Chole

Here's another one from Sophia Khan. It's "a popular Indian chick
pea dish that works as a great side dish or snack".

Ingredients:

1 16 oz can of chickpeas
2-3 firm tomatoes, sliced
1 medium onion, sliced
1 teaspoon of salt
1 teaspoon of turmeric
1 teaspoon of garlic and ginger pulp
dash of lemon juice
cilantro for garnish

1. brown the onions in some olive oil
2. add salt, turmeric, and garlic and ginger pulp and fry together
for a minute or two
3. drain the can of chickpeas and add to the onion and spice mixture
4. add tomatoes
5. stir around for several minutes until the tomatoes have cooked
through and are a little smashed
6. add a dash of lemon juice to taste and garnish with cilantro

Green Beans and Mango Stir-Fried

This one was kindly contributed by Sophia Khan, who "kinda threw [it]
together one day and was extremely pleased, so [she] cooks it all the
time".

Ingredients:

1 pound of green beans, washed
1 medium to large onion sliced
1 medium to large mango, anywhere from green and tart to ripe (but
not overly ripe) cubed
1 teaspoon chili powder
1 teaspoon garam masala
1 heaping teaspoon of garlic and ginger pulp (it's usually sold as a
mixture in indian groceries)
salt to taste (i usually do 1 teaspoon, makes the recipe easy)

1. slice the onions and brown them in some olive oil
2. add chili powder, garam masala, garlic and ginger pulp, salt and
stir fry for a minute on medium heat
3. toss in green beans and fry for a few minutes until the beans are blanched
4. add mango and stir it all around for a couple of more minutes

Kani Su Maki (Crab and Cucumber)

This one was sent to me by Brian Wilkens, host of memorable barbecues past.

Ingredients:

1 Pound Crab Legs.
1/4 Cup Rice Vinegar
1 Tablespoon Sugar or Agave Sweetener
1 Dash of Salt
3 Large Cucumbers

1. Mix vinegar, sweetener and salt in a large mixing Bowl.
2. Add shredded crab Meat, stir and let sit for 30 minutes.
3. Skin and de-seed cucumbers.
4. Add crab meat inside cucumber.
5. Cut into bite-sized pieces and arrange on a tray. Pour any
leftover vinegar over the maki.

** For more sophistication, you can add sprouts to the shredded crab
meat, and peppers, shredded beets and onions to the serving tray for
color and taste.

Vegetarian Phô

I found this recipe online at some point and I've essentially stayed true to it. This is enough for 2 huge bowls or 3 medium sized ones and I swear on my Napa cabbage that it's as good as the original beef version.

Ingredients:

450 g thin phô noodles
4 cups prepared broth (recipe below)
100 g seitan, drained
big handful of bean sprouts
handful of Asian basil leaves - they're minty and can't really be replaced by the normal kind
handful of coriander / cilantro, coarsely chopped
handful of Napa cabbage, coarsely chopped
1/4 medium white onion, thinly sliced
1 long spring onion, thinly sliced (stalk and green part)
1.5 tablespoon roasted peanuts, chopped (optional)
1 small lime, cut into wedges
2 small red / green chili peppers, cut into fine rounds
fish sauce, salt and white pepper to taste

1. Prepare the broth. Once it has been simmering for about 10 minutes, soak the noodles in boiling water (removed from heat) for 15 minutes. Stir occasionally.
2. Drain and divide the noodles into bowls. Heat through the seitan in the broth and remove after a few minutes. Cut into equal portions. Slice thinly and add to the noodles.
3. The greens-and-whites can go in the bowls at this point (bean sprouts, Napa cabbage, onion and spring onion, coriander). Ladle the broth, top with peanuts and serve with lime wedges, chili peppers, fish sauce and salt / pepper as condiments. I prefer white pepper, though freshly ground black pepper is also perfectly fine.

