where the image is meant to titillate and inspire the cook
Dungeness crab…with its sweet, succulent, ocean-y taste is paired with umami-laden cellophane noodles in this outstanding yet very easy recipe by Charles Phan.
Charles Phan’s The Slanted Door: Modern Vietnamese Food cookbook captures the essence of his San Francisco Bay Area restaurants’ iconic dishes. This dish is one of their most popular.
This Quick (delicious) Wonton Noodle Soup is made with frozen/defrosted broth, frozen wontons (2 minutes) and noodles (4 minutes). Quick cooking baby bok choy adds the green vegetable component, along with plenty fresh scallion and cilantro. Garlic, ginger, soy sauce and fish sauce add depth of flavor. Sesame oil adds a toasty richness while jalapeño and chili garlic sauce definitely give it a kick!
When I make broth from scratch, I always make a big pot, and freeze some of the broth for later use. This flavorful broth was from a Vietnamese chicken soup recipe similar to pho ga. But any tasty broth would work. Here, the chicken soup with cilantro garnish is well-paired with bright herby chicken/cilantro wontons from Costco.
The invention of spicy tuna on crispy rice is attributed to Katsuya Uechi, a renowned chef from Japan who later became well-known in Los Angeles. Chef Katsuya is credited with conceiving this dish for a diner who wasn’t particularly fond of sushi, at his eponymous restaurant, which first opened in 1997 in Los Angeles.
Nobu Matsuhisa is recognized with popularizing spicy tuna on crispy rice. While Katsuya Uechi is credited with the original concept, Chef Nobu played a significant role in bringing this dish to the global stage. Crispy rice with spicy tuna became one of the signature dishes at his restaurants worldwide.
Here, inspired by Nobu’s “Crispy Rice with Spicy Tuna,” I make crispy rice cakes using an onigiri mold and top the crispy rice with slices of avocado, spicy octopus, and jalapeño for colorful appetizer. The combination of the crispy rice base and the spicy, creamy octopus creates a textural and flavorful contrast that makes it such a delightful bite.
Over the years I’ve made hundreds of matzoh balls, usually in the Traditional style, but often with a twist with different flavors or techniques such as: Saffron, Mexican, Horseradish, Fried, Vietnamese, Turkey, Edible Flowers, and more!
This time, I added Calabrian chili to the mix to make fabulously flavorful and somewhat spicy matzoh balls with a distinct Italian flair.
Trader Joe’s Italian Bomba Hot Pepper Sauce is made with Calabrian chili peppers sourced from a trusted pepper cultivator in Calabria, Italy (the “toe” of Italy’s “boot”). Their Italian Bomba Hot Sauce is a tribute to a centuries-old culinary tradition.
Since the 1500s, Calabrian hot chili peppers have been a staple of Southern Italian cuisine, especially when crushed, fermented, and mixed into a fiery hot condiment, just like this Bomba Sauce. The natural fruity notes of the peppers are amplified by the slightly pickled flavor and texture they take on during fermentation, making it particularly suited for pasta dishes and pizzas, and who knew, matzoh balls too?
Continue reading “Chicken Noodle Soup with Calabrian Chili Matzoh Balls”
Nitsuke is a Japanese technique of simmering food, especially fish, in a combination of soy sauce, sake, mirin, and sugar. Gindara is the Japanese name for Black Cod or Sablefish.
Chef Morimoto says, “Simmered doesn’t sound very exciting, does it? It certainly doesn’t entice like the words charred or broiled do. Well, simmering in the Japanese way should get you salivating, because it produces some of my favorite dishes of all. The secret is creating a cooking liquid that highlights the flavor of the main ingredient and strikes the right balance between sweet and salty.”