813 recipes. Page 17 of 34
Curry, stir-fry noodles, and Asian recipes
Pounding the rice completely smooth before adding any sweet potato gives the finished cake mochi's stretch, with the soft, moist body of the potato folded through it. There is twice as much potato as rice by weight, which turns the slab yellow. A layer of kinako underneath and more on top make the very sticky dough possible to press, cut, and pick up. The batch yields 40 pieces.
Red lentils fall apart on their own as they simmer, so the soup thickens to a golden, spoonable body without any added thickener. Cumin and turmeric make it deep in both color and aroma.
From the Cambodian immigrant communities of Phnom Penh, this clear rice noodle soup crossed into southern Vietnam and settled into Saigon's street food. Fish sauce and a little sugar give the pork broth its savory-sweet southern balance, and this recipe starts from ready-made pork bone stock rather than simmering bones. Once seasoned, the broth drops to low heat so it stays clear and fragrant. Ground pork fried with garlic until dry and crumbly sits on top as a contrast to the silky broth. The shrimp spend only about a minute in boiling water and come out as soon as they turn pink, which keeps them tender.
Blanched young ukogi shoots, miso-pickled daikon and walnuts are all chopped to just larger than a grain of rice, giving a loose, crumbly mix that scatters as you pick it up. Most of the salt comes from the pickled daikon, so soy sauce and salt are added only after tasting. Only ukogi grown and sold as food belongs in it, since wild plants are easy to confuse with look-alikes, and anyone with a walnut allergy should avoid the dish.
Rice paper rather than a wheat wrapper sets these southern Vietnamese rolls apart: it fries into a thin, blistered shell that shatters more sharply than a Chinese egg roll. Rolling tension matters, since a loose roll bursts in the oil and an overly tight one squeezes the pork and glass noodle filling into a hard core. In the south, families gather around Tet to roll them by the hundreds.
Shrimp fried rice, pale yellow from a little curry powder, goes to the table inside the hollowed-out pineapple shell it was spooned into.
The eggplant is fried and set aside first, then returned to the sauce at the end, which keeps the pieces whole. The sauce starts from the spicy oil released as ground pork and doubanjiang (chili bean paste) fry together, and the sourness is adjusted at the very end with a little vinegar at a time.
Ochirashi flour, ground from roasted barley and glutinous rice, is worked into a hot syrup of sugar and mizuame, a Japanese starch syrup, and set into soft, chewy sticks that taste of toasted grain. Once the mass leaves the pot in one piece it is very hot and sticks to skin, so dividing, rolling and cutting are all done with two heatproof spatulas and a knife, never bare hands. A last roll in more flour keeps the cooled pieces from sticking together.
Grated lotus root, skin and all, thickens this miso soup on its own: no flour, just its starch and sticky mucilage, with tiny coarse bits left in the broth. Also called gorigori-jiru, it comes from central Miyazaki and is tied to the stringy lotus grown in the pond beside Mizunuma Shrine, associated with the water deity Suijin-sama. Cultivation reportedly began when the Takanabe domain encouraged planting a good Yamato variety to strengthen its finances. Dried horse-mackerel stock gives the base a gentle fish savor.
Instead of ladling sauce over a bowl of noodles, platter jjajang tosses the cooked noodles right into the pan with the black bean sauce and serves everything on one large plate to share. Squid and shrimp join the pork and cook only until the squid turns opaque and the shrimp curl pink.
Dried persimmon brings a concentrated, mellow sweetness that spreads into the sweet vinegar, softening a daikon and carrot namasu. In Shimane it is set out for celebrations and New Year, with the red of persimmon and carrot and the white of daikon read as the auspicious pairing of red and white. The vegetables soak in salt water only until they bend without snapping, so they keep a light crunch.
Salmon, cabbage, onion, shimeji mushrooms, green pepper and carrot are sealed in foil with a sweet miso sauce and a pat of butter, then steamed in a covered frying pan. The dish is a local specialty of the Ishikari area of Hokkaido. Inside the parcel, steam wilts the vegetables while butter, miso and the juices of the salmon and vegetables pool into a salty sauce at the bottom.
