Hunan cucumber

Cooked cucumber is, in my experience, a rarity in all cuisines.  I can only think of two dishes with cooked cucumber.  The first is a Goan cucumber curry that my landlady in Berkeley cooked for me.  The second is this Hunan dish, which I first had at a Hunan restaurant in Beijing.  The English menu said that it was seasoned with an herb called perilla, which I'd never heard of.  Later, I learned that in Japan this herb is called shiso--quite familiar to sushi enthusiasts.  Given the uniqueness of the dish, I was excited when I found a recipe for it in Fuchsia Dunlop's Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook.

Greek mezze

Horiatiki

Hummus with paprika oil

Fried halloumi

Bigoli radicchio aglio e olio

Bigoli is a Venetian pasta that looks very much like spaghetti, but is made from a harder whole wheat dough that is extruded using a special machine called a bigolaro.  I used this bigoli, which has 3% radicchio.

Ful mudammas

Ful mudammas is the most popular dish in Egypt, and is eaten on a daily basis for breakfast or lunch.  It's traditionally made with smaller, rounder fava beans than the ones I used, but either kind of bean is fine.  There's no need to follow a recipe.  Just cook dried favas, mash some to thicken, and season to taste.  The keys to this dish, IMO, are lots of lemon, lots of crushed garlic, and lots of olive oil.  Other seasoning ingredients are parsley, cumin, crushed red pepper, black pepper, and sea salt.  It shouldn't be the least bit bland.

Farinata

This savory pancake made from chickpea flour is possibly the most delicious thing I've ever cooked.  It is popular along the Ligurian sea coast in Italy (where it is known as farinata) and France (where it's known as socca) as well as in Argentina and Uruguay (where it is known as faina).  I've only eaten it in Argentina, where moderately thick slices of faina are served atop deep-dish pizza -- an unusual but satisfying combination.

I followed this recipe, but used a bigger pan.  This resulted in a very thin pancake.  I used this chickpea flour, which I bought online.  Speaking from experience: do not use besan (Indian chickpea flour), because it's not the same as Italian farina di ceci.  I'm fairly sure that besan is made from "black chickpeas" (a.k.a. bengal gram or kala chana), whereas farina di ceci is made from "white chickpeas" (a.k.a. garbanzos).

Kung pao chicken

I followed the recipe in Fuchsia Dunlop's Land of Plenty.  Two major differences between this authentic sichuan recipe and the dish popular in American Chinese restaurants.  First, lots of sichuan peppercorns, one of the world's most amazing ingredients.  They have a tingly, numbing effect on the tongue.  Second, no gloopy sauce.

Arab red snapper with bulgur pilaf

The sauce is a simple but exotic-tasting one: onions, saffron, lemon, olive oil, garlic, and white pepper.

Spaghettini with tomatoes and vegetables

I simmered San Marzano tomatoes on a base of sauteed carrots, celery, onion, garlic, and fennel.

Pureed toor dal

Raghavan Iyer says that this dish, called "varan," is eaten "practically every day" in the Maharashtrian community.  Considering that Maharashtra has a population of about 100 million people, this is one popular dish!  And for good reason: it's extremely easy to make and absolutely delicious.

The heart of the flavor comes from a combination of jaggery (palm sugar) and ghee (clarified butter), which reminds me of maple syrup and butter.  It provides a sweet, rich backdrop for the spices.  In Iyer's recipe, the predominant spices are hot cayenne and earthy turmeric, and some asafoetida is thrown in as an accent ingredient.  Google searches turn up myriad variations on the basic recipe.

In Iyer's recipe, all of the ingredients are added straight into the pot.  Having an immersion blender makes the dish even easier because you can puree the toor dal (split, skinned pigeon peas) directly in the pot.

I've seen recipes calling for cilantro as a garnish, but I would be inclined to use something with a more neutral flavor like nuts or seeds or a drizzle of cayenne-infused oil.

(recipe on p. 442 of 660 Curries)

Farmers' Market veggies

Moroccan carrot and raisin salad

This is a great recipe.  I found it in Claudia Roden's The New Book of Middle Eastern Food.  The olive oil-honey-lemon combination is one to remember.

(seasoned with rich olive-y olive oil, honey, lemon, cinnamon, ginger, and black pepper)

Roasted potatoes

(seasoned with rosemary, smoked sea salt, and light olive oil)

Broccolini

(blanched and then sauteed with garlic, a strong leafy and grassy olive oil, and a small splash of red wine vinegar)

Steamed char with fennel

This is one of the tastiest fish dishes I've ever made.  The recipe is simple.  Basically, it's a fillet of arctic char steamed on top of strips of fennel, plated on top of simmered fennel, and smothered in reduced vegetable stock, butter, and lemon juice.

I followed a recipe in Fish Without a Doubt by Rick Moonen & Roy Finamore.  The flavor was great and the fish was perfectly cooked.

Shrimp balchao with lemongrass-coconut pearl rice

Raghavan Iyer suggests this terrific combination in his book 660 Curries.

The shrimp is marinated in a puree of malt vinegar, tamarind, dried red chiles, cumin seeds, peppercorns, cloves, turmeric, garlic, ginger, and cinnamon.  It is then seared and sauteed with caramelized onions, curry leaves, and tomato paste.  Seafood and vinegar are typical of the cuisine of Goa--a small state on the west coast of India, once colonized by Portugal, from which this recipe derives.

The rice dish is made from samba, a type of short-grain rice grown in Sri Lanka and Tamil Nadu.  It's the most aromatic rice variety I've ever encountered.  Its aroma is unusual and difficult to describe.  The recipe calls for boiling the rice in coconut milk along with turmeric and a saute of onions, chopped lemongrass, cinnamon, cloves, and green cardamom pods.

