I’m not a sandwich person, or at least I wasn’t… In high school, while my friends were piling into cars headed to Subway for lunch, I could be found walking alone to a nearby taco truck. For a long time, I just thought I didn’t like sandwiches. But as I grew up and had a chance to meet sandwiches from all walks of life, I gradually built a list of sandwiches I enjoyed: the Connecticut-style(is there any other kind?...
While I love butter chicken, I have a few problems with many restaurant versions. The first is that it’s often sugary sweet. The second issue is that it’s often made with leftover tandoori chicken, which by the time it makes it into the butter sauce, could make the cut for an NHL approved hockey puck. Why this Recipe Works Caramelizing the tomatoes (yes, tomatoes!) gives this butter chicken recipe a natural sweetness that really doesn’t need any added sugar....
Back in my kitchen, I tested about a dozen iterations, including different blends of rice flour, different grilling methods, and different ratios of sauce ingredients. After all my experimentation, this is my favorite way of preparing Mitarashi Dango at home. Why This Recipe Works? Making this dango recipe with 100% shiratamako (glutinous short-grain rice flour) gives them the best soft yet springy texture (see the ingredient list for a more detailed explanation)....
With spawning season in full swing, the salmon are packed to the gills with roe. If you’re able to find a skein of salmon roe at your local seafood shop (or you happen to know someone that’s going salmon fishing in Alaska), 5 minutes and a handful of ingredients is all it takes to turn that ugly sac of roe into a decadent bowl of ikura (salmon caviar) Unlike the limp salty goop that that comes out of jars, homemade ikura caviar is truly sublime....
Gimbap (김밥), or Kimbap, literally means “laver and rice”. Loaded with fillings and rolled up in seaweed sheets like Futomaki sushi, Gimbap are a feast for the eyes as well as the mouth. In Seoul, there are Gimbap specialists, which vend these tasty morsels out of little holes-in-the-wall, and it’s often what I grab for a meal on the go while I’m there. Gim vs. Nori You might be thinking that gim looks a lot like nori, and you’d be right in that they are both made with laver, a type of algae, but that’s about where the similarity ends....
What is Green Curry Paste Green curry paste (พริกแกงเขียวหวาน - prik gaeng khiaowan), is a concentrated paste made of spices, herbs, aromatics and green chili peppers that’s used as a base for making a variety of Thai dishes. It’s traditionally made by grinding the ingredients together with a mortar and pestle into a smooth paste that can then be fried. These days it’s possible to get pre-made curry paste in almost any supermarket, but the flavor just isn’t the same as a fresh curry paste, and I highly recommend making it from scratch....
Introducing liquids into a fried dish can be a bit tricky, but I’ve outlined a few tricks to help make it simpler. Why This Recipe Works? An assortment of meat, vegetables, and mushrooms provides various textures and flavors that keep each bite of these spring rolls interesting. The inclusion of a starch thickened sauce in the filling makes these spring rolls juicy and flavorful on the inside while providing a nice contrast to the crispy shell on the outside....
Scrambled egg is often the first dish we learn how to make, yet for many it’s one of the hardest dishes to master. While everyone has a different ideal of what scrambled eggs should be like, I can’t help but smile when I’m served a plate of tender golden yellow curds that somehow manage to defy contradiction by being light and fluffy, yet rich and decadent. Over the years, I’ve seen all kinds of tricks suggested to get fluffy scrambled eggs....
Why This Recipe Works? Using only eggs and salt gives the paper-thin omelette a tender, supple texture that’s firm enough to shred into kinshi tamago. Beating the eggs without incorporating any air and straining them ensures an even texture and uniform golden color, making it easier to shred the usuyaki tamago into thin strands. By cooking the omelette at a moderately low temperature, the egg has time to set without browning....
A little over a month ago during an intense moment of food geekery, Claire, Stephane and I decided to make our own choucroute (sauerkraut) and saucisse(sausage) from scratch. The deal was that I’d make the sauerkraut and they’d tackle the sausages The next day I went out and bought a large head of cabbage and got started on my epic sauerkraut fermentation experiment. The following is a chronicle of the high and low points of the past 34 days....