Egg and scallion are about the only other things in the pan, so the sweetness of the crab comes through first. In Thailand it arrives with a wedge of lime on the plate for you to squeeze over yourself.
Cumin and chili flakes are held back until the final minute so their aroma stays sharp. Before that, thin slices of lamb are spread in one layer in a very hot wok and left untouched for the first 40 seconds to brown.
With a few azuki beans in each channel of the lotus root, every round sliced from the finished piece shows a white flower pattern studded with dark red beans. It is a home dish from Ibaraki Prefecture, made with lotus root from around Lake Kasumigaura and locally grown beans. Dry beans swell a great deal as they cook, so each hole is filled only half to two-thirds and left loose. Two to three hours of gentle simmering, then sugar, then cooling completely in the pot: the whole thing takes half a day.
The wide Chinese glass noodles need about two hours in lukewarm water and should be put to soak well before any cooking starts. Mala sauces vary in salt and oil from brand to brand; stir some into the beef-bone broth first and taste before deciding whether to add more.
Thick black-bean sauce made from chunjang (Korean fermented black bean paste) coats chewy wheat noodles, with diced pork, onion, potato and zucchini giving it body. Simmering until the potato turns half translucent lets the vegetables sweeten the salty paste. In Korea it is the go-to delivery meal on moving day or after a graduation, and it tastes best mixed the moment the hot sauce lands on the noodles.
Daikon cut into very fine threads is crisped in cold water, then piled with bonito flakes and shredded nori and dressed with soy sauce, rice vinegar and a little sesame oil.
No cream goes into this sauce; its sweetness and body come from onions cooked for 15 to 20 minutes until deep brown. A staple of Punjabi home cooking, it is scooped up with roti on an ordinary weeknight, and paired with fried bhatura it becomes chole bhature.
Leftover rice is kneaded with flour and chopped shiso until it holds together, then shaped into thick patties and pan-fried until golden. This Nagano griddle cake finishes with a quick turn in a sugar and soy glaze, just long enough to leave a thin, glossy sweet-salty coat. Because it starts from cold, firm rice, it is a practical way to use up leftovers.
Sweet potato cubes jut from the surface like an ogre's horns or iron club, which is said to be where the name oni manju comes from. In Aichi it stood in for rice when food ran short during and after the war, and with no bean paste it relies on the potato's own sweetness and a heavy, chewy batter.
Bite into one of the small wheat dumplings and a piece of walnut sits at the center. Mamebu-jiru belongs to Yamagata-cho in Kuji, Iwate, and is linked to flour dumplings that reportedly replaced celebratory noodles during poor Edo-period harvests. It still appears at New Year, ceremonies and winter meals. Around the dumplings, a clear soy broth of kombu and dried sardines carries carrot, burdock, kanpyo gourd strips, mushrooms and grilled tofu.
Small cubes of potato and zucchini sit in a thick black bean sauce that clings heavily to the noodles, the way it does at Korean bunsik snack shops. Some of the potato breaks down as it simmers and thickens the sauce on its own before the starch slurry is added. Frying the chunjang in oil first takes the edge off its raw bitterness, leaving the slow-cooked onion's sweetness to round it out.
Fish sauce and lime hit first, salty and sour, with seared sirloin underneath carrying the beefy flavor. Chili flakes bring heat, and torn mint cuts through the richness of the meat. Rather than a fixed cooking time, which shifts with the thickness of the steak and the heat of the pan, doneness is judged by the thickest part reaching at least 63°C, followed by a 5-minute rest before slicing. If the red onion tastes too sharp, a 5-minute soak in cold water tames it, as long as it is drained well afterward. Fish sauce does all the seasoning with no separate salt, and the beef is tossed while still warm so it contrasts with the crisp cucumber, tomato and red onion.