Tried and New

Whatever else its challenges, the oncoming coldness makes hearty meals beautifully satisfying and even more delicious. These charms glow with additional radiance when novel ingredients take their appreciation to brand-new levels. Food which already was warmly comforting becomes bracing in its newfound delights. Chicken stew is a great example. The Korean version is called Dak…

Crunchy Is Better

Peanuts are woven richly into Indonesia’s culinary livelihood, and any attempt to recreate the experience at home must include crunchy peanut butter.  Preferably the “natural” variety, as it comes closest to expressing the nut’s pure essence that so animates Spice Islands cooking.  Other options may provide adequate taste, though natural crunchy peanut butter best captures…

Easier Done than Said

Today’s recipe is labeled Southeast Asian Beef and Rice-Noodle Soup, at least that’s what Gourmet called it when it showcased the dish in February 2009, but in reality, it’s phở. The ingredients list is unmistakable; this is the deeply flavored and intensely aromatic Vietnamese soup that is perhaps its country’s most famous culinary treasure.  Thanks…

Jeweled Ingredients

Those familiar with Thai cuisine know cooking is all about building layer upon layer of taste.  This ensures each ingredient is distinct, identifiable and doesn’t get lost.  Still, they make up a chorus of flavors all equally assertive, yet complimenting each other beautifully.  That combination is no more exquisitely balanced than in today’s creation, Guay…

Near the Main Line

Travelers aboard the Main Line of Philadelphia’s commuter rail pass through Valley Forge, today an affluent suburb, but nearly 250 years ago coincident with perhaps the direst moment in America’s struggle for independence.  The British Army having chased the Continentals from their capital (at the time, Philadelphia), George Washington sought refuge in a farming community…

My Goodness, My Guinness!

Just how did it find its way into that soup?  No doubt with a sparkle of Irish inspiration, as it most likely didn’t take Dubliners long to discover the local stout made a great and flavorful addition to stews.  Probably minutes after Arthur Guinness released his first brews 250 or so years ago. Naturally, as…

Country Cooking

Simple yet delicious, when rural cuisine is done right, it’s wonderfully satisfying.  No matter where one finds it, particularly as with today’s entry, in Cambodia.  Among the many such culinary discoveries that await there is Bamboo Shoots Soup with Pork.  This is included in the seemingly endless variety of recipes My Linh Nakry offers on…

This Calls for a Celebration

Of course it does.  How could anything called Feel-Good Chicken Soup inspire anything besides joy?  The dish featured this time has much more than a positive name to recommend it.  It tastes great, which, in turn, makes tasters happy.  Sure enough, it all adds up in the end. Not only does the concoction produce contentment,…

Where to Begin?

There’s so much happening in a soup like Cháo Bôi it’s difficult to decide how exactly to classify it.  Sure, broadly speaking, it’s Vietnamese, the recipe found among the pages of a great gift one of you sent a few years back, Andrea Nguyen’s Into the Vietnamese Kitchen. What kind of soup is it, though? …

Two-Headed Creature

All sorts of wonders skulk this time of year, and if you’re not careful one of them will claim you. Well, this Halloween’s soul must be particularly needy, as it’s grasped at not one recipe, but at two. Both courtesy of The Nightmare Before Dinner, chef Zach Neil’s collection of deliciously spooky dishes from his…