The great variety of Asian vegetables is wondrous but can also be a source of frustration, since it’s difficult for home cooks here to find bitter melon, luffa squash, fuzzy melon, water spinach, mustard cabbage, Chinese celery, flowering chives, long beans, green papaya, lotus root, or fresh bamboo shoots. In this chapter, I focus on recipes that use readily available vegetables, prepared in different ways.
I love Indian-style vegetables and legumes. Here I offer okra in a spice paste of onion, ginger, and garlic, layered with coriander, cumin, and turmeric. Cauliflower is cooked with whole spices that have been sautéed in hot oil with garlic. Green beans, potatoes, carrots, or cabbage can be used interchangeably in these preparations.
Sautéed greens and vegetables curries and sambals (chile-fried condiments) should also be part of your Asian vegetable repertoire and are just as versatile. Most any vegetable that is fresh at the market can be used.
This side dish goes well with most any main course or barbecued dish in this book. Everyone likes it, and broccoli rabe can be made an hour or two in advance and reheated at the last minute.
I have made this dish with many Asian greens as well as kale, collards, and spinach, but I like broccoli rabe the best. It holds its shape better than spinach and has a slightly bitter flavor. It makes a unique marriage of an Italian ingredient with Asian flavorings.
Cooking time will vary with the green. Spinach will cook the most quickly. Whatever the green, the key is not to overcook it. Stop the cooking when it is just tender and you can’t go wrong.
Serves 4
1½ pounds broccoli rabe, Chinese broccoli, or spinach
1 onion, thinly sliced
2 tablespoons canola oil
1 tablespoon fish sauce, or more to taste
1. Chop the greens into 2-inch pieces, discarding the bottom 2 inches of stem, and soak them in a bowl of cold water.
2. Heat the oil in a large frying pan and cook the onion over medium-low heat until very brown and caramelized, 20 to 25 minutes.
3. Drain the greens and add them to the pan. Cook until the broccoli rabe is well wilted, 7 to 10 minutes. Add the tablespoon of fish sauce, stir, and taste for saltiness. Add a bit more if necessary and cook for a few more minutes.
When making this Thai curry, I look for a nice mix of colors and textures. Whole white mushrooms work well, but for color I use tomatoes and snow peas for crunch. Try other combinations such as green beans, eggplant, and red bell pepper, or cabbage, cherry tomatoes, and okra.
Serves 4
3 tablespoons canola oil
1 onion, sliced
1 cup coconut milk
1 tablespoon red curry paste
1 large garlic clove, minced
10 ounces white button mushrooms
6 plum tomatoes, chopped into large pieces
2 tablespoons fish sauce
½ pound snow peas, strings removed
20 Thai basil or Italian basil leaves, plus a sprig for garnish
1. Heat the oil in a medium frying pan over medium heat until hot. Add the onion and sauté until golden brown, about 15 minutes. Add ½ cup of the coconut milk and when it begins to bubble, add the curry paste and stir-fry for a minute. Add the garlic and fry for another minute.
2. Add the mushrooms, tomatoes, the remaining ½ cup coconut milk mixed with ½ cup water, and the fish sauce. Stir to mix, cover the pan and reduce the heat to low. Simmer for 5 minutes. Add the snow peas and stir to combine. Cover again and cook until the peas are just done, about 5 minutes. Toss in the basil leaves and cook for a minute more. Transfer to a serving bowl, garnish with the basil sprig, and serve at once.
The sharp, fresh greenness of this cold side dish makes a nice accompaniment to grilled meat or fish. A lot of spinach is required because it dramatically reduces in volume when cooked. Spinach is frequently served this way in Korea and Japan. The Japanese have a special device for grinding sesame seeds called a suribachi. It is a wonderful, inexpensive tool if you can get your hands on one, but, if not, a clean coffee grinder will do just fine. Serve with Bulgogi (page 120) or grilled pork chops and mashed potatoes.
Serves 4
1½ pounds spinach, stems removed, soaked in a bowl of water and drained but not dried
3 tablespoons sesame seeds
4 tablespoons soy sauce
2 teaspoons sugar
1 tablespoon unseasoned rice vinegar
2 tablespoons dashi (see page 11) or chicken stock
1. Put the spinach in a large, dry frying pan over medium heat. Cover and cook until the spinach is completely wilted, about 5 minutes. Drain in a colander and squeeze out any excess moisture. Chop the spinach coarsely.
