Category Archives: Recipes (Savory)

Cacio E Pepe Goes Sichuanese

Posted on by 2 comments
Cacio e pepe goes Asian with Sichuan pepper.
Cacio e pepe goes Asian with Sichuan pepper.

Fly By Jing’s chili crisp and Zhong dumpling sauces are mainstays in my fridge because they are the perfect finish to so many dishes.

So when founder Jing Gao debuted her cookbook, “The Book of Sichuan Chili Crisp” (Ten Speed Press),” I couldn’t wait to leaf through it.

The book, of which I received a review copy, takes its title from the delicious “fly” (hole-in-the-wall) street-food eateries that Gao and her parents would grab a bite to eat at in Chengdu, the capital of China’s Sichuan region.

Her father, a nuclear physics professor with a Chinese visa, moved the family around annually for his job. Sichuan food became the one constant in Gao’s life. And it became her calling after she left the corporate business world to start Baoism, her own restaurant in Shanghai that operated for two years. All the while, she kept refining the condiments that were her cooking touchstones.

After traveling to a natural foods trade show in California, and discovering the dearth of Asian food brands that existed, she launched Fly by Jing in 2018 through a Kickstarter campaign. Today, these popular products are sold in Whole Foods, Target, and Costco.

Read more

World Central Kitchen’s First Cookbook

Posted on by Leave a comment
Chef Brooke Williamson's nourishing farro salad made with carrots and carrot juice.
Chef Brooke Williamson’s nourishing farro salad made with carrots and carrot juice.

It’s a good bet that following any disaster around the world no matter how far-flung, those jumping into action immediately after first responders are the chefs and volunteers of World Central Kitchen.

This global nonprofit was founded in 2010 by renowned Chef Jose Andres, who has a roster of restaurants around the United States.

After jumping into action to cook in Haiti after a devastating earthquake, he got the idea to create the organization. Since then, WCK has mobilized to serve more than 300 million meals worldwide.

Andres never expected that people would want recipes for the food served under those circumstances, he writes. But plenty did.

That’s what prompted “The World Central Kitchen Cookbook” (Clarkson Potter), of which I received a review copy. It was written by Andres and World Central Kitchen; with Sam Chapple-Sokol, editorial director of the Jose Andres Group.

All proceeds from the sale of the book will be donated to WCK’s emergency efforts.

Read more

Danny Trejo’s Pollo Asado a la Brasa

Posted on by 4 comments
Grilled chicken in a flavorful marinade gets served with addictive aji sauce.
Grilled chicken in a flavorful marinade gets served with addictive aji sauce.

There’s no denying that Danny Trejo is a big, big presence on the screen.

So, it’s no surprise then that when it comes to cooking, he’s all about flavors as punchy and gutsy as they get.

In the ultimate transformative story, the former drug addict and criminal became not only a Hollywood star, but maverick entrepreneur who launched a record label, as well as five Los Angeles locations of his Trejo’s Tacos, plus his Trejo’s Coffee & Donuts shop, and Trejo’s Cerveza Mexican-style beer.

This year, he also debuted “Trejo’s Cantina” (Clarkson Potter), of which I received a review copy, which is his second cookbook.

While his first cookbook, “Trejo’s Tacos” (Clarkson Potter, 2020), focused on recipes from his restaurants, this one, he writes, is centered on Mexican classics as seen through the lens of Los Angeles.

Read more

Anytime Is Right For This Sandwich

Posted on by 2 comments
A winning combination of ingredients make up this incredibly simple sandwich.
A winning combination of ingredients make up this incredibly simple sandwich.

This inspired sandwich recipe may come from the cookbook, “Noon.”

But it’s so dead-simple and utterly delicious that you might just want to eat it morning, noon, and night.

“Ciabatta with Balsamic Blackberries, Coppa di Parma, and Mustard” is from that cookbook (Chronicle Books), of which I received a review copy.

It’s from the talented, James Beard Award-winning cookbook writer, Meike Peters, who lives in Berlin.

She has a natural knack for combining a few ingredients in novel ways to come up with dishes you can’t help but crave.

This book is all about relishing and re-imagining the noon-day meal. As Peters so rightly notes in her book, “Lunchtime can easily be as exciting as dinner; we just need to keep pour recipe choices realistic.”

Read more

The Easy Way To Zucchini and Herb Fritters

Posted on by 6 comments
These zucchini fritters are so golden and crisp, you'd think I'd slaved over a hot frying pan making them. But I didn't.
These zucchini fritters are so golden and crisp, you’d think I’d slaved over a hot frying pan making them. But I didn’t.

Standing at the stove, frying latkes, small Korean scallion pancakes, or any other kind of veggie fritters can be not only a royal pain and time suck, but a real splattering mess.

This clever, alternative technique eliminates all of that — and seems so obvious, you’re sure to think, “Duh! Why didn’t I think of that sooner?”

The solution is oven-frying. Yes, letting your oven do all the heavy lifting by heating up a sheet pan with a generous amount of oil before dropping spoonfuls of your batter onto it, then returning the pan to the oven to cook and crisp up everything.

That’s the method behind these delicious “Zucchini and Herb Fritters.”

It’s a recipe from the new “The Secret of Cooking” (W.W. Norton), of which I received an early review copy.

The cookbook, which comes out on Sept. 26, is by By Bee Wilson, a British food writer and co-founder of TastEd, a food education focused on giving children more opportunities to experience fresh vegetables and fruits.

As the title implies, it’s filled with enticing, doable recipes that just might teach you a new, easier or faster way to prepare something.

Read more
« Older Entries Recent Entries »