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Thanks for the replies! I like the wok idea. I've just purchased a wok. And hadn't thought of roasting nuts in it. The sugar addition sounds nice, as well. I like a sweet/salty combination. I was snacking on trail mix this weekend and adding a bit of table salt to it to enhance the m&ms and raisins . My original idea was to soak in a brine when the pistachios were in the shell, but - I could always shell them and then just spritze them with a salt solution, dry then repeat as needed to try and build the salt amount desired. Those nuts were really one-of-a-kind items. I've never seen nuts that salty since! A rare indulgence to be sure, as the salt will soon make the lips, fingers a bit sore!!! Mike T. Sioux City, IA

CHICKEN AND MIXED PEPPER STIR-FRY Serves 4 This is inspired by a northern Indian street food called taka-taka – any stir-fried dish of meat, chicken or vegetable in which the foods are chopped with two large knives right on the griddle making a sound that sounds like "taka-taka". In India, we roll these in roomali rotis, which are handkerchief thin rotis, but in America I serve it rolled in warm tortillas with Mint-Cilantro chutney spooned over the inside of tortilla. 1 1/2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut crosswise into 3/8-inch-wide strips 1 talespoon ground coriander 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper 1/4 teaspoon turmeric Pinch coarsely ground black pepper Juice of 1 lemon 3 tablespoons canola oil 1 1/2 teaspoons cumin seeds 1 large onion, sliced 2 inches fresh ginger, peeled and finely grated 1 teaspoon chopped garlic 2 bell peppers (use 2 different colors), cut lengthwise into 3/8-inch strips 1 jalopeno pepper, halved lengthwise and then sliced crosswise 1/4 inch thick 1 teaspoon salt 2 large eggs, whisked until smooth 3/4 cup chopped cilantro 1. Sprinkle the chicken with the coriander, turmeric, cayenne, black pepper and lemon and stir to coat the chicken with the spices. Let stand while you prepare the rest of the dish. 2. Heat the oil with the cumin in a large wok or frying pan over high heat until the cumin turns golden brown, 1 to 2 minutes. 3. Add the onion and ginger and cook, stirring, 3 minutes. 4. Add the peppers, garlic, jalopeno and salt and cook, stirring, until the peppers soften slightly, about 3 minutes. 5. Meanwhile, pour the egg over the chicken in the bowl, add the cilantro and stir to mix. Then add the chicken and egg to the wok and cook, stirring, until the chicken is cooked through, 7 to 8 minutes.

Last night I made steamed fish for the first time and was really pleased with the results. I downloaded a recipe from foodtv.com -- I think it was a Sara Moulton recipe -- for Steamed Halibut Fillets, Chinese style. The best part was stopping by the fish market. When I asked if they had any halibut fillets (they had steaks in the case), they brought out a big halibut tale from the walk-in and proceeded to fillet it for me. Talk about fresh The recipe calls for a marinade of sliced scallions, mince garlic/salt paste, a couple of tablespoons each of veg. oil, rice vinegar and sugar, 1/4 C. soy sauce, one tablespoon sesame oil and some slivers of ginger. Steam the fish in the marinade for about 12-15 minutes, depending on thickness of fish. It was delicious. The only thing I would change would be to strain the juices after steaming and garnish the plated fillets with strained juices and fresh sliced scallions -- the steamed scallions had turned a dark green that wasn't very attractive. Served with fried rice made from leftover steamed white rice, stir fried with some wok-scrambled eggs, dice red pepper and peanuts, and steamed snow peas. Does anyone have suggestions for a good steaming set-up? I had to improvise because I don't have a pot wide enough in diameter to accomodate a plate large enough to hold the fish.

The only thing I've ever seen on this subject was in Sichuan Cookery by Fuschia Dunlop. She describes how to dry-roast peanuts in a wok by filling the wok with salt and raw peanuts in their pink skins, and stirring the whole mix over heat until the skins have flaked off and the nuts are roasted. How that will help you super-salt your pistachios in brine, I don't know. But that's all I can offer. Miss J