2. Put the sesame seeds in a small, dry frying pan and toast over medium heat until light brown and fragrant, shaking the pan frequently, 3 to 5 minutes. Cool and grind the seeds to a powder in a clean coffee grinder.
3. Combine the soy sauce, sugar, rice vinegar, and dashi and stir until the sugar is dissolved. Add the sesame powder and stir until well blended. Arrange the spinach in four mounds on a small serving dish and pour dressing over each one.
These split peas, called chana dal, are a classic Indian legume—smaller and more savory than regular split peas. If you can’t find chana dal, any yellow split peas will work nicely. A traditional Indian cooking technique is used here: simmering the split peas with turmeric and ginger slices until done, then frying whole spices in oil and tossing them in with the peas at the very end of the cooking process, infusing the peas with a rich complexity of flavors. I frequently eat this alone with rice for a simple, filling lunch. Making this dish in advance or even the day before only improves the flavor.
Serves 6
1½ cups yellow split peas or chana dal
½ teaspoon turmeric
Two ¼-inch-thick slices unpeeled ginger
1½ teaspoons salt
3 tablespoons canola oil
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
1½ teaspoons black mustard seeds
2 large garlic cloves, minced
1 dried red chile
1. Wash the split peas in a colander and pick over to remove anything that isn’t a split pea. Bring 5 cups of water and the peas to a boil in a medium saucepan and skim off any scum. Add the turmeric and ginger slices. Stir to mix and turn the heat to low. Cover, leaving the lid slightly ajar. Let them simmer for 35 to 45 minutes, until tender. Remove the ginger slices and add the salt.
2. Heat the oil in a small frying pan over medium-high heat and add the cumin and mustard seeds. When the mustard seeds pop, add the garlic and break the chile up in the pan. Fry until the garlic is lightly brown, 1 to 2 minutes, and immediately pour the spices and oil into the split peas. Stir to mix, and cover. Turn the heat off and let the flavors combine for 5 minutes. Serve with rice.
When you want a side dish that adds heartiness to a meal but won’t compete with the flavors of the entree, my favorite lentil dish is the ticket. It doesn’t have garlic or onions, so there is a clean simplicity to it. This dish is very good reheated. Make it an hour or two before it is needed, turn off the heat, and let it sit on the burner, covered.
Serve alongside a steak, with salmon, or as part of a vegetarian meal.
Serves 6
1 cup lentils
12 ounces spinach
1 small bunch cilantro
3 tablespoons canola oil
1 tablespoon chopped ginger
½ jalapeño chile, or more to taste, chopped
1½ teaspoons salt
Juice of 1 lemon
1. Wash and drain the lentils. Add them to 3 cups water in a medium saucepan and bring to a boil. Cover the pan and reduce the heat to low. Simmer until tender but not mushy, 20 minutes. Remove from the heat.
2. Remove the stems from the spinach and cilantro and soak the leaves in a bowl of water. Drain the greens in a colander and taste them to make sure they are grit free (if not, soak them again). Chop the spinach and cilantro coarsely.
3. Heat the oil in a chef’s pan over medium heat and add the ginger and chile. Cook for a minute, and then add the spinach and cilantro. Cover and reduce the heat to low. Check the pan after 5 minutes to see if the greens are wilted. If not, continue to cook while stirring until they are.
4. Add the salt and the lentils and stir to mix. Let them simmer on low for 10 minutes. Add the lemon juice and stir again. Simmer for a further 2 minutes. Transfer to a serving bowl.
Using bits of meat as a flavoring for vegetables is a mainstay of Asian cooking. This dish is made throughout Asia with long beans, which are much longer, coarser, and more flavorful than our standard green beans. Use them if you can find them. In Chinese restaurants the beans are frequently deep-fried, but I cut the beans in smallish pieces, stir-fry them with the other ingredients, add a bit of stock, and let them simmer until done. They are less greasy that way and soak up the other flavors.
Serve with Chinese Fish Fillets with Black Beans (page 136) and jasmine rice.
