Last week, after Thanksgiving, I absconded with my father’s copy of Fuchsia Dunlop’s Hunanese cookbook. I gave it to him for Christmas last year but don’t have a copy myself, so I spent the holiday sighing over the recipes until he offered to let me borrow it for a while. Ha!

I adore Dunlop’s Sichuan cookbook and make stuff from it constantly, but I’ve been intrigued by the spicy, yet more subtle flavors of Hunan. Some of the recipes use pungent ingredients like preserved vegetables, fermented tofu and salted chiles, but many are very simple and lightly flavored with soy, rice wine and aromatics. It seemed like the perfect type of food to make in the inevitable detox weeks after Thanksgiving.

The first thing I cooked, after we got home and I was feeling a bit frail, was this lovely chicken and mushroom stir-fry with rice noodles. The recipe called for dried shiitakes, which I don’t have, so I used the excellent fresh shiitakes that are grown locally. I was also delighted to find thin-cut chicken breasts at our Co-op, which made it easy to sliver the chicken. The dish was very good, full of vegetables, and refreshing after a long week of heavy eating, with just a little kick of spice to keep it interesting.

Stir-fried rice noodles with chicken and mushrooms

adapted from Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook

• 1 lb chicken breast, cut into slivers
• 1 Tbsp soy sauce
• 1 Tbsp rice wine
• about 10 fresh shiitake mushrooms, sliced
• 1/2 pound rice noodles
• 2 tsp fresh ginger, finely chopped
• 1 clove garlic, finely chopped
• 2 tsp salted chiles (I haven’t made these yet, so I used Thai pickled chiles)
• 1 package bean sprouts
• 3 scallions, cut into 1 inch lengths
• soy sauce
• sesame oil
• sweet chile sauce (optional)

Combine the sliced chicken in a bowl with the soy sauce and rice wine, mix well and set aside.

Cook the rice noodles in boiling water until just done, drain and rinse. (I know everyone always says to just soak them, but I’ve tried this and I’m tired of crunchy noodles)

Put a large wok over high heat and add a couple spoonfuls of peanut oil. Add the chicken and fry until the pieces separate, then add the mushrooms, ginger, garlic, and chiles. When the mushrooms are soft, add the bean sprouts and cook for a moment, then add the noodles and scallions and mix it all up. Add a bit more soy sauce and a little sesame oil to taste. Serve as is, or with additional soy sauce or Thai sweet chile sauce (what we call “sauce for chicken” in our house).

When you buy squid or shrimp in the grocery store around here (even at the fish market), it’s usually bagged frozen stuff that the shop has just thawed that day. This is why we usually buy big bags of it ourselves, so we can thaw it out in small quantities as we want it. We never have any lack of ideas for the shrimp, but somehow the squid wasn’t getting used very quickly. I spent some time hunting out recipes for pre-cut rings and tentacles, especially Chinese, which I thought would be particularly well-suited. I found surprisingly few Chinese recipes for squid, but lots for clams, and it occurred to me that if clams in black bean sauce was such a fixture, why not squid in black bean sauce? Why not on noodles? And a dinner concept was born.

So far I’ve been making it up as I go along each time, but maybe at some point I’ll settle on a particular recipe – or maybe not. I tend to cook by the “spoonful of this, spoonful of that” method in any case. If you have squid in the house, and you can remember to thaw it in time, this is a fantastic, blazingly-fast weeknight dinner – certainly no more than half an hour from start to finish, if you prep while the noodles are cooking. And you could use considerably less chile than I do, if you don’t happen to like having your sinuses cleared by your dinner. But what I really love is the contrast of texture between the squid and the noodles, and the saltiness of the black beans. Everything else is flexible.

The way I’m doing this at the moment (subject to change as I experiment, but this is way tasty): first I cook and drain the noodles – we’re really liking udon with this, but any kind of slithery noodle would work – and toss them in a large bowl with some of the sludge from our homemade hot chile oil and a splash of soy sauce. Then I get all my condiments, squid and vegetables ready to go, as none of this takes any time at all to cook. I heat peanut oil in the wok, and toss in chopped garlic and scallions. As those sizzle, I add a spoonful of chile-garlic sauce and a spoonful of fermented black beans. Then I add the squid and start stir-frying briskly, adding a splash of rice wine. As soon as the squid turns opaque (perhaps a minute), I turn it out into the bowl of noodles. Then I put the wok back over the heat and toss in a bunch of chopped greens, like bok choi or beet greens, and stirfry with a bit of soy sauce until wilted, then scrape those into the noodles as well. Serve hot. Slurp.