Fat Guy Eats Alberta Wednesday, May 29, 2002 The surest way to annoy people in Calgary is to tell them there's nothing here but cattle and oil. The surest way to annoy people in Edmonton is to tell them the town's entire cultural heritage consists of hockey and pierogies. While in Calgary and Edmonton, I annoyed a lot of people. "Oh come now," protested John Gilchrist, Calgary Herald columnist and author of My Favourite Restaurants in Calgary and Banff. "That's like saying there's nothing to eat in New York but deli and pizza." There are, to be sure, some steak houses in Calgary. But it also seems there's a brand-spanking-new sushi bar on every corner, right next door to a Southeast Asian restaurant, an Irish pub, a bagel-coffee-pastry shop, and two or three fiercely competing smokey vendors (a smokey is basically a hot dog, but fatter and with even more chemicals). And the next big thing in Calgary is going to be fish. Panic must have struck the undersea world when Calgary-born chef Michael Noble broke ground on his mega-restaurant, Catch, which has three dining rooms (each with its own kitchen) all devoted to seafood. He's gambling - big time (they don't do anything small in Calgary) - that the city is ready to get serious about fish. Noble's high-concept, multi-tiered restaurant is scheduled to open tomorrow in the old Imperial Bank building adjacent to the Hyatt. Calgary's rivers offer a few freshwater fish - the two major rivers are called the Bow and the Elbow, and nobody in town finds that the least bit funny - but chef Noble also plans to fly in every imaginable variety of seafood from the four corners of the globe, from Nova Scotia lobster to Patagonian toothfish. This attitude of entrepreneurial risk-taking and insatiable sense of "if you build it, they will come" feels totally in line with Calgary's freewheeling and capitalistic (at least by Canadian standards) heritage and culture. It's a city that is growing rapidly, with new buildings and "plus-15s" springing up all the time and whole neighbourhoods seemingly arising since I was last there just a couple of years ago. (The overpasses connecting many of Calgary's downtown buildings are called plus-15s, which refers to their height above the street - though given the weather they should probably be called minus-15s.) The pace of Calgary's growth is shocking even to this New Yorker. That attitude of expansion extends to cuisine, with Calgary's residents energetically embracing hot, new and unusual restaurants. In Edmonton, the dining public is a little more conservative. Fat Guy prepares to savor some Alberta beef at Calgary's River Cafe Digging into another steak, at Barclay's in Calgary I had never been to Edmonton, and given how extensive its outskirts are (when you enter the city, the first road sign you see says 23 km to downtown - and that's all on local streets) for a while I wasn't sure I'd ever get there. Does Edmonton live up to its blue-collar, pierogi-guzzling reputation? "Well sure, Edmonton is a bit blue-collar. Somebody's got to do the work to support the fancy lifestyle of Calgary executives," chides Normand Campbell, owner of Normand's restaurant downtown. "But Edmonton isn't just about manual labour: it's also the political, intellectual and arts capital of Alberta." A feast of wild game at Normand's, Edmonton As with many stereotypes, there might be a grain or two of truth, but they don't tell the whole story. Though Edmonton is the pierogi capital of Canada, and they're a popular home-cooked item, I had substantial difficulty finding pierogies in Edmonton restaurants. (For the uninitiated, these are Eastern European dumplings with cheese, potatoes, sauerkraut and other fillings.) There is only one restaurant I could unearth, the Pyrogy House, that is truly devoted to this product. I stopped in for a few pierogies after a multi-course game dinner at Normand's, and then I ordered a few more, and also wound up trying some cabbage rolls (filled with rice and spices) and ham sausage (a local delicacy of ham chunks stuffed into a sausage casing). Edmonton's Ukrainian-style pierogies are about four times the size of the little ones I've had back in New York's Russian neighbourhoods ("As big as your head!" as the locals are fond of describing anything large). I hope someday to make it to Glendon, Alta., home of the world's largest fibreglass pierogi: 25 feet tall, 12 feet wide, and weighing 6,000 pounds. Outside the Pyrogy House, Edmonton Judging by the number of art galleries and musical performances, Edmonton's arts and culture scenes are formidable. And though Calgary has the reputation for big-business thinking, it is after all Edmonton that boasts the world's largest shopping mall: the West Edmonton Mall, for better or worse Canada's No. 1 tourist attraction. Stereotypes continued to shatter as I wandered through Calgary and Edmonton's lively Chinatowns, and Chinese and other Asian restaurants can be found all over both cities, their outskirts, and the province in general. Calgary's Chinese-restaurant community - specifically the Silver Inn restaurant - even takes credit for popularizing the ranch-meets-wok favourite "ginger beef" (also called chili beef) across much of Canada. Moreover, Alberta over-all is no slouch when it comes to raw ingredients. There is of course that wonderful beef, which I met face-to-face at Ladywells Farms, in Ardrossan, where George Ramsay maintains one of the world's largest herds of Galloway cattle. The Galloway breed, which produces what many (including me) believe to be Alberta's finest beef, is near-rhinoceros-size and has a wild-looking double-thick hair coat. This shaggy insulation means the Galloways need less outer-layer fat to keep them warm, so their fat is more evenly distributed throughout their meat, leading to superior tenderness and flavour. Galloway cattle at Ladywells Farms in Ardrossan, Alberta But it's not all about cattle. As I learned on a visit to Sunterra Market in Edmonton, just about everything you'd ever want to eat can be and is produced in Alberta, and much of it organically - from red ripe tomatoes and fresh herbs to artisan cheeses and honeys. Made in Alberta Alberta's excellent meat But don't count stereotypes out just yet. The most memorable thing I tasted in Calgary was an Alberta beef tenderloin at the River Café (and also a nearly-as-good one at Barclay's), and in Edmonton it was a tie between Normand's feast of wild game and those Pyrogy House pierogies. Despite all the new trends in fine dining, you'd be silly to leave either city without sampling its traditional cuisine. Under no circumstances, however, should you eat a bagel in either city. Though Albertans - especially Edmontonians - are proud of their bagels, they're nonetheless subject to the incontrovertible Canadian Bagel Axiom: the farther you travel from Montreal, the worse the bagels get. In Alberta, what they call a bagel is pretty much a piece of white bread with a hole in it. So which city do I like better, and which has better food - bagels aside? Well, Edmonton isn't as shiny or energetic as Calgary, but it has a certain salt-of-the-earth grittiness that I love. When it comes to upscale and creative restaurants, Calgary has it hands-down, but Edmonton has an abundance of honest cuisine and good value. Given the choice I think I'd live in Edmonton, but I'd do most of my fine dining in Calgary. And I'd spend my winters in Florida. Fat Guy digs into a sandwich at Crazyweed Kitchen in Canmore, Alberta Top 5 differences between Calgary and Edmonton 5. The average Calgary waiter couldn't lift the average plate of food in an Edmonton restaurant. 4. If you tell people in Edmonton you're from New York, they think you're exotic. People in Calgary ask you where they should eat next time they go there. 3. Nobody in Edmonton wants to visit a restaurant until it has been in business for at least a year. In Calgary, nobody would go to such an old restaurant. 2. When it snows in Calgary, they celebrate in Edmonton. When it snows in Edmonton, nobody in Calgary knows. 1. If the Oilers play in Calgary, Edmonton hockey fans drive down to jeer at the Flames. When the Flames play in Edmonton, Calgary fans go out to dinner. In any event, Edmonton usually wins. Fat Guy Web Bite The Fat Guy's special Canada.com Web page[/url[ has gotten thousands of visits. But some of the attention in the discussion forum is going to his English bulldog, Momo. Here is one exchange: Keetgi: Dear Fat Guy, Forget about you. What I really want to know is how Momo likes Canadian food. MomoTheDog: I like to eat cake. Good cakes mostly. But I'll eat bad cakes, too. Cake is always good to eat. Keetgi: Dear Momo, You are a wise and witty dog of impeccable taste and discerning palate. Your yen for cake is legendary in these parts. We are preparing for your triumphant return with a cake festival worthy of your stature. Fat Guy: Bad dog. I told you not to use the computer when we're out of the hotel room. Fat Guy with Constable Rick Skolrood and a colleague in Banff, Alberta Recipe: Coconut Thai broth with grilled local squid Michael Noble, Catch Restaurant, Calgary Yield 1.2 liters or 8 portions For the soup 700ml Coconut milk 300ml Stock, chicken or fish 50g Galangal root, sliced 1 clove garlic, minced 2 stalks lemon grass, sliced 4pc kafir lime leaves, chopped 1 bunch cilantro stem, chopped 1 bunch green onion stem, sliced 100 ml fish sauce 100 ml lime juice 2 tsp sambal bajak 1 tbsp palm sugar Separate coconut fat from milk and reserve. Gently cook galangal, kefir lime leaves, garlic, lemon grass, and sambal in coconut fat for about 10 minutes until fragrant. Then add coconut milk and continue to cook on moderate heat until it begins to simmer again. Add the stock and cook 10 minutes. Then add cilantro and green onion stem, palm sugar and fish sauce. Simmer for another 10 minutes and strain. Adjust seasoning with sambal for heat and lime juice for acidity. Soup garnish 400 gr neon squid 30 gr Galangal, chopped 1 pc Kefir lime leaf, chopped 2 cloves garlic, minced 1 tsp lemon grass, minced 1 1/2 tsp Sambal badjak 1 tsp fish sauce 1 tbsp lime juice 3 tbsp grapeseed oil 1 tsp cilantro, chopped 1 tsp green onion, chopped 1 tbsp fish sauce Slash squid in a criss cross fashion and cut into squares for grilling. Build a paste with the garlic, galangal, kefir lime, lemon grass, sambal, lime juice and fish sauce. Rub squid with the paste generously and grill over a moderately hot grill. While still warm slice the squid and toss in vinaigrette of lime juice, oil, fish sauce and herbs. Place the squid in a warm bowl and ladle hot soup over - serve and enjoy!

