The yams are best at room temperature and improve with several days in the refrigerator.
Though not usually found in the typical local Chinese takeout menu, you have to try this pairing of tender lamb and sweet and savory hoisin sauce with the crunch of water chestnuts and fresh snow peas. Lamb is one of the hallmarks of northern Chinese cooking, especially Mongolia. It is logical when you think of the vast steppes of the region where sheep and goats thrive when little else will.
The term curry conjures images of sturdy sauces dense with spice, and some are just that. But they can also be light, fresh and surprisingly gentle in their spicing.
A classic, very spicy Chinese dish that is usually made with minced meat and tofu, but this vegan version still delivers the punch that is associated with the original.
I eat pho -- chicken or beef -- almost every morning at the restaurant.
My first bowl was in Paris 30 years ago. It brought instant devotion. Hot steaming broth with wafts of ginger, anise and clove, slick rice noodles, slices of rare beef, and flanking the bowl was a plate of what is called "table salad" (sa lach dia in Vietnamese), a heaping platter of additions, like fresh herbs, bean sprouts, greens, lime and chiles—this is the essence of North Vietnam's Pho (pronounced "fuh") soup. Entire restaurants are built on this one dish and all its variations.
This is a cake that should come with a warning: Only proceed if you love molasses. If you do love molasses and its dark, bitter sweetness, then proceed immediately, and with haste. This cake is dark, fudgy, damp and rich. It's like a chocolate cake for people who don't like chocolate.
Portobello mushrooms have a meaty quality that makes them a healthy stand-in for the steak that you might expect to find in this kind of Chinese-style stir-fry. (But you can add some sliced steak, if you wish.) Broccolini is great for stir-frying because its thin stalks cook quickly. Don't confuse it with broccoli rabe, which it resembles -broccolini is much milder. This stir-fry also gets a non-Asian seasoning of thyme, which works beautifully with the other flavors.
If you're new to stir-frying tofu, start with this marvelous marriage of land and sea. It is easy and the ingredients are readily available. The results showcase how tofu can absorb the flavors of its companion ingredients while becoming velvety. Include the peas for bright color and a little sweetness. The shrimp shell stock gives the dish a real seafood taste, tester Johanna Nevitt remarked.