a taste of the East, at last!




bok choi in the wok

I came home from yoga at the Y just in time to catch the fabulous Florida- UCSB blowout in round 1 of the NCAA tournament. This meant I was a little distracted as far as getting food on the table.
Ryan returned from his run famished and when I mentioned we got bok choi in our CSA pack this week he quickly got to work. I'm sure I'll post later (if not several times) about my newfound love for CSA weekly boxes but that's not my current point. We threw some golden rice (from the courtesy member pack from our CSA group) in the ricecooker and he pulled out the wok. Perfectly timed at half time of the game he served up the most amazing spicy chicken, bok choi rice bowl.
We had friends bring back local ingredients the last time the visited our part of Asia and those spices have made all the difference. La jiao- which is the hot red peppers and hua jiao which are small kernel type pods that have a numbing effect on your mouth. The combination is incredible.
I honestly haven't whole-heartedly tried to reproduce any Asian cuisine because something in me believed we could never make it the same. While we'd attempted a few of our favorite dishes in the past, last night was the first time we got it right. It was a bit of a tease because it only made us long for green beans, potatoes, tofu soup and all the other delicacies we can't pay $1.30 for anymore, but now I'm inspired to at least try to replicate some of our favorites. you can't see all the rice and bok choi because there's so much chicken and LA JIAO!

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