Well then just serve them with ham. When I was growing up we always ate our scrambled eggs with jelly, and the Welch's grape stuff turned the eggs green. I still eat them that way occasionally, but I've moved up to red raspberry preserves. I sometimes cook my eggs in oil, as well, but in a wok. I discovered that I really liked the way the eggs turned out when I scrambled them for fried rice. Just heat a bit of oil in the wok until a teeny bit of the egg mixture sizzles, then pour in the eggs. Tilt the wok to cover the bottom with the egg mixture and scramble with a chopstick. They get browned in spots but it's a nice crispy brown. Sometimes I throw in some cabbage, too, and eat them with soy sauce.

I'll most likely try La Carbonaia at some point down the road. I just get a little frustrated when I look at what Ho-Ho-Kus offers in terms of variety. Let me know if I'm forgetting anything: Marcello's at the Ho-Ho-Kus Inn ------- Italian La Carbonaia ------------------------------ Italian Garbo's Italian Deli + Pizza ------------- Italian Deli The Sicilian Sun --------------------------- Italian Rigoletto Espresso ----------------------- Italian Sunny Wok -------------------------------- Chinese (and bad Chinese at that) Janice --------------------------------------- Not sure, but oysters could mean Italian Greenmarket Café ------------------------ Vegetarian The Upper Crust -------------------------- Bakery/Deli of sorts Hmmm... the more I look at that list, the more I think that I too should run out and start giving MY business to Janice before it becomes Italian! What I wouldn't give for a nice Vietnamese or Cuban place to open up in Ho-Ho-Kus!!

Tagines - I love 'em. I like their rich flavours, combination of sweet & savoury, and beauty of the elegantly shaped casserole they're cooked in. Does anyone have a favourite tagine? How about comments on the pot, and whether or not you can ever truly duplicate a real tagine without having a dedicated tagine cooking pot? Does the Le Creuset version work, or is it just a waste of money (rather like their wok)? Miss J

I've been working a lot, and this week promises to be another slew of late nights. Joy. But at least this past weekend I had off... Saturday: Red-cooked chicken; stir-fried rice; cabbage stir-fried with chilies, finished with a T. of garam masala and chopped cilantro; fruit. For the stir-fried rice, take 2 to 3 cups of leftover cooked rice (you could do this with freshly cooked rice, but leftovers are best) and toss into a hot wok that already has a clove of browned minced garlic, a T. of shredded ginger root, and some sizzling peanut oil; stir-fry until golden brown (I like to do it until a slight crust forms on the rice); add your choice of chopped scallions (both white and green parts), shredded Smithfield ham; chopped Chinese black mushrooms (dried is best, reconsituted in a bowl of warm water); 1 or 2 beaten eggs; a dash of mushroom soy; or a handful of cooked green peas. I like to keep things simple and usually limit it to just rice, garlic, ginger, peanut oil and scallions. Stir-fried rice made this way also makes for a great breakfast dish (my mom used to make this for breakfast on weekends). Sunday: Leftover chicken which I shredded and combined with some scallions and chopped red and yellow bell peppers, cooked into an omelet; roasted potatoes, sprinkled with lemon juice, rosemary and salt; steamed broccoli. Strawberries macerated in balsamic vinegar, 1 T. of sugar and a dash of cracked black pepper.

