Author: cia
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The ginger-garlic paste I made three weeks ago is proving to be very useful. I first made it for dilled vegetables when I started cooking for some of my co-workers. I have since used the batch I stored in the freezer for two kinds of kimchi and now for this dish. It’s so much easier…
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Southern cuisine’s “dirty rice” gets its name from the offal pieces they add in their rice. Comfort food often contains more than its fair share of fried stuff as well as heavy starches and some people say “dirty” is also taken from that. I honestly fucked this dish up so I had to literally scramble…
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Twenty-four hours before, we were in Philadelphia, the so-called sixth borough of New York City. It was like summer and everyone was out walking and enjoying the weather. From the Reading Terminal Market, we picked up some purple potatoes and apples, a bunch of arugula and escarole. We planned to cook a nice fish dinner…
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402 West 43rd Street off Ninth Avenue 212/564-7272 about $190 for two, with drinks, with tip ♥ ♥ I remember my first time in Esca as if it happened just last week. The $700 bill was split in four, my purse let out a small cry and I hoped that the next time my friends…
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I was tempted to omit “or baby goat meat” in the recipe title because grilled kid sounded funnier. This recipe is from Scott Gold’s The Shameless Carnivore, a new book about, well, eating all kinds of meat. It’s obvious from the title alone why I felt an affinity towards the book. His recipe called for…
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These came out looking more like mini-sausages than authentic gnocchi. I’m sure any Italian grandmother will freak out if they saw how I made these at home. It seems like a lot of work but after you mash the potatoes, they kind of form themselves with just the help of some extra flour. It’s helpful…
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You can find smoked tofu from your Chinatown’s refrigerated aisle next to the regular tofu. I order a spicier version of this salad whenever I’m in a Sichuan restaurant because I like the combination of spongy and crunchy textures. The tofu brings down the spiciness of the other dishes while the celery cleanses the palate.…
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65 Fourth Avenue between 9th and 10th Streets 212/388.0088 about $40 for two, with drinks, with tip ♥ ♥ Shigemi Kawahara became Japan’s Ramen King after winning three consecutive years in a TV program against other ramen chefs. After twenty years in business, people still line up outside his Ippudo branches in Japan. This East…
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You can use almost any vegetable to make this dish at home. I chose potatoes and carrots because they are hefty enough to keep me full for a couple of hours. The spinach, I think, is a must–don’t be afraid to use frozen spinach leaves if you want to skip the chore of washing them.…
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I don’t like broccoli but these sure were tasty, was one of the comments I received after including this in my first Mother Hen project for some of my co-workers. They were my favorite, too, because they came out bright green and perfectly tender. If you need to eat more greens, this is a good…
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I started what I call Mother Hen Project at work where I cook Monday lunch for up to five people for $5 a pop. I call them omakase bento so that I don’t have to promise a menu ahead of time. They’re stored in these neat lunch boxes I picked up from a Chinatown stationary…
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They key to this dish wasn’t as much as the garlic as it was the shrimp flavor from the head and the shells. I spent some time shelling and deveining a pound of shrimps, and my arm hurt from pressing them to get the juice out, but all the work was worth it. I used…