This week we did our annual car camping trip to Washington Park on Fidalgo Island. It rained. Welcome to a Pacific Northwest summer.

Fortunately the firewood we brought burned well, and we were able to successfully cook our dinner. Hebrew National hot dogs, blistered over the fire and dressed with sweet relish and very hot Dijon mustard, macaroni salad, Bonny Doon grenache, and toasted marshmallows. I tend to think that, if you don’t cook it on a stick over the fire, it’s not real camping food. Except the macaroni salad, which can be scooped directly out of its tupperware in case you don’t feel like washing extra dishes. 

You probably don’t need a recipe for toasted marshmallows (although it was fun taking these pictures), but I’m happy to share my macaroni salad with you. This was actually the first time I’ve made it myself – it worked very well, considering I was making it up as I went along. And being rained on didn’t seem to hurt it any.

Macaroni Salad for Two (a very loosely estimated recipe)

• 1/4 pound elbow macaroni
• Half of a large carrot, finely diced
• 1/2 cup Best Foods mayonnaise
• 1/4 cup or so cider vinegar
• 2 scallions, finely chopped
• 3 radishes, finely diced
• a handful of fresh chives, finely chopped
• salt and pepper

Cook the macaroni in boiling salted water until just done, adding the minced carrot to the pot a few minutes before the end. Drain and rinse well with cold water. Make sure it has completely cooled before continuing.

Mix all the other ingredients into the cooled pasta. Taste for seasoning, and refrigerate. If you make it a day ahead, like I did, be aware the noodles will absorb most of the dressing. Be prepared to add more mayonnaise. Do not, I repeat, do not use Miracle Whip. Or if you do, don’t tell me about it – I don’t want to know.

In the morning, by the way, the sun came out. Were we surprised? No.

Despite what the weather keeps telling us, it really is summer now, and therefore grilling season. Even if it’s raining, darn it. At least the sun came out for a few minutes while Jon was grilling these Vietnamese tamarind pork skewers – just long enough for us to eat our dinner outside, before getting cold and going back in. Yay, June.

We had gotten a pork roast out the freezer a few days ahead, but hadn’t quite decided what direction to go with it. Jon pulled out all of our meat cookbooks and finally settled on a Bruce Aidells marinade with tamarind, fish sauce and shallot. He also made the included recipe for pickled shredded zucchini, and since we had a bag of radishes and some carrots on hand, he pickled those as well. All I had to do when I got home from work was cook up some rice noodles.

The thing that took the longest was threading the thin pieces of meat onto every skewer we had in the house.

Because he didn’t pack them tightly onto the skewers, they only took a moment to cook over the hot charcoal.

We made a sort of modified bún, piling the grilled meat and pickled vegetables over soft rice noodles with a spoonful of reserved tamarind marinade. I could have added lettuce and fresh herbs, but was too lazy. It was delicious anyway, with a minty mojito to wash it down.

The next day we bought a soft baguette at the farmer’s market and made banh mi. This was one of those times when my desire for blogging material was overridden by greed, and no pictures were taken before we had demolished the sandwiches. Take my word for it, they were great. Mayo, tamarind sauce, cilantro, pork, pickled vegetables, all squished into an airy baguette with a chewy crust. We will be doing more of this sort of thing, I think.

Grilled Tamarind Pork

adapted from Bruce Aidells’s Complete Book of Pork: A Guide to Buying, Storing, and Cooking the World’s Favorite Meat

Note: I’ve put down the amounts as written, but when Jon made this he doubled the amount of marinade and reserved some before adding the pork, so we would have uncontaminated sauce to add to noodles and sandwiches.

• 1 Tbsp tamarind paste
• 2 tsp brown sugar
• 1 Tbsp fish sauce
• 2 tsp fresh ginger, minced
• 1 Tbsp shallot, minced
• ½ tsp Chinese 5-spice powder (we didn’t have this, but Jon made a quick version from equal parts ground clove, cinnamon, fennel, and Sichuan pepper)
• 3/4 pound pork, thinly sliced (the recipe calls for pork belly, but we used a leg roast with good results)

Combine the marinade ingredients with the pork. Marinate at least half an hour or up to 2 hours at room temperature.

Thread the pork onto skewers and grill over a medium hot fire, about 2 minutes per side.

Pickled Zucchini

• 2 cups grated zucchini
• 1 Tbsp kosher salt
• 1 Tbsp rice vinegar
• 1 Tbsp Sriracha hot sauce
• 1 Tbsp soy sauce
• 1 Tbsp sesame oil
• pinch of sugar

Toss the zucchini and salt together and let sit for half an hour. Rinse and squeeze out the water. Toss the zucchini with the other seasonings and serve.

