For those of you who wondered how long the Taiwanese sesame noodle sauce lasts, I’m confirming that it’s freezable. I froze a jar of it for a week, then drove it to my mom’s house in Southern California where I whipped up the noodles for a fast lunch. The sauce tasted like it was freshly made! So go ahead and make a double batch of the cold sesame noodles sauce and use one now. Freeze the balance as 1/3 cup (80ml) portions for single servings and faster thawing.
Using egg strips for the sesame noodles reminded me how useful egg sheets are as a protein-rich addition to East Asian noodles, dim sum, and rice dishes. I grew up with trứng tráng (egg sheets in Vietnamese) in sophisticated Hanoi-style bún thang noodle soup and cheery mixed rice (cơm trộn).
My mom regularly prepared the rice dish, which is easy breezy and healthier than fried rice. Cơm trộn is simply hot rice mixed with add-ins but done in a particular fashion so it tastes special and fun. In the photo below, the red strips are a quick pickled sweet pepper which lends a crunch, piquant note to the rice.
Vegetarian mixed rice (cơm trộn chay) with seared tofu. I’ve prepared it with grilled leftovers during summer and thrown in a handful of fresh herbs too. The sky’s the limit with mixed rice so get the blueprint and make it!
Feeling nostalgic and hungry the other day, I threw together a vegetarian batch of cơm trộn for an easygoing lunch. However you make mixed rice, it’s lite and can be served warm or at room temp. It was so good that I shared my blueprint recipe and tips on the website for you to craft your own. When you make my mixed rice, look for the link to the recipe for egg sheets too (you’re welcome). Get friendly with the Viet mixed rice recipe this summer!
This week’s big cooking star was kung pao. I challenged myself to come up with a stellar kung pao chicken recipe that:
Can be used as a plug-and-play template to feature other proteins or be vegan
Includes enough vegetables so it can be eaten with rice as a satisfying, wholesome meal
Allows nuts to shine, not just be minor decor as they usually are in takeout versions
Breaking kung pao rules (sort of)
In Mandarin Chinese, 宫保鸡丁gōngbǎo jī dīng literally means “Palace Guardian Chicken Cubes”. It was a favorite dish of an 18th century provincial governor named Ding Baozhen (1820–1886). Parsing the Chinese name:
宫保 gōng bǎo (Palace Guardian) was part of Ding Baozhen’s official title
鸡 jī means chicken
丁 dīng means cubes and also is a pun on the man’s surname, Ding
Kung pao chicken, the Sichuanese spicy, tangy chicken stir-fry that we know today, likely originated from the time the governor spent his youth in Guizhou (a southwestern Chinese province located north of Vietnam). Modern cooks in Guizhou season kung pao with fermented bean sauce and chili-garlic-ginger paste. No nuts are included in Guizhou kung pao. And, there are versions with chicken, shrimp, potatoes, and even pig’s stomach.
Ding loved chicken stir-fries so much he told his cooks to include it on menus for guests. When he governed northeastern Shandong province, he enjoyed a chile-less version with walnuts or cashews instead of peanuts.
His last post was in Sichuan, which explains why the popularized version of kung pao chicken includes dried chile, Sichuan peppercorns, peanuts, and Chinkiang vinegar. Those ingredients are found in other Sichuan favorites.
My version of Sichuan kung pao chicken.
Compared to other Sichuan dishes like mapo tofu, kung pao chicken is not overly spicy or fiercely hot. Perhaps the governor’s cook incorporated all the ideas from the three provinces where governor Ding had been posted? He and his family moved about the country with a staff, including cooks, who likely adopted his favorite chicken dish to local tastes and ingredient availability, writes Fuchsia Dunlop in an article for the Los Angeles Times1.
As a result, nerdy kung pao fans will recognize Guizhou, Shandong and Sichuan versions. I’ve not graduated to nerdish level and am stuck in the Sichuan level so I focused on that iconic iteration for the foundation of my recipe. That said, kung pao has a rich backstory that makes it much more interesting than what we may normally think. You can play with it.
After formulating my kung pao chicken recipe, I used it to make scallop kung pao and a mushroom kung pao. From one recipe, I got three (3) surprisingly delicious kung pao stir fries. AWESOME.
To prime you to flex your kung pao muscles, watch me make the stir-fry and preview the techniques.
Below you’ll find:
My master kung pao chicken recipe in full text and downloadable PDF
Notes for making Kung Pao Scallop and Kung Pao Mushroom
Ingredient tips for chiles and peppercorns
Pointers for getting kung pao’s vinegary tang just right
Paid subscribers sponsor PTFS. This kung pao tour de force is for them. Upgrade to paid status to get the whole shebang, mine the full newsletter recipe index, and gain so much more. Thanks for your considerations.
Stir-fried Spinach is a popular choice of leafy green side when it comes to Chinese home cooking. It’s nutrient-dense and cooks quickly. Here’s how we do it! The Benefits of Cooked Spinach So much of spinach these days is consumed raw in salads, but when you stir-fry it, it’s much easier for your body to […]
These Gluten Free Scallion Pancakes are a marvel: chewy, crispy, scallion-packed and absurdly fast to whip up. Instead of using gluten-free flour, which produces a dense, dry pancake, we make them with layers of Vietnamese rice paper—to gloriously chewy and crispy effect! The Best solution for a chewy, flaky, gluten-free scallion pancake Making Chinese food […]
One of my most exasperating traits — or, perhaps one that makes me ideally suited for this space I invented, coincidentally, to suit my collection of traits — is that I have a terrific amount of random ingredient preparation ideas in the overflowing file cabinet of my brain that will spill into conversations the second I hear the triggering keyword.
