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

Homemade Asian beef balls

Most people who have tried these at a restaurant will tell you that beef balls are an acquired taste. It’s not not even the taste so much as the texture. Rubbery, and almost crunchy is the first thing to come to mind… making one wonder what exactly these “balls” are made of. They’re widely used [...]

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Vegetarian Gyoza (potstickers)

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As I was coming up with a title for this post, half of me wanted to omit the “v” word because as a meat eater, I often skip passed the flimsy vegetarian approximations of dishes that are supposed to contain meat. Why? I guess my experience has been that most veggie approximations are just that… [...]

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Sunchoke and hamachi carpaccio

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Inspiration can show up when you least expect it. This dish was actually inspired by a Coconut Pana Cotta of all things. What does a creamy Italian desert have in common with a savory sashimi appetizer you ask? Aside from looking incredibly tasty, pana cotta’s are typically creamy dishes that use a tart sauce to [...]

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Apple inside-out cake

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Mutsu apples are one of my favorite variety. Crisp, green-skinned and juicy, they fall somewhere between a Fuji and a Granny Smith. This makes them delicious to eat and equally suited for baking. I set out to make an apple upside-down cake, with lots of gooey appley goodness on top. It was late though and [...]

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Sunchokes With a Warm Butter Lemon Dressing

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I got some sunchokes at the Greenmarket on Saturday and while I love their crisp texture, I’m always a bit stumped as to what to do with them. Sunchokes (a.k.a. Jerusalem artichokes) are the root tubers that grow on a certain species of sunflower. They look a bit like knobby ginger but have a slightly [...]

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Almost Spring Salad with Honey Roast Garlic Lemonette

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I’ve been craving spring for weeks now, but the weather around here has been a tease at best. Yesterday was the first Saturday with the slightest semblance of spring, so I headed up to the Union Square Greenmarket in hopes of finding asparagus, ramps, and maybe even some fiddleheads… Not surprisingly, I was disappointed with [...]

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Guinea Hen Olive and Lemon Tagine

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After reading an article in the Times last fall about brine curing your own olives, I made a batch in a large mason jar. They’re good, but I’m olived out at this point and I’ve been looking for ways to cook with them. Here’s a 1 pot roast chicken that makes its own sauce which [...]

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What’s in your kitchen?

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When it comes to cooking over at a friend’s place, there’s nothing worse than staring at a pile of potatoes with nothing but a dull carving knife to peel them with. This is why I often go toting a box of kitchen basics along with the ingredients. Some act insulted by the insinuation (they usually [...]

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