Here is a German Split Pea Soup from a loosely followed Saveur recipe containing onions and carrots. I boiled the smoky ham hock in homemade stock before adding the other ingredients and removed the entire ham hock before the peas went totally soft. The result is very very good but I simmered for much longer than the recipe instructed to get a smoother texture. No doubt a slow cooker would work just as well here.


After forgetting the reserved ham hock in the freezer for about a week, the resulting makeover was this "stew" of shredded ham, summer squash, fava beans and fresh herbs served with black wild rice.

Usually, the macaroni and cheese at our house is a pretty loose concoction. The pasta is often large macaroni but also shells and various rigati or penne - whatever Barilla is on sale typically. The meat is usually some kind of pork - ham, smoked pork chop (a tip from a chef friend) or very thick cut bacon. For vegetables, the SO likes broccoli but we also use peas.

Recently, I have been testing new cheese combos, and I've settled on a three or four cheese mix that might contain a smoked Gouda, a very sharp cheddar, a bit of hard parm, and some very smooth ricotta. All of these are by preference and depends on what flavors are good together when nibbling on samples at the market. The sauce base is always a basic bechamel with a little bit of dry mustard, white pepper, nutmeg, with bay or sweated minced shallots if I feel like it. Save some cheese for sprinkling in with the pasta and some for mixing with the breadcrumb topping. I find that panko mixed with a little olive oil works well with little fuss.

The below recipe is very inexact, but produces a creamy gooey mac with firmer noodles rather a custard texture. Feel free to change the feel as needed by removing ricotta and playing with the ratio of cheeses and bechamel, or cooking the pasta slightly more than al dente for softer bite.

sauce:

3 tbsp butter
4 tbsp flour
1 pint warmed whole milk
at least 0.25 tsp nutmeg, 0.5 tsp dry mustard to taste
about 1.5-2 lb soft grating cheeses
0.5 lb of hard grating cheeses
0.5 -1 cup ricotta whipped very smooth. Choose a brand that isn't grainy.
salt and white pepper to taste

Make a basic bechamel, adding cheeses at the end. To regulate consistency if too thick, add a little warmed milk or pasta water.

Toss 1 lb cooked pasta of choice with meat and veg - probably around a 0.5 lb each- as well as some leftover cheese. Pour on the sauce and top with crumbs, cheese and a fine drizzle of olive oil. Avoid a curdled sauce by baking covered at 300-325 degrees till almost, just barely bubbling at the edges - about 25-30 minutes. Uncover and broil for a few minutes to lightly toast the top and serve immediately.

This recipe is again from David Thompson's Thai Food book and is posted on Google Books. The resulting beef in the recipe is tender but perhaps a bit salty for me, so I will probably lessen the salting time in the future. Otherwise the dish is fairly easy to make and quite tasty.
Some notes: The lemon grass needs to be very very finely sliced. They never really get tender so I will probably try mincing or tying the stalks for removal next time. The sauce darkens quickly at the end, making the sauce quite rich.

Un-methodically tested first choice dumpling brand. Purchased from Ranch 99 Market in Foster City but probably available elsewhere. Comparable quality Korean or Japanese dumplings are available but these are Chinese style pork dumplings. The dough is not too thick or thin for pan frying or boiling, and holds together decently when pried out of my saute pan. The filling is pretty tasty with a good juicy texture. None of that mysterious meat lumps or mealiness found in some other brands.

Fairly fool proof cooking method, even in a pan without non-stick coating, but better done in at least a fry pan with sloping sides rather than a straight sided skillet... Grrr.

Generously oil hot pan. Drop in frozen dumplings to coat. Arrange in a circular pattern and fry till bottoms are slightly golden. Add water to about 1/4 height of dumplings and cover with lid. Steam just until the wrappers are translucent. Remove lid and fry till liquid is fully evaporated and bottoms are crispy. Slide the whole wheel out onto a plate.

Serve with preferred dipping combo of thinly sliced garlic, white or black vinegar, soy sauce, sesame oil, chilli oil or scallions.

Japanese Cooking: A Simple Art by Shizuo Tsuji is a very detailed instructional manual. From the mise en place of proper Tempura making to the various ways of skewering and arranging grilled fish, no technical question is left unturned.

Strange that my first attempt at making Oyako Don was a little bit disappointing. The ratio of soy sauce in the sauce and indeed the ratio of the sauce itself to the eggs and chicken seemed to be off, making a surfeit of broth. I can't say for sure it wasn't something I did wrong. After doing some comparisons, I will likely try again. The recipe is so quintessential.

The second attempt from this book was the Stuffed Foil Baked Salmon that turned out really well. The dish is simply a butterfly salmon fillet stuffed with Japanese style potato salad and baked with lemon.