The St. Paul Sandwich is a uniquely American creation, ironically originating in St. Louis, Missouri. It’s an Egg Foo Young patty sandwiched between white bread, with mayo, lettuce, tomato, and pickles, and it is glorious! We recently decided to put The Woks of Life spin on it, with a step-by-step recipe and a new YouTube […]
As someone who is passionate about cookbooks, I’m always up for talking about them with other cookbook collectors. I know there are lots of cookbook collectors out there, but one who really stands out is , who writes the Cookbookery Collective newsletter, which she describes as:
…a hub for the cookbook community—authors, eaters, cooks, editors, publicists, publishers, agents, and aspiring authors alike. It’s a place to celebrate all cookbooks, new and old, blockbuster and under-the-radar. It’s a place to hear from your favorite authors and talk amongst ourselves in the comments section. It’s a place where everyone is welcome, whether you have just a handful of beloved books or a collection in the hundreds.
I couldn’t have said it better, except to add what a wonderful resource Jenna, and her newsletter, have become to the cookbook community, which features interviews with cookbook authors, including me…
…plus seasonal round-ups of the latest cookbooks to hit the shelves, previews of cookbooks that are about to be released, as well as recipes from her favorite cookbooks.
Not only does Jenna write a newsletter, she’s also the food director at Real Simple magazine, the author of five cookbooks, and runs a personal chef business. Whew!
In addition to her other activities, Jenna is now a novelist, having penned her first novel, coming out this Fall, The Foreign Correspondent’s Wife, a mystery set in Paris.
I was thrilled to get a chance to sit down for this podcast episode with Jenna to talk about our favorite subject: Cookbooks! We talked about everything, from what makes a good cookbook (and what drives her crazy in a cookbook) to how she decides which cookbooks that cross her desk she holds on to, and which ones she lets go. We also discussed what she thinks of influencer cookbooks, and talked about one of the big questions of our time - how will AI affect cookbooks, and will it (or can it) replace them.
Subscribe to my newsletter to get future podcasts, videos, recipes, and Paris travel tips, sent right to your inbox!
I hope you enjoy my chat with Jenna as much as I did…and let us know in the comments what are some of your favorite cookbooks, and why.
It’s been a nutty and seedy time my kitchen these days. I mean that in good culinary ways. Two recipes got me thinking about how we transform nuts and seeds to use their lusciousness in foods. More often than not, we think of chopping nuts. Seeds are added whole to dishes.
But if you take a minute to pound or grind nuts or seeds, you’ll release their aroma and oils so they can efficiently enrich dishes. For instance, I pound sesame seeds for a last minute flourish in my Vietnamese pomelo salad (gỏi bưởi). It’s such a lean salad that it needs fattiness to help balance and unite all the components. Pounded sesame seeds enrich without making the salad slick and oily; the seeds are rendered into teeny tiny bits, not a liquid.
Vietnam is the world’s leading exporter of cashews but traditional Vietnamese recipes employ whole or chopped cashews only for stir-fries or candy. Andy Baraghani got me thinking otherwise. He grinds cashews for a creamy nuoc cham sauce that’s voluptuous, tangy, a little hot and a lot umami.
Cashews have a natural fattiness and mild sweetness so grinding them up for the sauce unlocks those qualities and then some. In the photo below, you wouldn’t know that cashews are behind the melon-colored sauce atop the roasted carrots, napa cabbage and mint. (There’s a hint of fish sauce in there but you could sub soy sauce, if you like!)
The purple napa could have been regular napa, mild radicchio, frisee, arugula, Romaine, iceberg or a mixture of them. I was inspired by springtime carrots at our local market and the mint growing with abandon in our garden.
Rory devoured nearly 75 percent of that plate. I should have doubled the recipe. He deemed the dish a keeper. I admitted that I’d simply riffed on the roasted carrots and creamy nuoc cham recipe at my website (which you should bookmark!). I added this iteration to the write up so you have my formula.
Note that the roasted carrots and creamy nuoc cham keeps for days in the fridge (hello meal prep!). Roast the carrots in the evening or early morning if it’s hot where you are. Double, triple, or quadruple the recipe for a crowd. Tinker with it because it goes with many other veggies and even lettuce wraps.
From that nutty sauce, I turned to a seedy recipe for Taiwanese sesame cold noodles (涼麵 Liáng Miàn, literally “Cold Noodles”), published in and Ivy Chen’s Made in Taiwan cookbook. Their recipe headnote (introduction):
There’s a cold noodle vendor called Liu Mama’s 劉媽媽麵館 in Taipei that’s open exclusively from 9:30 p.m. to 9:00 a.m. By virtue of their hours, they serve a distinct class of night owls who crave sesame-drenched noodles with scoops of julienned cucumbers. It sounds bland in comparison to the typical and perhaps more comforting repertoire of greasy late-night skewers, but there’s something both fortifying and refreshing about finishing off a really late night with a large plate of cold noodles. These noodles are also very much a popular lunch staple. So popular, in fact, that you can buy them refrigerated and ready-to-eat at all convenience stores across the country.