I had dinner at Pacific Cafe last night, the best restaurant on the half of Kauii that I visit. Some very interesting innovations there. Last night the meal was stellar. No doubt because chef Jean Marie Josselin was there. I had shrimp/scallop dumplings with Tomato Edamame Vinagerette. Actually the sauce was separate from the tomtato edamame. The sauce was excellent, the dumpling very nice (needed a higher ratio of filling to skin), the tomato edamame didn't do much. My entree was a verison of their "surf and turf", Grilled Ahi, Seared Scallps and Fois Gras, with a cherry port glaze. An excellent dish; I had it with Mahi Mahi instead because I've had so much ahi lately. Ahi is a better match but the fois gras with the hawaiin fish was delicious. The sauce, with liberal use of dried cherries, pulled the ingredients together very well. My wife had the vegetarin twin towers. While not on the menu, it's always available. The difference in vegetarian food when a chef cares is amazing. Because it's so much food, my wife had the first tower brought as an appetizer the second as an entree. First tower: Roasted Garlic Potato Soup - the best example of this we've ever had. Redolent of garlic but not over the top, a perfect consitstency and balance. Wow! Roasted Tomato over Broccholi Puree So often Heirloom tomatoes disappoint. This one was top notch. The broccoli puree was a great pairing (interestingly, it's the first time I've seen this besides my wife making it). It seems very rich, but it isn't at all. Bruschetta with heirloom tomatoes and Edamame/wasabi puree. No worries about repetition of tomatoes; when they are this great, keep 'em coming. The edamame/wasabi puree was a first (anyone else seen it before). Just enough wasabi to let you know it's there without overpowering the tomatoes. Very interesting. Second Tower Roasted eggplant with Soba noodle Very tastey, noodles very good (but not artisanal, the dinner conversation turned to Bouley bread at that point; see the Bouley lunch post). Well executed, not overly exciting though. Grilled Kabucha pumpkin with Faro and edamame/wasabi puree. Faro, I was told, is am Egyptian grain. Interesting (didn't make me forget cous cous however). Perhaps Jean Marie was getting tired with the edamame puree repeat. However, the pumpkin was EXTREMELY EXCELLENT, and the puree was a good match with it. Grilled asparagus and beets over diced (brunoise) vegetables. A simple but exceptional Chez Panisse type dish, with the quality of the vegetables winning our hearts. The bread was a pleasant dark grain olive bread. The wine was exceptional, a 1997 Kistler vineyard Kistler Pinot Noir. The best California can offer in Pinots. Could have use a couple more years to let the grape power integrate a little more, but it was just outstanding. The one desert we craved wasn't available, so we went next door for a couple of cookies. Other Jean Marie Josselin innovations Wok Charred Mahi Mahi (garlic, sesame crist, lime butter buerre blanc) Thai Coconut Curry soup with Ahi, scallops and prawns (the Ahi is the innovation) Sweet Shrimp and Imu Duck Lumpia I haven't had the last one, the first two are excellent. Aloha Beachfan in Beachland

I'm a huge fan of Joe Shanghai's in Chinatown, both of their soup dumplings (xiao long bao) and dishes. cabrales, to answer your initial question, i think there is a big difference in quality between the Midtown and Chinatown locations. The Midtown soup dumplings tend to have a bit of a thicker wrapper and the filling seems a bit dried out to me. The wrappers in Chinatown are a bit finer but the soup dumpling itself seems ready to burst with the combined flavors of crabmeat, pork, and oil. I love them! As far as the dishes go, my favorites there include the razor calms with black bean sauce and jalapenos (as mentioned before), the sauteed pea shoots, and the fresh savory tofu with crabmeat sauce. The sauteed pea shoots are especially good here because they use the small, almost clover-like ones that are very difficult to find in Chinatown and flash-cook them with some oil and garlic in an extremely hot wok. The tofu with crabmeat is amazing because the pieces of tofu are so delicate that it's hard not to break on the way to the plate. But at the same time, they take on a good amount of flavor from the crabmeat sauce. A little pricey in comparison to the rest of the menu (I believe it's about $13-14), but it's so good I get this dish every time I go. One last point, in regards to prices, I am pretty sure the Midtown location is $1-2 more expensive per dish than the Chinatown branch. Not surprising given the higher rents, but IMHO, quality downtown is far better.

Monday: Leftover hoisin pork from Saturday dinner; stir-fried rice (my basic recipe is leftover rice, garlic, minced scallions and a few shreds of ginger, and mushroom soy if I feel like it; occasionally I'll add some chopped Chinese sausage, beaten eggs and/or sliced black mushrooms; sometimes I'll stir-fry until the rice forms a slight crust in the wok, but usually only for about three to four minutes or thereabouts) Tuesday: Baked chicken thighs (marinated in yogurt, turmeric, garlic, chopped onion, cumin, fennel seeds and ginger); sauteed kale; coconut rice pilaf; vanilla ice cream with leftover Calvados apple compote from Sunday's brunch.

Sheer Khurma is a vermicelli (very fine Indian vermicelli) pudding. Ghee is clarified butter. I take Half and Half and reduce it by half. In a wok I take ghee (clarified butter) and sauté chopped pistachios, almonds, charoli nuts, chopped pitted dried mejdool dates, and raisins. Set them aside. In the same wok I add more ghee and fry the vermicelli till golden brown. Set aside. In a small frying pan, I toast some saffron strands till dark red but not burnt. Toss the strands into a mortar and grind into a fine powder using the pestle. Set aside. When the milk is reduced, add the vermicelli and the nuts and dried fruits. Add half the saffron and cook until most of the milk is absorbed. Remove from flame and chill. Take a tablespoon or two of heavy cream. Mix the saffron powder into it. Garnish the chilled bowl of sheer khurma with the saffron cream. I also use toasted and powdered pistachio for a garnish and some gold leaf. PS: Indian vermicelli can be found in Indian stores. I use the lighter noodles and the brand imported from Pakistan. It is finer and nice to cook with.

