813 recipes. Page 11 of 34
Curry, stir-fry noodles, and Asian recipes
Paneer marinated in yogurt with turmeric and garam masala goes onto skewers with bell pepper and onion and over high heat, just until the edges char. A fresh Indian cheese, it holds its shape on the grill instead of melting. In India it is served as an appetizer with mint chutney.
You eat this holding a big bone in your hand and gnawing off the meat around it. It is said to have started with hunters in the Okukuma area of Kumamoto, who ate every scrap of meat left on the bones after butchering game. These days it is made with meaty pork ribs and backbone rather than wild boar, cooked in big pots and shared at local gatherings.
Thin strips of dried squid spend ten days in the fridge in rice koji and a soy-based seasoning, slowly softening and taking on the koji's sweetness. The old method aged it in weighted crocks; here nothing sits at room temperature, and it matures in the refrigerator from start to finish. A little goes on rice or alongside a drink.
Boiling chicken stock poured into the bowl does the cooking: paper-thin pork slices turn opaque within seconds, then bean sprouts and garlic chives follow. Slicing the pork while it is half-frozen makes those thin slices possible, and the stock has to be at a full, rolling boil, since anything cooler leaves the meat underdone.
Toasted rice powder, khao khua, is what turns seasoned ground chicken into larb. Rice browned in a dry pan and ground coarse gives the salad a nutty, faintly smoky grain flavor that nothing else copies. The dish comes from the Isan region of Thailand, where it is seasoned hard with fish sauce and lime and eaten scooped into lettuce leaves. Because the chicken cooks gently with a splash of water instead of oil, it stays soft and moist rather than browned and dry.
A thin rice batter is spread paper-thin over a cloth set above boiling water, steamed until translucent, then rolled around ground pork with chopped wood ear mushroom. These Hanoi wrappers are far softer and more delicate than wheat ones, so pulling on a sheet while lifting or rolling tears it at once.
One pot does double duty: the water that poaches the chicken thighs becomes the cooking liquid for the rice. The heat stays low enough that only small bubbles rise at the edge, because a rolling boil splits and dries the meat.
With only carrot, egg, salt, and oil in the pan, how the carrot is cut decides most of the result. A coarse shirishiri grater or julienne slicer gives long strands of 4 to 5 cm that still have some bite after cooking; finely grated carrot goes soft and loses that texture. The egg ends up in loose, fluffy clumps tangled between the strands rather than a smooth scramble.
White dough of potato and rice flour is layered with a red-bean potato dough, rolled into a spiral, and steamed, so every cooled slice shows a crisp white and red-brown swirl. Kamabuku comes from inland mountain communities in Akita where fish was hard to obtain, which is why it was shaped like kamaboko fish cake; it was sliced for New Year, ceremonies, and sports days.
This is Peking duck without the restaurant setup: no hanging the bird, just a rack in a home oven. The skin needs to dry overnight in the fridge, so it starts the day before, and the carved duck is wrapped in thin pancakes with cucumber, scallion and hoisin. Home ovens vary, so don't count on the paper-thin crackling of a restaurant duck.
The heat in this soup comes from white pepper rather than chili, building slowly at the back of the throat after each spoonful. Vinegar layers sourness on top, and the broth, thickened with starch only until it turns glossy and translucent, holds wood ear mushrooms, tofu and thin ribbons of egg.
Steamed glutinous rice mixed with cucumber, red cabbage and red shiso ferments into something thick and tangy, stained red from grain to grain. Northwestern Tsugaru in Aomori has long put it up as a winter preserve. The shiso is salted and kneaded separately and its dark juice squeezed out, which removes its harsh astringency before it meets the rice. The grains should stay mostly whole while the shiso and vegetables spread evenly through them. The recipe fills an 18 L crock, so a pressing weight and a cool spot are needed before starting. Sourness and thickness keep shifting as it ferments, and it is eaten with rice once it reaches the stage you like.
Sesame paste, chili oil, soy, and vinegar sit in the bottom of the bowl, and once hot noodles are tossed through them, richness and direct heat come first while the tingle of Sichuan pepper arrives a beat later. Because that numbness builds fast, only half the ground peppercorn goes into the sauce, with the rest added after tasting. The ground pork is left untouched in the hot pan until it forms a brown crust, and that roasted flavor carries the whole sauce. Noodles that are not drained thoroughly thin the sauce until it no longer clings. Blanched bok choy adds a clean, green break from all the oil.
