Cool summer dinner idea: Chicken Salad with Toasted Coconut and Roasted Cashews

Served over a bed of mixed greens, Chicken Salad with Toasted Coconut and Roasted Cashews is light, lively and mayonnaise-free—a modern Chinese take on a summer classic. Recipe below.

chicken-salad-marion — Chicken Salad with Toasted Coconut and Roasted Cashews

ONE OF MY FAVORITE COOKING RESOURCES IS THE CHINA MOON COOKBOOK, by the wonderful Barbara Tropp, one of the great interpreters of Chinese cooking for the American kitchen. If you’re an American cook who has explored Chinese cuisine, you’ve been affected by Tropp’s amazing work. She is often likened to Julia Child, and the comparison is apt. She, too, came to an intriguing strange land, and through its food learned to understand its culture. And she, too, returned to the United States to teach what she had learned to American cooks. As the San Francisco Chronicle wrote in her obituary, “Freshness, seasonality and authenticity were the hallmark of Ms. Tropp’s cooking at a time when much U.S. Chinese cooking relied on canned staples and hackneyed pseudo-Cantonese dishes.” Continue reading “Cool summer dinner idea: Chicken Salad with Toasted Coconut and Roasted Cashews” →

“Don’t follow me—I’m lost too!” [Blue Kitchen is now on Twitter]

I have to be honest with you. When I first considered using Twitter, I thought “naaaah.” I really didn’t think there’d be anything I’d want to say in 140 characters or less. I mean, on some level, it’s kind of like vanity license plates to me—and there’s nothing I want to broadcast from my car bumper to the world at large in six or seven letters and numbers.

Then I read about Maureen Evans. In her Northern Ireland kitchen, she condenses entire recipes into 140-character tweets. Here’s a recent sample:

Frittata: fry shallot/T oil in iron pan. Lyr w c slice tom&zuke/s+p; +6beaten egg. Don’t stir9m@low; 20m@350F/175C. Flip to srv +parm&basil.

Part of the fun of Maureen’s tweets is imagining the challenges she faces reducing recipes to Twitter’s tight constraints while still making them complete and understandable. Part of the fun is deciphering her necessarily terse shorthand: cvr3m +4c radish leaves means cover for 3 minutes, then add 4 cups of radish leaves, for instance. Continue reading ““Don’t follow me—I’m lost too!” [Blue Kitchen is now on Twitter]” →

Borrowing from Japan, China and Toronto: Maple-Miso Grilled Chicken

Maple-Miso Grilled Chicken raids Asian and North American pantries to produce subtle, satisfying depth while claiming no one nationality. Recipe—and some ingredient substitutions—below.

maple-miso-chicken

I OCCASIONALLY TALK ABOUT THE VARIED PLACES INSPIRATION COMES FROM when I’m cooking. The inspiration for this subtly flavored grilled chicken came from these very pages, sort of. In last week’s Five fresh reasons to check out my blogrolls post, I included Maple and Miso Scallops from Kevin’s Toronto-based Closet Cooking. When Marion saw that recipe, you could almost hear the wheels turning. Soon she was saying, “I bet those flavors would be good with grilled chicken or maybe some pork.” Soon after that, she was emailing me some recipes she’d found. And a dish and a post were born. Continue reading “Borrowing from Japan, China and Toronto: Maple-Miso Grilled Chicken” →

National Restaurant Association Show 2009: Artisanal, sourced and green are big trends

Some trends and random delights from the NRA’s annual industry mega-event.

rick_bayless_nra_2008

If you want to see where things are headed in the restaurant business, this is the place to do it. The National Restaurant Association’s annual show is the biggest of its kind, attracting a worldwide audience of more than 2,100 exhibitors and 70,000 attendees. According to the NRA, “restaurants are the nation’s largest private-sector employers, generating an annual economic impact of $1 trillion.” This is where these legions of industry professionals come to see what’s new—what they’ll be serving, how they’ll be cooking it, what they’ll be serving it on, even how they’ll clean up after.

In past years, it’s included such pre-packaged ersatz delights as jalapeño poppers and other fat bombs. And with good reason. On the way to the show, Marion mentioned something she’d read in The New York Times food section. In “In New York, the Taste of Victory,” an article on competitive cooking in New York, amateur chef Nick Suarez advised that a heavy hand with fat and salt was an asset. “If the audience is only getting one bite,” he said, “you have to pack as much flavor as you can into that bite.”

