Fry

Bean curd sheets, which have a wonderful chewy texture and the mild flavor of tofu, are sold at Asian groceries, fresh (refrigerated) or dried. They are not difficult to handle; in fact they’re a lot of fun and create a wonderful crisp exterior that offsets the flaky, soy-marinated fish inside. If you cannot find them, substitute the rice paper sheets traditionally used for spring rolls (see the variation).

A sort of deep-fried gnocchi that I was first served—sans onion—dipped in sugar, as a dessert. I like these better, however, as a side dish, with a roast. Old-fashioned and killer. Other vegetables you can prepare this way: substitute carrots or sweet potatoes for all or some of the white potatoes.

Just because I identify a dish with a country doesn’t mean it’s made exclusively there, and chile-fried shrimp is practically universal. So calling this a Mexican dish is a little like calling grilled steak an American dish. But I like to make this with the relatively mild chiles used in Mexico, and I like to serve it with rice and beans, so there it is. This is best made with homemade Chili Powder (page 609), but if you prefer, use a chile powder dominated by ancho or New Mexican chiles, which have warmth but not high levels of heat. Arroz a la Mexicana (page 517) is a great side dish for this, along with a green salad.

I have been making this dish for more than thirty years—it’s one of the first South Asian recipes I learned—and I’ve never stopped loving it. After having a similar preparation in Delhi, I loved it even more. Basically, you coat shrimp with a spicy mix, then with a simple batter. Originally it was deep-fried, but shallow-frying, which uses less oil and makes less of a mess, works just as well. Don’t limit yourself to shrimp here; any seafood— scallops, oysters, clams, or fish fillet—will work wonderfully. Cooking time will remain about the same in almost every case.

Simple and incredibly delicious. If you prefer a thick sauce, like that served at many Chinese restaurants, add cornstarch (as directed) at the end of cooking; it’s by no means necessary, however. Use the smallest clams you can find, preferably just an inch or so in diameter. Cockles, which are even smaller, are often the best choice; manila clams (which are brown) are also good. Serve this dish with Basic Long-Grain Rice (page 506).

The ingredients are similar to those of Spinach Gratin (page 489), but these are faster and crunchier, lightly thickened spinach patties that are cooked until crisp. Other vegetables you can prepare this way: none will be as quick as spinach, but you can make these with other greens—chard is especially good, but also kale and collards and even arugula and watercress.

Tofu is often, perhaps even usually, eaten as part of a vegetarian meal, but it’s also delicious when paired with shrimp or pork. This dish has some of the flavors and textures of Tod Mun (page 83), but the tofu adds a smooth texture and subtle flavor. For information on fish sauces like nam pla, see page 500. Serve this as an appetizer or as one of the centerpieces of a larger Asian meal. Use all shrimp if you like or substitute other meat for the pork.

These fresh cornmeal cakes are wonderful for breakfast or as a side dish. They can be served simply with butter or topped with scrambled eggs with tomatoes and onions.

A popular accompaniment for White Cut Chicken (page 273), this is also good stirred into soups.

Thin and crisp, the distinctively large and cylindrical dosa are the famous crispbreads of southern India. Made from a base of ground lentils and rice, they’re delicious and, paired with a simple raita or chutney, the basis of a meal for many people. I ate dosa with amazement throughout India, but I learned how to make them here, with help from Monica Bhide and Suvir Saran, both friends who have written wonderful books about Indian cooking. Note that the difficult part of the dosa-making process—soaking and pureeing—can easily be bypassed if you have an industrial milling machine that can pulverize the lentils and rice into flour straightaway. And a couple of companies do just that, adding salt and fenugreek for flavor, add baking soda to give them a little puff, and sell the resulting mix throughout India and in the States. This mix makes dosa a convenience food you can fry up at the drop of a hat. I think it’s still worthwhile to give this recipe a try, but if the soaking and pureeing are going to keep you from trying dosa, by all means use the mix. Soak the lentil and rice flour in water as directed on the back of the package, and when the batter’s ready, start with step 4. (You can use the mix for the uttapam on the next page as well.)

