like the onion and carrot pieces but still are obviously meat. Nearly everything in the dish is very common in China, US, France, and Italy, etc., except for sesame oil, ginger, and soy sauce which are widely available but more common in China. While I doubt that this dish is in the 'style' of any 'school' of cooking in China, they have all the ingredients, generally are awash in creativity in cooking, in principle could cook this dish, but I doubt that they would! However, sometimes I wonder about hogs in China: Looking at books on Chinese cooking, it is obvious that the hogs there have skin, bellies, ribs, feet, cheeks, and front shoulders, but I begin to wonder if they have loins and hams? Hmm? In Sam's Club, ribs with bone in them and a lot of fat sell for much more per pound than loins with no bones and very little fat. Hmm. I'm leaving the ribs to those other guys and going for the whole boneless well trimmed loins! I started the cooking trials using a Chinese round bottomed steel wok 14" in diameter with one steel handle, outdoors, over a propane burner with 170,000 BTU/hour of power. Now I am partial to just my old 5 quart Farberware pot, indoors, on the larger burner of my electric stove. I started out doing a 'stir-fry' using light cooking oil. Soon enough I noticed that I used a lot of oil, over 1 C per trial although not all of it ended up in the final dish and a lot ended up on my glasses, in my hair, up in smoke, etc. So, I worked to reduce the amount of oil used, and this is the reason for poaching the pork slices. I retain some oil for cooking the onions and carrots because I noticed that the oil gets a LOT of flavor from the onions and carrots, and also I want some frying in hot oil of the garlic and hot pepper flakes (assuming that this frying helps the flavor, but have no very good evidence so far). There is more below: Notes This dish looks like a 'stir-fry', but there is very little 'frying' here. If use the green beans mentioned above, then cutting them in half would make the dish easier to eat. At times, e.g., when cooking this dish in a wok over high heat, have thought that getting some of the sauce, after the corn starch was in, hot enough to burn, 'caramelize', a little added some nice flavor. The sticky stuff left on the cooking spoon is plenty good! There is a lot of sauce; counting the oil and corn starch solution, etc., there is nearly 3 C. But this is a big dish, about 1 3/4 quarts, nearly twice the usual 1 quart Chinese carry-out volume. With the rice to soak up some of the sauce, the final dish is not like soup or stew but has sauce proportion comparable with many Chinese carry-out dishes. The measurements given were carefully made. The volume measurements, e.g., 3 T of corn starch, are all level using standard measuring cups and spoons. The measurements in ounces. e.g., 8 ounces of onion pieces, are weights using scales. The measurements that are sensitive are (1) for the stir-fry sauce and (2) for the corn starch mixture. E.g., 2 T of corn starch instead of 3 T will yield a thin sauce; 4 T of corn starch instead of 3 T will yield goo (spicy orange glue). Here the ginger is just grated frozen -- freezing is one way to preserve fresh ginger. One alternative might be to mince unfrozen ginger and heat it in the oil with the garlic and hot pepper flakes. For the ginger, the measurement is with the grated ginger packed firmly into the measuring spoon. Starting with frozen pork loin works fine; given gentle defrosting, tough to tell didn't use fresh pork. Calories The pork is beautiful lean pink meat. Raw it may be under 30 C per ounce -- assume 30. So, estimates of the calories are: 720 pork 625 oil 256 sugar 160 soy sauce 150 corn starch 116 garlic 86 onions 80 sherry 72 orange juice 60 carrots 13 ginger ------- 2338 total Eating To eat with this, I make rice: In an old 2 quart Farberware pot, place 1 C long grain white rice and 1 3/4 C water. Over high heat, bring to gentle boil, reduce heat to very low, cover, leave for 20 minutes, remove from heat. "No, daughter, I know you are 'perfect' as your mother says, but you don't make 'perfect' rice by 'simmering and stirring' it." In a 1 1/2 quart Corning glass bowl, place on one side 1/2 the rice and on the other side 1/2 the pork dish. Eat. Refrigerate the rest of the rice and pork dish. To eat later, combine in the glass bowl, add about 3 T of water, cover, heat for 10 minutes at 100% power in microwave. The rice is about 772 Calories. So, the total is 3110 Calories, and half the total is 1555 Calories. Variations If somewhat less sauce is wanted for rice, then there is enough sauce here for at least a few more ounces of meat and/or vegetables. Even if the total weight of meat and vegetables is left the same, the proportions could be changed. Might move to a dish with less emphasis on vegetables. So, could cut the pork into match sticks -- proceed as above except stack the slices and cut once more. Use more pork, maybe 3 pounds. Then could marinate the pork and coat with a light breading as is common in Chinese cooking. Get some oil that has cooked sliced onions, carrots, ginger, minced