No Recipes – Techniques, inspiration and cooking tips from my Japanese kitchen

Dumplings & Dynasties

When someone mentions “Chinese food” thoughts of cheap, greasy, heat-burn inducing takeout food often comes to mind. Chinese cuisine is a case of “lost in translation” if I’ve ever seen one. Eileen Yin-Fei Lo has a whole section in her book Chinese Kitchen dedicated to telling the story of how dishes like General Tso’s Chicken [...]

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Winter Bean Peasant Stew

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It was cold and rainy in Manhattan yesterday and after a day spent wandering around the Chocolate Show and the Asian Contemporary Art Fair, I wanted something warm and fulfilling that wouldn’t take a lot of effort to make. Thoughts of Cassoulet and Feijoada both popped into my head but those aren’t the kind of [...]

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5 tips for making perfect crêpes (recipe for crêpes with buttered apples)

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Making light, airy, evenly browned crêpes that are just a little crisp around the edges is no harder than making pancakes (I actually think is easier). Here are 5 tips to ensure things go smoothly. 5 tips for making perfect crêpes Refrigerate the batter for at least one hour. Gluten, a cross-linked chain of two [...]

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Mediterranean Spiced Thanksgiving Dinner

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After 30 plus Thanksgivings, I’ve gotten a little bored with the usual “Thanksgiving = turkey + stuffing + mashed potatoes + gravy + cranberry sauce” formula. Still, it’s a meal that I look forward to for 11 months out of the year (I spend December in recovery) and doing away with the traditional items and [...]

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Soboro Don

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Japanese people have a thing for naming things for the vessel they come in (see nabe), and this is no exception. Donburi literally means “bowl”, but it typically refers to a bowl of rice topped with something. Japanese people also like abbreviating things, so donburi becomes “don” in common parlance. This is the ultimate weeknight [...]

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Onsen Tamago (hot spring egg)

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This is probably my favourite dish of all time. It’s not even so much a dish as much as a preparation. “Onsen” means “hot spring” in Japanese and “tamago” means “egg. Since Japan sits on top of a giant volcano, there are hot springs all over the place. Some of these hot springs happen to [...]

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No Recipes vol. 2

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For this week’s No Recipes roundup, I have for you 2 classic Japanese dishes along with 2 pseudo-Indian ones. If you’re wondering what the deal with all the dashi inclusive dishes is, I had an audition for The Next Food Network Star today and needed to bring my signature dish pre-plated and I also had [...]

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Pirikara Shogayaki (spicy ginger fried pork)

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Here’s another Japanese classic that I’ve had my way with. In this case I’ve added a healthy dose of capsasin with a dollop of spicy Korean gochujang. Pirikara means spicy in Japanese (piri-piri is the name of a chili pepper in Portugal… the people who introduced chili peppers to Japan way back in the day), [...]

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