When they’re hot from the pan, it’s hard not to fill up on paratha alone, though they’re usually served in the context of a larger Indian meal. I learned this spicy, delicious lamb filling from Suvir Saran, an Indian chef and friend who lives and works in New York and whose book, written with Stephanie Lyness—Indian Home Cooking: A Fresh Introduction to Indian Food—is one of the best on the topic written for the American audience.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but this is one of my favorite foods ever. Fifteen years ago, Julie Sahni, the great Indian cook and cookbook writer (her Classic Indian Cooking remains the best book on the subject published in the States), showed me how to make aloo paratha. I continued to follow her recipes for years and never ate a better one until I traveled to India (and even then I may have been influenced by the atmosphere, a truck stop near a mountaintop fort). This is essentially Julie’s recipe, with a few changes I’ve incorporated over the years. Cooked paratha will keep at room temperature for up to twenty-four hours and can be served without reheating or can be reheated quickly in a dry skillet or even a microwave. But there is nothing like one fresh from the skillet. Ajwain comes from carom seeds, which look like celery seeds but taste like very strong, slightly coarse thyme.

A festive dish that takes a bit of preparation—a simple enough process, but quite a few steps. Nevertheless, it’s a delicious and unusual noodle dish, and because it’s best served at room temperature, you can make it a couple of hours in advance. Substitute shrimp or fish for the meat (or omit it entirely) if you like. Precooked fish cake is available at Korean or Japanese markets. Potato starch noodles are available at Korean markets.

A prime example of the simplicity with which you can successfully treat fresh Chinese egg noodles, which are available at many supermarkets.

A different kind of noodle dish, one in which the noodles are fried crisp and then topped with a simply made stir-fry. Of course, you can use any stir-fry you like on top of a bed of noodles like this one; the noodles are essentially taking the place of rice.

You can make eggplant into fritters, seasoned with almost anything you like, but my taste here runs to Parmesan; the combination is magical. Fritters are usually deep-fried, but it isn’t necessary in this case. Here they are made into flat, pancake like forms and cooked in far less oil. Like most fried foods, these are best hot; but, as with most fritters, they’re acceptable up to a half hour after they’ve been made (and, though I wouldn’t serve them to company this way, they’re pretty good cold).

Variations of this exist around the world, but I like the Spanish version for its paprika and because I like Spanish cheese. A fresh cheese made of sheep’s milk is ideal here, but you can use any soft cheese you like, even mozzarella. This is best when it’s really hot, when the cheese is soft and the outside crisp; serve immediately after making it.

Tod mun—Thai fish cakes—are usually made with mackerel or other dark-fleshed fish, but shrimp are just as good, and most of my friends seem to prefer them made this way. Both mackerel and shrimp have enough natural gelatin to hold together without egg or bread crumbs or mashed potatoes or any of the other binders necessary in so many fish cakes. In fact, they have so much natural gelatin that if you over process the fish it becomes rubbery, which in fact is characteristic of tod mun. My little trick—of pureeing some of the fish and simply chopping the rest—keeps it a little softer; you can do it either way. If you make these with shrimp, they can also be grilled. See page 500 for information on Thai fish sauce (nam pla).

This simple starter is served all over the world—at least wherever chiles are grown—but I first had it in Basque country. Here they’re fried, but you can grill fresh chiles as well; in either case they taste fresh, smoky, salty, and spicy all at the same time. The chiles you use can be mild or hot. If you use mild long chiles, like Anaheim, most people will be happy.

Like Moroccan briouat, Tunisian briks use warka, a phyllolike wrapper, to contain a filling. This one is most commonly filled with a whole egg—a spicy sort of poached egg in a thin, crisp shell—rather great. Tuna is a nice complement to the egg filling, but you can do without it. These are best eaten hot, but beware of egg running onto your shirt—which is exactly what happened to me. If you use warka or phyllo, keep it covered with a damp cloth while you work. Egg roll wrappers need no special treatment, but they’re not as thin or crisp.