Japanese potato salad is very delicate with only cucumber, onions and carrots. It has a creamier texture and fewer discrete potato lumps than Western potato salad. I would suggest using Kewpie Mayo rather than an American brand mayo as the flavor is slightly less sharp. In the end, the vegetables in the salad mellow and the potatoes take on the characteristics of mashed potato, crusty baked potato, as well as potato salad. So good!

The most difficult part of this recipe is filleting the fish and stuffing it, but everything is quick to prepare and cleanup is breezy. There ends up being leftover potato salad with a sharp onion bite, but I'm not complaining!

There is a copy of Japanese Cooking on Google Books but the Stuffed Foil Baked Salmon on page 361 is omitted.

World traveling sort of screws you in the food department. Once "authentic" Thai beef soup, Shanghai eels, truly stinky Stinky Taiwan Tofu and proto El Pollo Loco Mexican grilled chicken sears your taste buds, nothing you can order at the closest neighborhood joint lights the same fire. Cookbooks are somewhat in the same vein. Many often try to reduce foreign cuisines into palatable and kitchen ready 30 minute meals with often disappointing results. The recipes are limited to a number of familiar and hybridized dishes, Fried Rice Panda Inn style, rather than the more interesting and tasty Fried Rice with Stinky Dried Fish, minced chicken and Napa Cabbage.

Yearning after this book for years, I finally bought a copy after my Thai food cravings got the best of me. Thompson eschews all the traps of the cookbook authorship by providing a serious tome. The first 137 pages are in fact devoted to Thai culture, culinary history, and glossary of ingredients (including possible substitutions). The rest of the book, all 600 plus pages, are filled with beautiful photographs, detailed yet easy to follow recipes, and relevant techniques. You will not find Thai Iced Tea in the book. The drink doesn't exist except maybe in Touristy Bangkok spots anyway.

Ironically, the first recipe I try is this Chinese lunch favorite, Hainan Chicken because I had most of the ingredients available. I deviated from quantities of rice and garlic very loosely since I didn't know the weight of chicken drum and thigh meat I had on hand. I also used Japanese Nishiki rice, a short grain variety instead of the Jasmine and sticky rice combo the recipe calls for. Neither mistake was famine inducing inedible, but the rice was too wet and overpowered by garlic. While I didn't have a green gourd for the soup, the broth was tasty. I will probably try it with a little bitter melon next time. I suspect Thompson's measurements and timing are perfect and will follow them more closely, but I may add a tiny amount of Shiaoxing to the poaching liquid.

I made one addition not called for in the book - an oil sauce of finely minced ginger and shallot (green onion is better). At Savoy Kitchen in Monterey Park, they serve a small dish (mostly all ginger) right next to the pungent rice. I've also seen this as a condiment for dumplings, the greens sliced into delicate julienne. A plain old roast chicken perks up just as well with the same technique and the method also works as a Classic Chinese "dressing" for steamed fish or egg custard.

1/4 cup very finely minced ginger, fresh root
1/4 cup shallots or green onions very finely minced
3 tbsp hot oil, any clean flavored vegetable oil, not olive oil
1/2 tbsp kosher salt to taste

Ready the ginger and onions in a heat proof bowl and heat a shallow pan. When hot, add oil. As "legs" form at the bottom of the pan, the oil is on the verge of smoking. Pour oil over minced seasoning to "sizzle confidently" (I saw this phrase used in another cookbook). The sauce is pretty salty since the rest of the meal is rather light and the oil should have a definite flavor of ginger and onions but without any bite.

George Orr has dreams and then whatever he dreams come true. After doing a little too much self medicating, he is assigned to an oneiric specialist, a thinly disguised Freudian psychologist who may or may not be perfectly scrupulous in finding a cure for George. Ursula K. Le Guin's book is a terrific read, drawing from the fear of unconscious desires and documenting the power struggle between doctor and patient.

Replete with turtles, turtle-like alien suits, and shifting realities, the 1980 PBS film version of Lathe of Heaven is an accomplished translation of Le Guin's novel. Unlike other movies, such as Dune or Harry Potter, whose enjoyment depends on a lavish realization of exterior worlds, Lathe of Heaven emphasizes the cinematic links to integrate a dream come true premise with the actual plotting of the story. Poetic license is taken only to effectively expand upon the central themes.

The PBS narrative is slightly tighter than the book but still captures the high stakes tension, disorienting sensory experiences and a serious loss of reality. While the production isn't as slick as we're currently used to seeing, this is one of those extremely rare occasions where I can recommend the material and the remix.

The interweb has never known such linguistic and cultural feats of pedantry. First, the glossary of science fiction terms, then the comprehensive time line of imaginative inventions. Technovelgy is a fount of knowledge for geeks with a freak for warp drive dynamics and a great bibliography of sorts for hard sci-fi reading material and forgotten classics.