garlic, and hot pepper flakes and has been strained and use that oil to stir-fry the pork. Drain the pork then continue with the stir-fry sauce but including some of the oil. Top with shredded fresh scallions. Once added 1 t of five spice powder, and it dominated the dish. But, 1/4 t might do some good. Questions Q. 1. Got the orange peel from Valencia oranges. Did rinse the oranges and used only the dark orange and light orange parts and none of the white parts, but the peel is quite bitter. Partly I mixed the sugar with the orange peel because grating the peel from 4 pounds of oranges took a while and I wanted to preserve the peel from all that work. Does the sugar help counteract the bitterness? Do other orange varieties have less bitterness or more or better orange flavor in their peel? Q. 2. Is there any hope for five spice powder helping this dish? That is, perhaps for some reason, five spice powder is just incompatible with the rest of this dish. Q. 3. Curiously this dish has no stock or broth. Would a good well made fancy Chinese stock from chicken and pork with scallions and ginger, etc., instead of the orange juice provide a better 'base' or 'foundation' for these flavors? Or would such a stock just confuse the flavors? Q. 4. Also curiously this dish has no fungus, no mushrooms, no wood ears, certainly no truffles. Is there a way to have fungus help this dish? My guess is "No", but I am not sure. Q. 5. How could molasses be used to help this dish? Yes, the 'dark' soy sauce may already have some molasses.

“Put those two on the table, will you?” Kabir said, gesturing towards a dish of potatoes swimming in a thin tomato sauce, and another that held stir-fried butternut squash speckled with black mustard seeds. Then he picked up a saucepan of something that looked like small doughnuts sailing in a white yogurt sauce and began plopping the “doughnuts” into a round serving dish. He poured the sauce over them, covering them completely. “Don’t put those out yet”, he said, rummaging around in the cabinet to the left of the stove. The cabinet was crammed with jars of spices. He pulled out several jars and unscrewed the lids. “What are they?” “They’re lentil dumplings. Now watch this.” He took a spoonful of a tan colored powder out of one of the jars and used the spoon to draw parallel lines of the powder over the yogurt. When he couldn’t add any more lines to the direction in which he was working, he picked up a jar of orange-red chili powder and began making parallel lines of it to cross the cumin. I sat down to watch him. He had a lot more patience than I did for this kind of tedious work. He spent the next five minutes covering the whole of the yogurt with colored geometric designs made from the cumin and chili powders, a dark brown powder that he said was garam masala, chopped cilantro, a brown tamarind-date chutney and a green mint chutney. The decoration reminded me of sand paintings of mandalas I’d seen made by Tibetan monks. “It’s not just for looks,” Kabir said, standing back to appraise the finished work. “The spices and herbs and chutneys add flavor to the dish, too.” He dumped a saucepan of chickpeas with their thick tomato sauce into another serving dish and gave it to me. “You remember these chickpeas? You like them.” I did like them. But what I remember most about the chickpeas is that that was the day that I found out that Kabir uses ketchup in his cooking. He loves ketchup and eats it like a chutney: that is he slathers it on some foods, or dips other foods into it. I hadn’t said anything to him about it but I had been horrified by the ketchup. I don’t know what’s worse, having my arrogant French cooking sensibility offended or finding out that I had romantically attributed a level of aesthetic purity to Indian cooking that didn’t exist. Geoff appeared at the doorway of the kitchen. He had changed his clothes. He took in the scene and faced Kabir. “How much time do I have before we eat?” he asked. “ Can I make a phone call? I’ve got a client who needs a call back; I could make him wait but I’d love to get it over with.” Kabir looked up from the oil he was heating in a two-handled metal pot. The pot was shaped like an Asian wok but there was something about it, maybe just the simple design etched around the edge, that clearly identified it as Indian. I saw Kabir’s mouth tighten at the corners. “I was about to start cooking the pooris and they must be eaten hot…,” Kabir said. The two men stood and looked at one another. It was a long moment. “But no, go ahead,” Kabir acceded, all at once. “We’re in no rush, we’ve got all evening. Go ahead and make your call.” They continued to look at one other as if some question still remained between them. Then Geoff gave Kabir a small but distinct smile. “Thanks,” he said, and left the room. Kabir turned the fire off under the pot of oil. He sat down at the table, took a deep breath and let it out. It was as if a tension he’d been living with all evening, one that had defined him so completely that he’d almost forgotten about it, had drained out of him. And suddenly there was nothing left for him to do.