Cabrales... no apologies necessary. On the other hand mine are extended to you and others. Mirchi Ka Achaar - Chili (hot pepper) Pickle Chukee Hue Mirchi - Sauteed Chilies (hot peppers) Khandvi - A snack from Gujarat that is made from a batter of lentil flour. The batter is then cooked in a wok and poured on a greased platter. While it is still hot it is spread evenly over the platter to make a very thin layer. As the layer cools a baghaar/chaunka/tadka (tempered oil with mustard seeds, curry leaves, cayenne, asafoetida, coconut and perhaps other spices) is prepared. This is drizzled over the cooling layer and then the layer is rolled and some of the tempered oil and very finely chopped fresh cilantro are drizzled on top of the roll. It is cut into bite sized portions. And served chilled with a mint and cilantro chutney or even by itself. Dhoklas are a steamed cake made with lentils or bean flour. Can be made with or without turmeric. Thus these spongy very light cakes can be found white or yellow. They are served with a similar tempered oil as the Khandvi and again served cold. This is also a Gujarati dish. Dhoklas are often eaten with a quick chili pickle. And it was for this dish that at Dimple the captain of the women chef team makes me a fresh order of chili pickles as a gift. These hot chili peppers are sauteed in some oil seasoned with sesame seeds, lemon juice and asafoetida. It is very hot but a great partner to the very bland and cooling taste of the Dhokla itself. Cabrales and others if you ever need to know more about spices and other Indian terms, please feel free to ask me or others here. There are many here that post that know extensively about Indian cooking and the many subtleties that define it from one region to another. If you need urgent answers and do not get a response soon enough, feel free to check out the link to my own website. It has a lot of information on Indian cookinng and certainly many of your questions will find answers there. Again.. sorry for having left these few Indian words unexplained. I hope I did not keep you guessing too long.

Mixed Vegetable Pakoras Prepare vegetables and toss in a bowl large enough to hold all ingredients comfortably. 2 medium/large potatoes using the large tooth grater 1 large onion, halved, laid flat and sliced into thin semi circles and halved again 1/2 package (5 oz.) fresh spinach, washed, chopped into strips same size as the onion In a separate bowl, sift the following dry ingredients: 1 cup gram or besan flour 1/2 tsp salt black pepper to taste 1 tsp turmeric 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper 1 tsp ground cumin 2 tsp ground coriander (or combination of ground and whole coriander seeds) 1 tsp garam masala (make your own - see below) Sprinkle sifted dry ingredients over mixed vegetables (make sure veggies are extremely dry), adding a small amount of water, 1 to 2 Tbsp at a time until a stiff but moist mixture that holds together results. You are aiming for a sticky mixture, NOT a batter. In a wok, heat 1 to 1-1/2" vegetable oil. When oil is hot and just smoking begin cooking the pakoras. Adjust the heat so that the pakoras are sizzling gently, usually a medium-high setting. If the heat is too high the action of the oil will cause them to disentegrate; if it is too low they will absorb the oil. With your fingers scoop up an egg-sized amount of the mixture, shaping it so that it holds together loosely in a rough patty of uniform thickness. This will keep the pakora from disintegrating in the oil and ensure even thorough cooking. Ease the pakora into oil and cook until browned on the first side. This will take approx. 2 minutes. Turn and cook on second side with a minimum of handling. Remove from oil with a slotted spoon and drain against the side of the wok. Lift out of wok and drain on paper towels. Garam Masala Commercially packaged pre-ground garam masalas are available but not recommended because they tend to be dominated by the less expensive spices. Also, they will almost certainly be stale because the spices have been pre-ground and sitting on a shelf for who knows how long. There are many variations of garam masala mixtures as individual and regional preferences dictate the ingredients and proportions. 2 Tbsp cardamom seeds 2" cinnamon stick 1 tsp whole black cumin seeds 1 tsp whole cloves 1 tsp black peppercorns 1/3 nutmeg Grind in a spice grinder (I use a coffee bean grinder) until spices are powdery. Store in an air tight jar, away from direct sunlight and intense heat. Add 2 tsp anardana seeds for Pakistani version of gram masala. Recipes courtesy of Lynne Claire

To save Malawry from begging..... Pakoras Batter 1 cup sifted chickpea (besan) flour 1/4 tsp salt, to taste 1/4 tsp turmeric 1/2 tsp ground cumin 1/4 ground pepper 1/8 cayenne pepper 1/4 tsp baking soda 3-4 Tbsp fresh coriander - chopped (optional) 1/2 tsp whole coriander seeds (optional) Sift together all the dry ingredients. While stirring continuously, slowly add approx. 3/4 cup water until you have a batter that is thick but still retains a slightly fluid consistency. A thick batter will produce a "bready" pakora casing rather than a light crispy casing. Prepare the vegetables for dipping. Recommended veggies are: potatoes and/or sweet potatoes cut in 1/8" slices caulifower flowerettes wedges of spanish onion 1/4" eggplant slices green pepper wedges carrots cut extremely thinly (Mushrooms and zucchini tend to be too watery) Heat enough oil in a wok to allow the pakoras to deep fry, approx. 2-3 inches. The oil should be heated over a medium heat. Juggle your heat setting so that the pakoras sizzle in the oil, browning evenly and taking between 4-7 minutes to cook thoroughly. Some vegetables will obviously cook through much faster than others. Dip a piece of vegetable in the batter and allow most of the excess batter to drip off. Drop into the hot oil. Check the pakoras frequently, turning with a slotted spoon. When they are evenly browned, remove from the oil and drain on paper towels. Serve immediately. Do not attempt to keep them warm in the oven as they will simply turn limp and unappealing. Note: Wipe up chickpea batter immediately as it dries like cement. Recipe courtesy of Lynne Claire

M&P, but I used my Italian one, not my Thai one (back in Australia). It tasted good up to certain point then a small flavour blackhole opened up in my Wok. I'm thinking too much fish sauce? Can oversalting deaden flavour? Had this problem with a Ragu the other day, almost unedible. It tasted of fatty meat only, even through it had loads of other ingredients. At the eleventh hour I added a few more tomatos and bang, problem solved. Maybe my tastebuds are caput? Acid levels wrong? I dunno, why everything is going to hell at this stage in the game though.

