813 recipes. Page 15 of 34
Curry, stir-fry noodles, and Asian recipes
Born in the Chinese immigrant community of Kolkata and now cooked across India, Hakka noodles keep their seasoning spare: soy sauce, a little vinegar and black pepper. Cabbage, carrot and bell pepper are cut into thin strips close to the width of the noodles, so each forkful picks up both evenly, and they spend only a minute or two over high heat to keep their snap.
Snappy shrimp and soft, ripe mango are pulled together by lime juice and fish sauce, salty and sour at once. It is best eaten cold, soon after tossing, before the mango and shrimp start shedding liquid into the bowl.
Two calls decide this braise: how far the daikon is cooked before it meets the fish, and when you stop. Parboil the daikon until the edges turn translucent so the centers are already softening; that way the yellowtail isn't left simmering until it dries out while the daikon catches up. Scald the fish with hot water until the surface turns pale, pat it dry, and spoon the braising liquid over the skin as it cooks so it doesn't dry. Turn off the heat when the thickest piece reaches at least 63°C in the center, a chopstick slides into the daikon, and the liquid has cooked down by about half.
Breaded pork loin fried to a deep golden brown is sliced thick and set beside a Japanese curry made sweet with well-browned onion and carrot. Where the curry touches the cutlet the crust softens while the rest stays crunchy, and each bite shifts between the two. Panko pressed firmly all the way to the edges keeps the coating from peeling away in the oil. The curry base cooks in a little of the reserved frying oil rather than fresh fat.
Dried taro stems (imogara) are soaked for 30 minutes, fried in oil with lotus root, carrot, fried tofu and konjac, then simmered uncovered in a sweet soy liquid. By the end almost nothing is left in the pot; the stems are soft to chew while the lotus root still has its crunch.
From the Nanbu area of Aomori, this fresh confection is mashed green soybeans pressed together with rice flour and glutinous rice flour, shaped into a long log like kamaboko fish cake, and cut 1cm thick. Small bits of bean are left unmashed and show in the crumbly cut face, and slices are also browned in a dry pan.
Every ingredient in this Tsugaru Little New Year soup is diced to about 5 mm, and each spoonful carries daikon, carrot, burdock, mountain vegetables, fried and freeze-dried tofu, soybeans, and kombu together. Red miso seasons it. Half the soybeans stay whole and half are coarsely mashed into zunda, which gives the broth a light body.
Red taro stalks dry-fried without oil turn a vivid red the moment vinegar hits the pan, then soak up a sweet vinegar and soy dressing as they chill. In Toyama this summer side dish is made from the leaf stalks of yatsugashira taro and served at home, at Obon and at autumn festivals. Raw stalks carry an acridity that can prickle the throat, which is why peeling, soaking and thorough cooking all matter more than the color change. A batch is ready only when even the thickest stalk is tender and leaves no sting on the tongue.
Young edible luffa softens into translucent, slightly silky pieces in barley miso soup and gives it a light body before the soup is poured hot over somen. Once the barley miso is in, the pot stays at small bubbles to keep it from turning harsh.
Shredded green papaya is bruised only lightly in a mortar with a hot lime dressing and keeps its strands crisp instead of limp. The mortar acts more like a mixing bowl than a grinder. Pounding hard snaps the thin strands and softens them.
Thick blocks of pork belly are simmered twice: first in plain water with ginger and scallion until the fat layer turns soft, then in a fresh soy sauce, mirin and sugar glaze that leaves a glossy brown film on the surface. Splitting the work this way lets the meat go tender before the seasoning has a chance to reduce too far. Boiled eggs cook in the glaze alongside the pork and come out stained brown, seasoned through the white.
A freshly fried pork cutlet is warmed briefly in sweet tsuyu broth with onion and bound with softly set egg, so the underside soaks up broth while the top keeps some crunch. Nicking the sinew along the edge of the loin before breading stops the meat from curling, letting it lie flat over the rice.
