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This recipe for green rice made with fresh dill is delicious and makes a great centerpiece to your table because of the colour.

Introduction

Ahlam Saeid's Timman Bagilla

I have a master’s degree in chemistry, but when I came to Britain from Iraq it wasn’t
easy to combine that with family life, so now the kitchen is my laboratory. With the
mixing, pouring and measuring I feel like I am back in my old world. This is a version of
a traditional dish, which I made up. It’s a good centerpiece because the color is so striking.

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Use your mandoline for the vegatbles to make this beautiful colourful salad that's perfect for welcoming the warmer weather.

Introduction

After a long cold winter, nothing makes me happier than seeing spring produce roll in at the markets. It’s like the light at the end of the tunnel for those of us living in the north, and I can’t wait to start creating fresh beautiful dishes. I like to shave the raw vegetables very thin on my mandoline—not only because it makes for a beautiful salad with lots of color and texture, but because it makes the raw vegetables much easier to chew up and digest after months of eating warm, cooked food.

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This sweet, bright and delicious baked pancake recipe from Simple Beautiful Food is perfect for long lazy brunches.

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This recipe features roasted chickpeas tossed in blackened seasoning, which makes a great addition to any leafy salad.

Introduction

While I typically call for from-scratch chickpeas, I’m fine with using canned ones in this recipe. Once they are roasted and tossed in blackened seasoning, they make a great snack or addition to leafy salads such as this one. 

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This is a quick and easy salad that helps you make the most of farm-fresh asparagus during its short peak season.

Introduction

There is something about the combination of asparagus and lemon that keeps me coming back for more. This recipe has a similar flavor profile to the Asparagus with Lemon-Pepper Marinade on page 72, but don’t fret; this dish serves a different purpose than that one. I imagine the grilled asparagus in the second recipe being served on paper plates in a crowded, smoke-filled backyard with Outkast, UGK, and the Hot Boys bumpin’ through speakers. I see this salad being served on matte gray ceramic plates in your partner’s parents’ dining room when you’re meeting them for the first time, with Charles Mingus playing softly in the background so y’all can have polite conversation. I’m just BS’ing. This is a quick and easy salad that helps you make the most of farm-fresh asparagus during its short peak season. I know you can probably get asparagus year-round, but you can’t beat the flavor of those beautiful stalks in April and May. The key to really killing this salad is using a mandoline or a vegetable peeler to slice the asparagus into delicate strips that easily soak up the dressing. If you can’t access Meyer lemons, Eureka or other varieties will work just fine. And feel free to experiment with other spring vegetables or with any number of shaveable vegetables such as beets, radishes, or fennel. I promise, everyone from your parents to your patnas will be smiling while eating this.

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This steak recipe from Outdoor Kitchen tastes incredible topped with blue cheese, but green chimichurri butter works well too.

Introduction

Dry-aging beef removes moisture from the meat, leaving a beefier flavor and, interestingly, a more tender texture. Ask your butcher for beef that’s been dry-aged about 45 days. It should smell like buttered popcorn, a quality that is accentuated on the grill, and it should never be cooked beyond medium-rare. This steak tastes incredible with the sweet funkiness of the blue cheese, but also works great with a bright green chimichurri butter.

To make a green chimichurri butter (pictured on page vii), blanch ½ cup each cilantro, basil, oregano, and parsley leaves. Transfer to an ice bath, then dry between paper towels. Add the dried, blanched herbs, 2 garlic cloves, 1 grilled poblano (see page 52; stem and seeds removed), and the finely grated zest and juice of 1 lime to a food processor. While the processor is running, slowly add 1⁄2 cup olive oil. Blend until completely smooth. Add ½ pound, cubed and softened unsalted butter to the food processor and blend until smooth. Season with salt. The butter can be stored in a covered container in the refrigerator for up to 5 days.

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Grilled cauliflower steaks are a delicious way to make cauliflower. Topped with a beer-raisin glaze, they're extremely flavourful.

Introduction

Cauliflower is one of the best vegetables to grill. It can stand up to high heat, its flavor improves tenfold when it’s deeply browned or charred (it’s almost impossible to burn), and it goes with almost any of the sauces in this book. The beer-raisin glaze couldn’t be more simple, but it has incredible complexity. The raisins’ sweetness is offset by the savory depth of the chiles and the reduced beer. Use a malty, rather than hoppy, beer—a porter, stout, or Scotch or Belgian ale—since a very bitter beer can taste even more bitter when reduced. I developed this sauce to serve with lamb T-bones, but lately I’ve been liking it just as much with thick cauliflower steaks.