On Friday night my friend and I tried to duplicate the Indian meal we'd learned to prepare in our Indian Cooking class. I won't bore you with too many details but want to share one revelation and make one plea for help. 1] we tried making pakoras from thinly sliced vegs [potatoes, eggplant, squash]. i thought the pakora batter looked wrong but wasn't sure why or how, being a total novice to Indian cooking. we coated the slices and dropped them in the heated oil [@ 4 inches] and all the batter came off. so then jennifer got the idea to make fritters--she added about a cupful or chickpea flour to the batter, we diced the vegs and mied them together in the batter, then i dropped them by the tablespoonful into the oil, reduced to about an inch in the bottom of a wok--they cooked nicely, crispy, just a little greasy but otherwise flavorful. i asked jennifer if this was another traditional way of making pakoras and she said she'd never heard of them done this way, and that maybe she had made it up. did she? does anyone know? this method works splendidly, in any case. 2] i think but dare not voice my suspicion to my friend, who seems commited to her belief that Nirav gram flour is the correct flour, that we used the wrong flour. help me, someone. the recipe, and our teacher, told us to use "besan [Nirav brand,chickpea flour, gram flour]"--the instructions ahveme confused. okay, so at the indian grocery we get a bad marked Nirav besan gram flour. it looks courser and darker than the chickpea flour she added later to the batter--and no where on the bag does it say chickpea flour, just gram flour. what IS besan? is there more than one type? do pakoras require a blend of gram and chickpea or are these the same thing? i have no idea and would appreciate any advice. [the rest of the meal, stuffed parathas, kadhi, kichadi, green chutney--all good tho salty [we followed the recipes to a T, something I normally don't do]. the besan burphi turned out the best, tho it was a little stiff]

Frankly, the main reason we got the side burner is our kitchen was to be out of order for a month or so shortly after we got the grill (construction still hasn't begun) and felt it would be handy for when cooking outside is mandatory. We have also used it to make quesadillas (on a flat, round, cast iron skillet/griddle) after grilling the chorizo and veggies. During a family BBQ, we kept the corn boiling pot on a low flame to reheat corn as people came up for seconds (float some butter on top of the hot water and no need to manually butter the corn). It has a stronger flame than our current stove, so I have also used it as a wok burner on occasion. In summary, if you've never wished you had a side burner on the grills you've used in the past (and you don't have extra reasons to get one like we did), you probably don't need the side burner. If you've always yearned for one then it's worth it.

Lion's Head Meatballs (serves 4) Meatball ingredients: 3/4 pound ground pork 1 slice ginger, minced 1/2 c. water chestnuts, minced 2 scallions, cut into thin slices 1 egg, lightly beaten Pinch of salt (less if desired) 1 teaspoon sugar 1 tablespoon sherry 1 tablespoon light soy sauce (I use mushroom soy) 1/2 tablespoon arrowroot powder (or you can use cornstarch) Pepper or white pepper to taste (or if you like them spicy, you can use crushed Szechuan peppercorns) Stock ingredients: 1 cup chicken stock 1 pound bok choy, washed and cut into bite-sized pieces 3 tablespoons peanut oil for cooking Other seasonings as desired (I use mushroom soy, 1 T. sugar, and some five-spice powder on occasion; star anise is good, if used sparingly) 1. Place the ground pork in a bowl. Add the meatball ingredients and mix together with your hands, moving in one direction. When the ingredients are blended, wet your hands slightly and form the pork mixture into 4 large meatballs. 2. Heat wok and add the oil. Cook the meatballs on medium heat until they are golden brown. Drain the meatballs on paper towels. 3. Heat the stock separately, adding soy sauce, sugar, or other seasonings if desired. 4. Arrange the bok choy in a large pot (you could concievably use the same wok if you cleaned the wok beforehand, after cooking the meatballs) and place the meatballs on top. Add the stock. Simmer until cooked (1 to 1 1/2 hours). Serves 4.

Well, what can I add to that? The essence of the omakase experience, I think, is that it's the only meal the average person can have where the chef prepares whatever he thinks is best, in front of you and directly before you eat it. None of this kitchen-full-of-cooks business where the chef might take a look at your plate and throw some parsley on it as it goes over the pass. Your sushi chef is cooking for you. And because the food is so simple, the chef has to be a sucker for quality, or it will show. I was hoping for a bit more of the crazy stuff like the scallop hamburger that klink got at Mashiko, but it was hard to fault anything at Shiki. My favorite thing was probably the river crab, six beautiful little creatures presented on a bed of puffed noodles. The crunch is a reminder of how closely insects and crustaceans are related. My favorite things at a sushi place are anything with fat. Fatty tuna, I love it. Mackerel is often derided as an "oily" fish--why is this an epithet? (I have this sneaking suspicion that there are people who would turn up their noise at a piece of mackerel and then go home and pop fish-oil pills "for their health".) But perhaps best of all was the fat in the heads of the deep-fried sweet shrimp. First there's the crunch of the shell, and then hot, juicy flesh with an actual squirt of fat. Thai cooks sometimes toss shrimp heads into a wok to release the fat and then cook the rest of the food in that fat. They know what they're doing. I'll also second klink's admiration for Shiki's flying fish roe. The only piece I was unsure of was the uni, or sea urchin roe, which has a delightful flavor and a texture that can only be described as pond scum. The funny thing is, just as I was thinking of myself as a Philistine for disliking the uni, I read Nancy's sushi article in today's Times, where she admits that it took her 20 years before she liked the stuff. Sushi is a food that exerts a strange pull on me. The first time I had it was at a restaurant in Vancouver a few years ago. I tried a couple of bites (it was a piece of tuna nigiri), smiled politely, and turned back to my shrimp tempura. The next day I realized that, as much as I had enjoyed the tempura, I was still thinking about the sushi. I hadn't liked it, and yet I wanted more. (It turned out to be quite a while before I had any more, but once I did, I was hooked.) Now when I cook fish at home, I often say to myself over my poached halibut steak or pan-roasted salmon, "This is good, but I think I would have enjoyed it more raw." James Peterson says the same thing in Fish & Shellfish: "Those who have tried raw seafood sometimes end up preferring it to cooked." klink was polite enough not to note that while he kept finding roe in his mouth, I kept finding mine on my plate, since I foolishly attempted to eat mine in two bites. The price before tip was about $46 each. I've only spent a little less than that the last couple of times I've been to Shiki, and I got much less food and no live stuff. I've long believed that the best way to get people to try novel foods is to put them in comfortable surroundings, and by this standard, Shiki would be a great place to take a sushi newbie. Chef Ken is an affable fellow, and the whole place has a casual, laid-back demeanor which belies its almost neurotic emphasis on fish quality.

