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.
The sliders are great plain, but you’ll get bonus points for serving them with some tart and garlicky tamarind sauce or some sweet and fiery chile sauce.
Beef Lemongrass Sliders
Yield: 4 servings, about 16 sliders
Ingredients:
1 pound ground beef
1/4 teaspoon turmeric
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/2 cup thinly sliced shallots
2 Tablespoons minced lemongrass (woody ends and tough outer leaves trimmed- use the white and pale green sections only)
4 cloves garlic
2 Tablespoons minced fresh ginger
1/4 cup leftover, cooked rice
1 teaspoon salt
oil for frying
Directions:
Place the ground beef in a large bowl and sprinkle with the turmeric and cayenne.
In a food processor, combine the shallots, lemongrass, garlic, and ginger and process until it becomes a paste. Add the rice and salt and pulse several times. Add the mixture to the ground beef and mix thoroughly to incorporate the spices and shallot-lemongrass paste into the beef.
Shape the mixture into golf ball sized balls and then flatten each slightly to form a thick patty.
Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the beef patties and cook for approximately 2-3 minutes before flipping the patties over. Cook until the sliders have developed a golden crust of until they’ve reached your desired level of doneness.
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
Dessert may just be the easiest part of eating out at restaurants. There’s almost always a gluten-free ice cream or sorbet on the menu, occasionally crème brûlée, and, if I’m really lucky, a flourless chocolate cake.
The recipe is from the Parisian restaurant Racines via David Lebovitz (David tells the story about how he found the recipe on the restaurant’s bathroom wall).
As much as I’d love to throw a big holiday party, it seems as though everybody’s evenings for December are always solidly booked with family obligations, work parties and other get-togethers.
Like 
I was wrong. They might be visually impressive, but whipped egg whites simmered in water just aren’t my jam… even when they’re floating in Crème Anglaise and topped with caramel sauce. This is one retro recipe I’m OK with not making a comeback.
A lot of folks consider friands sort of a variation of financiers, those nutty and addictive tea cakes made from ground almonds. I’d be hard-pressed to decide my favorite between the two… they’re both so so good.
Consider these a buttery and slightly more refined version of macaroon cookies. They’re a snap to throw together and are cute as a button plain plain or with a quick sprinkle of powdered sugar. I can happily say that I think my egg white problem is a thing of the past.