Whole-Wheat Pita Bread / How to Sauté / 11 Lentil Recipes

Blog Post & Recipe: Whole-Wheat Pita Bread

This recipe, adapted from Deborah Madison’s Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone, yields an easy and pleasing dough to work with. Store leftover balls of dough (individually wrapped) in the freezer, then thaw and cook to order.

Blog Post & Recipes: Sear, Sauce, and Serve: Mastering High-Heat, High-Flavor Cooking

The visual might not be enough to get you in the restaurant (I’ve never been), but it is instructive on the basics of sautéing: start with a sturdy pan and high heat (no worries, you don’t need the dancing flames); add seafood, vegetables, or meat (or all of the above); sear and toss; and then finish with a splash of booze or a sauce. That’s the formula, but there are a couple of smaller but equally important steps.

Sautéed Steaks and Chops ... Brandy and Dried Cherry Pan Sauce

Blog Post & Recipes: 11 Lentil Recipes We Love

Overlooked by many a supermarket shopper, protein-rich lentils are faster than other types of dried legumes to prepare, and they easily absorb your favorite flavors from other foods and seasonings. As a result, you can never really run out of ways to make them.

French Lentils With Roasted Roots, Caramelized Onions And Thyme ... Lentil And Sun-Dried Pesto Salad With Roasted Peppers ... Green-Lentil Curry ... Lentil Soup With Kielbasa And Kale ... Lentil Coconut Soup With Lentil Apple Salad ... Lentils With Red Wine And Herbs ... Lemony Lentil Salad With Salmon ... Lentil And Almond Burgers ... Lentil, Cilantro And Chili Salad With Warm Cauliflower Florets ... Squash, Chickpea And Red Lentil Stew ... Black Lentil And Bell Pepper With Mint Salad

Pork Chop with White Wine Sauce / Tostone Tostada with Stewed Chicken & Parsnip Hot Sauce / Norwegian Fish Pudding

Blog Post & Recipe: Pork Chop with White Wine Sauce

A creamy, white wine sauce is perfect with either chicken or pork – the white meats are delicate enough to let the nuances of white wine shine through.

Blog Post & Recipe: Tostone Tostada with Stewed Chicken and Parsnip Hot Sauce

This one is almost like a crostini or toastada but it uses a fried plantain as the vessel for the delicious stewed chicken and hot sauce. Oh and the secret ingredient in the hot sauce? Parsnip.

Blog Post & Recipe: Fish Pudding for Fearless Flyers

Exhausted from a day’s snowy recreation, Norwegians no doubt repaired to their homes for a hearty helping of fish pudding. Should you wish to make this signature Nordic dish part of your après-ski, this recipe, which appears in The Ann Arbor Cookbook
(1899), should leave you feeling stuffed to the gills.

Norwegian Fish Pudding

Split Pea Soup with Vegetables / How to Use Chinese Vegetables / Grilling Tips + Flattened Chicken with Parsley Sauce

Blog Post & Recipe: Split Pea Soup Loaded With Vegetables - Perfect for Brrrrr Weather

With weather this cold decided to make split pea soup with vegetables from farmers market.

Article & Recipe: How to use Chinese vegetables

Victoria's Chinatown does indeed offer a diverse selection of vegetables for sale. I can't write about them all, but here are some useful facts and suggestions for using six intriguing looking veggies.

Gai Lan ... Bitter Melon ... King Oyster Mushrooms ... Long Beans ... Taro Root ... Lotus Root

RECIPE: Hot and Sour Soup with Gai Lan and King Oyster Mushrooms

Blog Post & Recipes: 7 fires: lessons from the argentine grill master

The good news is you don’t need to have a BBQ to create any of these. An old frying pan in the kitchen will work just as well.