Since our local farmer’s market doesn’t start for another month, we drove up to Bellingham last week to see how their market was doing. Man! I have serious market envy. Not that I don’t love ours, of course, but wow.

Covering a large parking lot as well as filling the big permanent covered area the city built, the market is thriving, not just with local fresh vegetables and crafts, but food carts, plants, bread, meat, clothing and henna tattoo artists. Instead of a main stage, they have the old-fashioned approach of letting acoustic musicians set up in the intersections. A hula-hoop area is set up on one side for the amusement of limber youth, and the goat-with-a-cart sculpture on the corner is constantly beset by children. People are everywhere, shopping and visiting and hula-hooping and eating.

The market booth had some really excellent ballcaps. Jon bought himself one, while I ogled the croissants and rhubarb tarts in the neighboring stall.

We wandered the circuit, picking up our favorite semolina crackers and a couple of macaroons from the Breadfarm booth, plus a magnificent head of napa cabbage and some spinach and asparagus. As we headed back through the center aisle we saw this amazing display of pastas, right next to a booth of exquisite cupcakes (salted caramel, oh my) and a blend-your-own-smoothie station with built-in bicycles.

The pasta, made by the Bellingham Pasta Company,  looked gorgeous and didn’t seem exorbitantly expensive. We picked up a pound of lemon-black pepper linguine, then tore ourselves away to go make lunch at home.

That pasta? It was fantastic. When I opened the packet a cloud of lemon scent wafted out, and the pepper came through in every bite. It cooked perfectly in 3-4 minutes and did not stick to itself. We had it for lunch two days running, both times using leftovers from a Gretchen’s class.

The first day I chopped up these incredible pink oyster mushrooms and sauteed them with roasted garlic, then mixed in smoked salmon and some goat cheese. That was pretty good.

The second day I used chopped crimini mushrooms and leeks, mixed in sliced serrano ham, then tossed the pasta with it and added some of its cooking water along with finely chopped parsley and grated parmesan. That was really, really good. Really.

We still have a few weeks until our own market starts up, so I suspect we’ll be heading up to Bellingham again soon. What pasta lunches might we end up with next time?

This stroganoff was one of those dinners that naturally arises by examining a number of random leftovers: in our case, a container of lebni, a bag of mushrooms, some partial leeks and a bunch of fresh dill left from our post-Easter brunch. Combine all that with some sliced seared steak and some egg noodles and you have a really good quick beef stroganoff.

I don’t think it would have occurred to me to use lebni in a stroganoff, but I liked the effect. It’s similar to sour cream but has a denser texture and is slightly less tart. It worked great with the mushrooms and dill. Come to think of it, that would be a really nice dip or spread right there – maybe I’ll try that next time I have these particular leftovers in the house.

We had originally planned to have steak for dinner, but I was feeling tired and steak sounded like a lot of work to eat, so we did a little menu rearrangement. We had bought a cauliflower with the intention of making Pasta al Cavolfiore, a comforting Moosewood standby from our college days, and it was just the thing for my mood. My husband used to make this for me when we were first going out, and I find it soothing.

Because this is a recipe from the 1977 Moosewood Cookbook, a book that could have been commissioned by the Eat More Cheese Association, it’s less of an Italian pasta dish and more like a vat of cauliflower cheese with some pasta and tomato thrown in. You don’t really have to add as much cheese as the recipe says to – it would still taste great – but I admit a lot of the appeal here is the dense richness of the cheesy pasta, studded with tart bits of cauliflower and herb. We do veer away from the Moosewood vegetarian standard by adding some chunks of seared kielbasa, which adds a nice smokiness, as well as heft.

We never seem to make less than a full recipe of this stuff, even though it takes us days to eat the leftovers. I should mention that this is one of the few things that doesn’t really work with a fried egg on top. Yes, I tried it.

Pasta al Cavalfiore

adapted from (the old version of) The Moosewood Cookbook by Mollie Katzen

• 2 Tbsp olive oil
• 1 large cauliflower, broken into bite-size pieces
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 bay leaf
• 2 tsp dried basil, or 1 Tbsp fresh julienned basil
• 2 cups or 1 large can tomato puree or crushed tomato
• salt and pepper
• 2 cups grated cheese, Parmesan or Cheddar or a blend
• 1 kielbasa or other smoked sausage
• 1 lb pasta (we like penne)

Heat the olive oil in a large skillet. Add the garlic and bay leaf, and the basil if using dried. Saute for a minute, then add the cauliflower, salt lightly and saute, adding water if necessary, until the cauliflower is tender. If using fresh basil (we often get those bundles of hydroponic basil this time of year, it’s wonderful having it fresh) add it now. Add the tomato and simmer 15 minutes or so.

