Hot Stuff

[The Fiery Cuisines cookbook, copyright 1991]

I was perusing my cookbooks this morning when I pulled this old one off the shelf. I've forgotten how I burnt the back cover, but it's charred right through the index, and toast colored traces travel throughout American Innovations right back into The Orient (although not as far as Southeast Asia and The Pacific).

I don't think I tried very many of the recipes. Tandori Chicken from The Indian Subcontinent is dog-eared and I remember marinating chicken for skewering on the grill. Curried Goat from The Caribbean? Surely not. But there were two recipes from the Southeast Asia and The Pacific chapter that I made frequently: Malaysian Chicken and Nasi Goreng (Indonesian fried rice). The sauce in Malaysian Chicken is a delicious blend of dried red chiles, onion, garlic, brown sugar, soy sauce, and wine vinegar. Quite easy to make, and mildly hot (depending on the number of chiles). Nasi Goreng has a lot of curry powder in it, the rest being rice, eggs, onion, garlic, chiles, cashews, soy sauce, chicken broth, and chicken. I think I stopped making it because it had too much curry and was too hot, although today I'd look for better quality curry powder, leave out the extra chiles, and perhaps have better results.

I'm still thinking about writing about food and health, although there are gazillions of writers in those areas. There are gazillions of people writing on any subject. So I guess you just write what interests you and write from your own life and perspective. What more can you do? Then there's the question of a name if I start at new side blog. Antacid Dreams? Cracked Wheat?

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This morning's breakfast is fairly typical for me: fresh berries and papaya in yogurt (I blend half plain and half French vanilla yogurt from Stonyfield Farms, a local organic dairy), toasted and buttered Ezekiel English Muffins (the sprouted grains are easier to digest and low glycemic), and strong Irish breakfast blend tea with milk. The extra bowl of fruit is for D, who's sleeping in this morning after too much awake time sometime during the night. I rarely sleep late myself, in part because I start thinking about breakfast...

Comments

[Relatively Retiring]

I think that back cover should be an essential design feature of the book.

[Leslee]

Heh. I know. I think the book may be out of print, though, now.

[Siona]

I thought it was part of the original title as well--a precursor, say, to this.

I love spicy food, but struggle with pairing 'spicy' with 'delicious.' How to explain? I have a high heat tolerance but my individual tastebuds are utter wimps. As soon as anything remotely spicy brushes them they squeal and retreat and leave me tasting nothing but 'searing.'

[Leslee]

Great to see you here, Siona! Don't knock your sensitive and subtle tastes (and tastebuds). They are delicious. (And interesting book you linked to - I hadn't heard of it.)