7 lessons from the Argentine grill master himself: 1. The power of the taste of burnt ... 2. You must respect the first contact between food and the cooking surface ... 3. The ‘chapa’ is best for quick cooking ... 4. ‘Rescoldo’ is a great way to cook veg ... 5. Flame should never directly touch your food ... 6. Cast iron is the best cooking material ... 7. The secret to a perfect steak

flattened chicken with parsley sauce

Turkey Meatballs with Guava Sauce / Vanilla Beetroot Cake / Perfect Roast Beef

Recipe: Turkey Meatballs with Guava Sauce (Albóndigas de Pavo con Salsa de Guayaba)

I served them with guava sauce on the side and absolutely loved the combination of the sweet guava sauce with the turkey.

Blog Post & Recipe: Emma’s Vanilla Beet Cake (Gluten-Free)

It is a wonderfully moist cake that I think would lend itself beautifully to a nice cream cheese frosting. You don’t taste the beets in it, if anything; the beets add an extra wonderful earthy sweetness.

Blog Post & Recipe: The Perfect Roast Beef

One of the best parts of the roast beef is the slightly caramelized outside and to get that we want to keep moisture away and prevent steaming the meat. Roasting at the higher temperature at first will help with the channelization and starting with a dry piece of meat is important.

Garlic-Roasted Butternut Pumpkin / Creamy Dilled Foil-Packet Fish / Sweet Potato With A Poached Egg & Tangy Arugula Sauc

Blog Post & Recipe: garlic roasted butternut squash [ via ]

Tip: roasted cauliflower is made the exact same way and is a great pairing with the squash. Decrease the cooking time to 25 to 30 minutes.

Blog Post & Recipe: Creamy Dilled Foil-Packet Fish

Main dish in 20 minutes! ... The concoction that gets smeared on these fish fillets plus baking them in foil packets makes them tender, creamy, and full of flavor. Plus it's low in starch, if you're into that kind of thing.

Blog Post & Recipe: Sweet Potato With A Poached Egg & Tangy Arugula Sauce

I also find myself wishing more restaurants made tasty and healthier veggie variations on the classic poached egg meal. So, I’m constantly racking my brain for creative ideas on how to put a tasty twist on it. I’ve made it with an artichoke heart as the base with a red pepper aioli, and I’ve made it with avocado, sauteed tomatoes and shallots and a Greek yogurt hollandaise sauce. My most recent preparation, and perhaps my new favorite, was inspired by a ton of leftover arugula in my refrigerator.

Nigel Slater's Salsa Verde / Warm Chickpea Salad with Cumin, Garlic / How to Smoor a Rabbit

Recipe: Nigel Slater's classic salsa verde recipe

Literally "green sauce", this cold accompaniment is made from olive oil, parsley, capers and garlic. Known as the sauce to serve with Italian boiled meats, it is also appropriate with everything from grilled seafood to baked tomatoes.

Article & Recipe: Warm chickpea salad with cumin, garlic

This salad is one of my favorite ways to turn chickpeas into lunch: crunchy with tiny cumin seeds, punched up with a pinch of red chili flakes. Cool, crisp cucumber nestles in between the chickpeas, and sun-dried tomatoes lend a savory note.

Blog Post & Recipe: How to Smoor an Old Rabbit

‘To smoor’ is a Scots and Northern England verb meaning ‘to smother’, and several references indicate that it was a useful technique used against one’s enemies ... It came to have quite a different usage in the kitchen (although the Oxford English Dictionary does not recognise it), where it means to cook slowly in a closed pot.

To smoore an old Coney, Ducke, or Mallard, on the French fashion.

Puré de Frijol y Plátano Maduro (Bean and Ripe Plantain Puree) / Chicken Turnovers / Magic Sauce

Recipe: Puré de Frijol y Plátano Maduro (Bean and Ripe Plantain Puree)

This Bean and Ripe Plantain Puree is a traditional Colombian side dish. I know it doesn’t look good in the picture, but it is delicious and easy to make and goes perfectly with grilled beef, pork or chicken.

