Cooking Chinese for the Olympics!
This is Recipe 3 in the series and another home-style Chinese dish for you to try (see below for the rest)

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My friend, Lynne, is an assistant at The Rolling Pin, the cooking school where I teach in Florida. She’s often free in the evenings to work at the school, since her husband, Kevin, has been serving in Kuwait for the past 11 months. Assisting in the classes are fun for Lynne and it keeps her busy during the otherwise lonely evenings.

Normally, for my classes, I have 15 students, as that is just the right number of students that can fit into the studio kitchen. With hands-on classes, it can get pretty intense for me, as I need to totally be on top of everything from working with each student individually, demonstrating new techniques, explaining how to use Asian ingredients, ensuring that students don’t hurt themselves with the 22 or so super-sharp knives in the kitchen, and of course keeping an eye on the food so that we can all enjoy a wonderful meal! I would probably call myself an orchestrator of sorts, some evenings wishing that I had another set of eyes mounted to the back of my head to coordinate and keep track of it all.
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As promised, I’m doing a series of simple Chinese dishes as we lead up to the 2008 Beijing Olympics. I’m hoping to post a new recipe at least 4 times a week, though that might be a little ambitious and make my family very hungry for something like spaghetti or meatloaf. This dish, Ground Beef with Beijing Sauce over Noodles is so flexible - you can use ground turkey, chicken or even pork. If you don’t have Chinese noodles, serve over rice or any type of pasta. The greatest thing about this recipe is that the entire thing comes together in 15 minutes (if using noodles) and costs around $5 to feed a family of 4. How can you beat that?! Normally, I’d serve this over rice, but I had some of these wonton noodles leftover from my Crab and Pork Wonton Noodle Soup recipe that we’re currently testing for my Steamy Kitchen cookbook. (Come take a look and join the testing group if you’re interested!) So, as thrifty as I am, I’ve served this over noodles instead of rice. You can do either. There are certain dishes that my Mom always says in Chinese, “goes very good with rice,” meaning, You’re gonna eat A LOT of it and won’t be able to stop. This is one of those dishes where before you even know it, you’ve eaten the entire pot with rice or noodles!

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My editor, Jeff Houck, sent over a picture of pan-fried Scrapple slice and my heart fluttered like crazy. “Scrapple? Scrapple! What’s Scrapple? I asked him,” and within 30 minutes was off to the supermarket to find Scrapple, a distant cousin to Spam.

Yes, I have an odd fascination with meat that comes in it’s own coffin.

“hmmm…I wonder if I could showcase the otherwise disgusting “meat” in a edgy, fashion-y, Bon Appetit-esque yet appetizinng way. I mean, when was the last time you saw a photo of canned ham and said, “DAMN…that’s a mighty fine piece of ass?!”

While I was there, I went bezerk and ended up with a basketful of “meat” products along with a variety of ingredients to concoct four different recipes. And really. That’s how my “meat” adventure began.

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from my Tampa Tribune column

I’m sure that a vow to eat healthfully was at the top of most New Year’s resolutions lists. Sigh. It certainly was on mine, but I’ve been doing a lousy job of fulfilling my goal of losing 15 pounds.

I even made it super-easy by limiting myself to just ONE resolution. I typed in my journal that if I could get there by the end of the year, I would pamper myself with a spa day at The Met in Sarasota.

It’s May, and I’m so not there yet. Maybe I need to re-evaluate my prize because, as we all know, a change in behavior is only sustainable with a promise of good loot at the end. The words “losing 15 pounds,” even the thought of a haircut and four-hour massage, is not enticement enough to turn away that decadent swirl of chocolate frosting or the irresistibly curious bacon toffee. Sugar? Butter? Bacon? Cannot resist.

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I’ve been on an Indian food kick lately, as a friend of mine sent me a goody box full of Indian ingredients to experiment with.

I’m new to the cuisine, intimidated by the long list of unfamiliar spices in recipes. How do I pronounce badi elaichi or hara dhaniya without sounding as if I’ve slammed five shots of tequila for breakfast? If I ask for methi seeds at the market, will the shopkeeper flip out and push the police button hidden under the cash register? Surely, very suspicious.

So, rather than risk sounding stupid, I’ll order Indian food at restaurants, where I can read and understand the English description of the dish and point out my selection for the waiter without oophhinen mhyyy moufff.

But then I’m reminded by my friends that they feel the same way about common ingredients used in East and Southeast Asian cooking, such as nam pla, dong-gu and naganegi. My advice to friends who yearned to learn was to start with just one dry spice blend, such as five spice powder, and sparingly sprinkle on roasted vegetables. It’s inexpensive, simple and a great way to be introduced to Chinese flavors without having to invest in a cupboard full of one-hit wonders.

It was time to follow my own advice and venture into the world of Indian cooking.

My friend Sowjanya suggested I start with garam masala, a dry-spice mixture very popular in Indian cuisine. It’s a warming, aromatic blend of cardamom, cloves, cumin, coriander, cinnamon and black peppercorns, and it goes well with anything, especially vegetables. Garam masala is the type of spice that when you hold the bottle anywhere close to your face, you’ll collapse in ecstasy and moan loudly right there on your kitchen floor. Steamy kitchen, indeed.

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