My Favorite cookbooks — Lucky Peach Presents 101 Easy Asian Recipes–Seaweed Salad

Recently, a friend asked me for a recommendation of a good cookbook to give her mom for her birthday. You would think, with the amount of cooking I do, that would be a fairly easy question to answer but it isn’t easy to answer at all. What makes a cookbook good is so subjective, the question is almost impossible to answer.  What makes a cookbook good for me may make it the worst cookbook ever for you.  There are so many variables in why constitutes a good cookbook I am not even going to try and recommend cookbooks for you.  Instead, I am going to share my favorite cookbooks with you and let you decide if they would qualify as a good cookbook for you. 

First up is Lucky Peach Presents 101 Easy Asian Recipes.  One thing I thinks qualifies a cookbook as good is it makes you want to get in the kitchen and cook. 101 Easy Asian Recipes does that for me in spades. Every time I look through the book, I find another recipe I want to try.  So far, I have tried 17 recipes.  The food tastes good.  The recipes are reliable.  Most of the recipes are quick and easy.

One thing I usually hate in a cookbook is when the recipes use a lot of ingredients I can’t easily find at my local grocery store.  In this cookbook, almost every ingredient is something I had to go to the Asian market for or order online.  I am lucky to have two incredible Asian markets in my hometown that I visit frequently that had the majority of the ingredients I needed for what I wanted to try.  If you aren’t as lucky, and don’t like ordering things online, you may want to skip this cookbook. 

Okay, for most of us, the idea of cooking with seaweed is a little strange but I was looking for a side dish for the dumplings I was making for my Christmas eve dinner and knew I could get the ingredients for this recipe fairly easily, so I tried and loved it. If you are wanting to step outside your comfort zone and try something new, it is definitely worth the hunt for the ingredients in this recipe and many others in the book.

• Difficulty: Easy
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From The Lucky Peach Presents

1 oz Wakame seaweed

2 TBS rice vinegar

1 TBS sesame oil

1 TBS sugar

1 TBS soy sauce

1 tsp grated ginger

2 TBS toasted sesame seeds

2 TBS minced scallion

1/2 tsp chili flakes

Soak the Wakame in cold water for 5 minutes or until tender, drain and pat dry. Slice the Wakame in 1/4-inch strips.

In a mediuml bowl, whisk together the vinegar, sesame oil, sugar, soy sauce and ginger. Add the seaweed, sesame seeds, scallion, and chili flakes and toss to coat. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

Dry Chimichurri Rub

Whenever I help someone start a blog, I tell them one of the most important things to do is to pick a posting schedule and stick to it. Over the last year, I haven’t taken my own advice. I have put a lot of pressure on myself to post my 3 recipes a week and then felt horrible when I only managed to post one recipe a month. It was a vicious cycle that was robbing me of my joy in blogging which is sad because I have always said that when I don’t enjoy blogging anymore, I won’t do it anymore. Yeah, there were several times in 2021 where I thought about permanently shutting down A Solitary Feast.

Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed, my friend told me not to make any decisions while I was grieving the loss of one of my best friends and culinary companion, Audrey. She said to give myself time and grace and come back to regular blogging when I am ready. How did I get such smart friends? She was absolutely right. I spent time missing Audrey, pursuing some interests outside of cooking and blogging and lots, and lots, of reading all the books I could get my hands on. Eventually, I found my way back to the kitchen and the peace and calm I feel when I am there which helped me find my joy in creating recipes and writing posts for the blog again.

So I won’t be shutting down A Solitary Feast. I am making some changes to my publishing schedule, though. I will no longer be publishing 3 recipes a week. I will now be publishing one recipe every week. The day of the week might vary but I will publish once every week.

• Difficulty: Easy
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Adapted From Epicurious

2 tsp oregano

2 tsp basil

1 1/2 tsp parsley flakes

1 1/2 tsp thyme

1 1/2 tsp kosher salt

3/4 tsp black pepper

3/4 tsp savory

3/4 tsp smoked paprika

1/2 tsp garlic powder

1/2 – 1 tsp crushed red pepper flake

In a small bowl, combine all the ingredients.  Mix well.  Store in an airtight container, in a cool, dark place.  To use:  heavily sprinkle all over chosen protein or make a marinade of 2 tablespoons rub, 1/4 cup olive oil and 1 1/2 tablespoons red wine vinegar.  Add protein of choice and let marinade at least 30 minutes before cooking. 

Korean Style Stir Fry Sauce

One of the things I love about my home town is there a lot of ethnic grocery stores in the area. There are several Asian markets, a European market, an African market, an Indian market, a Balkan market and probably even more I don’t know about as I know about most of the markets by word of mouth or through one of my explore the city walks.

I love spending time walking up and down the aisles, looking at stuff and picking new stuff to try. Sometimes, I get lucky and find an absolute treasure like this Tea Masala, that makes a Masala tea exactly like the one I love at my favorite ethnic restaurant, the Himalayan Yak. Other times, I don’t get so lucky and bring home Durian flavored cookies. If you never heard of Durian, it is a fruit that supposedly tastes delicious but smells like something rotting. It is bad and I just had cookies. I can’t imagine what a whole fruit smells like. But by far, I have had more positive shopping experiences at ethnic markets then bad ones. Trying new things is always a chance no matter where you shop.

My current favorite ingredient that I bought at the Asian market is Gochujang, a Korean hot pepper paste. This ingredient was way outside my culinary comfort zone because I am a hot spice wimp. The first time I used Gochujang in a recipe I was expecting it to blow the top of my head off like a scotch bonnet pepper. Instead, it has a pleasant heat and earthiness that I really like.

