If you’ve ever felt bored by tilapia, or any other white fish, this recipe will totally change your mind. The sauce, the mushrooms, the crispy prosciutto! None of those are necessarily served with such a delicate piece of seafood traditionally, but that doesn’t mean we can’t give it a go. Trust me—tilapia smothered in cream sauce is delicious! I recommend crusty bread for scooping it all up, of course. And the crispy prosciutto makes this dish shine and feel a little more special.
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.
I’ve made versions of these crispy, delicate little fried cabbage pancakes at restaurants and in my very own home, where they are a breakfast staple. I’ve often watched my mom bulk them up with canned salmon and loads of the week’s forgotten vegetables. We’d eat them over bowls of hot grits or rice. To me, they are reminiscent of okonomiyaki (loosely translated as “grilled as you like it”), a popular savory pancake from southern Japan. I like to drizzle Spicy Sorghum-Miso Mustard (page 110) over them.
Every Filipino family has its own version of lumpia, a fried roll that’s often filled with meat and vegetables and served at parties. Accordingly, this recipe yields a lot of pieces and takes some time, especially if it’s your first time rolling them, but if you’d like to cook a smaller batch, assembled, uncooked lumpia freezes well and can be fried from frozen. My favorite wrappers are the lumpia wrappers from Simex, but in their absence, I like Spring Home’s TYJ Spring Roll Pastry or any other thin wheat-based wrapper meant for spring rolls.
Buckwheat is the most popular grain in Slavic cuisine. When a crisis hits any Slavic country, buckwheat is usually the first thing that disappears from grocery store shelves. That’s how much people rely on it in their diet. I was never crazy about buckwheat when I was a kid. But when mom made me this soup, everything changed. It has the most alluring deep flavor of buckwheat and mushrooms with the right balance of sweetness and earthiness. It’s just like being wrapped in a cozy blanket and taking an autumn walk in a forest. I love eating this soup piping hot with the darkest rye bread I can find.
Mapo tofu has been on the menu since back when Mission Chinese Food first popped up in San Francisco. Over the years, we’ve tweaked the recipe approximately one hundred times, and this vegan version is the best yet, not to mention the easiest for the home cook. What used to take days to make is ready in less than an hour.
Note: This recipe calls for doubanjiang, a coarse reddish paste of fermented soybeans, broad beans, and chilies common in Sichuan cooking. Look for “Pixian” on the label, which means it hails from a town in Sichuan province known for making the product.
Who doesn’t love ham and pineapple pizza? Hawaiian is one of my favorite pizza flavors, and I can’t get enough of it, so a bacon and pineapple fried rice is the next best thing. The black pepper helps to add a bit of heat and spice to complement the smokiness of the bacon, and the sweetness of the pineapple. For those who are skeptical about pineapple in fried rice, it’s a staple dish, and hails from the Yunnan region in China.
A vegetable tart with robust-tasting filling featuring the classic combination of meaty mushrooms and sweet leeks partially wrapped in a hearty pastry.
Sourdough bread’s characteristic tang and chewy texture liven up any sandwich. Our goal is to add the same punch to our holiday dressing.
Chicken Marsala is one of those dishes that's found on just about every Italian restaurant menu, but the dish is usually swimming in butter. So I've lightened it up.