That approach to attracting the audience of potential buyers was deliciously in evidence as we sampled our way through the show at Chicago’s McCormick Place—plenty of salty, fatty treats to tempt us. But this year, there was something much more interesting going on. A few words normally heard in the hippest, healthiest, hautest new restaurants were echoing throughout the giant exhibition halls. Continue reading “National Restaurant Association Show 2009: Artisanal, sourced and green are big trends” →

Quick, creamy and alliterative: Pasta with peas, prosciutto and Parmesan

Fresh peas, barely sautéed, lend a taste of spring to Fettuccine with Peas and Prosciutto. Recipe below.

THE HARDEST PART OF COOKING WITH FRESH ENGLISH PEAS, at least for us, is getting the peas home from the produce market. Typically, I will be driving, and Marion will be shelling peas, alternately feeding me handfuls and devouring them herself. By the time we arrive home, we’re left with nothing but a bagful of empty pea pods. But I was determined to make this pasta dish, so the peas rode safely home in the trunk this time. Continue reading “Quick, creamy and alliterative: Pasta with peas, prosciutto and Parmesan” →

Five fresh reasons to check out my blogrolls

The Internet is filled with great information and just plain cool stuff. Here are five recent posts I found in my own back yard. Well, in the blogs and resources in my sidebars to the right. Take a look at these and explore others. Then share something cool you’ve found recently in the comments below.

1. Asparagus tips from Food Blogga

Susan over at San Diego-based Food Blogga writes that asparagus season in Southern California, which began in late February, is almost at an end. Excuse me a moment, Susan, while I call the wambulance. Just kidding, my friend, but since my neighborhood farmers market here in Chicago won’t even start until June, I have to admit to suffering from bouts of Southern California farmers market envy when I read you or Toni over at Daily Bread Journal.

What you’ll find in her May 10 Food Blogga post on asparagus—besides gorgeous photos like the one above and five delicious sounding recipes of her own and more by other bloggers—is boatloads of information on this wonderful, versatile vegetable. How to select it [including her views on the thin versus thick asparagus debate], how to store it, trim it and cook it—and why you should.

2. Closet Cooking does scallops with miso and maple syrup

The three ingredients in the name of the dish were all it took to rope me in. Scallops are always a great start—delicious, impressive and wonderfully easy to cook. The Japanese culinary mainstay miso [as Epicurious calls it] is infinitely versatile and beautifully subtle. Continue reading “Five fresh reasons to check out my blogrolls” →

Fishing for compliments: Simple, delicious Mussels in Tarragon Cream Sauce

Quick to make, beautiful to look at and hands-on fun to eat, Mussels in Tarragon Cream Sauce make a delicious main course for two or a sociable starter for four or more.

mussels-tarragon-cream

THERE’S JUST SOMETHING COOL ABOUT EATING WITH YOUR HANDS. Intimate and involving, with a slouchy casualness. It’s something best done with significant others or really good friends, and usually involving wine or cocktails or really cold beer.

Steamed mussels are all that with an added layer of cool that chicken wings or burgers can’t match. Pulling open the shells to get at the sweet, briny mussels within, scooping up the creamy broth with empty half shells… even the clatter of the discarded blue-black shells as they’re tossed into a communal bowl. Depending on their preparation, mussels can conjure up little French bistros, Spanish tapas bars or lovely sunburned evenings at a beach rental cottage.

Usually, this kind of cool comes at a price. Not mussels. They’re downright cheap, especially compared to other seafood choices. Depending on where you’re shopping and the variety you’re buying, you can usually pick up a two-pound sack for $2 to $4 a pound. That two-pound sack will feed two as a main course or four [or five] as a first course. Continue reading “Fishing for compliments: Simple, delicious Mussels in Tarragon Cream Sauce” →

Fighting injustice with coffee, combating cancer with food, part two

A Seattle-based coffee company will donate 100% of its May revenue, up to $1 million, to fight slavery, human trafficking and other forms of violent oppression. And the delicious results of Mele Cotte’s Cooking to Combat Cancer III.

Storyville Coffee gives it all away in May to fight slavery

For many of us, the word slavery conjures up the past, a dark chapter in America’s history. Unfortunately, for millions of people worldwide, it is a harsh daily reality.

“There are more slaves in the world today than at any other time in human history,” says Ryan Gamble, co-president of Storyville Coffee Company. “More than 27 million people are held in slavery, nearly 2 million of them children exploited in the global commercial sex trade each year.”

So this month, the Seattle-based Storyville is giving it all away—100% of its revenue for the entire month—to International Justice Mission, a human rights agency that works around the world to rescue victims of slavery, trafficking and other forms of violent oppression. Continue reading “Fighting injustice with coffee, combating cancer with food, part two” →