Saveur Cooks Authentic American - Editors Of Cook's Illustrated Magazine [27]
½ small seedless cucumber, peeled and julienned Kosher salt, to taste
3 tbsp. canola oil
1 medium carrot, julienned
1 medium onion, thinly sliced
¼ lb. ground pork
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 1-inch piece ginger, minced
6 scallions, minced
1½ tbsp. dark soy sauce
1½ tbsp. rice cooking wine
1½ tsp. sugar
2 cups bean sprouts
6 oz. dried flat noodles, boiled and rinsed under cold water
1 tbsp. Asian sesame oil
Serves 2–4
1. Toss the cucumbers and a pinch of salt together in a small bowl; set aside for at least 5 minutes. Heat a 14-inch wok (or a stainless-steel skillet) over high heat until it begins to smoke. Add 1 tbsp. oil around the edge of the wok and swirl to coat the bottom and sides of the wok. Add the carrots and onions and cook until softened, about 1 minute. Transfer to a plate and set aside.
2. Return the wok to high heat and add the remaining oil. Add the pork, garlic, ginger, and half of the scallions and cook, breaking the pork into small pieces, until browned, 3–4 minutes.
3. Add the soy sauce, rice cooking wine, sugar, bean sprouts, and reserved carrots and onions. Cook, stirring, until hot, 30 seconds.
4. Add the reserved cucumbers, remaining scallions, noodles, and sesame oil and cook, tossing, until hot, about 1 minute. Season with salt. Divide between plates and serve hot.
Nice Slices
Uniformly sliced vegetables are essential to stir-fries, so that the ingredients will cook evenly. To transform carrots into the thin sticks called julienne requires patient slicing. Most professional cooks chop their carrots into 2-inch-long segments, square off and discard the edges, and cut the segments into thin planks, which they then stack up and slice into slivers. It’s a perfectly serviceable way of going about it, but it produces a lot of wasted carrot. We prefer the following technique, which we learned from Shirley Cheng, a professor of Asian cooking at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York. Here’s how to do it.
A Trim and peel a carrot. Using a large, sharp knife, slice on a deep diagonal into thin, broad slices, keeping the overlapping slices nestled close together as you work. Cutting on the diagonal allows you to use almost the whole carrot; slices from the tapered end will be about the same length as those from the thicker end.
B Spread the carrot slices out like a deck of cards, so that one slice overlaps most of another.
C Working from one end of the pile to the other, cut the carrot slices into thin slivers, holding the carrots down firmly with your free hand as you go.
Fish and Shellfish
A fisherman delivers his daily catch to a waterfront fish market on the coast of Tanzania.
Fish markets are some of the most extraordinary places on the planet: from the sprawling wholesale marts of Bangkok or New York City to the dockside stalls in coastal villages around the world. It’s not just the sensory experience—the ocean scent, the glistening fish—that we find alluring; it’s the promise of a great meal. Stuffed clams, crisp-fried catfish, spicy Veracruz-style snapper—these dishes make the most of the ocean’s bounty and reaffirm our love of the sea, no matter how far from it we happen to be.
New Orleans–Style BBQ Shrimp
Despite the name, these shrimp are cooked in a skillet, not on a grill; “barbecue,” in this case, refers to the sweet-hot sauce served with them. Tory McPhail, the chef at the legendary New Orleans restaurant Commander’s Palace, serves this house specialty with plenty of crusty bread for mopping up that mouthwatering sauce.
16 jumbo shrimp, peeled and deveined, tails left on
2 tbsp. Creole or Cajun seasoning, such as Tony Chachere’s brand
¼ cup canola oil
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 tbsp. minced fresh rosemary leaves
½ cup beer, preferably Abita Amber
6 tbsp. hot sauce
6 tbsp. Worcestershire
5 tbsp. fresh lemon juice
12 tbsp. unsalted cold butter,