I found the recipe for this simple stir fry sauce by googling easy stir fry sauces. I was so excited to try it Because I love a good stir fry sauce and it did not disappoint. I don’t know how authentic my vegetable choices were to Korean food, I used Bok Choi, green beans and white mushrooms, but it was delicious.

A Few Tips For Shopping At An ethnic market:

1. Be respectful. You are going to see things in ethnic markets you don’t see in your average grocery store. The words yuck, ick, or that’s disgusting should never leave your mouth. Just move on to the next thing or leave the store. This shouldn’t even need to be said but after watching two people throw an absolute fit because they couldn’t find “American” food in an Asian market I guess it does.
2. Google and Google translate are your friends. You won’t know what a lot of the items are on the shelves, although some will be very familiar. Google products to find out what they are. Snap a picture of the ingredients or directions if they are in another language and run them through Google translate to see whats what.
3. Step outside your culinary comfort zone and try something new. Some of my favorite things to cook with like Furrikake, Gochujang and Kimchi, have all become my favorites because I just picked them up and tried them. I had no idea what to do with them at first. I just googled the item for recipes, picked one and tried it. It has lead to many really enjoyable meals.

• Difficulty: Easy
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2 1/2 TBS Gochujang (Korean hot chili paste)

1 1/2 tsp soy sauce

1 1/2 tsp toasted sesame oil

1 1/2 tsp sugar

1 1/2 tsp rice wine vinegar

1 tsp Gochugaru (Korean red pepper flakes)

In small bowl, combine all the ingredients and mix well

Instant Pot Bison Roast

On Saturday I went to the Farmer’s market with my friend, Steph. I wasn’t planning on buying anything. I just needed to get out of the house for awhile. Of course that meant I came home with a Bison chuck roast and about 5 pounds of yellow baby potatoes. I have never eaten Bison before, much less cooked it so I had no idea what I was going to do with this roast. Why do I do this to myself?

As always, when I have an ingredient I haven’t cooked with before, I search the internet to see the possibilities. This time the internet failed me there just aren’t many people posting Bison meat recipes on their blogs. So I decided to crowdsource some ideas from a tea group I belong to on Facebook. What does Bison have to do with tea? Absolutely, nothing, but the group is a supportive community that posts about everything not just tea. I got some great information and links to information.

One of the links was to a site called Rock River Bison that had a recipe I adapted using what I had on hand as I didn’t have the specific rubs they used in the video. I had decided to use my pressure cooker before I saw the video. Bison is very lean so it overcooks and dries out easily. You need to cook it low and slow in in the oven or crockpot for hours to prevent that or use a pressure cooker that makes it more difficult to over cook. I didn’t have hours. I was hungry now so pressure cooker it was.

It was so worth the wait. The meat was very tender and juicy, not dry at all. It would be very easy to adapt this recipe to use other sauces and spice rubs. How about teriyaki sauce, 5 Spice powder and rice vinegar or salsa, taco seasoning and apple cider vinegar?

I added a little sauce to some of the shredded meat and served it over a bunch of the baby yellow potatoes I baked. I have also served the shredded meat and sauce over pasta lot in a sandwich like the picture.

• Difficulty: Easy
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Adapted from Rock River Bison

2-3 TBS of your favorite meat rub, I used Primal Palates BBQ Rub

1 cup of your favorite BBQ sauce, I used 8.5 oz bottle of Primal Kitchens Classic BBQ sauce

1/4 cup apple cider vinegar

2 lb Bison chuck roast.

If your pressure cooker has a saute setting, set it to high and let it preheat. If it doesn’t have a saute setting, heat a frying pan over high heat. While the pan is heating, cut your roast into steaks, season both sides with the whatever spice rub you are using. When your pan is hot add a little oil and sear the roast on both sides.

Add the seared roast to the liner of the pressure cooker. Add more spice rub to the meat and use your hands to coat the meat evenly. Add your BBQ sauce and vinegar. Close the lid and turn the vent to the closed position. Set the pressure cooker to high pressure and cook for 45 minutes. When the meat is done cooking. Natural release until the pin goes down. Remove the Bison to a plate and shred with two forks.

Spicy Coleslaw

This stack of new to me cookbooks is making me so happy! They are all by my all time favorite cookbook author, Mark Bittman. I have been cooking from his various incarnations of How To Cook Everything for over 20 years. I have made literally, dozens of his recipes of over the years and many of those recipes have made it to my favorites list. One of my cooking goals is to have every cookbook Mark Bittman has ever written. Adding these cookbooks to my collection gets me really close to accomplishing that goal.

I made a BBQ Bison roast last night and needed a quick and easy side dish so I made this coleslaw from one of my new Mark Bittman cookbooks. This is not your typical Midwest coleslaw recipe as there isn’t a drop of mayonnaise to be found. Instead Mark Bittman uses a basic vinaigrette to season and sauce the coleslaw. Its a refreshing change from the waterlogged, stodgy coleslaws that I grew up with.

You can use any type of cabbage here. I had some Napa cabbage so that is what I used.

• Difficulty: Easy
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Adapted From How To Cook Everything The Basics

1 TBS Dijon mustard

1 TBS Balsamic Vinegar

1/4 cup olive oil

1 1/2 tsp sugar

3 cups cored and shredded cabbage

1 red bell pepper, chopped

1/2 cup scallions, chopped

salt and pepper, to tast

Whisk the mustard and vinegar together in a small bowl. Slowly, whisk the oil into the the vinegar/mustard mixture. Once the oil is combined add the sugar and whisk until dissolved.

Combine the cabbage, peppers, and scallions, toss with the dressing. Season with salt and pepper. Refrigerate for at least 1 hour before serving.