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I‘ve always loved Vietnamese Salad rolls (g?i cu?n), and I’ve been making them off and on for decades, so I don’t know why I haven’t shared them with you guys before. If you haven’t had them, they are cool and refreshing, with a tender but slightly chewy rice paper wrapper surrounding thin rice noodles, lettuce, ...
Before we get into Ellen Kanner’s lovely book, a quick note about the James Beard awards. My book didn’t win. While it would have been great, it also would have been a pretty huge surprise as a first time author. To be a finalist was an entirely sufficient thrill. My wife, Sarina, and I had ...
Khao soi is an iconic dish from the Chiang Mai region of northern Thailand, though its roots are thought to be Burmese or Chinese Muslim. It inspires cultlike devotion among initiates. You don’t find khao soi often enough at Thai restaurants in America, which is why I think it is well worth making at home. Fresh, ...
At Sitka and Spruce and Bar Sajor, Matt Dillon serves quite a few salads and small plates with a base of various ridiculously good nut purees. Though really, puree isn’t quite the right word. They eat more like a sort of nut-based hummus: rich, creamy, slightly fluffy, but packed full of the flavor of roasted ...
Maitakes, also known as hen-of-the-woods (not to be confused with chicken-of-the-woods, which is completely different!), are a wild mushroom well worth seeking out at farmers’ markets or gourmet grocers. Maitakes are rather expensive, and their dramatic ruffled appearance and rich flavor are unusual, so when I use them, I like to make them the focus ...
Gorditas: thick, delicious homemade corn tortillas that are shallow fried then split and topped with whatever moves you. Close cousins to the arepa and the pupusa. I’m not going to kid you, gorditas are a bit of a project. You have to make and shape the dough, then toast them on a dry skillet first, then ...
Risotto is one of my favorite ways to highlight Spring ingredients. This is a version of a recipe I’m serving to a big group for Washington Green Schools this week. Depending on what ends up being fresh, I’ll probably do the puree with nettles instead of watercress, and top it with fava beans and hedgehog ...
So… something completely unexpected and exciting happened: the Herbivoracious cookbook was named a finalist for a James Beard Foundation book award, in the Vegetable Focused and Vegetarian category. I’ll be going to the awards ceremony in New York on May 3rd. Honestly, while winning would be a thrill, I’m mostly just delighted to be included, ...
So, this happened: for reasons too tedious to explore, we ate dinner at a California Pizza Kitchen the other night. First time I’ve been to one in years. Not my first choice of places to eat, but it served the purpose. The very next morning, I woke up to this Google Alert in my inbox:
(or, rather, moles, since there are many varieties) is shrouded in legend. The dried-chili based sauces, rich with chocolate, spices, herbs and nuts or seeds can contain up to 36 ingredients, each of which has to be individually ground and toasted over a period of days. Each family has its own secret recipe. This is ...
Corned beets. It started out more as a pun then anything else, but I figured beets cooked with the spices typically associated with corned beef would be good. Then I tried an iteration with the ChefSteps House Rub 01 and that was also fantastic. In any case, it is the texture that makes these beets delightful. They ...
Have you ever had the experience of eating a dish once and finding it burning into your brain? As if there was a reserved area, a certain of neurons just waiting to be inscribed with this new combination of flavors? That’s how I felt when I first tried this salad at Eric Banh’s Ba ...
Hopefully we are at a point now where it is no longer considered a faux pas to, you know, actually cook a vegetable. I know there was a time when all vegetables were indiscriminately boiled to death. Then came the rebellion, and all vegetables had to be served just lightly waved over steam. Your jaw ...
These green beans are perfect for a potluck; the beans themselves are blanched and shocked and you can then hold them cold a day in advance and dress them close to serving time. They can be cooked traditionally in a big pot, or in a simple sous vide setup if you are so inclined – ...
One of the many great things about working at ChefSteps is that at any given moment, amazingly delicious things are subject to appear on top of the staff-food fridge, which means “come ‘n get it.” A few weeks ago, Grant or Ben or Nick, I’m not sure, put up posset. Poss-what? Believe me, I had to ...
Romesco is a wonderful Spanish sauce made from roasted red peppers, tomatoes, roasted garlic and toasted nuts. It can be used as a party dip or spread, served as part of a tapas-style meal, stirred into mayonaise, slathered onto a sandwich… Romesco is typically thickened with bread, but I wanted a thinner consistency for the dish ...
In the next paragraph, I’m going to use a potentially scary word. After all, it is French, and it also might make you think you are going to need expensive new kitchen gear to do it (you won’t). Please remain calm, because as you’ll see, I need your help. And that word is: . (Fine, it ...
