Bademiya’s Justly Famous Chicken
Anyone who cooks maintains a mental recipe box. Organization methods vary, but it’s safe to say everyone’s box shares the following categories: -will cook this someday -delicious but too expensive/work intensive to prepare on a regular basis -holiday set pieces that cannot be changed -Wednesday night specials: dull but easily…
Beef stir-fry with leafy greens and rice sticks
Beef stir-fry with leafy greens and rice sticks began as “Beef Slivers With Water Bamboo” from Fuchsia Dunlop’s Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook. Korean rice sticks, called tteokbokki are stubby, chewy, and completely addictive. I keep mine in the freezer, where they tend to crack. This has no impact on their better qualities. I used…
Mandarin Beef Stir Fry
So, hi. It’s a new year. The holidays are behind us. However you spent the past week, we can all heave a sigh of relief: the fuss is over until next December. You’re wondering about the stir-fry. Even as we vaccuum up those pesky Evergreen needles, here I am, fussing…
Beef Rendang
Rendang daging sapi, or beef rendang, is a specialty of West Sumatra. Rendangs are dry curries, not loose affairs you pour over noodles or rice. While beef rendang begins as wet curries do, with copious amounts of coconut milk, it diverges in cooking method. Prepared in a wide, shallow pan instead of a…
Stir-fried Beef with Shrimp Paste
This post was written last week, before events in Las Vegas or Tom Petty’s untimely death. Much as I’d like to add some sensitively worded writing about either event, words fail me. Thank you for reading. — Last week found me at the used bookstore, where I found the companion…
Dried Shrimp and Pickled Lettuce Salad
Occasionally you pick up a cookbook at random. You park it on your “to read” shelf with every intention of getting around to it. Meanwhile, various disasters transpire: dental work, feline illness, neighbor drama, spousal sickness, inept national leadership, world mayhem. Finally you open the cookbook. There, glimmering, is the…
Kurdish Fried Chicken
Last weekend the IK attempted to update her computer. The last time she tried doing so, the hard drive crashed. This time, she discovered the external hard drive she’d purchased less than a year ago had ceased functioning. In September 2016. As in, the IK’s computer had not been backed up…
Good Son-In-Law Eggs
According to the internet, Good Son-In-Law eggs translates to either Khai Luk Khoei or Kai Loog Keuy. If you happen to be Thai and I’ve gotten this wrong, forgive me–I speak no Thai. Whatever the correct name, my recipe for Good Son-In-Law Eggs doesn’t even come from a Thai cookbook….
Meatballs With Spinach and Chickpeas
This Thursday, Mr. IK is boarding a plane for Indiana, where he will participate in a large power soccer tournament. The preparations this journey have entailed would make one think he was parasailing to India. The IK has been busy buying bottles of Johnnie Walker to stash in the suitcase…