I'm going to go eat some kung pao chicken at Grand Sichuan International Midtown (probably the best-known of Ducasse's signature dishes, widely imitated in Asia minus the induction wok), read your post again later, and respond late tonight if I disagree with anything in it. Actually, I'll respond even if I agree, which I think I might, but I have to go.

A famous saying in China goes: "A perfect life is possible if one is born in Suzhou (home of the most beautiful women), dressed in Hangzhou (finest silks), dies in Luzhou (best willow wood for coffins), but eats in Guangzhou (Canton, capital city of Guangdong province and home of classical Cantonese cuisine)." Cantonese food was considered the most delicious by the Chinese themselves. Non-Chinese diners in the U.S., familiar with Cantonese-style restaurants, might disagree with this assertion. Typical Cantonese food in the U.S. has been altered, sometimes beyond recognition, by circumstances; it's Cantonese in concept but not execution. Chinese workers from the districts of Toi San And Sun Tak (near Canton) were among the first Chinese immigrants to the West in the 19th century. U.S. immigration policy at that time seriously limited the number of Chinese women allowed in -- the idea was that when the railroads were built, the Chinese would go home. The laborers cooked for themselves, as best they could, and when the railroads were built, they settled in American cities and some opened restaurants. They cooked the food they knew -- village-style, home cooking -- and were further limited by climate, available ingredients, and distance from tradition, as well as their practical need to please Western palates. And so we got yucky Chinese food -- cloying sweet and sour pork with canned pineapple, awful chow mein and chop suey, eggy sticky shrimp with lobster sauce, tasteless brown sauces thickened with cornstarch, msg headaches. The 1970s was a golden age for Cantonese cuisine in the U.S. because of changes in immigration policies that allowed many more Chinese from Hong Kong into the U.S. Huge dim sum restaurants opened, and many chefs from Hong Kong arrived. I was lucky to be studying Chinese in New York at the time, and got invited to many Chinese banquets, as well as wonderful family restaurant meals where I ate food much closer to the classic Cantonese repertoire. My best friend's mother often took me on day-long eating and food shopping expeditions in Chinatown. At that time, the meat, seafood and produce were exceptionally fresh, because people demanded it. I was amazed at how so many of the Cantonese people I met were obsessed with food (on an eGullet level). I watched people order what they wanted without even consulting the Chinese menu. They simply wrote down the dishes they wanted on a piece of paper and handed it to the waiter. Everyone seemed to know the best places to go to as soon as they appeared. Guangdong province is in the south, with a long coastline and several large rivers down which produce can be shipped from the interior. The climate is semi-tropical; two rice crops are harvested a year. More than in many areas of China, there was usually enough food, and a great variety of ingredients. These factors shaped a delicious cuisine whose underlying philosophy is absolute freshness and a concurrent desire to preserve the essential nature and sweet flavor of each ingredient. Various techniques are employed to achieve this. One method is to cook food for short periods of time, or to use very mild forms of cooking. Food is poached in boiling water and then removed from the fire to finish cooking in the slowly cooling liquid. White cut chicken is an example of this method, as is soy sauce chicken (both are the chickens you see hanging in restaurant windows). For these dishes to work, the chicken has to be absolutely fresh. (The Cantonese prefer chicken slightly undercooked to Western tastes, leaving a little blood near the bone.) The delicate flavor of the white cut chicken is set off by a dipping sauce of soy sauce, chicken broth, ginger, scallions and sesame oil. Shrimp are also cooked with this method -- boiling water is poured over very fresh shrimp in their shells, left to stand for a few minutes and then drained. More boiling water is poured over, drained again, and the shrimp are then eaten with a dip of tangerine juice, minced scallion, soy sauce and shredded ginger root in vinegar. Brief steaming is another method that preserves the fresh, sweet taste. Whole fish such as sea bass, bream or carp are steamed until just cooked and served with a thin sauce of soy, chicken stock, ginger, scallions and wine. A little oil can be heated just before serving and poured over the fish. Greens of all kinds are blanched to preserve the natural flavor. The Cantonese