Blog Post & Recipe: Chicken turnovers (a.k.a. chicken pie)

Lay a puff pastry sheet flat. Place about two to three tablespoonfuls of the filling at the center of the sheet. Fold one edge over the filling. Lightly brush the very edge with egg. Fold over the opposite edge, overlapping over the egg-brushed edge to completely enfold the filling. Flip over so that the seam is underneath.

Blog Post & Recipe: Magic Sauce Recipe

I call this magic sauce. In part, because it makes everything it touches shimmer with deliciousness. It's magic like that. Technically, it's a riff on a chimichurri sauce - one that veered off the rails in a big way. Much tweaking has rendered it a distant second cousin. If that. In fact, the hallmark of that sauce, parsley, I skip entirely.

Carrot-Beetroot Salad / Garlic Scape Pesto / 13 Sauces (Pesto, Dressing, Salsa, Etc)

Blog Post & Recipe: carrot-beet salad

One of my favourite ways to change up boredom from green salads is to make a salad of grated vegetables. Coleslaw is all fine and good, but why leave it at that?

Blog Post & Recipe: The great garlic (e)scape

When I said "garlic scape", a friend thought I meant a painting depicting a crop of the infamously stinking rose. I would have assumed the same thing had I not been formally introduced to this tasty garlic flower stem (scape) that, according to Wikipedia, comes from the hardneck and elephant types of garlic.

Garlic Scape Pesto

Blog Post & Recipes: Some of my Favorite Sauces

So, here are some of my favorite sauces. All pretty easy.

Roasted Tomatillo Salsa ... Roasted Tomato Salsa ... Red Chile Sauce ... Sweet and soy dressing ... Honey-Lime dressing ... Orange-Shallot ... Thai Peanut Sauce ... Traditional Pesto ... Chimichurri ... Balsamic Strawberry Fruit Butter with Chiles ... Stone Fruit and Fig Chutney ... Cranberry Sauce with Tart Oregon Cherries and Red Onions ... Honeyed cinnamon applesauce ... Salted Caramel Sauce.

Cantaloupe & Beetroot Juice / Summer Squash & Basil Frittata / Eggplant with Buttermilk Sauce

Blog Post & Recipe: Fresh Cantaloupe & Beet Juice

If you think you hate beets, I would definitely encourage you to try this because the sweetness of the melon complements the beet perfectly and gets rid of that "earthy" taste that tends to go along with beets.

Blog Post & Recipe: Summer squash & basil frittata

Grating summer squash renders it simple to incorporate into a variety of recipes, and I often stir sautéed squash into risottos and pasta sauces. The yellow squash in this frittata lends some nutty heft to one of my favorite easy meals, and goat cheese and basil dress it up for brunch or dinner.

Blog Post & Recipe: Aubergines with Buttermilk Sauce

The recipe is rather easy and straightforward, essentially requiring you to roast the aubergines for about 40 minutes until they are soft and bronzed in colour. The aubergines are then left to cool, during which time you can make the buttermilk sauce and extract the seeds from the pomegranate.

Tomato-Zucchini Tian / Pineapple Habanero Hot Sauce / Jicama & Cucumber Chile Spears

Blog Post & Recipe: Tomato-Zucchini Tian

A tian, according to Slashfood, is a “layered, baked vegetable dish that originated in Provence.” That’s just exactly what this is.

Blog Post & Recipe: Some Like it Hot: Pineapple Habanero Hot Sauce!

Habaneros and pineapples are a great match. Habaneros are fruity and sweet, behind that curtain of heat, and pineapple complements them perfectly.

Blog Post & Recipe: Jicama and Cucumber Chile Spears

Jicama and Cucumber Chili Spears take a mere 10 minutes--just toss your vegetable spears in a bowl with fresh lime juice, chili powder, a pinch of cayenne and salt. Done!

Homemade XO Sauce / Homemade Verjuice / Lemon Fish

Blog Post & Recipe: Homemade XO Sauce [ via ]

Here is my homemade version that will set your tastebuds on fire.