________________________

Phô Broth:

1 l vegetable stock
1.5 tablespoon soya sauce
4 medium garlic cloves, peeled and coarsely chopped
1x 1" piece of ginger, thinly sliced
1/2 small onion, diced
1x 3" cinnamon stick
1 large bay leaf
1 pod of star anise

1. Put stock, soy sauce, garlic, and onion in a pot and bring to a boil over medium heat.
2. Heat ginger in a small skillet and add to the stock.
3. Chuck in the rest to the broth. Reduce the heat to low. Simmer partially covered for about 20 - 25 minutes.
4. Strain the broth and adjust to taste. Return to pot and keep simmering until ready to be used.

Fujiko's Beet Salad

I'm going to call this Japanese because I got the recipe from Fujiko
by way of Titus. It was a hit at my most recent barbecue.

Ingredients:

3 regular beets or 1 humungous beet the size of your head
lots of garlic
1/8-1/4 cup olive oil
balsamic vinegar
1/2 large red onion
salt&pepper
fresh herbs, if you like

1. Boil beets WITH THE SKIN ON (I did a lot of research on this one)
for 1-2 hours. You'll know when they are done when you can poke a
chopstick all the way through the beet.
2. Drain the beets. Running them under cold water, slide off the skin.
3. Cut the beets into slices about 1.5 inches squared in area and 1/2
inch thick. Place in a bowl.
4. Fry up the garlic (as much as you like, really; I like it really
garlicky) in the olive oil. Cool slightly and add to the beets.
5. Thinly slice the red onion, and add to beets.
6. Add salt&pepper, balsamic vinegar and chopped fresh herbs (e.g.
basil) to taste. ** I have also experimented with a bit of sesame
oil, which tasted really good.
7. Can serve immediately or chilled.

Baked Salmon with Masago

Also known as "Mama J's Sinful Salmon", this recipe is from Misha, of
Ena and Misha. I am quoting from his blog with a few minor
alterations.

Ingredients:

4 salmon fillets, preferably something wild and Alaskan
2/3 cups Japanese mayonnaise (differs from regular mayonnaise in that
it is made with rice vinegar instead of white wine vinegar - also, it
comes in these cute squishy bottles with the kewpie doll on them)
6 TBS flying fish roe (a.k.a. "masago", the smaller of the two types
of bright orange fish roe you can find on your sushi)
1/3 cup finely chopped fresh parsley

Equipment:

a casserole, preferably with a lid

1. Preheat oven to 400 deg. F. = 205 C
2. Mix the parsley with the mayonnaise. With a pastry brush lightly
brush the fillets with the parsley mayonnaise so that all sides are
completely covered.
3. Place the fillets skin side down into a casserole. Cover the top
side of the fillets with a thin layer of flying fish roe.
4. Cover the casserole and bake in the oven for at least 15 minutes.
To tell you the truth, I lost track how long the baking took. Mama J
didn't supply a time and it seemed to take quite a bit. It will also
depend on the heat conductivity of your casserole dish and the
thickness of the fillets you're using. Ideally, the flying fish roe
should start turning opaque when the dish is done.

Steamer

Steaming is a basic technique in Chinese cooking, and can be done in
2 basic ways:

1. Steamer: essentially a very large pot-like container divided into
layers by porous materials that allow the steam to seep through. We
are all familiar with the bamboo variety, which stack and come in a
variety of diameters; dim sum (Cantonese tapas-style lunch) is served
in these. But you still need to put these steamers in a larger pot
that generates the steam. So someone has invented the fusion of the
two, namely the huge pot subdivided into layers by metal dividers
that have holes in them. Pour water into the pot, bring to a boil,
put the food (either a dish or a bun with a piece of paper
underneath) onto each layer, cover with the lid, and steam for the
required amount of time.

2. Wok: if you have a metal stand (which sometimes comes with the
wok, but are also sold separately in the utensils section), just
place it in the wok, bring water to a boil in the wok, place the dish
on the stand, cover with the wok lid, and steam for the required
amount of time.