Long-aged takana, a salted mustard-green pickle, soaks for hours to lose its salt, then gets chopped fine and fried in sesame oil with a little sugar and soy sauce. Even after soaking, one piece tasted before cooking shows whether it needs more time in water. Only half the soy sauce goes in at first, and a salty pickle may not need the rest.
This Thai dessert starts the night before, since the glutinous rice needs at least six hours of soaking and ideally a full night. Hot from the steamer, the rice gets warm coconut milk with sugar and salt poured over and sits covered until the grains soak it up, sweet with a little saltiness. Ripe mango is sliced just before serving and laid alongside.
Freshly cooked rice, pounded until about half the grains break, is pressed around skewers and browned, then cut into pieces that soak up chicken broth and turn chewy, much like rice cake. Kiritanpo comes from Akita Prefecture, where the rice is traditionally wrapped on cedar skewers and grilled over charcoal; this version browns the sticks in a dry pan instead.
Ice-chilled ramen noodles topped with neat stripes of egg crepe, ham, cucumber and tomato get a tangy soy-vinegar dressing poured over instead of a broth. Because the sauce is a drizzle, not a soup, each topping keeps its own flavor and color. Cutting the egg, ham and cucumber to the same thin width makes the plate look tidy and lets every bite pick up a bit of everything, and the dressing goes on only at the table so the noodles stay springy.
Fine shreds of green papaya get lightly bruised in a mortar so they soak up lime juice, fish sauce, and palm sugar. Unripe papaya has none of the fruit's sweetness, just a crisp crunch, and the dressing hits hot, sour, salty, and sweet all at once. A cold-water soak firms the shreds, but they need thorough draining or the measured dressing turns watery. Light pounding is all it takes; stop once the tomatoes start to release juice, before they collapse. Without a mortar, a large bowl and a rolling pin do the same job with gentle pressing, and seeding the Thai chilies tames the heat. Serve it as soon as the peanuts are mixed in, while the papaya is still crisp.
Chicken thighs marinated in ginger-garlic paste and garam masala are seared in butter until a brown crust forms, then finished in a long-reduced tomato sauce with butter and cream. Also called murgh makhani, it leans mild and rich rather than hot: reducing the tomato puree takes off its sharp acidity, and cream softens the spices.
Pork leg braised until it pulls apart with chopsticks is sliced over jasmine rice and spooned with a glossy soy glaze. Palm sugar caramel and dark soy sauce set the sweet-salty base, with star anise and cinnamon underneath. It is a staple of Thai night markets, Bangkok's included.
The eggs are cooked only about 70 percent of the way, set aside, and folded back in at the end, which keeps the curds soft. Tomatoes cut a little larger than bite size can release their juice without collapsing right away.
Boiled rice-flour dumplings go onto skewers and roll around a dry pan until they pick up pale brown spots, then get a glossy coat of soy sauce and sugar thickened with cornstarch. Sweet and salty arrive in the same bite, and under the toasted surface the dumplings stay springy. They firm up as they cool, so the glaze goes on just before serving, while they are still warm.
Thick bone-in rounds of carp and the head simmer for close to three hours, until the flesh flakes at a touch of the chopsticks and the miso broth turns thick. This style from the Saku area of Nagano adds miso in three stages. The first portion is added with sugar to season the fish, a middle portion ground smooth with cooked rice thickens the broth, and the last is stirred in near the end for aroma.
Dark soy sauce turns the chicken broth a deep mahogany, and a cornstarch slurry thickens it into a glossy gravy that coats the yellow noodles completely. In the Chinese communities of Singapore and Malaysia, the bowl is finished with raw minced garlic, whose sharpness cuts through the thick gravy.
Paper-thin cucumber and wakame soak in a sweet rice vinegar dressing, and the result is cool, tangy, and very light. Unlike many cucumber salads, it carries no garlic or chili, so the vinegar and the clean taste of cucumber come through on their own.