If adding kielbasa, slice the sausage thickly and arrange the pieces in a nonstick skillet over medium high heat. Sear, turning once, until the pieces are hot and slightly caramelized. Set aside.

Cook the pasta until just done, reserving some of the water before draining. Stir the pasta into the cauliflower-tomato sauce, adding a bit of the pasta water if it seems too thick. Stir in the cheese, and the kielbasa if using. Serve right away.

It’s always a bit odd to make a new recipe, taste it, then realize that you don’t know whether it turned out or not, since you have no idea of what it’s supposed to taste like. When we made dan dan noodles for the first time, it may or may not have been a success.

What I do know is that the noodles were flavorful, the sauce had an interesting sweet/spicy/salty tang, and the Sichuan pepper gave it so much ma that I couldn’t feel my mouth for half an hour afterwards. So perhaps it was a success. We decided to try it again another time.

That was our first time using Tianjin preserved vegetable, a fermented cabbage product that we had just recently found at a little Chinese market in Seattle’s International District. According to Fuchsia Dunlop, mistress of all things Sichuan, it’s not quite a perfect stand-in for traditional Sichuanese fermented vegetable, but it comes close. The flavor of it was sweet, a little funky and really, really, really salty. We keep trying to decide if we want to replace it when we use up the jar, or just use cabbage and lots of salt instead.

It was also our first use of Chinkiang vinegar, which we found at the same market. It’s made from glutinous rice, and has a surprisingly sweet, almost plummy aroma. The combination of the vinegar with the salty cabbage produced a really interesting flavor for the noodles.

Here is the recipe for the version we made the first time. It was pretty good, but seemed to be lacking something.

Dan Dan Mian (version one)

loosely adapted from Land of Plenty by Fuchsia Dunlop

8 oz dried or fresh wheat noodles (preferably not egg noodles)

The sauce:

• 1 Tbsp oil
• 4 Tbsp preserved veg
• 1 1/2 tsp Chinkiang vinegar
• 1 tsp ground Sichuan pepper

The meat:

• oil
• 4 dried red chiles
• 4 oz ground beef
• 1 Tbsp soy sauce
• pinch of salt

Put on a pot of water for the noodles.

In a wok over high heat, add a tablespoon of oil, then add the preserved vegetable and stirfry it for 30 seconds or so. Scrape out into a large bowl. Add the vinegar and Sichuan pepper.

Putting the wok back on the heat, add a bit more oil, then throw in the dried chiles. Stirfry briefly until they begin to brown a little, then add the meat and stirfry until it is cooked through and partially dried out. Add soy sauce and salt. Transfer the meat to the bowl with the sauce ingredients and stir.

Cook the noodles according to directions, drain them and add them directly to the bowl. Toss everything together and serve.

Just last week we made dan dan noodles again. This time we had thought ahead and made fresh chili oil, and we followed a different version of the recipe that called for fresh ground pork. The difference was astonishing.

The previous batch had been a little dry, and both spicy and numbing without actually being very savory. This batch was oily, salty, savory, slithery, and completely addictive. We didn’t have to ask ourselves whether it had come out right – we just inhaled it.

Dan Dan Mian (version two)

Also adapted (not as loosely) from Land of Plenty by Fuchsia Dunlop

10 oz somen or other wheat noodles

The sauce:

• 1 Tbsp peanut oil
• 4 Tbsp preserved vegetable
• 3 scallions, thinly sliced on the diagonal
• 1 Tbsp soy sauce
• 3 Tbsp chili oil
• 1 1/2 tsp Chinkiang vinegar
• 1/2 tsp ground Sichuan pepper

The meat topping:

• peanut oil
• 6 oz ground pork
• 1 tsp sherry
• 2 tsp soy sauce

Heat a spoonful of peanut oil in a wok, toss in the preserved vegetable and stir-fry for thirty seconds. Scrape into a mixing bowl. Add the rest of the sauce ingredients to the bowl.

Put the wok back on the heat, add another spoonful of oil, and add the pork. Break up with a spatula, and add the sherry and soy. Cook until done but still wet, and add to the bowl of sauce.

Cook the noodles according to directions (somen take almost no time at all), drain, and add them to the bowl. Toss well and serve.