Here's what I'd do, as a Western cook, to make this dish. I'm not talking about the authentic method, but rather my French/Nouveau-American take on it. In the morning, I'd take the two lobsters and, while they're still alive, I'd remove their claws and tails. I'd clean out the bodies and heads and separate them into the two pieces they naturally separate into. I'd roast those heads and bodies in the oven at 375 degrees for about an hour. While that's happening, I'd cook the claws and tails in a pot of boiling water: Assuming 1.5 pound lobsters, first the tails for about 3 minutes, then the claws for about 6 minutes (I want them to be somewhat rare), immediately dropping them into ice water when the cooking time is up. I'd remove the meat from the shells and put it in the refrigerator for later. If these are spiny lobsters, as are more prevalent in Asia, I'd do the same thing but of course only with the tails. Then I'd skip the chicken stock altogether because I'd make a stock out of the roasted lobster heads and bodies, with leeks, carrots, celery, and fennel (or any combination of seafood-stock-acceptable aromatic vegetables). I'd let it go for a couple of hours with the shells in it, then I'd strain it and put it back on the stovetop to reduce for a couple more hours until it's extremely rich. At this point I'd salt it to taste, or perhaps fortify it with a little bit of a salty Chinese condiment like soy or XO or oyster sauce. I'd cook the E-Fu noodles in two changes of salted water, or, if I had extra lobster stock, I'd add some of it to the second pot in order to begin imparting the lobster taste to the noodles. Then I'd stir-fry ginger, garlic, and scallions and then I'd add to the wok or saute pan the noodles and enough lobster stock to make them pretty wet. Once that stock came up to the boil, I'd cut the heat to low and add chunks of lobster meat, stir everything around until the lobster meat is heated through, and serve with sparkling wine from Oregon. Does anybody know the real way to make this dish?

Adam, Thanks for the link to those notes. Reading them triggered memories, and I know that after reading about panelle and le vucciria I made a special effort to seek them out. In Cefalu we found a small bakery that made panelle panini, and I went back almost every day for the soft roll filled with several layers of the thin chick pea frittter. In le vucciria, Palermo's old market that Robb describes as having been completely altered since his first visit, we wandered around but kept coming back to the food sections. I had a sandwuch in the meat stalls that was incredible. The vendor had a crude wok-like pan (maybe an old hubcap) set on a propane burner at an angle. He'd pour a bit of olive into it, slide some thin slices of beef into the oil, cook for a few seconds, then squeeze half a lemon over it before sliding into a roll. We had several interesting conversations with Sicilians about the mafia. It's still a force but not nearly so obvious as in the 1980s, altho' caravans of carabinieri screaming through Palermo were a common sight. We went to Trapani to see the high-end shops frequented by the mafia wives that Robb described, and in a trattoria there watched a very large man be treated deferentially by the owner and speculated about his connections. But we always felt safe in Sicily, and it’s probably our favorite place in Italy. We’re planning to go back next spring. Jim

OK, had to jump in (briefly) on this one -- sorry it's a little OT from the original post. I don't know how the restaurants make their sauce, but my Mom (a Chinese immigrant) doesn't really make a separate thickened sauce. Her usual stir-fry "recipe" involves dusting chicken chunks with cornstarch, making a slurry of soy, sherry, broth or water, sesame oil, and a little more cornstarch, tossing the chicken with the wok with garlic, green onion, and ginger and veggies stir-fried in another pan, then stirring in the slurry at the last minute and stirring until it thickens a bit. I'll see if I can get more details from her if you'd like, although we all know that Mom's don't measure.