even have a dish similar to sashimi -- a live carp is pulled from the water, knocked on the head and stunned, split, gutted, scaled and filleted and eaten immediately with a dipping sauce of ginger, soy, boiled peanut oil, scallion and white pepper. Stir-frying also is designed to retain the pure flavors of ingredients. Only a small amount of oil is used and the food is quickly whisked through the oil under very high heat in a manner described as "flame and air." The savory quality of Cantonese food is often achieved by combining seafood flavors with meat. Oyster sauce, shrimp sauce and shrimp paste are widely used (similar to the use of fermented fish in Southeast Asian cooking). Shrimp shells and heads are boiled in meat or chicken stock to add depth of flavor to soups and sauces. Sometimes meat is added to seafood dishes to enhance the savoriness. An example is the classic Lobster Cantonese, in which minced or shredded pork is stir-fried with onions, garlic, ginger and soaked, mashed salted black beans together with lobster (or crab). Chicken stock and wine are added at the last minute, creating a little explosion in the wok, and then again in your mouth. The Cantonese specialize in crispy foods, where the skin of pork and poultry is crisp and crackling, such as Crispy Skin Roast Pork (belly pork). Here the crunchiness of the skin is set off by the plain white rice served with it. Chicken is prepared as Crispy Deep-Fried Steamed Stuffed Chicken or Twice-Marinated Crispy Skin Splash-Fried Chicken. Pigeon is also deep-fried. A Cantonese specialty comparable to Peking Duck is Suckling Pig, served with the deep brown, crisp skin (that's brushed with a marinade before roasting) peeled off, cut into squares and served, with the tender meat, with small steamed Lotus Leaf Buns, scallions and hoisin sauce. Cantonese- (or Hong Kong) style Chow Mein is cooked using more frying oil than in other regions. The noodles are pressed down into the pan to make them crisper, and then turned and fried on the other side, to create a sandwich of crisp outer noodles with tender noodles inside. Home cooking features slow-cooked dishes in earthenware casseroles, among them beef stew braised with daikon radish and star anise (the beef cut is similar to flanken), fish head in casserole, and red braised pork knuckle or belly. Congee is also a common snack food in Canton. For spiciness, fermented black beans and small amounts of chiles are used. Subtle scents and flavors are introduced by adding drops of sesame oil or by wrapping food in lotus or bamboo leaves, such as lotus leaf sticky rice with duck, roast pork, dried mushrooms and chestnuts, and aromatics. I've always been fascinated by the array of dried foods and preserved meats in Chinese stores -- pork sausage, duck liver sausage, bacon, dried fish maw (air bladder), dried scallops and squid and shrimp, all the different dried mushrooms, deep-fried and then dried squares of bean curd which are stuffed with savory meat or seafood minces and then steamed, and the salted preserved vegetables in earthenware jugs, and fermented bean curd (the latter often added to quickly wilted greens such as watercress). Textural foods, such as bird's nest, tree fungus, beche-de-mer, fish maw, and shark's fin, are Cantonese in origin, and are mostly found in banquet cooking. Great Assembly of Chicken, Abalone and Shark's Fin is an extravagant banquet dish, in which the shark's fins are cooked separately for over 7 hours and then gently cooked together with lean pork meat, pig's feet, ham, onions and a hen for another 4 hours. The pork, feet, ham, onion and chicken are then removed and put aside for other uses. A young chicken is then quartered, parboiled and left to simmer with the shark fins for another half hour. Abalone and soy sauce are briefly added. The chicken and abalone are cut into thin slices and arranged at the bottom of a deep, ceramic cooking dish. The liquid in the pot is strained and returned to simmer with the fins for another 30 minutes. The fin pieces are then arranged on top of the chicken and abalone. Some of the sauce, now thickened, is poured over to moisten and the pot is steamed for 5 minutes and then served. The shark fins are there primarily for their texture, but that's the point of the whole time-consuming process. My friend's mother used to make a medicinal soup using the double pot method of cooking. She put blanched squabs inside a pot with chicken stock, ginger, scallions, ginseng root, and rice wine. The pot was then covered and placed inside a bigger pot filled with water, which was then covered and cooked for a long time. And then there's dim sum, which epitomizes all of the savory deliciousness and love of eating found in Cantonese cooking and among Cantonese people.

