morsels & sauces

What I love the most about my CSA box is the surprise every Tuesday. While Full Belly Farm sends an email newsletter on Monday announcing what they will be sending, I like to resist that siren call and to open the box to find tomatoes and grapes and basil and potatoes.  It's like my own Tuesday-afternoon version of Chopped. Recently one of my mystery ingredients was cabbage. As in more cabbage . As in this is the third time I have gotten cabbage this summer. I never knew there wold be so much cabbage in July.  While certainly this is the tail end of the season for cabbage, it is the key ingredient in all of your slaw needs this summer.  And what better way to make a slaw than one that accompanies an ahi tuna poke bowl?  Have you noticed, by the way, the recent popularity in rice bowl cooking?  They're  everywhere .  As in   everywhere .  Everywhere .  This fascination with servi...

There's a lot of pressure when you put the definite article the  in front of anything. You're suggesting that yours is the one and o nly, the end all be all, the real deal. Such is the case with Ithai Schori and Chris Taylor's hamburger recipe from Twenty Dinners.  They claim that they, in fact, have  The  Hamburger Recipe. I'll let you determine this for yourself. But it is worth the experiment. The somewhat fatty meat lends moisture.  The bourbon lends noticeable and welcome sweetness.  The jalapeno gives a little heat and pop.  The sheer quantity of onions guarantees super juiciness.  This is a nice change of pace from your everyday hamburger.   Seriously, you want to give this a try, don't you?  Pile with grilled red cabbage (or heap it on the side, as I did), and you have a real burger. The slaw was perhaps is a little oily for my taste--you might cut a little of the oil yourself, but the ...

Yum, yum. Dim sum. I am a fan of dim sum, a statement that hardly needs be made here in a blog that extols the virtues of morsels and sauces. A few years ago, when (one of) the landlocked niece(s) came to visit, we took her out for dim sum; she declared that Cantonese food was not her favorite cuisine (instead, she insisted that she loved Ethiopian or Indian food more). While I do not necessarily share in her ranking system (Steamed Pork Buns! Har Gau! Turnip Cakes! Phoenix Claws!), I am glad we got to introduce her to one of my favorite ways to spend a Sunday morning. Dim sum comes from a Cantonese tradition of weary travelers eating morsels and snacks with a pot of tea in roadside tea houses. Typically these small dishes are served from as early as 5 in the morning all the way until mid-afternoon. Such a tradition is one I readily embrace, and this new cookbook,  Asian Dumplings , happily leads me on what is going to be one heck of a culinary journey, even if it i...

In 2008, I had the opportunity to go to China--a trip I never really imagined possible. My father is the only one of my parents who had ever travelled abroad, a trip he took with his school when he was 18. And while I had been to Europe, I had not really imagined that I would be lucky enough to travel to Asia.  Thus, when the opportunity presented itself, I snapped it up.  In a whirlwind 10 days, I travelled to China with a colleague and set out on an adventure to some of the cultural hot spots of central and northern China. While there, I wandered among the food vendors in the  night market  with my colleague in  Kaifeng , ate fermented vegetables for breakfast outside of  Houjia village , sampled noodles in a noodle house in  Xi'an , grabbed Chinese pastries in  Zhengzhou  before my colleague dragged me into the red light district (he was the more adventurous of us both), and ate  lychees  at the f...

I am a fan of Sara Forte and Hugh Forte and their beautifully presented blog , The Sprouted Kitch en . Even more so, I am a fan of my friend who gifted me with the Forte's first cook book, simpl y entit led The Sprouted Kitchen . Thus, I was looking forward to this sophomore cookbook from Sara Forte. It meant good food, beautiful pictures, and a nostalgic return to her first. Th i s new cookbook combines  the pragmatism of the first book (healthy, whole  foods) with the charm of a single dish.  While the book reads almost like a vegetarian cookbook, Forte tucks in recipes for turkey meatballs, seared tuna, jerk-seasoned white fish, roasted salmon, and seared scallops. Forte is no simpleton when it comes to healthy food, for such a qualifying moniker doesn't always mean food without poultry or seafood. Further, Forte admits that one must not get too literal with the bowl and spoon , even encouraging you to branch out  to the fork and plate...