From your mention of "lo mein and Gen. Tso's chicken", by "Chinese food" it appears that you mean essentially the food served in the many inexpensive Chinese carryout restaurants in the US. And, my experience is that this food is curiously uniform as if somewhere there were one book on how to do Shredded Pork with Garlic Sauce Beef with Broccoli General Tso's Chicken Beef with Orange Flavor etc. This food also has some other advantages: o Cost. It does appear that the ingredients for this food are remarkably inexpensive. So, don't need many truffles or much 'foie gras'. o Popularity. These Chinese restaurants have had a good and stable business going for years. At lunch or dinner time, they commonly hand over sacks with 1-4 dishes for $5 to $35, one sack every minute or so. Although I live in a very rural area of Upstate NY, I can think of at least five of these restaurants close to me and several more not much farther away. Curiously, I believe I can think of more of these Chinese restaurants near me than McDonald's, Wendy's and Burger King restaurants combined. Interesting. o Ingredients. It does appear that nearly all the ingredients these restaurants use are not very difficult to get. These restaurants are doing a lot with yellow globe onions, carrots, celery, various forms of cabbage, broccoli, beef, chicken, pork, eggs, corn starch, soy sauce, garlic, ginger, white button mushrooms, bean sprouts, canned water chestnuts, canned bamboo shoots, canned straw mushrooms, chicken broth, hot peppers, cooking oil, and long grain white rice, and these ingredients are readily available in the US in high quality at low prices. o Novelty. The food in these restaurants really is quite different from other popular food in the US. Maybe the food is not authentically Chinese or the same as one would find in Taiwan or China, but it is quite different from what is in US or European cooking or in corresponding cookbooks. o Labor. It is easy to watch the cooks at these restaurants, and they do their work very quickly. Sure, there is prior preparation, but the effort is clearly not enormous. Net, the labor required is comparatively small. o Efficiency. And, beyond just what the restaurants do, there is more efficiency in the whole 'supply chain': Clearly the rice is easier than the McDonald's hamburger buns. And, the soy sauce is easier than the McDonald's mustard, pickle, or catsup. The efficiency is not uniform -- wood ears may be harder than pickles. But, generally, there is some good efficiency in this Chinese cooking. Net, this cooking is doing a lot efficiently. Sure, a suitable heat source would be good, but I believe that King Kooker Manufactured by Metal Fusion, Inc. 712 St. George Ave. Jefferson, LA 70121 (504) 736-0201 Model No. 88 PKP "FOR OUTDOOR USE ONLY". "170,000 BTU CAST IRON BURNER". I bought at Sam's Club a few years ago has power enough and is suitable -- outdoors. So, it would be good to have a good cookbook to show how to cook such food at home. And, this objective has been noticed: E.g., this objective is mentioned prominently in Linda Drachman, '365 Ways to Wok', ISBN 0-06-016643--6, HaprerCollins, New York, 1993. But, I don't believe that in this book the author does very well achieving this objective. If you find a cookbook that explains what these Chinese restaurants are doing, then by all means tell the world! I have been able to find no such book. The cookbooks want to be more authentic, and perhaps many of them are, or want to be simplified to provide 'fast, easy recipes you can prepare quickly and easily to feed your whole hungry family and that they will all love' or some such. Telling people how to do what the restaurants do seems to be lost somewhere between the woks and the bookstores. It is easy to suspect that the restaurants are in business based on what people think of the food being sold while the cookbook publishers are in business based on cover pictures, celebrity authors, various promises of getting love and approval from happy family members, etc., i.e., lots of things other than the food itself. For the next book signing ceremony, I believe I would like to pass up the signature and, instead, see the author work directly from recipes in the book; then I would like to taste the results. One of the differences is illustrated by the two dishes you mentioned "lo mein and Gen. Tso's chicken". The first has long been common in the US but is regarded as a terrible US distortion of some of Cantonese cooking and, therefore, not worthy of instruction. Still, "millions" of orders have been served to customers that return for more. For General Tso's chicken, that appears to be a speciality of the restaurants, and just how they do it has been regarded as too commercial or some such for the books. Still, the dish is darned popular in the restaurants. Broadly there are other differences: o Sauce Volume. The restaurants typically include a lot of sauce. For eating with rice the sauce is convenient as a way to flavor the rice. The cookbook recipes usually provide much less sauce. Possibly one reason for all the sauce from the restaurants is some requirement from their business liability insurance: To be protected, the rule seems to be that just before the dish comes from the wok the last time, all the solids will be fully submerged in boiling water-based sauce. There are some exceptions: E.g., maybe the chicken pieces in General Tso's chicken were deep fried and the sauce was boiling and then the two were combined. And, maybe the broccoli was also added separately -- but, in my watching the cooks, it appears that the broccoli was also parboiled separately before being combined. Also, we can begin to see that these restaurants seem to be moving away from fresh pork: So, they want to provide stir-fry dishes where the pork was previously roasted. Having the fresh pork stir-fried in some oil and then submerged in boiling sauce should be sufficient for all purposes except possibly for convincing a skeptical jury -- so, the pork gets cooked three times: (1) roasted, (2) stir-fried, and (3) boiled. So, the pork gets overcooked, beef and chicken become more popular, and Sam's Club is selling whole pork loins, very well trimmed, for 1.99 dollars a pound. Hmm? o Oil Content. The cookbooks commonly have us stir-frying vegetables in oil, lots of oil, even 1 C of oil just for a little broccoli, and including the oil in the dish. While the restaurants did get some bad publicity a few years ago from using far too much oil, my observation is that they have greatly reduced the amount of oil to reasonable levels and to far below what is in many of the cookbook recipes. o Poaching. Many of the cookbooks seem to ask us to stir-fry the vegetables, including broccoli, while my observation of the restaurants is that they usually parboil the main collection of vegetables. So, there is mystery here. Or, the question millions, or perhaps at least thousands, of US carryout customers are asking: "How'd they DO that?". For just some recipes, there is Joyce Chen, 'Joyce Chen Cook Book', J. B. Lippincott, Philadelphia, 1962. The Moo Shi Pork there is easy to do, tastes good, and is similar to, generally drier than, generally better tasting than, what is in the restaurants. But, mostly what the restaurants are doing is not in this book. Of course, could go to the people with a high interest in helping people cook such dishes. So, we should go to the Web site of, say, Kikkoman? Did that. Found lots of 'fast, easy tasty delicious recipes to perk-up the lagging appetites of your whole family', lots of roast ham with maple syrup and soy sauce, Fajitas and soy sauce, etc., but not a hint about anything that would keep one of these restaurants in business even for a week. Of course, it is easy just to take some soy sauce, chicken stock, dry sherry, rice vinegar, corn starch, etc., and start improvising stir-fry sauce. The cookbooks say to use dry sherry; it's tough to believe that the restaurants use any of it; but, I bought some. Hmm. My experience is that it is easy to get (1) far too much salt from the soy sauce, (2) a flavor that is comparable to but a less good than the average dishwater, (3) canned chicken broth that is not so good, and (4) a corn starch thickened sauce the 'breaks', that is, thins out, soon after the dish is assembled. The Web site for Argo gives a long list of reasons a corn starch sauce will 'break', but I have yet to find any discussion of sauces breaking or how to avoid it in the Chinese cookbooks. I am beginning to conclude that the restaurants are not using Argo corn starch! In my last experiment, my 'stir-fry' sauce thickened with Argo corn starch was fine in my stainless steel pot, for over 30 minutes -- no evidence of breaking at all. And, the sauce had nice color and was glossy. Then, when I combined with the stir-fried chicken and the poached broccoli, BOOM, the sauce leached color from the broccoli, turned a color a good match for dishwater, got cloudy, tasted awful, and 'broke' into cloudy thinness. Flush, slosh, slosh. The septic tank bugs ate well that night. Clearly, for an answer, one solution would be to get (1) someone good with both English and the Chinese spoken by the cooks, (2) some of the cooks, (3) a capable careful Westerner that wants to learn, and (4) a cookbook writer, and, then, with this crew, teach and practice over and over until the Westerner can reproduce the dishes and the writer can describe the work clearly enough for other Westerners to be able to reproduce the dishes just from the writing. Sounds like a book for the series 'Dummies'. And, maybe there is one. Or, maybe the main cookbook has already been written, by the insurance companies as in "This is what we are willing to write liability insurance on." which would help explain why the food is so similar.