Serves 4
½ pound ground pork
3 tablespoons canola oil
2 large garlic cloves, minced
2 dried red chiles, or more to taste
3 tablespoons fish sauce
1 tablespoon light brown sugar
½ cup chicken stock or water
1½ pounds green beans, trimmed and cut into 1-inch pieces
1. Sauté the ground pork in a medium frying pan over medium heat until it is cooked through, remove with a slotted spoon, and then drain it on a paper towel. Pour off any pork fat but don’t wipe out the pan.
2. Add the oil to the pan and sauté the garlic over medium heat. After a minute, break the chiles over the pan into two or three pieces and add them to the garlic. Continue to fry for another minute and then add the fish sauce, brown sugar, chicken stock, and beans and stir to combine. Bring to a simmer, then cover and lower the heat.
3. Let cook until the beans are done, 5 to 8 minutes. Transfer to a serving dish.
To build an Indonesian or Malaysian meal, start with a bowl of plain rice and a sambal, or chile-fried condiment. To this add a meat or fish curry, a soup, a vegetable dish, and krupah (friend shrimp crackers). The sambal should be intensely flavored so that a little goes a long way.
This sambal is chile-fried green beans, but cauliflower, chunks of fish, squid, or just chiles could be substituted. Small amounts of dried shrimp paste add just the right flavor to Southeast Asian dishes. It has an even stronger smell when being cooked (I happen to love the smell, but my daughter always says, “What stinks?”), but it soon vanishes, so don’t be put off, just open a window.
This dish can be eaten warm or at room temperature. Serve it with lots of jasmine rice and Thai Beefsteak Curry (page 148).
Serves 4
2 tablespoons canola oil
1 small onion, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 teaspoons sambal olek
½ teaspoon dried shrimp paste
¾ pound green beans, ends removed and sliced into very thin pieces on the diagonal
¾ teaspoon salt
1. Heat the oil in a medium frying pan over medium heat. When it’s hot, add the onion and garlic. Lower the heat and gently cook until golden brown, about 15 minutes.
2. Increase the heat slightly and add the sambal olek. Fry for a minute. Add the shrimp paste, crush it into the mixture with the back of a spoon, and cook for another minute. Add the green beans, salt, and ½ cup water.
3. Cover the pan, lower the heat, and simmer until the beans are cooked, 8 to 10 minutes. Lift the lid for the last 2 minutes and allow some of the liquid to boil off to intensify the flavor.
4. Transfer to a small serving bowl.
Okra is a swing vegetable—just as prominent along the Ganges as it is in the Mississippi Delta. Indians love it because it holds its shape well, has an unusual appearance, and an interesting texture and flavor. I like it best in a tomato-flavored sauce with a bit of lemon juice. Fresh okra should have few if any black spots, and when you bend the tip it should snap off easily. If nibbled raw, it should be crisp, not woody.
I served this dish one Christmas Eve to a vegetarian gathering with Lentils with Spinach (page 164), an eggplant dish, and Carrot and Mustard Seed Salad (page 63). It was a big hit.
Serves 4
1 medium onion, roughly chopped
2 garlic cloves, roughly chopped
1-inch piece ginger, peeled and roughly chopped
3 tablespoons canola oil
1 teaspoon cumin seeds, ground
1 teaspoon coriander seeds, ground
½ teaspoon turmeric
1 dried red chile, broken into 3 pieces
2 small tomatoes, chopped
1 pound okra, both ends cut off and sliced into 1-inch lengths
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1. Put the onion, garlic, and ginger in a food processor and process until a paste forms. Add a tablespoon or two of water if needed.
2. Heat the oil in a medium frying pan over medium heat and cook the paste until it is light brown, 5 to 7 minutes. Add the cumin, coriander, turmeric, and chile. Cook while stirring for 2 minutes. Add the tomatoes and cook to a pulp, about 5 minutes. Add the okra, salt, and ¼ cup water.
3. Cover and cook the okra until it is just soft, about 10 minutes. Add the lemon juice and cook for an additional minute.
Every cuisine has its version of eggplant puree. In the Middle East it is babaganoush. The French make an eggplant caviar. Indians serve pureed eggplant mixed with yogurt. Thais offer an eggplant nam prik, or dipping sauce. This version of the Thai nam prik is thicker and I serve it as a condiment to accompany grilled meat. Do not puree the eggplant too much; the texture should be slightly chunky.