Sookhi Bhunwa Kaleji 2 lbs. Liver, cleaned and cut into 1 inch cubes 2 large red onions, sliced 6 medium sized garlic cloves, ground into paste using 1/4 teaspoon cumin seeds 2 inch piece ginger, very finely minced 1 scant tablespoon Indian poppy seeds, ground finely 1 teaspoon coriander seed powder 1 teaspoon garam masala 1/4 teaspoon cayenne powder 2 large very ripe beefsteak tomatoes, finely chopped 2 cups yogurt, nicely whisked 1 teaspoon salt, or to taste 1/2 cup ghee or canola In a karahi (Indian wok) pour the ghee and fry the onions till golden brown, stirring often. This should take no more than 20 minutes. Add the salt to the onions, as this will make them brown faster. When brown, remove onions with a slotted spoon and drain on paper towels. When cool, blend the onions into a paste. In the wok, you will have some ghee left, to that add the ginger, garlic, poppy seed powder, coriander powder, garam masala and cayenne. Sautee for 2 minutes or until the raw flavor of the garlic is gone. Add the chopped tomatoes and cook till the lose their form and become like a paste. Add the liver and the ground onions at this time. Cook on a very low flame for 10 minutes. Add the yogurt a tablespoon at a time to ensure it does not curdle. The sauce will first get a little runnier and then as you cook it will again get thick. Cook until all excess moisture has evaporated and you have a thick sauce coating the livers. The sauce will be quite dry.

here's mine 30 cm le creuset fry pan-- this pan has the matte enamel finish inside so it means it cooks just like cast iron but without the acid reactivity. Used to double as a roasting pan before I had roasting pans and still stir-fries better than a wok on our cheap apartment stove. Bought it for $6 at a junk store. 6 quart all-clad mc2 sauté pan-- I really waffled on buying this pan (vs. the 3 qt) and have never been sorry...the frond that develops on this sucker is amazing. Bought it at Will&Son with a friend's employee discount. 8 qt belgique sauteuse pan-- not fond of my other belgique pans, I bought them before I knew any better, but this pan fits my giant bamboo steamers perfectly and has a nice large surface area for cooking gnocchi and dumplings, it's over 12 inches wide. I suppose in a pinch you could boil pasta in it as well. 7 liter le creuset marmite pan-- again, this pan has the matte enamel finish, so not only is it a nice shape for making soups, but it also doubles as a wok when dinner won't fit into the frying pan. Bought it at the le creuset outlet store bi-annual sale. 4.5 qt le creuset french oven-- could double as a saucepan in a pinch and is a really nice versatile size. Bought the bottom at a garage sale for $2 and the lid at Goodwill for $1.99. the last one is a tough choice, but I think I'd go with the 8 qt generic stainless steel stock pot with pasta and steamer inserts... regards, trillium

A commercial deep-fat fryer doesn't do anything magical, it's just a tool designed for one purpose and therefore it's "better" at its job than a multipurpose tool like a stockpot. Its larger capacity and powerful heating elements mean that when you put cold food in it doesn't cause much of a temperature drop -- that's the big enemy of frying. Temperature is thermostatically controlled for precision. There are drainage and filtering mechanisms. They're great tools. But if you put a healthy quantity of oil or shortening in a stockpot you can do exactly what they do in any restaurant. You just need to do a few things right: Use plenty of oil, use a thick-walled pot that retains heat (a cast-iron dutch oven is ideal; a wok also works), use a deep-frying thermometer and monitor temperature religiously, and most importantly fry in small batches.