Blog Post & Recipe: Homemade Fresh Verjuice

Verjuice is a green and sour juice made from unripe grapes. It is a fantastic alternative to lemon juice. Lemon is considered as the sole source of sour juices by many people, but it is not!

Blog Post & Recipe: Lemon Fish [Simple Home-Cook]

Long long time ago when I was working in Singapore, one of my roommates was a Teochiew lady from Penang. She liked to cook fish with plum sauce, very appetizing sweet and sour taste. Until now, I thought of her every time I cooked or ate something similar to that.

Mauritian Peanut Sauce / Sweet Potato Soup / Roast Brussels Sprouts with Balsamic Vinegar

Blog Post & Recipe: Easy Mauritian Peanut Sauce

You need to cut everything finely. Chop your tomatoes very finely or simply blend them in a food processor. Also, cut your onions very small.

Blog Post & Recipe: [Dessert] Sweet Potato Soup

The key point of this dessert is to control the sweetness of the soup and texture of the sweet potatoes. The soup base cannot be too bland or too sweet and as for the sweet potato it must not be overcooked or else it will be too soft and affect the overall taste of this dessert.

Blog Post & Recipe: Roasted Brussels Sprout with Balsamic Vinegar

Ever since I discovered the lazy but healthy way to feed myself, I have been really into cooking foods this way. I’m talking about roasting foods, just like for my baked scallops and spicy potato wedges. Basically, foods are tossed with olive oil, then seasoned with the salt and pepper, before popping them into the oven to let it do its magic. With this method, both the cooking and cleaning up is totally no-fuss.

Asparagus & Lemon Quinoa Risotto / Chai Iced Tea / Coconut Green Curry Mussels / Ox Tongue Fritters & Green Sauce

Blog Post & Recipe: Asparagus & Lemon Quinoa Risotto

My favorite, lazy way to make quinoa is to throw in some peas and soy sauce. But this time, I was curious how it would work as a risotto. The answer: quite well!

Blog Post & Recipe: Chai Iced Tea

It’s spicy, has a good amount of caffeine (due to the black tea), is milky and sweet, and most important, it’s cold. The sweetened condensed milk is major. If you don’t have a can in your cupboard, and don’t want to buy one, then milk and sugar are totally a workable substitute.

Blog Post & Recipe: coconut green curry mussels

We prep the ingredients (together!) with Andrew picking the mussels over to discard the open or cracked ones. Then he gives them a good rinse and peels a knob of ginger. I busy myself with the lemongrass, the garlic, lime juice, and cilantro. We drop a nob of butter in the pot, and let it melt and get foamy before we bloom the aromatics, stir in coconut milk and curry paste, and add the mussels.

Blog Post & Recipe: tongue and groovy: ox tongue fritters and green sauce (the post includes a link to Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's ox tongue, oxtail and pigs' cheek recipes)

First, buy a salted ox tongue from your butcher. It should look like the photo above. You might want to leave it to rinse in cold water for a while before you get properly started - or, if you've got a nice butcher, s/he might have done that for you. Then, cover the tongue with water (you'll need a BIG pan), bring it to the boil, bubble it away for a couple of hours with a few tasty bits and pieces, such as these ...

Agedashi Tofu / Vietnamese Dipping Sauce (Nuoc Cham) / Uighur Naan

Blog Post & Recipe: Agedashi Tofu

A couple months ago I shared my non-traditional Agedashi Tofu. Instead of deep fried tofu served in the traditional dashi broth, it was served deep fried with homemade teriyaki sauce. Recently one of my readers asked me to share the traditional Agedashi Tofu recipe so here it goes.

Blog Post & Recipe: Vietnamese Dipping Sauce (Nuoc Cham)

One important element of Vietnamese cuisine is nuoc cham or a Vietnamese dipping sauce. Nuoc cham is a fish sauce based dipping sauce that deftly balances sweet, salty and sour aspects and it is really easy to make at home. The basic recipe includes fish sauce, water, sugar and lime juice and chilies and garlic are often added as well.

