Cooking for large groups creates a special kind of chaos in the refrigerator and pantry. And there is a special kind of pleasure straightening it out.

This is a good vessel to take the clutter out — a freeform dry pot.

What do we have here:
— vegetables: red onion, lotus root, wood ear mushrooms, cauliflower, yellow pepper, scallions;
— tofu;
— pork belly;
— the zing mix: crushed garlic, sliced ginger, dried peppers;
— the juice: doubanjian, oyster sauce, shaoxing wine, soy sauce, black vinegar.

Each vegetable and tofu were flash fried separately — low BTU of my cooktop does not allow for the word “stir-fried.” It is my dream to get a good burner and cook outside like my Chinese neighbor Linda used to do. She was a virtuoso with that wok and chuan — rain, or shine, or snow.

Once pork gave out its fat and charred up in spots, the zing mix with doubanjian stepped in to coat pork with a glossy aromatic paste.

And the last part — all the vegetables and the juice components to finish the dish.

The original idea came from The Woks of Life and I started measuring. Then I gave up. It turned out very good.

#food #cooking #drypot #chinesefood #cookingathome #onmytable #freeformcooking

A salad. And a fridge raid.

Lately, I started winging our meals without directions more often. It is good and not. Good because it provides much needed pantry reorganization. Not good because I rarely remember what I did, what I used, and cannot repeat the dish.

This one we wanted to remember. Simple: arugula, beans, eggplant, feta, onions. But that chunky picklish dressing-? salsa-? topping-? made it different and memorable. So here goes…

FOR THE SALAD
— 5 oz baby arugula;
— 1/5 lb beans (a mix of navy and great northern), cooked;
— 10 Japanese eggplants cut into three segments, each then quartered, salt, hot paprika, oil, roasted at 450°F for 15-20 minutes;
— 8 oz feta, crumbled;
— red onion, thinly sliced.

FOR THE DRESSING
— 3 tomatillos, diced;
— 2 jalapeños, diced;
— a bunch of cilantro, roughly chopped;
— 1 cup castelvetrano olives, roughly chopped;
— 2 garlic cloves, minced;
— 1/3 cup lemon and lime juice;
— 1/3 cup olive oil;
— salt;
— sumac.

THE PROCESS
1. On a platter, layer the ingredients in order listed.
2. Mix the dressing ingredients and spread it over the rest.

#food #salad #eggplant #beans #fridgeraid #freeformcooking #cookingathome #homemade #cookingtherapy