Beet Top Stew
When cooking beets, oftentimes people will just discard the beet tops. It is such as waste because the stems and leaves can be eaten as well. A great way to use leftover beet tops is to make an easy and delicious beet top stew! This beet top stew recipe was given to me by my … Continue reading
Roasted Beets with a Curry Vinaigrette
` I absolutely love beets — it is such a refreshingly sweet vegetable. I love to eat them with salads or in borscht like Holodnik (Russian cold soup). Typically, you can cook the beets by simply boiling them in water until tender. My chef friend Kei, who works at a very fancy Michelin-starred restaurant … Continue reading
3-Ingredient Quesadilla
I love pepper jack cheese. It goes especially well with a good salsa and crispy tortilla. That’s it, just three easy ingredients and you have the tastiest snack ever. Salsa & Pepper Jack Quesadilla (first discovered from Trader’s Joe’s sample food booth) medium tortilla (any type – wheat, flour, brown rice) your favorite salsa shredded … Continue reading
Chinatown Food Crawl, NYC
It all started when a friend wanted to compare all the Papaya hot dogs in the city, and we went to almost all of them in a single evening to finally declare a winner: Gray’s Papaya! Since then, my fellow wannabe foodie friends have embarked on the occasional “Food Crawl” or if you want to … Continue reading
Russian Côtelettes
The term côtelettes is of French origin, meaning cutlet or chop. In Russia, côtelettes has to come to refer to any sort of ground meat mixture formed into patties. For a formal Russian dinner, the serving order of the meal goes cold, hot, then cold. Typically cold soups like Holodnik and a variety of salads … Continue reading
Olivye (Russian Potato Salad)
From living with my Belarussian roommate and thus sharing a kitchen with her, I have come to realize how much Russian/Belarussian people love their potatoes, mayonnaise, dill and pickles. The oliyve (potato salad) dish combines all these national favorites. Russian cuisine is intriguing to me because there is very little overlap of ingredients with the … Continue reading
Fried Home-Style Potatoes (assuming your home is Russia)
Another savory recipe from my Belarussian roommate! Natalya had taken me and several friends to the famed Tatiana restaurant located in Brighton Beach. This glitzy Russian palace/night club features a dining experience unlike any other. From the tome of a menu to the constant flow of vodka to the crazy production that is the weekend … Continue reading
Russian Salad (Salat)
Another recipe contribution from my Belarussian roomie – Russian salad or salat! To stick with the whole Russian theme, this salad is a great complement to Holodnik (Russian cold soup). Furthermore, because the majority of the ingredients are the same, it is very convenient to make both dishes at the same time for an overall … Continue reading
Shrimp and Tofu Pad Thai
Just like with my Thai Green Curry, I went the lazy route by using prepared Pad Thai sauce from the store. The sauce for Pad Thai is much easier to replicate as it requires considerably less ingredients than curry paste. Most sauces call for some combination of tamarind, sugar, fish sauce, vinegar, tomato paste and … Continue reading
Chinese-Style Steamed Fish
Chinese-style steamed fish is an incredibly simple and healthy dish that is a great alternative to greasier, fried dishes that tend to predominate Chinese restaurant menus. When my mom came to visit me in NYC, I asked her to show me how to properly steam a fish, including the process of selecting a fish in … Continue reading
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