Quick Kimchi Recipe

Quick Kimchi Like this recipe? You’ll love my online Asian Home Cooking cooking class! Kimchi, Korean spicy pickled cabbage, is a great side dish with almost anything. Cabbage ferments quickly, especially if you start it off at room temperature for a day. Kimchi is even delicious eaten as soon it’s made, without waiting for it […]

Recipe – Sambal Goreng (Fried Chilli Paste)

Sambal Goreng (Fried Chilli Paste) I love having good condiments on hand to add flavour to quick and easy meals. In Southeast Asia that’s often a sambal, and sambal goreng is one of the easiest and tastiest. Sambal means ‘chilli’ and goreng means ‘fried’ and I use this fried chilli paste in mee goreng and […]

Recipe – Nyonya Curry Paste

Nyonya Curry Paste My Singaporean friend, Audra Morrice, taught me to make this classic Nyonya curry paste. She explained that it can be tricky making curry pastes in a smaller quantity than this, so it’s best to make the full amount then, if you don’t need it all, freeze half for a quick meal later. […]

Recipe – Advieh (Persian Spice Blend)

Advieh (Persian Spice Blend) Advieh, Persian cuisine’s all-purpose spice mix, is a blend of equal quantities of earthy warm spices, with the aromatic lift of dried rose petals. Cooks usually grind up a batch from whole spices and store it in an airtight jar to have on hand for seasoning dishes from soups to stews. […]

Recipe – Laksa Paste

Laksa Paste Laksa paste is the soul of any laksa, get this right and everything else is just assembly. The turmeric, ginger and galangal provide much of the flavour, peel them gently with a small knife rather than a vegetable peeler so you don’t lose too much flesh. The belacan (Malaysian shrimp paste) is best […]

Recipe – Prickly Ash (Chinese Salt & Pepper Seasoning)

Prickly Ash Sichuan peppercorns, those wonderfully numbing little nuggets that are essential to Sichuanese food, aren’t a true pepper but a similar-shaped dried fruit from the prickly ash tree (Zanthoxylum piperitum). This spice has a great aroma, which is amplified by roasting and grinding it. Salt is often considered the foundation of Sichuanese cooking as […]

Recipe – Cumquat Sambal

Cumquat Sambal I’ve eaten Cheong Liew’s cumquat sambal many times. He served it with barbecued hogget at a barbecue for Franz’s 55th birthday and he and Franz served it with lamb cutlets to thousands of people over 2 days at a James Beard festival in New York. Cheong’s given me the recipe several times and […]

Recipe – Fresh Fruit with Spicy Thai Salt

Fresh Fruit with Spicy Thai Salt I was reminded of this classic Thai dish at Viand, when Annita Potter served a simple pre-dessert of pomelo segments alongside a little mound of ground salt, sugar, chilli and kaffir lime. I’ve bought sliced pineapple from Asian grocery stores with a little pod of the salt-sugar-chilli combo, but […]

Recipe – Preserved Lemons

Preserved Lemons Preserved lemons, a Moroccan specialty, are super easy to make, a great pantry staple to spice up many dishes and a wonderful homemade gift. It’s a great way to use excess fruit from a backyard lemon tree; or wait until lemons are in season (and inexpensive) then make a big jar to keep […]

Recipe – Guacamole & Pico de Gallo

Guacamole & Pico de Gallo Guacamole is one of the quickest snacks to toss together and serve with drinks. It seems lime juice is not traditional – but it’s the best way I know to stop the avocado from browning, and I like the tang it adds (storing it with the avocado seed in the […]

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