I usually double the amount of pepper myself, but i find that even 1 tablespoon freaks most people out and they end up using only about a teaspoon. It is really the black pepper that makes the dish, don't be afraid of it folks! Even at 2 Tablespoons there is only a hint of it! My recipe is similar to these - same ingredients - slightly different proportions. In the summer, I use a flank steak. Score it well on both sides. Then, cut the scored steak across the grain into strips about 1" wide. Marinate the strips for several hours or, best, overnight. Cook outside on BBQ. In the winter, I also use a flank steak, but freeze it first. Then slice across the grain into very, very thin strips. This is easy to do for bulgogi, or pepper beef or whatever, if the meat is frozen while you're slicing it. Then marinate for several hours. Then I either fry it in a wok, or broil in oven. BUT - for the marinade, I use Korean soy sauce. And, MOST IMPORTANT, I ALWAYS add, in addition to the black pepper, several whole pods of those fabulous dried red Asian hot peppers that you get in Oriental markets, and that you see in many dishes in Asian restaurants. Have lived a few places where they were not available, so didn't use them. I can tell you for sure, bulgogi isn't as good without them. At least not in my opinion.

My food partner in crime & I we went to Spoon (an Alain Ducasse restaurant) at Sanderson last Thursday night. Sanderson is part of Ian Schrager’s burgeoning hotel empire (he of Studio 54 fame) designed by Philippe Starck which seems to base its ideas on soft billowing fabric walls, thoughtful lightning and a few to-die-for sofas. For example, on arrival you are met with that old crowd pleaser: Dali’s Mae West lips sofa. The reception is located on the left & a dark & cosy bar, with suitably uncomfortable chairs, and the main bar runs most of the length of the hotel front. The music is fucking loud. Hanging out are a significant pool of London’s chic wanna be’s. Skipping past what resembles the bar crowd from Star Wars we make out way to Spoon (an Alain Ducasse restaurant) placed not very thoughtfully at the end of the bar, the bar with the fucking loud music. There is no division, wall, or anechoic chamber between the bar and Spoon (an Alain Ducasse restaurant) sitting area. Fortunately, my food partner in crime knew there was outdoor seating and so asked for a table there. Sanderson was originally an office block (I guess) which has been renovated. Built during the 60s (again, a guess) consequently it now resembles a 60s office block that has been renovated. In the centre is a courtyard where some of Spoon’s (an Alain Ducasse restaurant) tables have been placed. With the surrounding 60s renovated office block they have managed to recreate an up market staff canteen. A challenging task even for the gifted Mr Starck. At the other end if the up market staff canteen is the outside standing area for the bar with the fucking loud music. The maitre’d was sweet enough to arrange for the music sound to be lowered so I could hear my food partner in crime without straining too many vocal chords but a substantial part of the conversation did rely on lip reading and hand gestures. The menu is a do it yourself mix and match ensemble similar to Wok-Wok but with napkins and linen. The pre-starters – soft cheese with herbs and onion compote with shrimp – arrived, presented in large spoons, and were accompanied but the first good sign of the evening – exceptional bread. The wine list was delivered and it took quite some time to find a wine I could afford. My choice was rejected not by my food partner in crime but by the sommelier. Maybe its against the rules to sell wine lower that 40 pounds. His choice was pretty good – an Australian red - but there no French red’s below 50 pounds that I could see. The thoughtful lighting of the hotel didn’t extend to the up market staff canteen sitting area of Spoon (an Alain Ducasse restaurant) so it was difficult to read. The food menu, the non-brail version, was also difficult to read now that the sun had set. The starters were less mix and match than the mains giving us little opportunity to truly extend known gastronomic limits. My food partner in crime went for the vegetarian ravioli: 5 little ravioli were presented which did taste wonderful with subtle star anise undertone. This was accompanied with a puree of green herb served in a little mortar and pestle. 