I don’t know if we make this dish mainly because it’s tasty, or because it’s so much fun to set fire to a panful of shrimp. Probably both.

Shrimp fra diavolo (“Brother Devil”) is a traditional dish, the main idea being a spicy tomato sauce with shrimp, saucing long skinny pasta. The version we make comes from an old issue of Cook’s Illustrated. It adds an extra step or two to the typical recipe, but it’s well worth the effort. If you’ve never flambéed before, give it a try – it’s gratifyingly easy. Just make sure there’s nothing flammable right above your stove burners. You can skip the flambéing step, but the shrimp won’t have as deep and rich a flavor.

First you toss the raw, peeled shrimp with hot pepper flakes, as much as you think you can stand, plus some salt and olive oil.

The shrimp are seared in a very hot pan, then pulled off the heat. Add some brandy (a quarter cup for a pound of shrimp), put it back over the heat, and tip the pan to let the brandy fumes come in contact with the open flame (or use a match)…

Once the shrimp are engulfed in flames, just shake the pan and wait until the fire dies down – it won’t take long for the alcohol to burn off. Scrape the shrimp into a bowl.

After being flambéed, the shrimp take on a slightly caramelized coating, and the hot pepper flavor is really seared in.

Then all you need to do is put the pan back on medium-low heat, sauté minced garlic in a bit of fresh olive oil until golden, toss in a can of tomatoes and some white wine, simmer it down and add the shrimp back in along with some minced raw garlic and chopped parsley. Cook some pasta and toss everything together. A chilled white wine goes well with the spicy shrimp.

This is an awesome lasagna. I’m not kidding, it’s really, really good. Unless you don’t like mushrooms, of course, in which case I can’t help you. This is all about the mushrooms. And the cheese.

I got the idea for this lasagna from a recipe in Deborah Madison’s Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone, but I embellished it a bit with extra cheese and a generous amount of sausage, because I tend to feel that sausage makes everything better. One technique of hers that I think is really key here is adding the porcini soaking liquid to the bechamel. It gives the creamy sauce an earthy perfume that I find irresistible.

The last time we made this we fully intended to make fresh pasta sheets, but I got tired at the last minute and pulled out some oven-ready lasagna noodles. I definitely want to try it with homemade, though, I think it would be ethereally exquisite. Or should that be exquisitely ethereal?

Mushroom Lasagna (a suggested recipe – adapt to your own taste)

• 1 oz dried porcini mushrooms
• 3 portobello mushrooms, chopped
• 1 lb. button mushrooms, chopped
• 1 shallot or onion, chopped
• 1 pound loose pork sausage
• handful chopped parsley (optional)
• 3 Tbsp butter
• 3 Tbsp flour
• 2 cups milk
• 1 package (or a little less) oven-ready lasagna noodles, or about a pound fresh cooked lasagna noodles
• 1 lb ricotta
• small round of mozzarella cheese, sliced

Preheat the oven to 375°.

Put the porcini in a bowl and pour about a cup of hot water over them. Let them sit while you do the sauce and filling.

Melt the butter in a heavy pot. Add the flour and whisk up well, then cook over medium heat until it gets foamy and golden. Pour in a cup of milk and whisk well, then gradually add the second cup of milk. Bring to a low simmer and cook, whisking occasionally.

Saute the pork sausage in a skillet until fully cooked and broken up. Drain off the fat.

In a large skillet, heat a few good dollops of olive oil and add the shallot. Cook until a bit soft, then add all the chopped mushrooms. Cook until soft and fragrant. Dump in the sausage and stir. Pull the porcini out of their soaking liquid (don’t get rid of it!), roughly chop, and add them to the pan as well. Stir in parsley, if using.

Add the porcini liquid to the simmering white sauce and whisk it thoroughly. The sauce should be thickening to a good gravy consistency. If it’s too thick, add more milk. When it’s a good texture, take it off the heat and build your lasagna.

Smear some sauce in the bottom of a 9″x13″ roasting pan. Lay out your noodles in the appropriate spacing (check the box instructions). Smear more sauce on, ladle on plenty of mushroom-sausage filling, then drop chunks of ricotta all over. Scatter a little mozzarella. Lay on more noodles and repeat until the pan is full. When you put on the last layer of noodles, top with more mozzarella and pour over all the remaining sauce. Cover tightly with foil. Bake about half an hour, then remove the foil and bake another ten minutes, until the lasagna is bubbling nicely and the cheese on top is just browning.

Let cool slightly before digging in. Makes great leftovers.