Preserving The Chili Pepper Harvest: Chinese Chile-Garlic Sauce

This year, I planted a whiskey barrel with Thai chilies and basil; eight starts of Thai Dragon chilies, a dozen of Siam Queen basil. These relatively few plants kept us in fresh Thai ingredients for the entire summer and early fall. The rainy early summer resulted in lush growth but the first chilies were fairly […]

Garlic Scapes And Spiced Dry Tofu Stir Fry

My favorite way to prepare garlic scapes is to stir fry them.
And, as far as I am concerned, their perfect partner in the wok is spiced dry tofu.
Here’s why: the scapes have the same wonderful crisp but tender texture that very young green beans have, and are blessed with a similar verdant grassy […]

Cilantro Chicken with Fresh Water Chestnuts and Baby Bok Choy

Water chestnuts are not locally grown here in Ohio, at least, not that I know of.
But, when they are fresh, they are truly divine, and I will buy them even if they were grown in California or Florida. Not only will I buy them, but I will buy several pounds of them, and use […]

Not Your Typical Take-Out Dish: Ocean Broccoli Beef

There are some dishes that you can walk into any Chinese restaurant in America and expect to see on the menu.
Beef with Broccoli is one of them.
An innocuous, if uninspired dish, beef with broccoli isn’t necessarily bad, but neither is it necessarily good. In its better formulations, it is a rather harmless stir […]

A Very Quick And Simple Chinese Stir Fry: Cilantro Chicken

This is one of those easy to put together, simple stir-fries which has a minimum of ingredients but a maximum of flavor that make it perfect for a quick dinner after work.
While this is an original recipe, I didn’t come up with the idea myself; I based it on a dish I had at […]