Asian

Done well, this should be crunchy, fresh, spicy, sour, and a little bit funky. Taste as you go and adjust as needed.

This fiery Korean stew is my weekend detox. It's spicy, clean, and capable of reversing any damage the previous night may have caused.

Prepared curry paste speeds up this nuanced dish.

You'll never serve ice cream without candied peanuts again.

Koreans celebrate the first one hundred days of life, so for my son, Hudson's, hundredth-day party, we had a bash with lots of Korean food. The next day, with my taste buds toned and thinking of the great Korean tacos I've devoured at food trucks in Los Angeles, I created this version. The marinade for the steak is to die for. I guarantee you'll want to try it with Korean-style short ribs, pork tenderloin, and grilled chicken. A little planning and prep a day ahead is a great way to save time on hurried weeknights. This steak gets even better with an overnight marinade, so you could marinate it on Monday, and it's ready to grill on Tuesday night. If you're doing it all on the same night, use the marinating time to multitask—prep your vegetables and whip up the guacamole. You'll be surprised how quickly it comes together.

This curry is doubly rich from the coconut milk and the deep red curry, but the pineapple keeps it from being too heavy and gives a beautiful freshness to the dish. I like to cook the lobster in the shell because it makes for a more flavorful sauce, and I like to serve it that way too. You can be as refined as you like or, like me, pick up the shell and make an animal of yourself. If lobster is going to blow the budget, you can still have a delicious curry by substituting shrimp or monkfish.

These lettuce wraps put a fresh, modern spin on a favorite Asian appetizer. Spiced with chili sauce, ginger, and garlic, this dish will leave you craving more!

Just as American children anxiously await their Christmas gifts months in advance, I anxiously awaited this scrumptious cake. Nian-Gao, New Year's cake, is one of the most important holiday dishes in many Asian countries. Eating Nian-Gao during the New Year's celebration is said to bring safety and fortune to the entire family for the coming year, though I now make it for family gatherings throughout the year.

This simple sauce goes well with spring rolls as a dipping sauce. Also, it makes a good marinade for seafood. I once served grilled trout marinated in this sauce to a friend who disliked fish—it completely changed his mind!

There's a dish in China called "Happy Family," which consists of various ingredients. Growing up, my mother's version of "Happy Family" was stir-fried colorful, seasonal fresh vegetables. She would encourage my brothers and me to eat more of it so we would be in harmony. Fresh vegetables are quickly stir-fried to retain their snap and color for a vibrant presentation. Any leftovers can be served with warm pasta.

I love visiting Buddhist temples in Asia, not for religious reasons but because I enjoy the food served in their restaurants. This recipe was inspired by the fried vegetarian spring rolls I ate at the Shaolin Temple. While I enjoy crispy fried spring rolls, I dislike their high calorie count and the mess from deep-frying them. I found that by brushing a little olive oil on these rolls and broiling them in the oven, they came out just as crispy and delicious.

Spoon gingery, slow-cooked beef and vegetables over wide rice noodles for a warming, soul-satisfying dinner.

A mix of fragrant spices, garlic, and fresh ginger turn this stewed chicken into the most perfectly warming dinner for an October Sunday.

Editor's Note: Use this broth to make Andy Ricker's Het Paa Naam Tok (Isaan-style Forest Mushroom Salad) . Flavor Profile: Spicy, slightly bitter and smoky Slowly toasted dried chiles—seeds and all—become a smoky, spicy ingredient that's essential to many recipes in [Pok Pok]. The key is to toast them over low heat until they're thoroughly dry and very dark, coaxing out a deep, tobacco-like flavor that has a bitter edge, but stopping before the pleasant bitterness turns acrid.

Editor's Note: Use this broth to make Andy Ricker's Het Paa Naam Tok (Isaan-style Forest Mushroom Salad) . Flavor Profile: Aromatic This powder, made from toasted uncooked sticky rice, is used primarily in Northeastern food to add a toasty quality and subtle texture to salads, and occasionally in Northern food as a thickening agent. Its contribution is initially hard to pin down, but it's one you'd actively miss if it weren't there. Making it at home is beyond simple: it just takes patience and stirring. The only way to screw it up is to try to rush the process with high heat so the outside burns before inside fully toasts. The truly committed will toast over a low charcoal fire so the rice picks up a little smokiness. Flavor Profile: Aromatic

Often the last thing people in the North and Northeast of Thailand do before bed is put raw grains of sticky rice in a pot, cover them with water, and leave them to soak. This is sticky rice country, and a day without sticky rice is almost unthinkable. Also called glutinous rice, it has a different starch composition than varieties like jasmine. I'm not qualified to explain the world of amylopectin and amylose starches, so suffice it to say that the glossy cooked grains of sticky rice are particularly chewy and stick to one another in clumps, yet still remain distinct. It's a magical thing. Served in baskets, either one per person or as a mountainous mound to be passed around, the grains of sticky rice form moldable masses. Practiced diners snatch off a gumball-size piece, reflexively fashion it into a sort of spoon shape, and use it to grab a taste of whatever else is on the table. In these baskets or in bamboo tubes, workers carry this rice with them into the fields and forests, a portable, edible eating implement. While you could argue that so-called "steamed jasmine rice" isn't steamed at all but rather boiled, sticky rice is actually steamed. In the Northeast, it typically goes into a bamboo basket; in the North, it's traditionally prepared in a clay pot with a perforated bottom, though today the pot is often aluminum. The basket or pot is set over a pot-bellied vessel filled with boiling water and the steam cooks the grains, already swollen from soaking, in just 15 minutes or so. The process is easy enough for uninitiated cooks. It just takes a little practice to get right.

Flavor Profile: Spicy, tart, aromatic, salty, umami-rich Try it with: Any Som Tam (Papaya salad and family) and/or Phat Khanaeng (Stir-fried Brussels sprouts). Needs Khao Niaw (Sticky rice). The recipe for steak salad is a classic, but naam tok made with mushrooms is less common. Yet mushrooms are everywhere in Thailand and echo the texture and even the umami-rich flavor of animal flesh. Thailand has a long history of vegetarian food, for strict Buddhists and those celebrating Buddhist holidays. And while I rarely spend time considering the needs of vegetarians, I figured that if I swapped out the fish sauce in the original for thin soy sauce, then they'd have something to eat at Pok Pok.

The salmon absorbs more teriyaki flavor as it sits, making it even better (and breakfast that much quicker) if done in advance.

Breakfast is just the beginning. Use this in stir-fries, to marinate tofu, or to glaze chicken as it roasts.

The salty-sweet-sour umeboshi complement the earthy notes in the beets.