With one kind of tortilla, you can make chilaquiles or huevos a la mexicana. But there’s a different sort of eggs and tortilla altogether. The tortilla española is Spain’s version of the French omelet or the Italian fritatta.
The traditional tortilla has potatoes and onions, but you can add just about anything you have [...]
The Other Tortilla
Not Your Momma’s Fruit Salad
At the very least, this isn’t my mother’s fruit salad. She’s not particularly keen on ginger or cilantro, both of which play supporting roles in this spicy tropical fruit salad with pineapple, mango, and honeydew melon. Something refreshing is a nice addition to a summer BBQ, but most of the time, it falls [...]
Cedar Plank Salmon
ven in occasionally-gray San Francisco, it’s grilling season. Food, fire, and fresh air. What more could you ask for?
One of my favorite things to grill is cedar plank salmon. The plank gives a nice, mild smoke flavor to the fish with almost no extra work on your part. You can get [...]
Spicy Pickled Carrot Sticks
I’m sort of obsessed with carrots. I eat them every day at lunch. And then again at dinner, sometimes. I think we go through a couple pounds a week.
They’re a healthy snack. They can be used to great effect in either savory or sweet dishes. Mmm… carrot cake. And [...]
Sesame Roasted Broccoli
It’s rare that a vegetable steals the show. In a recent dinner at EOS Wine Salon, the sesame roasted broccoli did just that. It was perfectly cooked, with a salty, nutty sauce.
Roasted broccoli is a staple in our kitchen. The basic recipe follows Cooks Illustrated — put a sheet pan in the [...]
Chicken and Lentil Curry
I seem to have lentils, those tasty little legumes, on the brain. And until making this recipe, I had them in the pantry too. They were leftover from making the Ultimate Veggie Burgers, palak daal, and a lentil soup or two. Generally, they’re a good thing to have on hand. Cheap, [...]
A Tale of Two Sauces
Some recipes are clearly simple. Other recipes are clearly complicated. Then there are the recipes that just seem simple. A tablespoon of this, a teaspoon of that, some chopping, some stirring, and you’re done. Except “this” has 20 ingredients of its own, and “that” has to be made 3 days [...]
“Ultimate” Veggie Burgers
Vegetarian week was easy when it was cold outside. A hearty bowl of vegetable stew is perfect to take the chill off. But then Spring came to San Francisco, ever so briefly. Thick and heavy are not the right fare for Spring and Summer evenings.
And what about lunch? It can’t be [...]
Double Chocolate Cookies
Somewhere along our enlightened path of whole grains and health-conscious cooking, we took a detour. A very rich, very chocolatey, and very satisfying detour. There’s not much to say about these double chocolate cookies. No lengthy cultural or culinary background (see, e.g. gefilte fish, char siu bao). No romantic-ish anecdote about where the recipe comes [...]
Gefilte Fish: Jewish Soul Food
The Jewish holiday of Passover, which celebrates the Jewish people’s exodus from Egypt, began on Monday night. As the story goes, after Charlton Heston dropped serious plagues on Rameses & Co., the Jews had to flee Egypt so fast they didn’t have time to let their daily bread dough rise.
In commemoration of this, during [...]