I demo’ed this Brussels sprout and apple hash from my cookbook on KCTS recently, and a reader pointed out that the recipe isn’t anywhere on the site. So here you go! Although I think of it as a side dish that goes well with mac & cheese or a rustic soup and salad, I’ve also been ...
Yes, this is directly inspired by David Chang’s legendary pork buns. I just did them with smoked tofu instead of pig, and my pickle is a little different, and I kinda like kochujang (Korean miso/chili paste) on them instead of hoisin sauce. Next time I think I might swap out the pickle in favor of ...
Considering that I’ve posted a fair number of Korean recipes over the years, it seems odd that I’ve never written down my favorite Korean dish of all: . Pronounced “bee-bim-bop”, bibimbap is simply a bowl of hot rice with a variety of cooked and raw vegetables. A raw, poached, or fried egg is served on top ...
My wife, Sarina, is severely allergic to both peanuts and every kind of tree nut. Like, epipen and straight to the hospital allergic. This meant that she has never tasted a peanut butter cookie, and neither have my kids. It seemed to me that this was a grave injustice that needed to be rectified. We long ...
The idea for these came from a packaged Japanese snack that I find totally addictive. It is easy to make at home, and then you can adjust the ratio of heat, orange zest, salt, and the tongue-numbing zing of the Sichuan peppercorn to your own preference. These guys pretty much have “snack with a beer” ...
Now I know this title might sound like the worst hippie food I’ve ever posted, but hear me out – because you could be having fresh, delicious bread on your dinner table tonight with about 10 minutes of work. I’m no whole-grain obsessive. In fact, I love white flour. Whole-grain breads have a coarser texture and ...
Whenever I get my hands on a rare or expensive ingredient, I look for ways to feature it in a simple, pure form that shows off the natural beauty and flavor. These porcini are only available for a weeks a year, and cost a small fortune, at least here in the Seattle area. In Tuscany, ...
It is traditional for Hanukkah to eat foods cooked in oil, but after a few days of killer latkes and bunuelos, I think we all feel the need to lighten things up a bit. These black rice fritters are pan fried, creating a crispy, satisfying chew, but without absorbing too much fat. The brightly flavored ...
The first time I had fried artichokes was at a little place in our neighborhood called Supreme; they went out of business shortly after we moved in, or I’d probably have the artichoke equivalent of a beer belly by now. Since then, I never pass up a chance to eat fried artichokes (including the classic ...
I know I’ve said here very publicly that the next thing I wanted to do was open a small restaurant. Well, sometimes incredibly cool opportunities happen when you least expect them. The chance to work with alumni of the Modernist Cuisine team? Hell yes. I’ll still be posting here at Herbivoracious, but probably a little ...
The $64,000 question for Thanksgiving with vegetarians is what to do about the main course. There are two schools of thought: An entree is really important; a meal isn’t a meal unless there is something is in the middle of the plate. Don’t worry about it. The turkey, after all, is only one of about two hundred ...
Let me say for the record: I have no desire to eat bacon. I prefer for pigs to keep their own bellies and backsides. However, I’m not at all opposed to having good ways of adding crispy, salty, savory, smoky goodness to my meals. I know I go on about king oyster mushrooms a lot. I ...
No, this isn’t a miniature cake. It is actually 6 inches in diameter, and, I don’t know, 6 inches tall and serves 8 pretty handily. I’m a pretty lousy pastry cook. I typically don’t have the patience or skills to create perfect geometric shapes, frost things just right and so-on. So when I got the Momofuku ...
Earlier this week I had the pleasure of cooking a five-course dinner at Cafe Flora as a benefit for City Fruit, a wonderful organization here in the Seattle area that harvests thousands of pounds of fruit from trees that would otherwise go to waste and donates that fruit to food banks and sell some of ...
This was absolutely an improvisation; I’d been traveling and had very few vegetables in the house on my return, but found a few waxy potatoes lying around along with a hunk of feta and a package of dill that was still good. That got me to thinking of Middle Eastern flavors and 15 minutes later ...
I’m kind of a freak about sharp knifes. When I cook in other folk’s kitchens I usually find their knives are as dull as a wiffle ball bat, and I can’t figure out how they stand it. Few things make your life in the kitchen more enjoyable than truly sharp knives. They make your work faster, ...
Panna cotta is a classic Italian dessert, traditionally made from cream and milk set with gelatin, which isn’t vegetarian. The gelatin is what makes it different from flan (set with eggs) or pudding (set with starch and sometimes eggs). The best panna cotta is ultra-creamy and just barely set – it should have a distinct ...
