Stir-fried Arugula with Asian Noodles
Stir-fried arugula with Asian noodles–they’re Udon noodles, if you must know–came about like many of my recipes: while I was distracted. Chinese preserved egg. By “distracted” I mean I was testing another recipe: adding various seasonings, tasting, and making lots of illegible notes. Late afternoon rapidly became early evening….
Thai Salt-Pickled Cabbage (Pak Dong)
If you are feeling ever so slightly depressed these days, you might take heart at the notion of fermented cabbage as a unifying force. Hear me out. At a time when people are busy insulting one another on social media and doing worse IRL, some of us have been equally…
Poached Chicken with Udon Noodles
Poached chicken with udon noodles started with the noodles, which I made one night to accompany something–I forget what. My memory is not what it was. But I remember liking the noodles far more than the protein, and thinking I’d better write down how I cooked them, right then, mid-meal,…
Asian Style Noodle Soup with Greens
The inspiration for Asian Style Noodle Soup with Greens comes from Mollie Katzen’s Vegetable Heaven. While today’s recipe is quite different from Katzen’s, but I believe in credit where it’s due. If you are unfamiliar with Katzen’s books, I encourage you to seek them out. A friend lent me…
Omelet with Chinese pickled vegetable
Soaring fuel prices are forcing many people, myself included, to reconsider everything we were taught about “good cooking.” Especially now, when we would normally be starting to prepare stews, bone-in roasts, and soups, dishes demanding hours of slow cooking. Gourds. Official harbinger of Fall. Well, these and pumpkin-spiced coffee drinks,…
Chicken with Zucchini and Water Chestnuts
Chicken with zucchini and water chestnuts is a departure from the usual chez IK. It’s not a stir-fry in the classic sense of high heat, fast cooking. Instead, the heat is turned down, and the wok gets a lid. New table? New cups? Nope. The above is dollhouse furniture. I…
Stir-fried bok-choy with seitan/stir-fried Chinese pickles with seitan
As promised, recipes incorporating seitan. The first, bok-choy with seitan, calls for widely available ingredients. The second recipe calls for Chinese pickled vegetable, which I’ve never seen sold outside an Asian market. I am fortunate to live near Asian megamarket 99Ranch. Others may not be so lucky. I posted these…
Seitan at home
Prior to encountering seitan in How To Cook Everything Vegetarian, on page 668–when Bittman says everything, he means it–I’d met it once before, in a Chinese restaurant on University Avenue in Berkeley, California. (The name of this place eludes me. Nor could I find it on the net.) Technically it…
Uighur Lamb Kebabs
It is our misfortune to inhabit what is politely termed a “mixed” area. Meaning there are lots of apartment buildings mixed in with single family homes. AT&T has terrible difficulty with this. Every time somebody moves out of an apartment, a tech comes out to the nearby box and instead…
Thai-Style Mushroom Salad (Yam het)
Fortunately for us, mushrooms aren’t endangered, bad for the environment, or likely to provoke the righteous wrath of the well-intentioned. Before they do, let’s get to the recipe: Yam or yum het–Thai mushroom salad. Yam het comes to us from Thailand. Yam or yum is Thai for salad, het…