Noodles morning, noon and night? I’m in. I’ve used sesame paste for similar noodle dishes but theirs called for roasted sesame seeds and throwing all the sauce ingredients into the blender. So easy and I happen to have sesame seeds in the freezer!
Ivy and Clarissa’s sesame noodles had a wonderful depth of flavor that I’d not experienced before. It was because of the freshly roasted sesame seeds and their sauce formula. The seeds lent flavor and body to the thick sauce, which was plop-able. Optional garlic and chile garnishes allow you to layer on flavors. WOW.
Even if you’re not a vegetarian or vegan, you’ll love these noodles.
However, we wanted more vegetables and a little less noodles and sauce. I remade the sesame cold noodles several times to tweak it to fit our lifestyle. Additionally, I came up with a shortcut sauce(!), if you don’t want to start from seeds and nuts.
After going multiple rounds with the recipe, I realized that you can take sesame cold sesame noodles many directions — vegetarian, vegan, or with chicken, if you like! I bet you’ll craft more ways to play with the versatile sauce.
Part of my recipe development was trying all toppings, noodles, and sauces.
Below you’ll find:
Sesame Cold Noodles recipe in full text + a downloadable PDF
Shortcut sesame noodle sauce recipe in full text + a downloadable PDF
Sesame seed shopping and toasting tips
Noodle selection tips to go vegan, gluten-free, or whole grain + a pro-tipe for making them ramen-esque chewy
Keep this recipe handy for the summer for easy meals, entertaining, potlucks or taking on a picnic. You can have so much fun with it.
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My book tour was fun, which was how I spent most of May, with a final stop in Paris. Along the way, it was amazing to meet so many of you, including readers and followers, as well as other cookbook authors, bakers, owners of cookbook shops, chocolate-makers, and Paris-lovers.
I was bowled over by the turnout at my events and my only wish was that I could have done more, although it’s hard to be away from home longer than three weeks, and it takes the better part of the week after you return to get over the jet lag and catch up on everything that happened while you were away. Such as somehow in my absence, something smelling like industrial-strength mint syrup (or cleaner?) was put into the refillable spray bottle of locally made, eco-friendly bathroom cleaner that we use, and no one knows what it is or how it got there.
If anyone has a clue, kindly tell me. I don’t know whether to clean the bathroom with it, or mix it with sparkling water.
As anyone who’s traveled lately knows, things have become a lot more challenging both on the ground and in the air. I give a lot of credit to people who work in airports and on airplanes, as well as travelers who can handle the rigors of travel.
Well, except for the guy next to me on the flight from SFO to LAX, who loudly used his phone just until the last nanosecond when we took off, then continuing the conversation, equally as loud, timed exactly at the moment the wheels of our plane touched ground.
All of us in rows 12-22 (but especially me) got to hear all about how Carol wasn’t in on the meeting but Bill and Warren were, and Pam doesn’t know about it but they’ve got to get the files to the branch in Tennessee, although if they don’t make it there, Tom is going to have a meltdown, and Bill and Howard in other branch offices are going to have to cover for them. I learned that Susan may have to be looped in for the meeting about it, but not to tell Carol. I don’t know what that guy does, but it must be important enough to interrupt the lives of everyone around him.
I’ve always found this post about what authors should do, and shouldn’t do, on book tours pretty spot-on. I think I followed most of them, although I’m waiting for someone to write one about how not to behave on airplanes, which people should have to sign a paper stating that they read it and agree to its terms.
Blueberries at the greenmarket in San Francisco.
I tried to use my downtime wisely, to keep my energy high for meeting everyone. But one thing I recommend that everyone do on the road is to eat well. It can be hard to get your fruits and vegetables in when you’re traveling, which, curiously, is one of the things that American visitors tell me they miss when they’re in France. (If you want fruits and vegetables, rather than looking in cafés and restaurants, it’s best to go to the markets to pick them up.) Maybe our reputation precedes us, but when I come across a salad bar when I’m traveling, in spite of the Debbie Downers about them, it feels really good to have a big bowl (or box) of spinach, cherry tomatoes, tofu, florets of broccoli, grated raw carrots, some proteins, and even alfalfa sprouts, which Pee-wee Herman said, look and taste like hair.
It’s nice to eat “healthy” whenever you can….so you can indulge when something extra-delicious crosses your path, such as this incredible Tin Roof Sundae…
The Tin Roof Sundae with caramel gelato, marshmallow sauce, and salted Spanish peanuts on a crisp waffle cookie, at Mozza, was one of the best desserts I’ve ever eaten.
How could I resist?
I also got to indulge in slices of pepperoni pizza, uber-dark brownies at Hani’s, and marshmallowy S’Mores at a.o.c., as well as Mexican, Chinese, and Thai food. I wrote roundups of what and where I ate in Notes from the Road (San Francisco) and NYC Eats x Book Tour. Apparently I said a few controversial things in New York while being interviewed by on the Taste podcast, which was recorded at my first book tour stop atRizzoli bookstore. The crowd was so nice and welcoming, it was hard not to get personal with everyone who came to the sold-out event, but I guess a few things I said were controversial.
