Posted by Robin Bellinger, May 5, 2008 at 3:45 PM
For a month or two now I have been searching for an Asian or Asian-y noodle dish that would make a nice lunch. A few candidates didn't pan out, and the one that did was a soup, which I know some people don't care to bother packing up for work. Finally, though, Deborah Madison came through with her refreshing salad of chilled mung bean noodles with dulse and crushed peanuts from Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone.
I'm afraid it looks as if this week is going to be rainy in New York, but for those of you with happier weather, this is just the thing to eat outside on a warm day: cool, full of bright flavors, satisfying without being heavy. I liked the generous dose of raw ginger, but people who find that kind of thing overwhelming might want to start with 1 teaspoon and work their way up. I also added a few dashes of soy sauce and would not have minded a little more spice; maybe I'll leave the jalapeño seeds in next time. This noodle salad keeps in the refrigerator for four or five days, in my experience, and travels quite well: last week I enjoyed it on an airplane while everyone else made do with a doll-sized bag of pretzels.
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Posted by Blake Royer, April 15, 2008 at 4:15 PM
The first time I tried kimchi, a spicy Korean concoction of fermented vegetables, a friend of mine had made a stew out of it for a group of friends. The hot, vinegary taste flavored the whole broth, which had tofu and scallions, and then he added Sriracha to dial up the heat further. It was in the middle of summer in a capacious west Philadelphia apartment with no air conditioning, and the soup burned. But I was surprised to find that we all began to feel cooler immediately as the sweat-inducing soup caused us to condensate and cool. The pungent, garlicky taste stayed with me for hours.
Since then, I've loved kimchi, especially straight out of the jar. It's strong stuff though, and not necessarily fit for a meal all by itself, which is why this recipe caught my eye. Basically, it's a delivery vehicle for kimchi, with a few other ingredients to elevate the flavors. The clean, wheaty flavor of udon noodles absorbs some of the kimchi's spice, tempering the stronger flavors to allow them to mellow and bloom more in the mouth. Toasted sesame oil adds a rounded, caramel flavor that warms the stringent acidity. Best of all, it's made in about 7 minutes, just the time it takes to boil the noodles, run them under cold water, and toss them with all the ingredients. This is my new midnight snack.
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Posted by Adam Kuban, March 28, 2008 at 1:45 PM
The week's final recipe from Nigella Express is for a fairly easy sesame-peanut noodle dish. It does have a fair amount of ingredients, so if you're going to make this, make a big batch all at once by doubling the recipe.
Win 'Nigella Express'
As is always the case with our Cook the Books, we're giving away a number of them. Enter to win Nigella Express »
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Posted by Robin Bellinger, March 25, 2008 at 11:00 AM
Mothers & Menus is a New York City meal delivery service designed for families living through those first few crazy weeks with a new baby. Its founder, Karen Gurwitz, was frustrated after the birth of her first child: she wanted to lose her pregnancy weight, but since she was breastfeeding she worried about cutting out too many calories. Wouldn’t it be great, she thought, if someone else would figure out what she should eat and deliver it to her every morning? Such a service didn’t exist, so she invented it and committed to using whole and organic foods as much as possible.
Mothers & Menus sounds wonderful and flexible. But if it doesn’t fit into your budget (it certainly doesn’t jibe with mine) and you like making your own food (as I do), you might want to take a look instead at Gurwitz’s cookbook, The Well-Rounded Pregnancy Cookbook.
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Posted by Robin Bellinger, March 24, 2008 at 1:15 PM
Nigel Slater’s luxurious and deeply aromatic noodle dish has been on my poorly-maintained “to-make” list since Amazon delivered my copy of Appetite
four years ago. It was the title that won me over, I must admit, though the pictures are pretty convincing, too: fat shrimp, tangled noodles, a beautiful green purée. One thing and another (lack of Cuisinart, fear of fish sauce) interfered, and I didn’t get around to making it until last weekend. And then—it was too spicy for me to enjoy. I suffered through it with a glass of milk and hoped it would mellow overnight.
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Posted by Adam Kuban, March 12, 2008 at 5:30 PM
My Last Supper takes the old "last bite on earth" game to the next level by asking that question of 50 of the world's best-known and most-loved chefs. Though beautifully photographed and almost more of a coffee-table book in size and format, there are some serious recipes in here to accompany the memorable visuals and fun interviews. As this week's featured Cook the Book entry, we'll be highlighting a recipe a day from it. Today's is by Chui Lee Luk, the chef-owner of Claude's in Sydney. Lee Luk describes her last meal: "Assuming that I will be in good health and aware of the upcoming event, I would seek out the peace and comfort of familiar foods that have emotional meaning for me. I think I would have a meal of chili mud crab, braised tofu with prawn and pork, stir-fried snow pea leaf, and steamed rice, all followed by red bean pancakes with jasmine tea."
As is always the case with our Cook the Books, we're giving away a number of them this week. Enter to win My Last Supper »
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Posted by Jenn Sit, December 26, 2007 at 1:30 PM
Every time I come home on a college break, the first thing that always happens is either my Mom, Dad, or Grandma asks me if I’m hungry. Before I can give an answer or even if I say no, there’s something delicious sitting in front of me just waiting to be devoured. My Dad always asks me if I ever get fed at school since I scarf down everything with such ravenous hunger and can be found eating cold leftovers out of the open fridge with my fingers. How can they blame me when I’m deprived of such home-cooked Chinese food at school? This winter break, I came home exhausted from a week of finals and my Mom handed me a bowl of hot noodles with Chinese broccoli—the bowl was emptied in just a few enormous bites and I promptly took a very much needed nap.
For your very own bowl of home-cooked Chinese goodness, try the rice noodles with Chinese broccoli and shiitake mushrooms recipe from The Martha Stewart Living Cookbook: The New Classics. I’ve loved shiitake mushrooms since I was a kid, even before my Grandma told me that I’d be smarter if I ate more (one of many old wives’ tales I was told back then). The recipe suggests choy sum as an alternative to Chinese broccoli, which is another childhood favorite of mine due to the novelty of eating yellow flowers on my veggies. Along with the red pepper flakes, I always squiggle on some Sriracha for good measure. Ingredient lists for Asian dishes can be intimidating sometimes, but I’ve found that once you accumulate the various bottles of sauces in your pantry and become familiar with the ratios that produce the flavors you like best, it’s really not all that daunting.
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Posted by Robyn Lee, November 17, 2007 at 1:00 PM
There's a reason that dishes like Jean-Georges Vongerichten's chile-garlic egg noodles are popular throughout Asia—they taste awesome. Or more specifically as Vongerichten says in his recipe head note, "The combination of full, robust flavors makes this dish deeply satisfying." It's the same concept as "awesome," really. If your spiciness tolerance is low, don't worry too much about the chile—the heat is subdued by the honey, shallots, garlic and herbs.
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