Serves 4
1 medium eggplant
Two ¼-inch-thick slices red onion or 1 large shallot, roughly chopped
1 garlic clove, roughly chopped
½ serrano chile, or more to taste, roughly chopped
1 teaspoon sugar
1 tablespoon shrimp powder (optional)
2 tablespoons fish sauce
Juice of 1 lime
20 mint leaves, rolled up and julienned
1. Preheat the oven to 375°F. Pierce the eggplant in several places with a fork. Roast the eggplant on the bare oven rack until quite soft, 30 to 40 minutes. (Put a pan underneath to catch any juice.) Remove the eggplant from the oven and cool.
2. In a food processor or blender, pulse the onion, garlic, and chile until finely chopped. Remove the skin from the eggplant, chop the eggplant coarsely, and add it to the food processor. Pulse a few times so that it is well broken up but not fluffy.
3. Transfer the eggplant to a mixing bowl and add the sugar, shrimp powder, fish sauce, lime juice, and mint. Stir to mix. Cover and refrigerate for at least an hour before serving.
Indian culinary and cultural influences can be found throughout Southeast Asia. Malaysia and Singapore have large Indian populations, and Burmese cuisine has strong Indian elements because its border is shared with India and Bangladesh. I was much taken with the Indian banana leaf restaurants in Singapore. You receive a silver tray lined with a banana leaf. Waiters come around and deliver dollops of vegetarian specialties, such as this spiced cauliflower, along with a dal, basmati rice, a yogurt dish, and a chutney.
Serve with Indian Spice-Rubbed Pork Chops (page 105) or Roast Chicken with Szechuan Peppercorns (page 144) and rice.
Serves 4
1 head cauliflower, separated into florets
4 tablespoons canola oil
1 tablespoon black mustard seeds
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 teaspoon fennel seeds
½ teaspoon turmeric
1 dried red chile, torn into pieces
1 teaspoon salt
1. Soak the cauliflower in a bowl of cold water for 20 minutes. Drain.
2. Heat the oil in a medium frying pan over medium-high heat. Add the mustard seeds. When they pop, add the garlic and fennel seeds. Stir the spices while cooking for 2 minutes. Add the turmeric and chile. Stir again. Add the cauliflower and stir while cooking for 2 to 3 minutes. Add ½ cup water and the salt, cover, and reduce the heat to low. Simmer until the cauliflower is cooked through but not mushy, 10 to 15 minutes.
A grill pan makes grilling vegetables so easy that you can feel free to experiment with anything that looks good at the market, but a combination of complementary vegetables such as eggplant slices, sweet potato slices, asparagus, cauliflower, zucchini, and scallions works very well. Grilled red potato slices make a refreshing alternative to roasted or baked potatoes.
Serve these grilled vegetables with any roasted or grilled meat or chicken.
Serves 4
¼ cup canola oil
1 large sweet potato, peeled and sliced into ¼-inch-thick diagonal slices
4 small zucchini, ends removed and sliced in half horizontally
8 cauliflower florets
DIPPING SAUCE
2 tablespoons fish sauce
Juice of 1 lime
1 tablespoon sugar
½ serrano chile, thinly sliced into rings
Heat a grill pan over medium-high heat. Put the oil in a small bowl. Brush each vegetable piece with oil and place it in the grill pan. Watch things carefully. Turn when cooked on one side, and cook the other side the same way. Different vegetables take different amounts of time to cook. Cauliflower needs a long time because of its shape. This amount of vegetables should take 30 to 40 minutes all together. Meanwhile, make the dipping sauce by combining all the ingredients in a small bowl and stirring to dissolve the sugar. Arrange the vegetables on a platter and either pour the sauce over the top or serve it on the side.
The best way to finish an Asian meal is with a platter of sliced tropical fruits. Simultaneously sweet and thirst-quenching, they are just the thing to cut through the heat and humidity of Southeast Asia. The fruits of the region—mangosteens, rambutans, starfruit, jackfruit, durian, watermelon, pineapple, papaya, pear apples, coconut, mangoes, and on and on—are so exquisite in their natural settings that they alone are almost worth the trip. Since many of these fruits are not readily available in the West, use fresh, seasonal fruit, local whenever possible. Slices of watermelon, cantaloupe, papaya, mango, or pineapple make a nice accompaniment to an Asian meal. During the winter, when fresh fruit is limited, serve Granny Smith apples and banana slices or juicy orange wedges. I serve a lime wedge with a platter of sliced fruit as they do in Asia. A squirt over the top turns a plate of fruit into a fruit salad.