I haven’t listened to it, but I try to steer clear of trouble when being interviewed, since I’m sure some of the things I’ve said over the years have me teetering on the edge of being cancelled. But there’s soooo much to talk about, and I can never resist a challenging interviewer’s question. Talking face-to-face is different than via the internet, where things can be misunderstood or misconstrued. Clearly I need to get out more.
I did get out to the produce stores near where we live when I got home and picked up baskets of fresh cherries and apricots as well as the last asparagus spears at Le Pari Local. I’d bookmarked the Easy, Springy Frittata in Jenna Helwig’s must-read newsletter, Cookbookery Collective, which was adapted from ’s new book, Vegetables the Italian Way…
…and gave it a go. But first, I had to explain to Romain that it wasn’t an omelette because it was fried, hence the name frittata, and wasn’t folded up but served open face, which was when things started to get complicated. So I served it, and hoped for the best. (French people can be quite literal. If you don’t believe me, you should see some of the messages that I get, not to mention the hoops I have to jump through at home.)
I went a bit rogue with the frittata, oven-roasting the asparagus first and adding chopped basil to the eggs, plus a chiffonade of leaves on top. I snuck in an extra egg white since I have a few in the frigo. Mine wasn’t as neat as Jenna’s, but now Romain knows what a frittata is…even though I’ve made them before.
I’m going to go a bit here, who recounts what he’s been watching and reading in his newsletter:
I finally finished The Comeback, which became one of my all-time favorite TV series. It took a few episodes to get into it — season 2 came out ten years after the first season, and the final season, season 3, came out a decade later — but the evolution of Valerie Cherish, the main character (pitch-perfectly played by Lisa Kudrow, who also co-wrote the series), was a tour de force and often very touching. What, on the surface was a superficial character, evolved into something and someone completely different and unexpected.
On the 11-hour plane ride back from Los Angeles, I finished Beef, season 2, which had a bit of The White Lotus vibes but ended up being a deep dive into a group of very complicated humans that, like The White Lotus, cross socio-economic classes. I tried to get into Rooster but not much was happening, kind of Emily in Paris, where the characters end up just circling around each other over and over, with little character progression. I tuned into Margo’s Got Money Troubles, mostly because who doesn’t want to watch anything with Michelle Pfeiffer? Both she and Elle Fanning are excellent actors but like some mini-series (I’m looks at you, Rooster and Your Friends & Neighbors), it could have been half as long. The story plodded a bit, then got much better as it reached its final two episodes. Wanda Sykes has a new comedy special on Netflix, and as usual, she’s hilarious. And some folks may be sad to learn that Emily in Paris is finally saying adieu, and coming to an end.
As for reading, I wrote what I’m currently reading in the links below, but I brought three books back from the States, which was the maximum that my luggage allowance allowed.
My friend, cookbook author, and collaborator Kate Leahy told me that Company was one of the best-written cookbooks she’d come across, so I picked up a copy. I also bought More than Sweet, a new baking book that “breaks down the boundaries between sweet and savory with confidence,” as well as a copy of When French Women Cook by Madeleine Kamman, one of the most important and influential cooks of our generation.
I love that Madeleine Kamman included how much a recipe costs to make. Some recipes in her classic book are listed as “reasonable” and “affordable,” and this one is classified as “inexpensive if you gather the mushrooms yourself.” 😀
As I write this, we are at the tail end of another heat wave in Paris, with the hottest days on record. (Europe is heating up faster than the rest of the world, and not everyone makes it through.) No one was expecting the heat waves to start as soon as May, but here we are.
During the heat waves, people swelter, and some businesses close due to the heat. Tourists wonder why there are no fans or AC or ice in drinks. Once heat waves are over, people forget about them, so solutions evolve slowly. Sixty percent of the roofs in Paris are zinc, and I lived in a top floor apartment where the temperature would hit 110ºF (43ºC) inside. Painting them white or coating them with something reflective would be an effective solution, but with the city seeking to make the zinc roofs protected as UNESCO cultural heritage, it’s doubtful that that’s going to happen.
If you plan to come to Paris, or anywhere in Western Europe, check the weather forecast and bring light clothing, sunscreen, and a refillable water bottle to beat the heat. You might want to cross “waiting in lines outside to get into museums” off your list. And it’s not recommended that you ignore the advice of city officials and jump into the canals to cool down:
So lieu of that, we’re heading to Copenhagen and Norway this month, where it’s cooler.
In the meantime, I’ve been mixing up glasses of Chocolate Frappés from Drinking French, made by vigorously shaking up 1/2 cup (125ml) whole, low-fat, or plant-based milk, 2 tablespoons best-quality Dutch-process cocoa powder, a tablespoon of sugar, and 3 ice cubes in a cocktail shaker. That gets poured into a glass (it’s okay to add any ice chunks to the glass, too). You can top it with whipped cream and chocolate shavings, or just serve as is. I recommend drinking one of these frappés over the water in the canal.
-David
If you’re in Paris and missed my book event, La Trésorierie (48 rue de Grenelle, 7th) has signed copies of my books.
While I was on book tour, one thing people told me about was how much they enjoyed their trips to Paris, thanking me for restaurant suggestions and other tips I post here and there. It makes me happy when people come to Paris and have a good time, and eat well.
