Chinese Wheat Noodles With Mushroom-Tofu Sauce

On a cold winter night, when the weather is blustery and damp, there is nothing that warms myself and my family up more than a bowl of za jiang mein–Chinese wheat noodles tossed with a hearty, spicy-sweet meat and tofu sauce and topped with crisp raw or blanched vegetables.
And since last night, our weather […]

Inspiration For A Light Supper: Moroccan Chicken Salad

In creating dinner specials for Restaurant Salaam, I have found inspiration in sometimes surprising places.
Of course, I am inspired by recipes I have found in the many dozens of cookbooks covering the regions of North Africa, the Eastern Mediterranean, the Middle East, India and Western China which I have in my collection. This goes […]

Peasant Food is Good Food: Beans and Rice

There is a song by Spearhead that I love, and it goes (in part) like this:
“….The way to my heart/ is with a garlic clove
it smells hella sexy/ when it’s on the kitchen stove
(chorus)
Red beans and rice, red beans and rice, red beans and rice,
make everything nice
red beans and rice, red beans and rice, red […]

Kimchi Noodle Soup

The theme of this year’s Eat Local Challenge is “Preserving The Harvest,” and I thought that I could use this opportunity to not only make up a few more batches of kimchi and Hunan salted chilies, but also highlight a few recipes using these delicious lactic-acid fermented vegetables.
Lactic acid fermentation is an ancient method […]

Baigan Methi

I may not like summer heat, being as I tend to wilt when temperatures soar above eighty degrees, but I sure love summer.
Why?
Because of all the delicious locally grown produce, of course.
Especially heat lovers like eggplant, known in Hindi as baigan.
Look at those gorgeous little Asian eggplants up there: shiny dark violet […]