Why This Recipe Works? Rolling the cookies in granulated sugar before rolling them in powdered sugar gives the cookies a crisp crust that makes for a nice contrast to the soft, chewy interior. Because there’s a lot of sugar on the outside of the cookies, I’ve cut back on the amount of sugar in the dough. This makes for a nice contrast between the bittersweet matcha cookie and the sugar crust....
Why This Recipe Works? A 3:1 ratio of cake flour and glutinous rice flour creates a batter that’s light and crispy on the outside while it bakes up into a tender cake with just a hint of mochi-like chew. Adding baking soda raises the pH of the batter, allowing it to turn golden brown as it cooks. Cooking the Taiyaki in stages ensures you have just enough batter to fill out the Taiyaki mold while allowing room for a generous amount of filling....
Texture For me, the perfect brownie has a paper thin crispy shell on top, with a gradual transition from cakey to fudgy towards the bottom. To achieve this, I’ve come up with the perfect ratio of sugar to flour to fat. The sugar content is what gives you the crisp shell on top while having a relatively high fat to flour ratio gives you a moist, dense crumb. The mixing method can also impact the texture, and I’ve come up with a simple solution that borrows from my pancake recipe, emulsifying the fats with the egg, and then folding the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients....
Honestly, I’m not sure why these things aren’t in the freezer aisle alongside edamame, because they’d be flying off the shelves if they were. The fresh nuts are more crispy than crunchy with a mild creamy flavor. Paired with the Chinese spices in this brine, they make for a delicious snack with an addictive quality that keeps your hand going back for more. What’s your favorite way of having peanuts?...
Rather than using a traditional dashi-based soup stock for udon, I’ve combined some braising liquid from the pork belly kakuni I made the other night with dashi to create a tasty, though unconventional broth for the noodles. If you’re a ramen maniac or an udon fanatic (or better yet, both), this may be your perfect bowl of noodle soup, as it falls somewhere in between the two while tasting entirely different from either....
Having come from a town with a pepper named after it, it’s no surprise that the key ingredient in Muhammara is chili peppers. Both fiery and fruity, Aleppo Peppers come in at around 6,000-15,000 Scoville Heat Units putting them above Hungarian hot paprika (100-500 SHU), but below Cayenne (35,000-55,000SHU) in terms of spiciness. Some preparations call for fresh Aleppo peppers, while others use the peppers dried and ground into a powder, still others call for the peppers to be roasted....
While convenient, I’ve always been a little wary of the mystery-meat filled steamed Japanese pork buns you can buy at the store. They taste good, but the bleached white dough is often too sweet, the skimpy filling a little prepubescent, and the unidentifiable meat inexplicably pink. On a recent trip to Kyoto, I made the mistake of boarding a noon train without buying lunch. By the time the bullet train reached Kyoto station I was ready to start gnawing on the seat in front of me....
As you bite into a crisp, buttery pastilla, the sugar and cinnamon activates your sweet taste receptors, but the sweetness quickly fades as the savory filling hits your tongue. The tender chicken and onions flood your mouth with an umami rich burst of flavor that carries with it notes of ginger, turmeric, and cardamom. Add to that the crunchy butter-fried almonds, and you’ll start to get a picture of just how magnificent this humble pastry can be....
I guess you could say I’ve been on a bit of biscuit kick lately. Not only are they ridiculously quick and easy to make, the workable batter makes them perfect for filling with just about anything. With National Peanut Butter and Jelly Day just around the corner, what better way to pay homage to the classic combo than to turn it into a biscuit. With a molten jelly core surrounded by a fluffy, nutty biscuit, it makes for an awesome breakfast hot from the oven, or an even better brown-bagged lunch after cooling to room temperature....
Why This Recipe Works? Tipping the pan to one side lets you fry the egg with a relatively small amount of oil, giving it crisp edges and a meaty texture in the center. I’ve halved the sugar in the teriyaki sauce for this recipe because eggs work better with a more savory sauce. Serving the eggs over rice makes this a complete meal, giving the sauce and molten yolk something to percolate into....