After I flew back to Paris last month and collected my luggage, I did what I usually do: I headed to the taxi stand. The airport has affixed large signs on the floor of baggage claim, which you can follow all the way outside to the official taxi stand. (I’ve also seen young people in official vests, guiding and leading people from the baggage claim area, all the way to the official taxi stand.)
On my way, I was asked by at least a dozen men, who whispered almost under their breath, if I needed a taxi. I kept walking but one guy told me I was going the wrong way, and to go to a different doorway, presumably where his car was waiting.
Most of us are zonked after flying into a foreign city, but whatever you do, never, ever take a non-official taxi from the airport in Paris. Always follow the signs for the official taxi stand, where there will be a person in a vest, organizing the taxis and passengers. Getting into an unofficial taxi means you may be paying more than you should or what was originally quoted to you. In one extreme case, a driver tried to charge some tourists €247($288) for the trip. This does happen in other airports, but Americans tend to be polite when we travel and might say, “Sorry, no thank you.“ Locals will just walk by them without saying anything, which I do, and suggest doing as well.
Official taxi prices to and from airports in Paris are fixed by law (current fares are here) and fares are reasonable.
Pro Tip: To get to and from the airport in Paris, probably the best and most reliable taxi service is G7. You can reserve a taxi online (in French or English) or via their app.
The streets of Paris, and the roads around it, are generally a knot of traffic and official taxis are allowed to use the bus lanes, which are less congested. Drivers for services like Uber and Bolt cannot use them.
When going to the airport, you can reserve a pickup online, which costs a few euros more but comes with more peace of mind. After arriving at the airport, unless you’ve ordered a taxi in advance, you’ll have to take whatever one is available from the queue. But official taxis are obliged to charge the fixed price. All drivers are required to take credit cards, but occasionally one will say the machine is broken, and can you pay cash. I always ask before getting in if I can pay bycarte bleue (credit card), just to confirm.
Tipping is optional but I often add 5%. You can tip up to 10% if you’ve got a lot of luggage or the driver makes an extra effort, but it isn’t required.
In the spring of 2027, a dedicated CDG Express train is set to launch, which’ll take you to and from the Gare de l’Est (as well as other stations), right to the airport for €25 ($29) one-way. The project has been delayed for a number of years but appears to be on track to open then, so to speak.
Some take the RER B train, which goes to CDG airport from several stops in Paris, such as Châtelet, Saint-Michel Notre Dame, and the Gare du Nord. But if you have luggage, you may have to schlep it up and down some stairs, and there are reports of pickpockets on the trains. RER B trains can be crowded and have limited ventilation, and occasionally there may be a problème téchnique or construction that can cause a delay. We once missed a flight because of a colis suspect (suspicious package). Then we spent the day at the airport waiting for the next flight, and got stuck in the middle seats in the last row of the plane, which weren’t the most pleasant eleven hours of my life. That was about ten years ago, but I still haven’t been able to uncramp my legs from that journey.
Hello there! I hesitated to send a Midweek Gem this week because I realized that Substack sends you a lot of emails about the livestreams that I’ve been doing. Moving forward with the livestreams, I’m going to curtail those emails.
That said, I wanted to share some exciting news with you! Something called an “advance copy” of Cooking Thai recently arrived on my doorstep.
The book is still being printed overseas but my publisher gets a handful of copies. Chef Pim and I each got one and we’re totally gobsmacked about holding the actual book baby in our hands!
What’s on the cover? One of our favorite recipes in the book — Massaman Curry, based on a time tested recipe by Pim’s grandmother. Pim’s curry pastes are stellar and we developed recipes for you to make it with meat or meatless. There are tips to tweak the heat level so you don’t have to have a Thai built-in heat shield to enjoy this food!
A number of Cooking Thai recipe testers are also PTFS subscribers. We were overwhelmed by their positive response to the flavors and techniques.
It’s been quite a journey to bring Cooking Thai to print. Lots of thrills and near spills. We’ve built it as a solid guide for your Thai cooking adventures for years to come. That’s how Pim and I intend to use the book so we hope you’ll do the same!
How and when can you get the book?Cooking Thai releases on August 25, 2026. The printer is in Asia but luckily the books won’t be shipped through the Strait of Hormuz!
To get a copy ASAP, pre-order it from your favorite book store, cookbook shop, or a vendor like the ones listed here. Pim is planning the book tour so more news will come as things develop. Thanks for your ongoing interest and support.
Congratulations to for winning the giveaway. She cooks lots of Cantonese food so I’ll be curious to know what she thinks of adding Taiwanese flavor to her recipes.
Thanks to all of you who shared your soy sauce brands. And, also to who shed light on La Choy soy sauce and then some.
💎 Focaccia di Recco (one of the best things I’ve ever eaten)
If you live in the Santa Cruz area, get yourself to Mentone in Aptos and order the focaccia di Recco off the specials menu! I’d love for chef David Kinch to permanently add the bedsheet thin flatbread-cracker-quesadilla filled with milky crescenza cheese on the menu. My photo on the right does not do the focaccia justice. 😩
I was so taken by it — a marvel in dough management and manipulation — that I looked up how to make it when we got home from dinner. There are a handful of recipes out there but Janet Fletcher has the scoop from Lidia Bastianich’s recipe. It’s all here on Janet’s website. To get a sense of how it’s made, watch this:
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Coming up for this Sunday Special is a cool noodle dish that Rory and I have been enjoying all week long and we’ve not tired of it.
