Fry

Serve with broccoli or cauliflower, steamed and tossed in garlic butter.

The wonderful actress Ming Na taught me this recipe. It was handed down to her from her parents, who owned a successful Chinese restaurant for twenty-five years. It’s not fair! Ming Na is gorgeous and talented and she can cook, too! But, we can console ourselves with these Chinese meatballs. The chopped cabbage is served in a pile, the meatballs in the middle: a head surrounded by a mane . . . a lion’s head. Ming uses mushroom-flavored thick soy sauce. I cannot find that product where I live, so I use finely chopped shiitakes and aged soy sauce.

Have one of each! Serve with spicy refried beans.

A “stoup” is what I call a soup that is almost as thick as a stew. This one can be prepared as a vegetarian entrée as well by omitting the ham.

This meal is good for B-L-D: breakfast, lunch, or dinner.

We originally developed this recipe with homemade ramp kimchi. Then we tried it with the Red Cabbage Kimchi. You could substitute any other pickle of your choice. To make these spicy, crunchy snacks, first we puree the kimchi with tapioca flour to form a dough. We chose tapioca because it has a very bland flavor, allowing the taste of the added ingredients and seasonings to stand front and center. We rolled the dough into thin sheets and steamed it for fifteen minutes to gelatinize the starch. We then dehydrated the steamed dough in a low (180°F/80°C) oven, flipping it over every so often until the sheets of dough were dry and brittle. Using this method we needed the dough to dry out to a level of 4 percent moisture for optimum puffing to occur. Since we were unable to effectively evaluate the exact percentage of moisture, we decided that completely dry was the best way to maximize our results. Then we broke the dehydrated dough into pieces and fried them in 400°F (205°C) oil. The kimchi cracklings puffed beautifully, tripling in size and creating gorgeous, crispy pieces that resembled traditional cracklings or fried pork rinds. A quick sprinkling of salt and we were happily crunching away.