review of Ching’s Everyday Easy Chinese in today’s Boston Globe

Happy Chinese New Year!  The Boston Globe’s food section this week has a number of fun features for our favorite noise-making, confetti-strewn, street-fair holiday.  I was called on at the last minute for a Chinese cookbook review, which I was happy to attempt even though I have bemoaned the recent scarcity of Chinese cookbooks.  We scrambled to find a book and found Ching’s Everyday Easy Chinese, which features British-based Cooking Channel star Ching-He Huang.

Although the book could be more forthcoming in its particulars, for the most part I was happily surprised.  These are easy-to-like, simple-to-prepare dishes that seek to entertain more than educate.  It’s not necessarily a must-have for your overflowing cookbook shelves, but overall I’d consider it a good value.

Read the full review here.

Found at last! in San Francisco: my one true hot sauce

About a year ago, my good friends Jandro and Allison introduced me to Dua Belibis.  (That’s Dua for short.  We’re on a first-name basis.  Never mind that “Dua Belibis” means “Two Ducks,”  and as a nickname, “Two” is daft.   But I digress.)  Allison and Jandro had gotten theirs from Vishnu, who is married to a woman from Indonesia, which is where Dua Belibis comes from.  I lost my heart to Dua instantly.

Thicker, fruitier, sweeter, hotter-per-gram, and way garlickier than the wildly popular sriracha, Dua Belibis is perhaps not for everyone.  When it comes to getting the stuff out, Dua’s bottle is more crazy-making than a ketchup bottle.  It comes out in either tiny, wimpy blobs or giant, incendiary blobs, and you inevitably get a gummy red collar of crusty sauce by the neck about midway through.  Plus, it’s impossible to find, or so I thought till last week.

I had already combed the shelves of every Asian grocer in my area and shown the bottle to the regretful proprietors.  I had done the Internet search.   I was down to my last hard-to-dislodge 1/8-inch of Dua, which I was conserving by means of trying not to cook the things I like eating it with: fried rice, dumplings, chili, noodles.  This self-imposed and untimely Lent was obviously unsustainable.

But this weekend, while tromping round the Bay with my son while in between readings of A Spoonful of Promises, I discovered the New Mei Wah supermarket on Clement St.  A behemoth of a shop, I thought at first it was one of those Asian markets that looks like it’s going to have everything, but actually has nothing you want.  But as it turns out, New Mei Wah is one of those Asian markets that looks like it’s going to have everything and actually does.

At least, it has Dua Belibis, right there in the Indonesian section.  As to the rest, who cares?

Since Dua comes in bottles greater than 3 oz., there was no question of getting it onto an airplane.  Prevailing upon the patience of my hosts, who drove me into Chinatown the next day, I went to the Stockton Street post office and mailed my Dua home.  The postage was about $10, which is more than 4 times the price of a bottle of Dua.

Do you have any doubt that it was worth it?

the winnowing

The first week of every January, I have an enviable problem–a problem of abundance in every way.  Holiday roundups are over, and after a week of bingeing on festive food I need to get back on my treadmill, which kept getting covered in books throughout December.  It’s time for cookbook cleanup!

Only problem is, somewhere between 200 and 300 books came in over the fall, and I want to keep them ALL.  But my bookshelves are already full.  It’s time for some ruthless winnowing.  Heartbreaking, but there you have it.

This morning I rolled up my sleeves and hit the “Single-Subject” section of my library.  Do I really need 4 books on pasta?  8 books on meat cookery (and even more than that on seafood)?  Agonizing over every one, I part with a book here, a book there.  So long to the matched set of little gift cookbooks on Apples, Squash, and Tomatoes–so pretty, but not actually useful. So long to the fifth book just on soup.  Adieu to the Very Ambitious Salad book and the hardbound edition of the seafood book I use in paperback.  Farewell to the book on flavored butters–I think I can figure those out for myself.  Goodbye, sort-of-disappointing stew book!

All in all, I drop about 40 books into the “gift” pile.  Hurray!  Now I have room for I Love Meatballs! and Salsas of the World and yet another book of salad dressings!

To tell the truth, the single-subject section is actually the easiest to winnow.  Most of the books are not on my cookbook-indexing website, Eat Your Books, (an indexed book is harder to part with! ), and the quality is not as consistent or the depth of knowledge as great.  The main virtue of a single-subject cookbook is that it makes it easy to look up, say, a blueberry recipe when blueberries are in season.  But searchable databases make that so easy anyway…so a single-subject book has to have some other compelling virtue (say, thoroughness, or helpfulness) for me to keep it.

I’ll be moving on next to the Baking section, which–despite being the least used section of the  library–accounts for the most calories I consume over the course of a year.  But’s that’s OK.  At least I can find my treadmill now.

WFCR radio commentary: gingerbread thievery

My third radio commentary for New England Public Radio (that’s WFCR to us oldtimers): a story about my underhanded relationship with Christmas gingerbread, circa age 8.  This one’s a personal favorite.

Listen here.

review of For Cod and Country in Boston Globe

Happy New Year, cookbook lovers!  I’m still coming up to speed, very slowly, after a week of festivities and sleeping-off-of-festivities.

I tested this book quite a while ago, in the fall.  But as is so often the case, the review got pushed down the queue because other cookbooks of more immediate interest kept arriving, and then there was the holiday roundup season, etc. etc.

There isn’t a seafood cookbook published today that doesn’t have the word “sustainable” right up front…I guess the message is that if you’re going to make a withdrawal from the world’s dwindling supply of fish, you ought to do it as  responsibly–and deliciously–as you can.