N.B.: in both cases, having what I call a dish lifter helps. This
gadget is basically a pair of non-elastic tongs adapted in width and
grip to pick up hot dishes by their edges from a steamer or a wok.
It really has no name, but is also widely sold for a couple of
dollars in any Asian grocery store.

Examples:

Salty Duck Eggs with Pork

Chopsticks

Chopsticks are useful not only for transferring food from the rice bowl into your mouth, but also for the following, extraordinarily helpful tasks:

1. Any type: beating eggs. Hold your hand stiff and the chopsticks open at an approximately 20 degree angle (yes, use a protractor). Beat eggs by moving the chopsticks rapidly in an ellipsis. I guarantee this makes less of a mess than using an egg whisk (which is bulkier and doesn't rest on a bowl easily), and faster.

2. Wooden: stirring, picking up dumplings and noodles, and similar manoeuvers from inside a pot or pan that's cooking. This includes a hot pot or shabu shabu (Asian fondu). You can also use it to poke through things like potatoes and beets, as well as into steamed dishes to check if they're done. Do not use plastic, ivory, metal or laminated chopsticks! They will either melt or burn your hands.

3. Long, wooden: for wok cooking. You'll easily find these 2 foot long things--sometimes joined on the ends by a string--near the cooking equipment. They will do all the things in #2 above, while protecting your hands from wok splatter.

4. Wooden: preparing live crabs. This will sound cruel to all you vegetarians out there, but is the traditional way to do it: when preparing live crabs to eat, you must remove the tail flap, stick a wooden chopstick up its &%$, and leave the crabs like that for about half an hour. According to my grandma, this is to let out dangerous intestinal and urinal fluids before cooking the crab.

5. Any type: saving space in your fridge. My grandma used to stack normal dishes in our tiny, Hong Kong sized fridge in our even tinier, Hong Kong sized kitchen by putting a couple of chopsticks across the top of each one as a divider. It works extraordinarily well--and saves you a couple of Tupperware to wash.

Wok

A wok should be round-bottomed for equal distribution of heat to all of its sides. This means that it will have to stand on a gas burner. In Chicago I had an electric stove top, so I bought a mobile single gas burner that feeds on canisters of gas from the nearest Asian grocery store. The entire thing (including gas canisters) cost about $17.00.

The wok should also be made of pure iron or steel ... WITHOUT a non-stick coating. The heat, which should be pretty much on a constant high if Chinese cooking is done properly (to emit the proper "wok hay" or "breath of wok" into the food), would make the non-stick coating come off, which according to my mom is carcinogenic.

Glass Noodle Salad

Ingredients:

100 g glass noodles (bean thread noodle)
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
100 g firm tofu (I like the pre-fried kind), cubed
2 medium tomatoes, seeded and roughly chopped
3 tablespoons vegetarian fish sauce
1 tablespoon brown sugar
4 tablespoon lime juice
2 - 4 red chili peppers, finely chopped
1/2 medium onion, thinly sliced
1/2 cup chopped coriander / cilantro
1/4 cup chopped spring onion
handful of chopped peanuts

Equipment:

uhh... nothing special...
kitchen scissors to cut the noodles, maybe? nothing wrong with a knife though.
an old coffee bean grinder would be nice to pulse the nuts; i chop by hand, which can be a right pain.

1. Soak noodles in hot water for about 10 minutes and drain. Run under cold water and set aside in a big bowl. Prepare the following while the noodles are soaking.
2. Boil tofu for about 2 minutes, drain and set aside.
3. In a smaller bowl, mix together the following for a dressing: fish sauce, sugar, lime juice and chili peppers. Test and adjust according to taste.
4. Roughly cut the noodles into shorter lengths and toss in the tofu as well as the remaining ingredients (but not the peanuts).
5. Pour with dressing, toss and top with peanuts. Garnish with coriander.