Bone stock is one of the most important components of any meat-based soup and a special flavor enhancer for many other recipes. It’s also generically referred to as ‘stock’ in this blog, many cookbooks, and likely a good number of your most cherished family recipes. Unfortunately, most processed stock sold in stores contains allergens such as dairy or… Continue reading Bone Stock
This ubiquitous, must-have sauce unifies the different flavors in many a Vietnamese dish and makes the entire composition come together and “pop.” Nuoc cham can effortlessly pull together a dish, making it a godsend for anyone looking to get breakfast/lunch/dinner on the table ASAP. I have a small airtight container of this stuff in my… Continue reading Nuoc Cham (Vietnamese Basic Dipping Sauce)
Every gluten-free cook has his or her signature bread recipe. This is mine. A derivation of Neat Bread, Hippo Bread is superior in terms of texture, taste, and appearance thanks to its key ingredient, plain, homemade soy milk. Homemade soy milk acts as a binder, tenderizes the loaf’s crumb, adds a creaminess to the flavor, and imparts… Continue reading Hippo Bread
Soy milk is a kitchen basic in our household. It’s good for drinking, but it’s also indispensable in the kitchen as an ingredient in many recipes. Soy milk is an excellent dairy substitute in cooking. It’s also a great egg substitute in recipes requiring the binding (though not rising) properties of eggs. My family enjoys… Continue reading Soy Milk
I love this sausage recipe, which comes from Jeff Smith’s wonderful cookbook, The Frugal Gourmet, a companion to his PBS cooking show, which I grew up watching. I use this sausage primarily as a pizza topping, but it would be great over rice, in a red sauce — whatever strikes your fancy. The above is… Continue reading Italian Sausage
The evolution, which is still ongoing, of this recipe travels the globe. It started out as a Kenyan recipe for a sweetened, yeast-risen rice pancake tinged with cardamom. We were enjoying that for a while. Then one day, I ran out of rice flour and threw in a bunch of glutinous rice flour. Chewier and… Continue reading Bao de Bing, Bao de Beng!