Blog Post & Recipe: Uighur Nan [via]

It's different from Indian Naan. It's a flatbread, cooked in a Tandoor oven, but it is pricked all over by an instrument called a durtlik before baking, both to keep the bread from puffing up, and as a decorative measure. It's also seasoned lightly with cumin and sea salt, although rosemary is very nice too. It's basically pizza dough without the oil, and it's made the same way.

Sriracha-Grilled Tofu / Sweet Chilli Sauce / Preserving Olives

Recipe: Sriracha-Grilled Tofu

Make a spicy version of tofu dae-ji, the Korean BBQ dish.

Blog Post & Recipe: mirin

Leng's sweet chilli sauce is not, as you might expect, thick and viscous, rather it is thin, and light and golden, and so very lovely, mostly because it uses quite a lot of mirin.

Sweet Chilli Sauce

Blog Post & Recipe: Preserving Olives

With this method you may end up with olives that are slightly more bitter [than they are when you use a more involved method], but after tasting our friends and considering this process was much nicer on the environment as less salt would be poured down the drains, we were convinced. Also, it’s no where near as much hassle.

And to complement yesterday's interview with Simon Hopkinson, we have an interview with Fergus Henderson.

Asked how he knows when the meat is done, Fergus pushes up his round glasses and says, "It's sort of Jedi Knight, cooking meat. It's—you know Star Wars, the first one? Luke Skywalker's flying down the valley of the Death Star, shooting his missiles, and he hears this voice: 'Luke, put away your sights. Feel the Force.' So he puts away his sights. Feels the Force. Shoots his missile and blows up the Death Star. The same way when you're cooking: You should feel the Force and be a Jedi Knight."

As Fergus puts the Force-felt hunk of meat back onto the counter and tents it with foil, he says, "Now it's resting happily, having an emotional moment."

4 Spanish Recipes / Sunshine Barbecue Chicken / Eggplant Manicotti & 2 Other Recipes

Blog Post & Recipes: My Recipes published at DELICOOKS, and 4 delicious recipes for you to celebrate 3 Years of Blogging!

My Personal Spanish Menu (desserts not included)

Snail and mint Tapa ... Zucchini puree with Iberian Acorn ham ... Potatoes stuffed with Butifarra and grated with Allioli ... Toasted noodles with Palamós fresh shrimps

Blog Post & Recipe: Sunshine Barbecue Chicken

[This bbq sauce is] pretty undutch but at the same time it’s also a lot like our Dutch piccalilli, only in a sweeter jacket and with different vegetables. Very unlike anything I’ve ever tasted in combination with bbq chicken.

Blog Post & Recipes: Deliciously Upsided Down Dinners

I have an awesome new cookbook that I'll be raving about very soon and this Eggplant Manicotti caught my eye. The funny thing is... there is no real manicotti. The "pasta" is actually slices of eggplant with a very tasty filling.

Eggplant Manicotti ... Seared Lamb Chops with Sage, Anchovies & Capers ... Herb & Garlic Orzo

nb. M., I'm introducing your 'concept' tag.
Concept: eggplant in place of manicotti, or canneloni, pasta.

Pumpkin Seed Mole / Hot Soba / Lemongrass and Chili Relish

Blog Post & Recipe: Pumpkin Seed Mole | Mole Verde

In Oaxaca, green mole (mole verde) is one of the seven famous moles. What makes this one different is not just the lack of chocolate, but also the fresh herbs, which give it a fabulous green color.

Blog Post & Recipe: Dinner Tonight: Hot Soba

While I have a deep abiding love for noodles of all kinds, soba has never exactly worked for me at home. Part of the issue is that most recipes call for the soba to be cooked and then cooled. Obviously I'm doing something wrong, because they come out slinky and watery, and seem to repel flavor. Considering I suck at cold soba, I figured I should give hot soba a try.

