Category Archives: Recipes (Savory)

Drunken Noodles

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A tasty Thai noodle dish -- with a little tweaking.
A tasty Thai noodle dish — with a little tweaking.

Far from it for me to disparage this “Drunken Noodles with Chicken” recipe from America’s Test Kitchen.

But I think someone might have been hitting the sauce when writing this one.

America’s Test Kitchen, with its meticulous and detailed recipe testing, is typically the holy grail. But when I saw that this recipe that uses 8 ounces of noodles called for half a cup of brown sugar in the sauce, I was aghast. A tablespoon or two maybe. But half a cup?!?

Still, because I like to adhere to new recipes exactly the first time I make them, I followed suit. The result was what I feared — noodles as sweet as candy. Definitely not what you want. The noodles also were swimming in that sauce.

So, the next time, I cut the sauce amount in half, but kept the quantities the same for everything else. What I ended up with was far more delicious and balanced.

“Drunken Noodles with Chicken” is from The Complete One Pot: 400 Meals For Your Skillet, Sheet Pan, Instant Pot, Dutch Oven, and More” (America’s Test Kitchen), of which I received a review copy.

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Sheet Pan Soy Sauce Chicken with Pineapple and Bok Choy

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Chicken gets marinated in soy sauce, then roasted on one pan with fresh pineapple and baby bok choy.
Chicken gets marinated in soy sauce, then roasted on one pan with fresh pineapple and baby bok choy.

My childhood memories of Chinese soy sauce chicken revolve around my mom trekking to a deli in San Francisco Chinatown with me toddling by her side. There, she’d carefully point to a plump one hanging in the window, which would get chopped ferociously with a cleaver into manageable pieces, and wrapped up in a takeout box for our dinner that night.

At home, I’d help plug in the rice cooker for fresh steamed white rice, while my mom stir-fried some asparagus, bok choy or gai lan from the fridge. It was the makings for a quick, simple, and satisfying weeknight family meal.

Pineapple was not something she’d necessarily think to pair with it. But thankfully, food writer Cathy Erway, whose mother hails from pineapple-growing Taiwan, had that light-bulb moment. Because like Tom Cruise to Renee Zellweger in “Jerry Maguire,” pineapple completes soy sauce chicken.

The fresh juicy chunks add sweetness and tropical bright acidity, providing another level of flavor to the soy-caramelized chicken. After all, who among us doesn’t zero in on the pineapple pieces in a dish of sweet and sour pork, right? Best yet, Erway makes this complete dish in a sheet pan in the oven for utmost convenience.

“Mom’s Soy Sauce Chicken with Pineapple and Bok Choy” is from her new cookbook, “Sheet Pan Chicken: 50 Simple and Satisfying Ways to Cook Dinner” (Ten Speed Press). Erway, a Brooklyn-based James Beard Award-winning writer, has created 50 recipes for everyone’s favorite protein using the “it” method of laying it all on a sheet pan, sliding it into the oven, and forgetting about it until the timer goes off.

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Sponsored Post: Cheese Focaccia with Pazazz

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Pecorino focaccia gets even more delicious depth with fresh rosemary and Pazazz apples.
Pecorino focaccia gets even more delicious depth with fresh rosemary and Pazazz apples.

Think of this as a subtle riff on a cheddar apple pie.

Because this focaccia that’s loaded with salty-nutty tasting Pecorino also gets a pretty crowning touch of thinly sliced, sweet apple rings over the top.

This tender, airy Italian bread started out life simply as “Cheese Focaccia.”

But when life gives you a bounty of fresh, crunchy, and juicy Pazazz apples, you want to put them on simply everything.

After all, these delicious apples, a relative of the popular Honeycrisp, are a great source of fiber, too. In fact, the American Institute for Cancer Research has joined with Pazazz apples in the fight against cancer. February is National Cancer Awareness Month, the perfect time to double-down on a diet rich in healthful foods such as apples.

Red-skinned with sunshine-yellow striations, the Pazazz is a relative of the Honeycrisp.
Red-skinned with sunshine-yellow striations, the Pazazz is a relative of the Honeycrisp.

You can do your part even further by uploading your photo to the Pazazz superhero filter here, and Pazazz will donate $1 to the American Institute for Cancer Research. Or simply text PAZ to 797979 to generate the $1 donation, too.

Find Pazazz apples now through summer at local Safeway stores. Then, get ready to bake a big pan of this focaccia.

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Sweet-and-Sour Braised Lamb with Tamarind

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Lamb braised with tamarind -- a taste of South Africa.
Lamb braised with tamarind — a taste of South Africa.

If there are cuisines of which we are woefully uncultivated, they are surely African ones.

Somali chef Hawa Hassan aims to open our eyes — and palates — wide with her new cookbook, “In Bibi’s Kitchen: The Recipes and Stories of Grandmothers from the Eight African Countries that Touch the Indian Ocean” (Ten Speed Press), written with best-selling cookbook author Julia Turshen.

Hassan has gathered stories along with 75 recipes from bibis (grandmothers) from eight African nations: South Africa, Mozambique, Madagascar, Comoros, Tanzania, Kenya, Somalia, and Eritrea.

You can’t help but be touched by the personal stories and soulful recipes, which might otherwise go unrecorded and be lost for all time.

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Nik Sharma’s Beef Chilli Fry with Pancetta

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An easy flank steak stir-fry with the unexpected addition of pancetta.
An easy flank steak stir-fry with the unexpected addition of pancetta.

Nik Sharma is not a triple, but a quadruple threat. And we’re all the better for it.

Writer, photographer, recipe developer, and food scientist, he does it all. And those talents are on big display in his new cookbook, “The Flavor Equation” (Chronicle Books), of which I received a review copy.

Born in Bombay (Mumbai), Sharma studied molecular genetics at the University of Cincinnati, before getting a a full-time research job at Georgetown University’s Department of Medicine. His creative side soon took hold, though, as he started cooking his mother’s recipes, as well as developing his own, which he chronicled on his award-winning blog, A Brown Table.

That led to his first cookbook, “Season: Big Flavors, Beautiful Food” (Chronicle Books, 2018). His follow-up makes use of his science background even more, along with his always beautiful food photography.

Through more than 100 recipes, he teaches how certain techniques or ingredient additions can heighten brightness, bitterness, saltiness, sweetness, savoriness, fieriness, and richness — the flavors that make food taste so good. Sharma also delves into how sight, sound, mouthfeel, aroma and taste all play into how we react to food.

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