Read the full review here.

Boston Globe roundup now posted!

The Boston Globe 2011 cookbook roundup is now live and posted! just in time for your last-minute holiday shopping.

This year’s picks, many of which were favorites on other lists as well:

Plenty: Vibrant Recipes from London’s Ottolenghi by Yotam Ottolenghi
Tender: A Cook and His Vegetable Patch, by Nigel Slater
The Food52 Cookbook by Amanda Hesser and Merrill Stubbs
Molto Batali: Simple Family Meals from My Home to Yours by Mario Batali
American Flavor by Andrew Carmellini
Odd Bits: How to Cook the Rest of the Animal by Jennifer McLagan
Lidia’s Italy in America by Lidia Bastianich
All About Roasting by Molly Stevens

My editor and I had also talked about featuring books previously reviewed and worth revisiting, but the Globe must have run out of room in the section for that portion of the review.  These were:
The Food of Spain by Claudia Roden
My Japanese Table: A Lifetime of Cooking with Friends and Family, by Debra Samuels
The Food of Morocco by Paula Wolfert
Cook This Now, by Melissa Clark
The Fearless Baker: Scrumptious Cakes, Pies, Cobblers, Cookies, and Quick Breads that You Can Make to Impress Your Friends and Yourself, by Emily Luchetti
Super Natural Every Day: Well-loved Recipes from My Natural Foods Kitchen, by Heidi Swanson.

Best recipe of 2011 #6: Orzo with yogurt and lemon

The recipe: Orzo with yogurt and lemon

The ingredients: butter, onions, bay leaves, orzo pasta, scallions, Greek yogurt, lemons

The book: American Flavor, by Andrew Carmellini

Why I tried it:  I was running late one night and needed to punt when it came to dinner, so I decided to look for the simplest possible recipe I could find from one of the season’s new books.  This was pretty much it.  I saw that it had butter and scallions, and since scallions simmered in butter is one of my favorite ways to start any recipe, I was sold.  As I soon discovered, the scallions never get simmered in butter in this recipe at all.  But by then it was too late, and anyway it was obviously turning out delicious anyway.

Why I love it:  I’m almost embarrassed to be so crazy about this recipe, because it’s so dang easy.  (Then again, I also love those meatballs you have to make with a zillion pots, which makes up for it I guess.)  I love the way you use Greek yogurt to make a cream sauce without cream.  The technique’s totally different from the way you usually make pasta, too.  No boiling and draining, which seems to leave the orzo slimy right after being cooked and glue-tacky 30 seconds later.  It’s made like a risotto, which seems to do wonders for the texture.  And at the end there’s a manic dose of lemon to tie it all together.

Boston Globe’s best 2011 cookbooks

I know many of you have been waiting anxiously and wondering where this list could be!  As of today, the books have been chosen and the story sent.  I don’t know exactly when my editor will run it, but  my best guess is that it’s likely to be either 12/21 or 12/28.   I could be completely wrong.

Best recipe of 2011 #5: Meatballs in almond sauce

The recipe: Meatballs in almond sauce (albóndigas en salsa con picada de almendradas)

The ingredients: ground pork and/or ground veal, white bread, parsley, chicken stock, white wine, saffron, lemons; blanched almonds, garlic

The book: The Food of Spain, by Claudia Roden

Why I tried it: During this book’s official testing period for its full review in the Globe, I noticed that almonds and saffron took starring roles (as opposed to cameos) in many of the recipes.  I love both ingredients, but had not been in the habit of combining them.  So I thought that alone was an intriguing notion, and maybe also típico in some way.

Why I love it: It’s the strangest way to build a sauce–a thin broth of chicken broth white wine seasoned with saffron and lemon zest, and then thickened with the picada–a ground paste of fried almonds, bread, and garlic.  It cooks down into a dense yellow sauce that sticks to the bottom of the pan.  But once you add the browned meatballs, the saffron, almonds, parsley and pork start to sing together, and you end up with one of those dishes that leads to a complete breakdown in table manners.  I scraped the pot with the serving spoon, my fork, and finally my finger.

Caveat: Hope you like to wash dishes!  This recipe takes a pile of prep bowls, 3 separate skillets (not counting having to wash the whole Cuisinart meat-grinding attachment if you like freshly ground pork, as I do), and a solid 90 minutes of work.  But please believe me when I say it’s totally worth it.

Best Recipe of 2011 #4: zucchini fritters with dill tzatziki

The recipe:  Zucchini fritters with dill tzatziki

The book: The Kitchen Garden Cookbook, edited by Caroline Bretherton

The ingredients: zucchini, ricotta cheese, egg, flour, basil, parsley, dill, Greek yogurt

Why I tried it: Two words – zucchini season.  I had a handful of nicely-producing zucchini plants this season, and I wanted the kids to eat as much as possible.  I basically alternated between this recipe and a Chinese-style flash-fried zucchini slivers with smashed garlic.  Then, in the fall, I made zucchini bread.

Why I love it:  Well, it’s fried.  There’s no duplicating the crisp texture and can’t-stop-now flavor of a fried food.  Plus, the fast cooking preserves the lovely green color of the zucchini shreds.  Ricotta boosts the interior moisture, and a dollop of thick, dill-scented yogurt adds an unforgettably smooth dose of tartness.

Caveat:  In a fit of health-minded optimism one time, I tried to fry them in 1/4″ of oil instead of 1/2″.  No dice–not hot enough to cook through nice and fast; ironically, the fritters absorbed more oil despite there being less of it to go round.  You’ll just have to go for the full quotient and say your Hail Marys later.