Nabe (cooking pot) mono (things, stuff) is a popular Japanese hot pot dish commonly served in the cold winter months. It is cooked table side and served communally. One thing I like about nabemono (in addition to its deliciousness!) is its versatility. There are so many different ingredients to choose from! During the cooking process, the broth becomes more flavorful. At the end, after all the ingredients are eaten, rice and egg are added to the seasoned broth and a porridge is made.
Oh boy. Out of all the Dungeness crab dishes I’ve cooked lately, my boyfriend says this one is his favorite. It’s made with lots of ginger, some garlic, cilantro, and a little bit of soy sauce, and it’s so fragrant. The seasonings pair so well with the delicate, succulent crab. I like to cook some Asian noodles with this and use them to soak up the leftover seasonings.
When I traveled in Japan last winter, one of my favorite dishes was matsutake dobin mushi. Matsutakes are wonderfully fragrant pine mushrooms, and dobin (“teapot”) mushi (“steamed”) is a soup steamed in a small teapot. Put these two words together, and you have matsutake dobin mushi, a nourishing mushroom soup.
With Dungeness crab being so cheap right now due to crab season in San Francisco, I’m eating a lot of these delicious crustaceans. I love simply steaming them and dipping them in butter and aioli, but I also love trying new crab recipes, and Rasa Malaysia’s Creamy Butter Crab recipe certainly caught my eye. How could I resist those three words: creamy, butter, crab?
I recently came across the Malaysian food blog, Rasa Malaysia, which is a really wonderful resource. The author writes everything in English, explaining the recipes in detail as she goes along. Each post is accompanied by beautiful photographs. I picked this chili crab recipe because it looked delicious, and I thought it would be a good introductory recipe into Malaysian cooking.
One element of Japanese cuisine is that it celebrates the seasons. Japanese dishes feature what is fresh and seasonal, and are cooked in such a way that is appropriate for the seasonal weather. During the winter, hearty soups such as oden are commonly found, as are hot pot meals such as sukiyaki.
Perhaps you’ve seen these trees with the beautiful fan-shaped leaves in your neighborhood or in a local park. The female members of these trees produce an edible nut; unfortunately, the fruit enclosing the nut smells really bad. Their fragrance deters most people from trying them, much like the durian fruit.
When Emma write her post on Slow-Cooker Lemon Garlic Chicken a few years ago, I started drooling immediately. Unfortunately, I don’t have a slow cooker, but I took a look at the ingredient list and hacked my own recipe together using a baking dish and the oven!
Due to San Francisco being smack in the middle of Dungeness crab season, I have been enjoying a lot of these sweet, succulent treasures of the sea in many forms. Yesterday I posted a recipe for Roasted Orange Garlic Crab, and today, I’m taking my crustaceans on a trip to Southeast Asia by adding some sweet and sour tamarind.
Although Dungeness crab prices have gone up 50 to 75 cents higher than they were a month ago, they are still cheap, and it is still Dungeness crab season in these parts. I love steaming them and enjoying them with a little butter and aioli, but I also like experimenting with new ways of cooking and enjoying crab. This recipe is rather easy, and wow, it’s supergood. Serve with a crispy white wine or a nice hoppy ale, and a crust of bread to soak up the orange garlic sauce.
OK, you guys really have to try this. I was at the Alemany Farmer’s Market recently and Jerusalem artichokes (also known as sunchokes) are in season. I’ve never tried this sunflower tuber, and I always enjoy trying new vegetables, so I grabbed a couple. They were quite cheap at 50 cents a pound. Once I had them in my kitchen, I decided I wanted to roast them, so I sliced them thin, added salt, olive oil, and fresh rosemary, and wow, welcome to flavor country!
If you’ve ever cooked Indian or other Southeast Asian recipes, you’ve probably seen “curry leaves” listed in the ingredients. These unique leaves have a distinctive fragrance and add that special something to a dish that one can’t get from any other ingredient, so don’t omit it just because you feel it’s unfamiliar or impossible to find. I’ll explain what they are and where to find them.
Some foods such as mushrooms have a lot of water in them, so sometimes the best method of cooking them is to dry sautée them. This keeps them from turning, well, mushy, and brings out their flavors and textures much more beautifully.
In Japan, there is a variety of plum called ume. It actually resembles an apricot more than a plum, but it’s called a plum. It’s very astringent and when eaten raw can give a person a stomach ache, so the Japanese infuse them in alcohol and pickle them. In pickled form, these are called umeboshi.
It’s Dungeness crab season in California! I’ve been buying these yummy critters for $2.99 per pound at Sun Fat Seafood. Great prices on cheap crab are being found all over San Francisco at places like Manila Oriental Market, Chinatown, and Clement Street. If you’ve felt intimidated about cooking and cleaning your own Dungeness, don’t. I’ll talk you through it here.
I first had potato tacos (Spanish: tacos de papa) at a small hole-in-the-wall taqueria in East Los Angeles. My first reaction was, “Potato taco?! Never heard of that!” but my friend insisted I try one. I took a bite and the savory deliciousness just exploded in my mouth. Since then, I’ve been looking for potato tacos, but you know what? They are hard to find. I haven’t found them in San Francisco yet! So, I simply took matters into my own hands and learned to make my own.
In October when I got to tour the walnut harvest in California with the California Walnut Board, I was in the offices of Growers Direct Nut Company. They had a color poster on the wall showing all the different varieties of walnuts that grow in California, and two varieties were red. I had no idea that walnut meats could be red! Anyway, last Saturday at the Alemany Farmer’s Market, I was thrilled to discover one of the vendors selling red walnuts!
It’s soup weather, and split pea soup is one of my personal favorites! It’s so easy to whip up, you’ll never eat it from a can again. Bonus: split peas soften while cooked, so you don’t need to soak them overnight!
Another DIY recipe for one of Starbucks’ most popular holiday beverages, this is very easy to make and can be modified. Soy-based eggnog can be substituted for dairy eggnog and soy milk can replace milk in this recipe for a vegan version.
Recreate this special holiday treat at home at a fraction of the cost! Instead of using those expensive bottled syrups, I figured out a way to make the gingerbread syrup from scratch, and it is so yummy. I’m sure that you guys could find other ways to use this syrup. It makes the kitchen smell so good while it’s bubbling on the stove.