Adventures in Mika's Kitchen
As I finished steaming these buns earlier today, my husband walked into the kitchen hungry: “Here! Try one of these,” I said. “You made Baozi?” he asked. “No, these are Nikuman,” I explained. As he bit into one, he remarked, “No. These are Chinese. These are Pork Baozi.” “No they aren’t. They are Nikuman. It’s [...]
Every Christmas, I like to make a Prime Rib roast. You can usually find “prime” grade standing rib roast at Costco the week of Christmas. Otherwise, you can usually find “choice” grade at Costco or the supermarket. ”Prime” grade beef is usually double the price of the “choice” grade… and frankly, it tastes the same [...]
Apparently, there are two styles of “Kung Pao Chicken“! The original Szechuan version was created during the Chinese Qing Dynasty, and normally contains Szechuan Peppercorns. These “peppercorns” do not come from the Piperaceae family (Pepper) - they are actually from the Rutaceae plant family (Citrus). This unique spice gives a tingling/numbing flavor which is typical [...]
I’m always looking for new ways to cook beef short rib. The other night, I was combing through foodnetwork.com recipes, and found a Dave Lieberman recipe that looked good. I made a few adjustments to the recipe… and I was pretty happy with the results. The cloves of garlic end up wonderfully caramelized after cooking – [...]
I’m on a mission these days to try new foods… new vegetables, new flavors… basically anything that is outside my normal routine. It helps that the supermarket down the street now carries all kinds of exotic fruits and vegetables. For example, I can buy lemongrass, daikon radish, shitake mushrooms… even yuca root! I don’t normally [...]
I love tamales. I remember my first taste of a tamale was in the 5th grade, when a classmate shared her lunch with me. Since then, I’ve always looked forward to eating tamales around Christmas time when all the local Mexican restaurants have them available for bulk purchase. Frozen tamales from the supermarket just don’t [...]
Growing up, we ate tonkatsu (pork katsu) all the time. While I love tonkatsu, I much prefer chicken katsu for ease of preparation. I always keep a bag of frozen chicken tenders in the freezer – which are great for making chicken katsu. Japanese curry was also something we had for dinner often – at [...]
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