Blog Post & Recipe: Old Fashioned Lemongrass and Chili Relish (naam phrik dtakhrai ; น้ำพริกตะไคร้)

Chili relishes are made by pounding together chilies with salty ingredients, such as fermented shrimp paste, salt or dry shrimp, to which various proteins are added, the mix is than further seasoned to sour, salty and sweet flavors. Burst with tastes, chili relishes are served in a central bowl and are eaten along with rice and a wide variety of condiments, sweet pork, grilled fish, salted meat and vegetables picked up fresh from the garden.

Roasted Ruby Fruits / Savoy Cabbage Rolls with Golden Chanterelle & Brown Rice Filling & Cranberry Sauce / Meat-Free Barbecue Ideas

Blog Post & Recipe: Roasted Ruby Fruits (this blog has a weirdly huge header. Scroll down)

Like a lot of our [Australian] native fruits the Rosella is under utilised despite it's deliciousness ...

A bunch of lovely red rhubarb- I know there are green varieties, but I think the red is prettier
A punnet or two of strawberries
A handful of raspberries
A cup of Rosella petals

Blog Post & Recipe: Savoy cabbage rolls with golden chanterelle and brown rice filling and cranberry sauce

Together with brown rice I've used dried golden chanterelles, those beautiful mushrooms you would see at every market stall in Finland around August ... I've flavoured the filling with some of those beautiful herbs I got from the garden - thyme, rosemary and oregano, but you could use any dry or fresh herbs you have available.

Blog Post & Recipes: Meat-free barbecues

A meat-free barbecue will seem a gloomy prospect to many. After all, it is hard to muster much enthusiasm for the average veggie burger – so grey and miserable that it resembles nothing more than a slice of Wednesday ... The essential point is not to try to replicate meaty barbecue favourites such as burgers and sausages ... and instead attempt a different way of cooking altogether.

Roasted Butternut Squash with Burnt Aubergine and Pomegranate Molasses ... tamarind seitan kebabs ... smoky miso tofu ... roasted parsnips with caper vinaigrette ... miniature napoleons with aubergine creme

Mushroom Risotto with Toasted Pistachios / Easy Roasted Red Peppers / Lamb Meatballs in a Mint Tomato Sauce

Blog Post & Recipe: Mushroom Risotto Recipe with Toasted Pistachios

For me, it can be all of these things, but on this particular day, this risotto was a vessel for a little vial (yes vial) of truffle oil. And what a delectable vessel this mushroom risotto recipe was.

Blog Post & Tips: 3 Easy Steps to Roasted Red Peppers

Roasting red peppers is a great way to concentrate flavors and bring out their natural sweetness. They make a wonderful addition to salads, sandwiches and even pasta dishes. I’m personally a huge fan of spreading a bit of goat cheese on slices of crusty bread and top with a small cluster of slivered peppers and fresh basil.

Step #1: Select Your Preferred Roasting Method ... Step #2: Let the Peppers Steam ... Step #3: Remove Core & Peel

Blog Post & Recipe: Lamb Meatballs in a Mint Tomato Sauce

I seasoned the lamb meatballs with a few exotic Mediterranean spices including cumin, coriander and cinnamon in addition to the mint and other meatball basics. I purposely made the meatballs fairly large and I fried the meatballs in oil until golden brown on the outside and then added them to the tomato sauce to finish cooking, thereby staying nice and moist and juicy.

Thai Three-Flavoured Sauce / Steamed Pork Buns / Baked Endives with Ham

Blog Post & Recipe: Thai Three-Flavored Sauce: The Newbie Sauce That Can Be Used I Many Dishes

The three flavors here refer to sweet, sour and salty.

Blog Post & Recipe: Steamed Pork Buns

Making these pork buns actually requires a fair amount of steps, but none of it is that hard and you can do a lot of it days in advance.

Blog Post & Recipe: Baked Endives with Ham.

Wrap each endive in a piece of ham and place, seam down, in the baking dish. Spoon the béchamel over the endives. Sprinkle with the cheese. Bake the endives for 15 to 20 minutes, until the sauce is bubbling and the cheese has browned.