It’s no secret that one of my favorite places in Paris is G. Detou. In fact, I depend on it so much, for everything from chocolate to vanilla—and lots, lots more. I’ve been quoted as saying that if G. Detou didn’t exist, I couldn’t live in Paris. It’s got everything I need.
Owner Benoît Bourloton is a busy man, spending his days keeping the shop well-stocked with a wide variety of French chocolates, as well as other delicacies. Since we’ve become friends (and what a friend to have!), I asked Benoît if I could stop by and discuss French chocolates, and he gladly invited me into the shop to talk about some of them.
You’re going to love this chocolate chia seed pudding. Seriously, though! I’m always suspicious of chocolate “desserts” made with sneaky healthy ingredients like avocado or sweet potato. I can taste them, so they don’t taste like a real dessert.
This chia pudding, however, is a wholesome treat that I truly enjoy. It actually boasts some impressive nutrition stats, including 8 grams of fiber, 5 grams of protein, and some healthy plant-based fat. It’s easy to make, too—much easier than traditional custard-based puddings.
You’ll need only four ingredients for the base recipe: your milk of choice, chia seeds, cocoa powder and maple syrup. Once mixed together and left to chill in the refrigerator for a couple of hours, the chia seeds plump up and offer a subtle texture. The end result is rather magical!
“This is the perfect chocolate chia pudding. I have tried several different recipes, and this one is just right! I use lite coconut milk.”
I came back from my travels on book tour in the U.S. to a bounty of gorgeous summer produce in Paris. Strawberries, nectarines, apricots, and rhubarb were glowing at the markets and produce shops, and I’m excited to start baking with them.
Here are some of my summer fruit recipes that are favorites around here…
If you want to give summer fruits a glow-up, bake them over a layer of delectable almond cream, aka, frangipane, in this Summer Fruit Tart. It slices into beautiful wedges and the almond cream keeps the crust crisp. It works with many summer fruits. My favorite is to pair it with just one type of fruit and one type of berry. But you do you.
The nomenclature may be a bit “open to interpretation.” I’ve never seen a fruit tart called a galette in France. But if I went around tsk-tsking people (myself included) for calling a fruit tart a Summer Fruit Galette, I wouldn’t have time to bake…or really, do anything else. And who wants to be a spoilsport?
The word galette is, admittedly pretty, and so is this tart, or galette. (Or, er…crostata.) I’m making one this weekend since it’s easy to put together with a no-fail dough and doesn’t require a tart ring — all that’s needed are your favorite seasonal fruits.
Speaking of names, fruit desserts go by monikers such as grunts, crisps, crumbles, and slumps. I wasn’t the brightest student at school so can’t click off all the differences, but I do know what I like, and this Blueberry Buckle is one heckuva dessert. Imbibed with lemon syrup, it’s incredibly moist, so buckle up… make it, and you’ll find it’s one of the best ways to bake up summer blueberries.
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I took a cue from our friends in Germany, who are no slouches when it comes to baking, via my friend in Berlin, and like to bake up her Yeasted Plum Tart. One could argue (again!) that it’s close to a cake, but one could also argue that it has a press-in crust, which means no rolling, so it’s a draw. Either way, it’s a neat way to enjoy plums.
This Strawberry Rhubarb Tart marries tangy rhubarb with its natural partner, strawberries. For those who like not-too-sweet desserts, anything with rhubarb fits that bill. But I won’t say a word if you pair it with a sunny scoop of Lemon Verbena Ice Cream, or spoon liquor-spiked Sabayon alongside, as an accompaniment.
As Elijah Kelley sang in the musical Hairspray, the blacker the berry, the sweeter the juice…
And the tumble of dark berries in this Black Berry Galette is both juicy and black. I used blackberries and cherries in the one above, but there’s no reason you can’tswap in blueberries, boysenberries, or if you’re lucky enough to get them, mulberries, which are the juiciest of all the blackest of berries.
Whenever we visit French friends in the countryside, even in the middle of summer, invariably there’s a bowl of apples in the kitchen. If you can’t resist apples either, this Apple-Blackberry Slab Pie, inspired by pie-whiz Cathy Barrow, is sure to please. While the combination of apples and berries might surprise you, I assure you, they’re a perfect match.
As anyone who’s asked me, “What’s your favorite________?” you know I don’t like to play favorites, but I’ll admit that some of my favorite fruits to bake with are fresh apricots. Raw, they’re sweet and juicy but when baked, the skins soften, making them tart and tangy. Under a layer of crunchy, almond-scented topping, this Apricot and Cherry Tart doesn’t need much embellishment, although Vanilla Ice Cream provides a sweet contrast to the assertive fruits in the tart.
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Mixed Berry Shortcakes are the things to prepare when you just can’t make up your mind which berries to use. This dessert proves that you can have it all. Top it off with a crispy-topped biscuit, soaked with a puddle of berry juices, and the whole shebang just screams summer.
When I was at Chez Panisse, a chefaccused us of not cooking, but shopping. Not sure if it was meant to be an insult, or what, but gathering the best ingredients and sometimes doing as little to them as possible are still my goals. Shopping is where it all begins.