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Easy to cook and rich in flavour, these beef ribs from Franklin Barbecue may easily become your go-to barbecue recipe.

Introduction

If I had to name my own personal favorite cut of barbecue, it would probably be beef ribs. They are the richest and the most decadent, succulent, and flavorful cut of beef you can put on a smoker. That’s also why I don’t eat them much—too rich, too hedonistic. We only cook beef ribs on Saturdays at the restaurant: they’re a special treat, made all the more special because we do them only once a week.

That said, beef ribs are pretty easy to cook. In this recipe, I include a light slather of hot sauce. We don’t cook them this way at the restaurant because not everyone likes spicy food, but it’s my preference for sure. I rub heavily because there’s so much fat, and the extra rub really melts into it well. Beef ribs don’t get wrapped. You’ll know they’re done when they feel jiggly and soft.

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Grilled chicken made in the tradition of Khao Suan Kwang, a village in northeastern Thailand, is one of the most sought-after iter

Introduction

Grilled chicken made in the tradition of Khao Suan Kwang, a village in northeastern Thailand, is one of the most sought-after iterations of the preparation in the entire country. It’s not uncommon for people from other regions to take a trip to this small town just to experience it.

The dish looks deceptively simple, and first-timers are often disappointed that it’s indistinguishable from the grilled local free-range chickens sold by vendors in rural markets throughout Isan. The small, lanky cockerels—their feet menacingly cupping—are secured between partially split madan (Garcinia schomburgkiana) wood and cooked over the most rudimentary grill setup imaginable—one more likely to inspire derision than awe.

Starting at the bottom, you’ve got tao than, the traditional Thai portable clay grill. Sitting atop it is kalamang, a large, white enameled bowl (the type used in rural areas to wash clothes and bathe babies) with its bottom removed. The bottomless bowl is just shy of a foot tall and has a flared top. A metal grate rests atop the bowl, and the chicken cooks on the grate.

And, oh, it works well in creating grilled chicken with golden brown skin—smoky and deeply flavorful. The washing bowl creates a distance between the glowing coals at the bottom of the clay grill and the chicken, preventing flare-ups and maintaining moderate heat, which is conducive to better absorption of smoke. Unless you have all of the components for this setup, you’ll need to use a kettle grill, which works just fine.

I have chosen to pair the chicken with a spicy bamboo shoot salad (sup no mai) for a single simple reason: I love this pungent, flavorful Thai Lao salad. Being somewhat of an acquired taste, this classic warm salad is often overshadowed by som tam, its more internationally known papaya-based peer (a carrot version appears on page 58). To make a proper Isan bamboo shoot salad, you need to source the young bamboo shoots that come in a glass jar, with a label indicating the shoots are packed in the juice of bai yanang, the leaves of Tiliacora triandra, a plant native to mainland Southeast Asia. Most well-stocked grocery stores specializing in Southeast Asian ingredients and several online sources carry various brands of this imported product (Pantai and Maesri are great brands). You can use other types of unfermented bamboo products that are more widely available—be it those that come in long strips or in thin, rectangular pieces—but you’ll need to lower your expectations as well, as the results will be miles away from what the Thais recognize as a good Isan bamboo shoot salad.

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Grilled whole fish can be found throughout Southeast Asia, but this version from Myanmar, known as nga kin, is one of the simplest

Introduction

Grilled whole fish can be found throughout Southeast Asia, but this version from Myanmar (Burma), known as nga kin, is one of the simplest. It is also the best thing my friends and I ate during our first visit there when we crossed the border from Thailand’s northern province of Mae Hong Son into Myanmar in the late 1990s, a time when tourism in that area wasn’t booming as it is now. Whole freshwater fish, which had been stuffed with assorted fresh herbs and grilled over charcoal until charred and smoky, and rice formed the simple meal that our host put on the table for us. Maybe that modest yet glorious meal tasted so good because we arrived tired and hungry. What I do know is that this simple grilled fish is a reminder that when the freshest ingredients are on hand, there’s not much else you need to do except get out of the way and let those ingredients shine.

At home, I like to use striped bass in this recipe. Red snapper is also a good option. Regardless of what fish you use, make sure it’s absolutely fresh. Be creative with the herbs, but stick with two or three different types and no more, or the flavors will be muddled. This is a case where more isn’t better. I like the pungent herb known in Thailand as phak phaeo or phak phai (Percicaria odorata) because it was one of the herbs I remember from my first encounter with nga kin. The herb is sold in the US as Vietnamese coriander or rau răm, and it can be found fresh in the produce section of most stores that sell Southeast Asian ingredients.