Classic Cuban picadillo—ground meat flavored with sweet raisins, savory tomatoes, salty olives, and fragrant cinnamon—is the ultimate comfort food. Here, I’ve turned those same flavors into an easy-to-make warm dip that uses black beans in place of the meat (with a hint of soy sauce to add some umami). The result can be eaten warm or cold with tortilla chips.
If you want a shrimp taco recipe up your sleeve, this is the one you need. The recipe for these tacos comes from Mazatlán, Sinaloa. The story goes that the owner of Los Arcos restaurant, Francisco Labastida, came up with this idea to impress the governor, who was visiting. That is why he called them governor tacos!
Since beef was expensive in Japan when I was growing up, it was a real treat when my grandmother, Hatsuko Ishikawa, invited us over for a meatloaf with amakara (salty and sweet) sauce, made with soy sauce, honey, and vinegar. She made hers in a round cast-iron skillet and always served it with potatoes, which were tossed in the pan (with the lid closed) to make them fluffy. This recipe is enhanced with a miso-infused shiitake mushroom sauce, my own wafu version of meatloaf.
The classic tagliatelle with Bolognese sauce gets a wafu kakushiaji (“secret umami enhancer”)—sake, miso, mirin, and kombu dashi. For an even deeper layer of umami, make this sauce with chicken dashi or chintan dashi. What’s not to love? Serve this sauce over traditional pasta or udon noodles, or use it to make a wafu-ed lasagna
Bún cha’ hails from North Vietnam, where the cuisine is much more understated and subtle compared to the boldness and spice of its southern counterpart. I’ve never been up north, but my cousin’s uncle lived there and treated us to bún ch’a when he came to visit. It’s fresh, savory, sweet, and herby all at the same time. Traditional bún ch’a features rice vermicelli noodles served with a vegetal broth, seasoned pork patties, and caramelized pork belly slices. My version presents you with several dining options. You can either dip the noodles in the sauce mixture, pour the sauce all over the noodles, or enjoy it as a lettuce wrap. When you choose the lettuce to use, you can use anything but iceberg—it’s too watery! I recommend seeking out Persian (mini) cucumbers because they’re seedless and add an extra crispy texture to the experience. The pork patties are best when they’re grilled, but if you don’t have easy access to a grill, you can pan-sear them instead.
Maybe a lentil loaf doesn’t sound that thrilling, but you haven’t had this one yet. It has so much flavor and texture, I think it’s more satisfying than a real meatloaf. Even carnivores will ask for a second slice.
I absolutely love making this soup now that I have figured out how to make it using my food processor. It used to be quite labor-intensive to cut all the vegetables by hand. Now, I just throw them into the food processor to chop into small pieces, then toss them into my Dutch oven. So quick, so simple, and I also vastly prefer the texture of the soup prepared this way to the traditional way I was taught to make it. The vegetables don’t all come out the same perfect size, which I like, and the rice or pasta is cooked at the same time, making it possible to get my soup on the table pretty quickly.
You can, literally, put any vegetables in soupe au pistou. In spring, I add asparagus and loads of fresh peas. In summer, more ripe tomatoes. In fall, I add butternut squash. It is a substantial soup, and served with a baguette, it could easily be the meal’s main course. A green salad is a nice accompaniment.
Vegan | Gluten-Free | Dairy-Free
Extremely charred broccoli makes for such a great salad. I dream of the burnt broccoli salad from Superiority Burger in the East Village. Brooks Headley, the chef, is really a vegetable wizard; he always comes up with the most brilliant combinations that are so unique, and just work so well. Nothing could be more perfect than that salad, but this plays with some of the sweet, spicy, salty, charred flavors that I love so much about that dish.
Confession: I’ve always found potato-leek soup to be a little on the gluey side. So, when I make it at home, I try to add a green element, especially in spring months. Asparagus becomes quite subtle in this soup and pairs well with the anise-y fennel and peppery arugula in the background. Any manner of peas (sweet, sugar snap, snow) could be swapped for the asparagus. Because we are pulverizing much of the fiber in this recipe, I garnish the soup with a few raw asparagus spears as a carb companion.