Coarsely grated bottle gourd (lauki) gets only a brief boil before it meets the yogurt and stays soft with a little bite instead of turning to mush. It sits beside spicy curries and flatbreads to cool the palate.
Crisp at the edges and custard-soft in the middle, these small cup-shaped pancakes come from Vung Tau on Vietnam's southern coast. Coconut milk in the rice batter adds a gentle richness, and shrimp and scallion placed on top cook with the batter before it sets. They are wrapped in lettuce or herbs and dipped in a fish sauce and sugar mix.
Breaded pork cutlet, boiled potato, and softened cabbage share the plate, all under a single coconut milk curry sauce. Singapore's Hainanese curry rice usually comes with braised pork and several gravies; this home version drops those and keeps one sauce. The cutlet is a fully cooked store-bought one that only needs reheating, so there is no frying involved. Pour the sauce over just before eating, or the crust turns soggy.
This Okinawan dish is made from sweet potato starch, and while it is as chewy as a rice cake, it is neither steamed nor baked but stirred nonstop in a frying pan. The thin batter forms translucent clumps and finally gathers into a single glossy mass. Fresh from the pan it is very hot; it is torn into bite-size pieces and left to cool briefly before eating.
Wrapped piece by piece in red shiso leaves, green ume spend about a month in the fridge while the leaf's red moves into the fruit and the sweetness and sourness go all the way through. The method comes from Ogose in Saitama: the pitted ume are cured in sugar first, and the shiso soaks a day in ume vinegar before wrapping. The ume are raw, and nothing is tasted until the cure is finished.
Long fillets of cutlassfish are wound in a spiral around bamboo sticks and turned over charcoal, brushed again and again with a soy, sugar, sake and ginger glaze until it builds into a dark lacquer. The strips are trimmed to an even width and wound with their edges slightly overlapping so they do not loosen as the stick turns. Uwajima in Ehime credits the dish to an old fishmonger who came up with it in 1987; because it is so fiddly, people mostly eat it at izakaya and local fish-cake shops rather than at home. A last brush of mirin gives the final shine. To eat, the fish is slid off the hot bamboo and looked over for any stray bones.
Crisp mizu stems and freshly cleaned sea squirt sit in cold, lightly salted kombu stock, a summer bowl from the Tsugaru area of Aomori that pairs two ingredients peaking in the short northern summer. The sea squirt must be very fresh and sold for raw eating, and because nothing is cooked after assembly, the bowls are put together right before eating and leftovers are not kept.
Big, thick Miike takana leaves are wilted for a day or two, layered with salt and chili powder, and pressed under a heavy stone to mature in their own brine until the rainy season has passed. After about a week the first brine is poured off and the leaves pressed again under the fresh liquid that rises. This long-fermented mustard-green pickle comes from Setaka in Fukuoka; Miike takana arose from a Sichuan green crossed with a local variety and is prized for crisp stems and a pungent smell. Older pickles grow more acidic and savory. Rinsed briefly in cold water if too salty and chopped fine, it is eaten with rice, in ramen or in stir-fries, and turmeric and whole chilies tucked between the leaves are the traditional additions for long storage.
Thick-sliced shiitake simmer in anchovy-kelp stock with doenjang, layering the mushroom aroma over the paste's mellow, fermented depth before the broth is poured over plump udon. Onion adds quiet sweetness that keeps the salt in check, and a pinch of gochugaru leaves a faint warmth at the finish. Compared with a Japanese dashi-based udon broth, this one is earthier and heavier, closer to a hearty Korean stew.
Chewy-crunchy slices of pig's ear, crisp bean sprouts and cucumber get coated in a thick dressing of peanut butter, white miso and vinegar. Despite the word sashimi in the name, nothing is raw: the term refers to the vinegared dressing, and the ears are bought precooked and sliced.
Inside go browned pork, carrot and daikon pickled in vinegar, and cilantro, and nothing else. The pâté and cold cuts common on Saigon street carts are left out, which puts more weight on the bread: the baguette is filled the moment it comes out warm with a crackling crust.