15 pounds. I went for old faithful – foie gras – terrine of FG with chicken breast – expertly cooked. 20 pounds. Mains were more challenging as the idea is to select a meat, fish or poultry followed by a sauce then a vegetable accompaniment. The chefs at Spoon (an Alain Ducasse restaurant), inspired in by your inspirational choices will then work on creating something I’m sure you’ve never had before. We chose the squab and veal. The vegetable side dish was raw & roast asparagus (for the squab) and vegetarian moussaka for the veal. An oversight on my part caused me to order the same sauce as my partner in crime. Also, accidentally, this turned out to be sweet and sour. The squab was, well, squabish. The veal was genuinely wonderfully and expertly cooked. The sweet and sour was a mistake – but I’ll take the blame for that little mistake. The asparagus was asparagussy and the moussaka had string vinegar undertone that didn’t sit well on the tongue. By now the sun had set even further and no clear glimpse of the food could be seen. Hovering our table’s candle above the food didn’t shed much light. The mains were in the region of 25 pounds. By now the music from the bar with the fucking loud music had gradually increased so we decided to skip dessert. I do admit that I wasn’t entirely inspired to indulge on the predominantly chocolate based desserts to which my food partner in crime is slightly allergic. The bill at Spoon (an Alain Ducasse restaurant) came to 150 pounds. The meal did have its moments – the bread & the perfectly cooked veal. Spoon (an Alain Ducasse restaurant) seems to be trying for something new - fine dining in a disco - but its not really for me. Are all Spoons (an Alain Ducasse restaurant chain) similarly loud? Ian Schrager Spoon (an Alain Ducasse Restaurant)

If you follow this link (same as above, and you may have already) there's a good overview on these pans (which here are also called blue steel -- and when you get them new they do look a bit blue-ish): http://gasparykitchenproducts.com/steelpans.html As to #3, I figure if they're the same gauge as a wok they can handle whatever a wok can handle. If you look at the specialized wok burners at Chinese restaurants they're in the 125,000 BTU range. That's like triple the power of a typical Western-style restaurant range and four times the power of the highest-powered semi-pro home ranges. I'm going on about seven years with the two carbon steel pans I own (about $20 each at Zabar's upstairs) and they're in good shape. One of them even got left on a burner empty for an alarming period of time back when I was getting used to the knob layout on my current range (it's the opposite of what you're used to) and I turned off the stockpot but left the skillet on by mistake when I had intended to do the opposite.

They are great value. I have a large frying pan from a catering supplier. They call them black iron, though they are carbon steel and go black with use. The instructions say not to use too much heat, but I thought I knew better and heated it wok style. It now looks like I have been beating someone over the head with it. So I would say cast iron for the really hot work or maybe keep beating it flat. PS. Could "French" be the world's most overused adjective.

It seems that in discussions with home cooks about pots-'n'-pans there is one big missing category: French steel a/k/a black metal a/k/a carbon steel. This is closer to cast-iron in terms of its composition (someone who knows metals can explain the exact spectrum from cast-iron to carbon steel to stainless steel) and how you season and maintain it, but the pieces are not cast and therefore are lighter, quicker to heat, and more like stainless utensils in terms of their shapes and handle designs. I think it's the same category of steel that woks are made out of, to give a reference point for those unfamiliar with the stuff. These things are dirt cheap, perform beautifully, and are prevalent in restaurant kitchens. So why don't we see more of them in home kitchens? If you can handle cast-iron you can certainly handle these, and they can save you a lot of money.