Amanda Cohen is a bad-ass chef. I had the terrific experience of staging (interning) with her for a few days last year. You should read about that first. Short-version: Amanda owns and runs the tiny, edgy, imaginative and incredibly cool Dirt Candy in New York’s East Village. As far as I know, she’s the only vegetarian ...
How is this for confusing? Curry powder is not made from curry leaves. Good Indian cooks tend to mix spices for individual dishes, although there are some mixtures that are fairly standardized, like garam masala. In the west, some truly awful, unbalanced spice mixtures go by the name of curry powder and should be roundly ...
If you are a dedicated locavore, or farmer’s market shopper, or year-round CSA subscriber, you are all too familiar with this issue: depending on where you live, there are several loooong months of the year where the main local vegetables available are the hearty dark leafy greens and root vegetables. You are going to need ...
An instant-read thermometer might seem like one of those kitchen gadgets you don’t really need. Most of us cook by the seat of our pants anyhow, right? Maybe it seems a little too “cheffy?” But I think you’ll find that if you get one, even a basic $12 model like I have pictured above, you’ll ...
Cardoon: Looks like celery, tastes like artichoke. Oxbow Farm is one of my favorite local farms. They are at several of our Seattle area farmer’s markets, and have a great educational center out in Carnation that is fantastic for taking city kids on field trips to learn where their veggies come from. Last time we were out there, ...
Pakora are a classic Indian snack food or appetizer, made by coating just about any vegetable (or sometimes fruit) with a chickpea flour batter and deep frying. They can be made from whole slices of vegetable or smaller pieces spooned together, and the batter can be thick or thin, crispy or puffy. I’ve seen pakora made ...
Although black rice is an Asian ingredient, I think it reminded me in some oblique way of pumpernickel, which inspired me to deploy a favorite set of Eastern European flavors: caraway, horseradish, mustard. Those are a natural fit with the baby turnips I’d brought home from the farmer’s market. I make lots of little pan fried ...
Here’s another dish I made with those amazing Reed avocados from ChefShop. It looks a little bit fancy, but is very easy to do – just layers of red rice, avocado, shaved red pepper, baby lettuces, burdock chips, and gomashio, flavored with a sesame/miso/yuzu dressing. Burdock root is a popular vegetable in Japanese and Korean cuisine. ...
Fair trade is the idea of marketing products with a primary goal of improving the lives of the those who grow (and sometimes process) the raw materials. I knew that it involved paying ethical, above-market prices for the food, instead of pressuring poor communities to produce food as cheaply as possible. I didn’t realize the ...
Many years ago. Gulp. More than two decades ago, when I lived in the Bay Area, I would visit friends in the Mission District of San Francisco and inevitably eat at one of the great neighborhood taquerias. Many of them keep little jars of an avocado-based salsa on the tables, to add a little creamy ...
Chaat is a whole family of amazing snack foods from India that are served by street vendors and informal restaurants. Chaat can be anything from aloo tiki (potato fritters – there’s a recipe in my book) to pani puri (little crispy hollow crackers that you poke a hole in, fill with a potato and chickpea ...
I use my KitchenAid stand mixer constantly; whether I’m mixing cake batter, kneading bread, making fresh pappardelle or just whipping cream, it sits there on the counter calling out “Put me in the game, coach! I’m ready!”, and I almost always heed the call. So when KitchenAid offered to send me out one of their pasta ...
A few weeks ago, I visited Shauna and Dan on Vashon to shoot a video about the sabich recipe in my cookbook. Sabich is an absurdly delicious Iraqi-Jewish eggplant sandwich with fried eggplant, Israeli salad, hummus, tahina, hardboiled egg, cucumber pickle, and amba. Since those guys are gluten-free, we ate it as a salad instead, which I ...
If you are a long-time reader of Herbivoracious, you may have noticed that there are more recipes than ever before (2 or 3 per week instead of 1), and also a bit more commercial content here than in the past. Back in March of this year, leading up to the publication of the cookbook, I quit ...
As I mentioned in the Tomato and Nectarine Salad, I’ve fallen in love with gochugaru (Korean chili powder). It is spicy, but not so spicy that you can’t use enough of it to also appreciate its fruity, tart notes. I like using it to make quick “kimchi”. I’m putting the “kimchi” in quotes because there is ...
Back in 2010, I had the wonderful experience of staging at Canlis for a couple of weeks. For those of you who haven’t had the pleasure of dining there, Canlis is a legendary fine-dining institution in Seattle. It boasts spectacular views high above Lake Union, unmatched service that is always as friendly as it is ...