We don’t get a lot of blueberries here in Paris, but in the south of France, I find them at the markets, locally grown, and I’ve never tasted better blueberries. This simple Blueberry Cobbler highlights these berries and is easy to make in a skillet, which is great since when I’m staying in someone else’s home on vacation, it’s rare to find just the right size cake pan or baking dish. And this cobbler is adaptable. The drop biscuits on top save you from rolling anything out, which is another reason this recipe is a keeper.
I’m not a fan of “You should”-ing people, but if you haven’t been to Ireland, you might consider going. When I was there, Irish cooking star Rachel Allen made this very tasty Plum-Rhubarb Crisp, a combination that I’d never considered. I should get back to Ireland more than I do, but I still dream about the lunch Rachel made for me, and the hearty Irish Brown Bread I learned to make while I was there. (Unfortunately due to Brexit, I can no longer get the extra-coarse Irish flour that makes the loaf so special. Maybe it’s time to make up and invite the UK back?)
If you want to call something “Texan,” you’d better be prepared to get an earful about it. So I went right to the source, Texas baker Rebecca Rather, baking up her Peach Cobbler. Texans sure like their desserts, and traditions, and if you want something equally all-American, my Peach Shortcake is another way to use a bounty of ripe peaches.
Sometimes you just want a simple dessert that doesn’t require anything more than tossing a few ingredients together and baking them. When that’s the case, theseHoney-Roasted Plums come to the rescue. They form their own sauce in the baking dish and are terrific paired with yogurt, fromage blanc, or a little crème fraîche.
When it comes to frozen fruit desserts, where fruits really shine are in sorbets, such as this Plum Sorbet, which doesn’t have a drop of milk or cream in it. But I assure you, you won’t miss them. This sorbet is smooth and creamy all by itself. I like to serve it with a compote of fresh berries and a few crisp cookies alongside, such as these extra-crisp, nutty Pains d’Amande or Italian Almond Cookies.
Here in Paris, what really gets me excited is when I see piles of cherries at the market. I get even more excited when I see griottes, sour cherries, which are rarities, and fragile, but are oh-so-good. Whether you find sweet or sour cherries, or a mix, all are good in my no-recipe Cherry Jam, which was even a hit (well, mostly…) with the “Recipe, please!” crowd.
I eventually caved and gave exact proportions for it. But if you’re not in a jam-making mood, check out this Cherry Compote, which I like to freeze in small portions, ready to defrost in the colder months. I enjoy serving it with a scoop of ice cream, such as Fresh-Ginger White Chocolate or Fig Leaf and Honey.
Another way to get a taste of summer the rest of the year — I make sure to have a few jars of Strawberry Jam to put on our breakfast table, which are very welcome, well after berry season is behind us.
Today the temperature hit 82ºF (28ºC), and I’m planning to serve glasses of Strawberry Spritz for upcoming apéro hours, a low-ABV refresher that is pretty much summer in a glass.
I’ve got some fresh strawberries infusing in white vermouth at the moment (I’m sure you could use frozen berries, too), which’ll be mixed with tonic water, a handful of ice, and some additional berries.
It’s a long weekend in the United States as we celebrate Memorial Day. I know you’re all busy but I just wanted to thank all the folks like Jim Christol, , , , , and who attended my live video with ! The full video playback is above.
PTFSers asked great questions that got answered and then some. When you watch the video, you’ll glean information about:
When soy sauce got to Taiwan and how colonization impacted the condiment and the island nation’s cuisine
There’s a soy sauce fermentation index that’s akin to the N in fish sauce!
Black soybeans versus yellow soybeans
How fat and protein determine soy sauce flavor
What is tamari? Bottom vat soy sauce? Soy paste?
Taiwanese soy sauce flavor distinctions and how they factor into Heydoh, Clarissa’s new soy sauce company
Single and double fermentation of soy sauce
Soy sauce shopping and storage tips
Heydoh Soy Sauce Tasting Notes and Giveaway
During the interview, I tasted Clarissa’s new soy sauce, Heydoh (named for the Chinese word for black soybean). It was delicious — full of layered savoriness, umami, and with a hint of sweetness. Compared to other regular soy sauces, Heydoh is about 20% lower in sodium.
Heydoh is the first soy sauce I’ve tasted that made me want to just sip it! The Classic is terrific for cooking and dipping sauces. The Silky is double fermented and good for finishing dishes, and drizzling — even on ice cream. Seriously. (I do have a sweet-savory tofu ice cream recipe inspired by a trip to Japan!)
The Classic and Silky are sold at the Heydoh website, where you can also check the store locator to see if it’s sold near you. Meantime, Clarissa generously offered to gift a PTFS subscriber Heydoh soy sauce!
The Heydoh giveaway lowdown:
What is being given away: A complimentary soy sauce duo set
Who is eligible: Anyone with a valid mailing address in the United States: the 50 States, D.C., Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands.
When the giveaway closes: Wednesday, May 27 at 10am PST. I’ll randomly pick a winner and notify the person via email.
One thing Clarissa mentioned was the color in soy sauce. It’s one of ways you can sense quality. I was struck by Heydoh’s beautiful amber cast, a result of careful soybean selection and fermentation. After our chat, I compared it to a few other soy sauces I have.