Malawry, I don't mean to return you to old posts, but I made Kung Pao Tofu last night and remembered you had done the same (well, chicken at least) a few weeks ago, and loved it. I can't say I was as excited about my result. Even though our ingredient list was similar, somewhere our paths must have diverged. If you have a chance can you review my process and give me any pointers? I'll try to be brief. (FYI, I tried to follow the recent Cooks Illustrated Kung Pao Shrimp if you have that handy, modifying it for me and my vegetarian wife) 1 lb tofu, cut into 1 inch cubes and pressed/drained on paper towels for ~15 minutes. Marinated in 4 Tbsp rice wine, 4 Tsp soy sauce for 10 minutes. Pan fry (correct term?) in ~1/4 - 1/2 inch veg oil till golden brown, turning over when a side browns. When all is done (2 batches), drain on paper towel and salt. Sauté 1/2 cup peanuts in 1 Tbsp oil, with chili peppers. I wish I knew what kind they were.....got them at the Takoma farmers market (thanks for recommending it btw). 3 peppers were ~2 inches long, red, and a litter fatter then a pencil. They were halved and seeded. After a minute or two, remove peanuts and peppers, and save w/tofu. Tbsp veg oil back into non-stick 'wok'. Add 2 chopped red peppers, 1/2 inch pieces. Sauté for ~2 minutes. Add 2 tsp each minced garlic and ginger, and 1 tbsp sesame oil. Sauté another minute. Push peppers to sides of wok and add sauce mixture: 6 oz vegetable broth (from Whole Food veg powdered broth), 2 tbsp Hoisin (was supposed to be 1, and 1 of Oyster sauce, but I could not find vegetarian Oyster sauce, so I doubled up on Hoisin), 2-3 tsp corn starch, 1 tsp rice wine vinegar. Let that heat up a minute and mix with red peppers. Add reserved tofu, peanuts and chili pepper. Mix and cook another couple minutes till sauce has thickened. Add 3 sliced scallions. Serve with rice. What I didn't like about it was that it didn't have a "unified" taste The sauce was a little weak, and the dish tasted like everything was thrown together, yet still separate. It wasn't like take out Kung Pao, although maybe that was the point of the recipe, to replace the sauce drenched standard. Maybe that's what I wanted; Kung Pao sauce drenched tofu and peppers. Does my sauce sound like yours? You listed sugar, maybe I needed to sweeten mine up, or maybe it just wasn't enough for 2 peppers and 1 lb tofu (recipe in magazine was for 1 lb shrimp and 1 pepper). How would you have handled the same dish differently? Thanks for any input. Steve

Scallops speared with rosemary bundled with pancetta, indeed. Then leftover (!) wagyu beef wok-ed with creminis, onions, garlic, tossed with spagetti and Suvir's tomato chutney.

Let's remember that in any food service operation serving more than six tables a night the chef doesn't do much, if any, cooking. The chef is the leader of a brigade of sous-chefs and cooks. This is a function that is completely foreign to the home cook. I'm not sure I know a single home cook who could walk into a restaurant even during a slow lunch service and act as expediter without the line grinding to a halt. Then there's ordering ingredients from purveyors or supervising the sous-chefs who place those orders; hiring staff; training the dining room staff on the cuisine; and all the other things a chef needs to do. So that's the big difference between chefs and cooks: Chefs aren't really cooks. Now of course any good chef does know how to cook. So if you want to compare the cooking skills of a chef to the cooking skills of a home cook, that's possible as long as you bear in mind that you're talking about comparing a home cook's entire culinary skill set to a minor part of a chef's skill set. I'm what you'd call a serious home cook. I can cook individual dishes as well as the chefs at New York City's second-tier restaurants -- in fact I have beaten some of them in formal competition. Andy Lynes, our UK coordinator, has been wildly successful in competition cooking. I'm sure either one of us could on a good day cook you a meal that rocks harder than what you'd get at some pretty good restaurants. But at least speaking for myself, I'm not a chef. My skill set is incomplete. Maybe, with a little training, I could do a line cook's job on one of the easier stations in a non-busy restaurant. But that's about it. Now there's also the question of the difference between home and restaurant cuisine. The ingredients issue is only one difference, which sometimes cuts in favor of home cooking and sometimes favors restaurant cuisine. It depends a lot on where you are and what you're trying to accomplish. But one area where restaurants have it all over home cooks is in the amount of advance preparation they typically do. Restaurants -- assuming they rise above a certain level -- have multiple stocks available at all times, they have various purees and sauce components and all that stuff around, and they have the economies of scale to make it worthwhile to do big sheet pans of oven-dried tomatoes and other little flourishes that make a big difference on the plate. As a home cook you just wouldn't do all that stuff if you were cooking for six people, unless you were going to spend two whole days preparing the meal. Restaurant kitchens also have, for the most part, much more serious equipment than home kitchens -- more powerful burners, broilers, mixers, convection ovens, woks, rotisseries, deep fat fryers, ventilation, etc., and it's not just a question of space but also of money, knowledge, and expectations.