If you have to have something else, try the Sesame Butter Cookies. The recipe was given to me by my mother many years ago.
SESAME BUTTER COOKIES MAKES 2 DOZEN 2-INCH COOKIES
2 sticks butter
2/3 cup sugar
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon vanilla
½ cup sesame seeds
Cream the butter with the sugar in a bowl. Add the flour, vanilla, and sesame seeds and stir until a rough dough forms. Roll the dough into balls and place on an ungreased cookie sheet. Press the balls flat with a floured glass bottom. Bake in a 375° oven for 10 to 12 minutes.
Fruit sorbet is also a good option for an Asian dessert. However, my favorite dessert with most any Asian meal is green tea ice cream—made with Japanese green tea in powdered form. Unfortunately, while it’s a standby at Japanese restaurants, it’s rarely available at the retail level. Depending on where you live, you may periodically find Asian ice creams like red bean, green tea, mango, and ginger at Asian grocers or by telephoning boutique ice cream producers.
There can be no doubt, tea is the drink served before, after, or during meals at home throughout Asia. Japan and China have many varieties appropriate with meals: green, black, oolong, and jasmine, to name a few. Tea drinking in those countries has been elevated to a high art with the tea ceremony in Japan and the lavish tea houses of Hong Kong.
Other Asian countries may drink their tea in more humble circumstances, but they are devoted to it nonetheless. In Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore where there are large Muslim populations and alcohol is forbidden, sweet teas are consumed with the same enthusiasm as in the Middle East. In Burma, additives to the tea actually stain the teeth yellow (how appropriate for a country where turmeric is rarely left out of a dish). And in Vietnam, after the long French colonial period when coffee drinking was the fashion, they have returned to tea. The exception to the tea rule is the Philippines, where they drink hot chocolate (perhaps because of their long association with Spain) and soft drinks with meals.
Thais drink very strong, very sweet, milky tea and coffee. They add sweetened condensed milk to strong coffee or tea and serve it hot or over ice.
Ginger iced tea is an authentic and refreshing companion to Asian foods. Pour boiling water into a cup with three quarter-inch slices of ginger and allow to steep for 15 minutes. Sweeten with honey or sugar to taste, then pour over ice.
Fresh fruit juices and coconut water (the liquid inside a coconut) are also common, although these drinks are taken more as refreshing snacks than as a beverage to accompany meals. Nonalcoholic, cool, and refreshing, lemonade or limeade go well with these meals. If you have a juicer, I recommend trying either fresh watermelon, pineapple, or green apple juice.
If alcohol is served, it will more than likely be beer, which is widely produced in Asia. In the hot and humid weather, beer cuts the spiciness of the food without clashing with the flavors. To my mind, Asian beer is the perfect match for an Asian meal: even the look of the bottle on the table adds to the atmosphere. I like to match the beer with the cuisine: if you are cooking adobo, get Philippine San Miguel; with Japanese salt-grilled fish, serve Kirin; Singha goes perfectly with a Thai curry; and on a hot day a cold Tsingtao is the ideal match for Szechuan chicken salad.
Matching Asian foods with wine is a bit tricky because of the strong spices and flavors. Here are some guidelines to follow.
For dishes with a coconut milk base (Southeast Asian Sauté, Burmese Chicken Coconut Curry), a creamy California-style Chardonnay is a good accompaniment.
Meat dishes with a soy sauce influence (Japanese Yakisoba, Korean Beef Noodles, Red-Cooked Beef Stew), pair well with a fruity Zinfandel or a smooth Merlot.
If the dish is highly spiced with chiles or chili sauce (Singapore Noodles), a Riesling or Gewürztraminer works well. The spiciness of the wine blends nicely with the spiciness of the food.
The wine that stands up the best to the majority of the dishes in this book is Sauvignon Blanc. Its high acidity makes it a very good food wine in general. The strong flavors used in some of the dishes—fish sauce, vinegars, and citrus juice—are generally considered hard to match with wine, but in many cases Sauvignon Blanc, with its herbal and mineral flavors, makes a fresh match.