La Choy is not my favorite brand. I keep it around to benchmark what my family first used when we got to America in 1975. It’s not naturally brewed like traditional soy sauce and has stuff that’s not normally found in soy sauce. The color is dark and the flavor is sharp, somewhat chemically.
Pearl River Bridge Special Golden Label is a darker brown than HeyDoh and it’s made in a mainland Chinese/Cantonese style. It’s not as complex tasting as Heydoh but is very good and my go-to for cooking and recipe development.
Zhongba Soy Sauce is the darkest because it contains a special mushroom from Sichuan. The flavor is very deep and intense, as is the viscosity. Look how Zhongba keeps its amoeba-like shape with rounded edges. It is only available through the Mala Market.
So, not all soy sauces are alike. As Clarissa says, and I have echoed about fish sauce, you want to find one that you like for dishes that you like to cook! Check in with my Mega Soy Sauce Buying Guide to delve into the many kinds of soy sauces available.
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Wood Ear Salad and Beginner’s Guide
In the aftermath of the soy sauce chat, I test drove Heydoh against Pearl River Bridge (PRB) in a Wood Ear Mushroom Salad. If you've been to dumpling restaurants like Din Tai Fung, you’ve seen it on the menu and perhaps have tried it. It’s handsome, crunchy, slithery, and tangy savory.
Wood Ear Mushroom Salad done at home is leagues better than what a restaurant churns out! Get the recipe at my website.
Clarissa and Ivy Chen’s recipe in their book Made in Taiwan is much better than what I’ve ever had at restaurants. Wood ear salad (liang ban hei mu er) is not just for eating with dumplings. It’s a nice nibble to go with a rice plate, noodles, or even a green salad dressed with olive oil, as Rory and I had it yesterday.
It’s also super easy to make and you can keep it in the fridge for a good 4 days, if not a week! It’s got ginger for a nice bite too.
The salad was excellent with PRB as it was with Heydoh Classic Soy Sauce, though I had to add just a little drizzle extra of Heydoh to bring the salinity up. Once I made the adjustment, the salad popped with extra nuanced flavor. You don’t need Heydoh soy sauce to make the salad. As Clarissa says in her book, Kimlan or Kikkoman will work for her recipes. Make the wood ear mushroom salad recipe at my website.
What are wood ear mushroom?
You know shiitake but what about wood ear mushrooms? They’re ebony or dark brown, crunchy, and loaded with health benefits while being low in calories. Sometimes they are called black fungus, which sounds scary and lacks the charm of wood ear 🪵 👂. They’re used throughout East and Southeast Asia in a variety of dishes, such as the above salad and classic hot and sour soup (suan la tang).
These Chive Egg Pockets are everything a breakfast should be: crispy, golden, and impossibly satisfying. They’re the kind of comforting handheld meal you’d find sizzling on a griddle at a bustling Chinese street market—sweet, garlicky chives and rich egg tucked inside crispy, chewy dough. One bite and you’re somewhere else entirely. The Breakfast That Lives […]
We’ve been making this Hot Dog Potato Salad for years. It’s perfect for summer gatherings with family and friends when you need a satisfying and tasty side dish! This recipe is a great new way to savor hot dogs, particularly when maybe you don’t have quite enough for each person at the table to have […]
I’m not sure if this is a sign of hitting a certain age — like a sudden interest in bird feeders (check, and please tell me about yours), or beekeeping (well, in the TikTok sense, not sorry), and animated conversations on the best pillows (I hate mine) — but I’ve found over the last year that I have very strong opinions on chicken salad and the correct way to make it, which, naturally, is my way. I hope I’m in the right place to release them into the world.
These scones are made with almond flour, and frankly, maybe all scones should be—whether you need them to be gluten-free or not. They’re 100 percent delicious, featuring perfectly tender insides and golden exteriors that offer a light crunch along the edges. Jammy burst blueberries, lemon zest and a light sprinkle of raw sugar take them to the next level!
I didn’t come up with this idea myself. When I published my Blueberry Scones, which are made with whole wheat or all-purpose flour, I received several questions about how to make the recipe with almond flour.
Since almond flour has become my favorite flour over the past year or two, I had to figure it out. Despite being made entirely with almond flour, the scones don’t taste overtly of almond. They’re easy to make with simple, wholesome, lower carbohydrate ingredients, so they’re a win all around.
It took seven tries to get the recipe just right. Along the way, it became the topping for a Peach Cobbler. I’m delighted with this recipe and all the variations you’ll find below.
These strawberry bars are incredibly simple to make, with just 6 ingredients. A crisp shortbread base holds strawberry jam and fresh strawberries, and the topping is a crumble made from the same shortbread dough! They’re so easy, not-too-sweet, and you’ll make them again and again. Baking Doesn’t Have to Be Hard Sometimes you come across […]
Learn how to clean abalone and make abalone sotbap, a nourishing Korean stone pot rice dish with tender abalone, miyeok, garlic, and crispy scorched rice at the bottom.
Moo shu pork is an iconic Chinese restaurant dish of stir-fried pork, cabbage, carrots, and mushrooms, served on paper-thin, chewy pancakes with a sweet hoisin-based sauce. It is an absolutely delicious combination, and this moo shu pork recipe will yield that nostalgic flavor from American Chinese restaurants past. Moo Shu Memories Fun to eat and […]
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