Both dishes were delicious and especially good together.

Porcini tagliolini with butter, parmesan, and caviar

Many people associate Italian food with olive oil and the "Mediterranean diet."  But in the wealthier northern parts of Italy, butter is supreme and the cuisine is quite rich.  Fresh egg pasta with butter and parmesan is the northern Italian analogue to the southern Italian staple--spaghetti aglio e olio (with garlic and olive oil).

Aside from bottarga (mullet or tuna roe), I don't think caviar is a part of classic Italian cooking.  Nonetheless, I have seen it in a few haute-cuisine pasta dishes.

Yogurt rice

Yogurt rice (or curd rice) is one of the most popular dishes in South India.  I get the sense from my research that some families eat it almost every day.

There are a million different recipes for yogurt rice.  I like Raghavan Iyer's simple recipe, which goes something like this:

• Whisk yogurt and salt to taste.
• Saute mustard seeds on medium-high heat until they pop.
• Add raw split, skinned black lentils (cream colored) and let them quickly brown.  (These, to me, are hugely important for their crunch and nuttiness.  They make the dish.)
• Take off heat and add curry leaves and chopped green chilis and cilantro.
• Soon thereafter (so things don't burn), add the saute to the yogurt and mix.
• Stir the yogurt mixture into cooked basmati rice. 

Other recipes include garlic, ginger, pomegranate seeds, coconut, cashews--the list goes on and on.  I typically throw in a pinch of asafoetida with the lentils. 

Strangely, but indubitably, this dish is best at room temperature.

Scrambled chickpea flour

I've made this dish before, but unknowingly used black chickpea flour (kala chana besan), which is grainier and heavier than regular chickpea flour (chana besan).  The dish is much lighter and better with regular chickpea flour.

I have a hunch that both kala chana besan and chana besan are made from black chickpeas (kala chana)--a relative of white chickpeas (kabuli chana), which are commonly found in Western cuisines--and that the difference between the two flours is simply that the chickpeas in kala chana besan are unskinned.  Based on experience, I believe that both of these flours are quite different from Italian chickpea flour (farina di ceci), which is made from white chickpeas.  Once, I tried to make Italian farinata with besan, and it came out terrible.  I blame my suspected flour mix-up.

Spaghetti with pesto

Pasta with pesto ranks very high on my list of favorite things to eat, and it's a cinch to make.  I used half walnuts and half pine nuts in this one.

Tapas

Watermelon-tomato gazpacho

Yellowtail-date tartare with tangy almond paste

An interesting mix of sweet (from the dates) and sour (lots of sherry vinegar in the paste, a little white vinegar in the tartare).

Roasted stuffed piquillo peppers

Stuffed with herbed goat cheese and topped with basil puree.

(following recipes in Anya von Bremzen's The New Spanish Table)

Nepalese food

I bought a new cookbook: Taste of Nepal by Jyoti Pathak.  I like it.

Dry-fried black chickpeas (kaalo chana ko tarkaari)

This recipe calls for black chickpeas (kala chana), which are nuttier and firmer than the more commonplace "white chickpeas."  There are many flavoring agents, the most prominent and interesting of which is ajwain seeds (sometimes called bishop's weed).  I love this spice and even eat pinchfuls of it by itself.  The seeds burst with flavor when you chew them.  Ajwain tastes strongly of thyme but has a lot of fruity complexity.  

Rice pilaf with black cumin (jeera bhaat)

The only spices in this pilaf are black cumin (kala jeera) and bay leaf.  Kala jeera has a distinctive herbal/floral aroma that creates interest in this pilaf.

Spicy sauteed potatoes (taareko alu)

The most interesting thing about this recipe is that it calls for a Himalayan herb called jimbu.  It has an aroma reminiscent of grassy fried onions.  I purchased some online.  

Shredded fish tacos

In The Essential Cuisines of Mexico, Diana Kennedy calls this Veracruzana dish "saragalla de pescado" or "shredded fish Tamihua."  There are many ways in which it can be served.  I made soft tacos out of it, along with creme fraiche and marinated white onions.

I used a shredded poached monkfish fillet, which is very well suited to this dish both in taste and texture.  Other ingredients are a puree of ancho chiles, black peppercorns, coriander seeds, cinnamon, and garlic and a saute of onion, tomatoes, green chiles, olives, capers, and raisins.

The result was both delicious and interesting.  I've never eaten anything very similar.  Dishes like this are the reason I cook.

Rigatoni with pan-roasted peppers

This is a simple recipe in Marcella Hazan's Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking.

Peruvian arroz con pato

Arroz con pato (rice with duck) is one of the best things I ate in Peru.  I sampled a few different versions, the best of which, and the one that inspired me to try to cook it at home, was served at Panchita, a lively upscale restaurant in Lima.  My second attempt at arroz con pato was successful but not as good as Panchita's.  (My first attempt was a disaster.  I decided to use a very heavy imperial stout as the beer in the recipe -- a truly retarded choice.  The finished dish had the viscosity of motor oil and it didn't taste all that dissimilar.)

I loosely followed this recipe.  If I were to play around it with, I'd try shredding one boiled breast into the rice and cooking another one completely separately to get it crispy.  I'd also like to try using duck legs.

Spaghetti puttanesca

Latini is my favorite pasta manufacturer.  Latini's spaghetti is particularly outstanding.  It cooks up perfectly al dente--springy on the outside and slightly raw in the center, with a very full body and a pleasing rough exterior.  It is rich with wheat flavor.  It more than held its own against this spicy, assertive puttanesca sauce.