I started cooking from Ruta Kahate's Quick-Fix Indian the moment I got my hands on it. I'm always looking to cook more Indian meals, and this one promised that most of recipes could be cooked in a Rachel-Ray-inspired speed of 30 minutes or less. Though I tried a few, including the very good "instant chicken biryani," this recipe for coriander shrimp with zucchini was by far more favorite. More

This simple stir fried cabbage dish is quick to make and goes well with almost any main indian dish. More

Instead of the spongy pieces of chicken covered in a sticky-sweet glop, this version of General Tso's Chicken from Eileen Yin-Fei Lo's Mastering the Art of Chinese Cooking features crunchy little nuggets coated in a spicy and pungent sauce, full of fragrant ginger and garlic. More

After the success of Miao pork with corn and chiles, I couldn't wait to try another recipe from Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid's Beyond the Great Wall. What I must loved about the Maio pork was how just a few ingredients—corn, chiles, pork—were able to combine to create a dynamic and addicting dish. The same goes for this recipe. More

I've been on a little lemongrass kick lately, so I was excited about this recipe from Andrea Nguyen's Into the Vietnamese Kitchen from the very beginning, even if the title made it sound relatively straightforward. But something happens during he cooking process to those innocent looking chicken hunks, because by the end they start tasting an awful lot like glistening bits of fatty pork. Which is to say, they start tasting really, really good. More

The end of corn season is rapidly approaching, as I found out the hard way while attempting to locate some pristine examples at the local farmers' market. But if you can find enough ears, and I eventually did after some digging, this recipe from Beyond the Great Wall is a fitting way to say goodbye to the summer staple. Pork may be the first ingredient listed, but as you can tell by the picture, corn makes up the bulk of this dish. More

Picked out solely because I had some leftover flank steak in the fridge, this recipe from Grace Young's The Breath of a Wok turned out to be one of those great finds I can't wait to make again. (Actually, I've already made it twice in the past three days.) Though there is no spice, the pepper-laden sauce is a gusty pairing for the finely sliced beef. Balanced by the slightly sweet onions and bell peppers, the dish is whipped up quickly and fairly simply. More

If you live in an area with a big Asian community then you've probably seen little old Asian ladies hawking produce on the side of the road. They stand out in the hot sun selling produce at very cheap prices, and they are there day after day. Right now the Korean ladies are selling stacks of perilla leaves, though if you go to any Korean grocery store, you'll see them being sold as sesame leaves. I don't understand why they refer to perilla leaves as sesame leaves, but they do. More

Like curing meats, the practice of salting duck eggs may have started as a method of preservation, but now salted duck eggs are a delicacy. Salting makes the egg whites dense and almost rubber-eraser-like in appearance, but it's the yolks that are especially prized. There's nothing quite like a good salted duck egg yolk. If properly salted, the duck egg yolks are creamy, granular, and oily all at once—an intriguing textural composition that tastes especially rich and salty. More

Cellophane noodles—known in various guises as Chinese vermicelli, bean threads, bean thread noodles, crystal noodles, or glass noodles—should be one of those items you keep in your pantry to use in a pinch. Made from mung beans, yam, or potato starch, the gluten-free noodles are quite versatile. They are equally good tepid as they are warm, and they can be served in soups and hotpots, used in stir-fries in place of wheat noodles, or served cold in salads. More