Last week was my good friend's birthday and like me, she popped out kids back to back, 16 months apart, which meant we both had the same momentary lapse of judgment. Date nights are rare events, not because we're lame, married, boring people, but that trustworthy...
Zimmern: "completely rotten, mushy onions." Bourdain: "...Your breath will smell as if you'd been French-kissing your dead grandmother." Alfred Russell Wallace, some naturalist in the 1800's: "After a fruit-eating bat has pee'd on it." Henri Mouhot, French naturalist:...
It's Chinese Wonton Noodle Soup time! A great dish to make for the Beijing 2008 Olympics! This is recipe 5 in the series (see links at the end for the other recipes) *** Wrapping Wontons Videos I've got two for you - I was on CBS on Tuesday - this was a BLAST! A 4...
What you'll learn: How to properly pleat potsticker dumplings How to fry potstickers in batches How to squeeze out water from cabbage (if you'd like to include them in your recipe) so you wouldn't have soggy dumplings In college, my friends and I used to get together...
Ancient Chinese Stir Fry Secrets (at home) Restaurant kitchens have extremely high powered stoves, flames that jump so high that your eyebrows will singe just standing in the doorway. At home, especially with electric stovetops, we just can't get that kind of...
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...
from the Steamy Kitchen archives.... The software that runs my website has a nifty little feature that tells me what terms people are entering into the search box when they come to Steamy Kitchen. Although smart authors would probably use this information to enhance...
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...
from Steamy Kitchen food column in Tampa Tribune Writing and editing more than 100 recipes for a cookbook that I'm doing is no easy task. In fact, it's quite a bit more intense than I had ever imagined. The more-than-occasional brain farts and writer's block are...
I just read an article about a man in India who created a tree that grows 300 varieties of mangoes. Although the original tree is more than 80 years old, this man has grafted different mango saplings onto it. It's kind of neat and strange at the same time. But, it got...
This recipe for Sesame Shrimp with Honey Mustard Sauce is from the legendary Cecilia Chang 江孫芸, best known for her Chinese restaurant in San Francisco, called the Mandarin Restaurant. Through her restaurant, she introduced America to authentic regional...
from Steamy Kitchen food column in Tampa Tribune If I had to just choose one thing, "my killer app" in the kitchen, it would be salt. It doesn't matter what cuisine I'm cooking, salt is the basis of flavor in a savory dish. Call me a salt snob, but I stay away from...
Tat-tat-taaaat-tat-tat-taaaat-tat! That, my friends, is the beautiful sing-song sound of Chef Martin Yan's cleaver as he chops bok choy. In fact, everything about Martin is musical, from the lyrical harmony of his Chinese accent (yes, it's real - I asked) to the way...
from Steamy Kitchen column in Tampa Tribune 5/21/08 When I was little, my mom used to take a 2-quart pitcher, fill it with water, add a few tea bags and placed it in a sunny spot early in the day. My job was to chase the sun. As the sun moved throughout the day, I had...
The Chinese culture is filled with food traditions and symbolisms, so much in fact that I could never keep up and remember them all. During the entire 6 days surrounding my wedding, I deferred to my mother to tell me what to eat to please the Gods of...
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...
Today is Saturday, May whatever. This morning I woke up and FINALLY gave myself permission to be sick. After uttering those words to my bedside lamp, the already straining cork that had been clinging on for dear life where head meets nose the past 4 days, holding back...
Since I've been working on my cookbook, which is all about modern Asian cooking, almost everything edible that comes out of my kitchen has been Chinese, Japanese, Thai, Vietnamese, Malaysian or Korean. Yes, it can be tiring and I'm considering starting a new blog...
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...
These are fabulous recipes from Modern Indian cookbook , written by my new friend and famous chef, Hari Nayak. If you are new to Indian cooking, this is absolutely the perfect book to start with. The recipes are simple, elegant and uses ingredients you can find in...
