I’ve decided that I don’t pay enough attention to sauces, often considering them nothing more than an afterthought. Bad call on my part.
Because without sauces, cheese nachos would pretty much just be a plate of tortilla chips, hot fudge sundaes would barely have a leg up on a bowl of plain ice cream, and Eggs Benedict would be nothing more than an open faced breakfast sandwich. Clearly it’s the sauces that are elevating those dishes to something extra special.
And so I’m planning on addressing the major dearth of condiment recipes around here, starting with this tart, garlicky tamarind sauce. Tamarind pulp is combined with hot water, garlic and Jalapeno and simmered until dark and thick.
Use it instead of ketchup to give your burger some Burmese flair, or use it as a dip on fries or any other fried snacks. I’m especially happy to have this recipe on file because it always seems like I’ve got a thick slab of tamarind remaining after my Southeast Asian cooking phases. This will surely be my new go-to for using up any tamarind leftovers.
Tart and Garlicky Tamarind Sauce
Yield: About 1 cup
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 5 minutes
Total Time: 15 minutes
Ingredients:
* 1/2 cup packed tamarind pulp, finely chopped
* 1/2 cup plus 2 Tablespoons hot water
* 5 cloves garlic
* 2 Jalapeno chile peppers, seeded and roughly chopped
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 1 teaspoon sugar
Directions:
Combine the tamarind pulp and the hot water in a small bowl. Set aside for 5 minutes and use a fork to mash the tamarind to help dissolve it into the water. Press the mixture through a sieve into a small saucepan, pressing the mixture against the sieve to extract as much as liquid as possible from the pulp. Discard any remaining solids.
Combine the garlic and Jalapeno in a food processor and process until the mixture has formed a paste. Add this to the tamarind liquid and then add the salt and sugar.
Bring the mixture to a boil and then reduce heat and simmer for about 5 minutes, just long enough to take some of the edge off of the garlic. If the mixture gets too thick, add a Tablespoon or two of water. Taste and adjust the salt or sugar, if necessary.
Refrigerate any leftovers.
But now I know better. It was actually Cambodian food that made me see the light, specifically this 
Although we’re experiencing a minor cold snap out here in Hawaii, it seems like the rest of the country is finally starting to warm up. So it’s a good bet that many of you are starting the transition from hearty soups to lighter fare.
Your favorite filet of fish is poached in lemongrass-infused water (or if you’ve got some leftover fish to use up, feel free to use that instead), flaked, and then combined with plenty of shallots, chili pepper, and herbs. The mixture is then tossed in a shallot and lime juice dressing. It’s refreshing, lightly spicy and filling without being heavy.
When I went gluten-free, my burger consumption plummeted. No longer being able to eat the gluten-filled versions at Nico’s Pier 38 meant that burgers became something of a complicated meal to make at home. Gluten-free buns had to be procured from the vegetarian health food store. The ground beef and all the other fixings from another market, etc.
But it occurs to me that maybe I’ve been going about gluten-free burgers all wrong. Instead of making a bland patty that needs to be dressed up with condiments, why not pack all the flavor into a compact, little package and skip the bread altogether?
Infused with a shallot, garlic, ginger and lemongrass paste, these sliders are simple to make, but just as good as those cheeseburgers that I used to enjoy so much. A bit of rice is mixed in with the ground beef to help bind the mixture and provide some starchy goodness.
My first experience with carrot salad? The grated version that’s loaded with raisins and walnuts and drowning in a super-sweet dressing. It was perfect for my tween palate, but these days I’m looking for more depth than that overly sweet, kid-friendly dish.
For fans of Thai or Vietnamese green papaya salad, this carrot salad has a very similar texture and flavor. That’s great news for any of you who love the taste of green papaya salad, but don’t have access to an extremely well-stocked Asian market. No green papaya? No problem.
With the exception of a great 
Although this Burmese rice cake is made with whole sticky rice, as opposed to sticky rice flour, both desserts are sweetened with palm (or brown sugar), which gives the cakes a nice, caramel quality and flavor. It also couldn’t be much simpler. Just toss a bunch of ingredients in a rice cooker (or saucepan), cook until the rice is done, press into a pan and sprinkle with coconut. Easy.
When I get invited to a potluck or dinner at a friend’s place, it pretty much goes without saying that I’m the one responsible for bringing dessert. And more often than not, my dessert of choice is cookies. They’re easily portable, I can prep the dough ahead of time, and they don’t require any fuss (plates, utensils, etc.) on location.
I take a certain amount of pride in the fact that they’re always a hit, regardless of whether the other guests are gluten-free or not. But there’s always a faction of people that leave me totally exasperated: the people who don’t like sweets and avoid the dessert altogether.
These candied bacon chocolate chip cookies are my strategy in curing those seemingly odd ducks. The cookie dough is made with butter and bacon grease, which infuses every bite with a faint porky, savory goodness. And plenty of candied bacon is mixed in along with a generous amount of chocolate chips.
I went to my favorite fish market a couple weekends ago, all set to follow through on my resolution of getting more Omega-3 fatty acids in my diet in 2013. Unfortunately just about everybody else must have had the same idea because the only fish available for less than $20 per pound were these salmon filets.
But since two of the ingredients in my beloved fish and furikake bowl are temporarily off-limits (rice, mayonnaise), I had to come up with something a tad healthier.
Tartiflette. Sounds kinda fancy and maybe just a little bit uppity, right? Like the kind of dish that requires special cookware or a whole afternoon to make? Thankfully I was wrong on pretty much all counts.
But I hit a roadblock when Reblochon cheese, the key ingredient to tartiflette, was nowhere to be found in Honolulu. I was even more discouraged when Googling “Reblochon substitute tartiflette” seemed to yield a whole bunch of opinions that there simply is no substitute. Bummer.
But as luck would have it, Food and Wine had an article about Bourdain in their December issue and I spotted an image of the very page in Les Halles which contained the recipe for tartiflette. And then there were those eight magic words written by Bourdain himself… “feel free to get creative with the cheese.”
Done and done. So while this isn’t technically tartiflette, I don’t think you’ll have anybody complaining at the dinner table. Bacon, onion, and potatoes are sauteed in rendered bacon grease and white wine and then layered with cheese. The whole thing is baked until nice and bubbly.
Potatoes, Bacon and Brie, Tartiflette Style