Tempting Asparagus Recipe from Picky Palate!

I just saw this on Picky Palate, and I can't wait to make it. Looks like a lovely way to transform asparagus from average side veg to delicious!

Crisp Pancetta Sauteed Asparagus with Goat Cheese Crumbles

2 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
4 thin slices pancetta, diced
1 Bunch asparagus, ends trimmed, about 1 lb
Pinch of salt
Crumbled Goat Cheese

1. Heat oil into a large skillet over medium heat. When hot, cook pancetta until starts to brown, reduce to medium low.

2. Drop asparagus into boiling water for 60 seconds. With a large slotted spoon, transfer asparagus to skillet. Season with a pinch of salt. Cook and stir for 2-3 minutes or until heated through. Transfer asparagus and pancetta to a serving plate and top with crumbled goat cheese.

Not China-friendly, I'm sad to say, but a good recipe for back home.

Via Picky Palate

Chinese Translations

The new English signs and menu are prone to other problems, like the typos of normal human error, rush-job spelling mistakes, confusion between similar letters and words, and so forth. At times, it’s literally easier for me to decipher the Chinese. (Which either means that I rock, or that I’ve memorized the collection of dishes we usually order. You decide.)

Not to mention the obscure English vocabulary brought back to life by electronic translators. Stick and I went to see an apartment recently because the landlady promised us a bathroom containing a lavabo and close stool. That’s a sink and a toilet to those of you without SCA membership. I don’t know if ad and pamphet translators agree with my students, and feel that the longest semi-synonym provided by the dictionary is the most impressive, and therefore the best choice. But you can easily imagine the humor of these BabelFish translations.

What do you think?

Via Take Care Knock Heads on Simpson's Paradox.

Moroccan Grilled Veg

I like the tempting photos and the way the instructions are written. Definitely going to have to try this!

When the broth is boiling, and the spice fry-up smells good, throw the cous cous into the broth, stir, then add the spice/oil mix. I also added golden raisins. Stir again, kill the heat, and cover. After about 5 min, the cous cous should be tender and delicious. If not, turn the heat back on and add a bit more broth as necessary.

Via Tomato Egg Noodles

DVD Banana

It's easy to get my hands on both bananas and scratched DVDs in Beijing, but I never thought of putting them together. The geniuses at Mental Floss have a new, easy way to take care of scratched discs -- use a banana!

There are myriad ways in which these soon-to-be obsolete discs get ruined, causing us to curse and throw the things in the trash, or just catalog them back in a CD booklet hoping one day in the future some miracle chemical cure-all will be invented to unscratch ‘em.Whelp, the future is here, only the cure-all isn’t a toxic chemical, but rather, a banana! Check out the later half of the Howcast.com video below to learn how to resurface them, or just see the list.
1. Peel the banana
2. Rub the banana on the CD in a circular motion
3. Use the underside of the peel and rub the banana in deeper
4. Wipe away the residue with a lint-free cloth, like you’d use to clean your car windows
5. Using another cloth, remove smudges with a spritz of Windex
6. Voila, she is like new!

Think it would work? Or just make a Sex In The City / banana mush mess?

Via Mental Floss

China Kedgeree

2 eggs, hard-boiled and then chopped
1 can of tuna
1 cup rice
about half of a big Chinese leek, chopped
a few mushrooms, chopped into small cubes
2 strips of bacon (I know this is not the most healthful choice, and you could easily skip it. But I find that a little bit of good ol' bacon fat makes food taste more Western)
cilantro, finely chopped (Finally! a spice I don't need to buy specially in the import shop!)
a little curry powder

Cook the bacon, and then crumble it.

Saute the leek and mushrooms in bacon grease, or just use vegetable oil.

Add the curry powder and stir.

Add the rice, using 1 part rice to 2 parts water. Stir, cover and simmer.

When the rice is soft, drain the tuna and add it to the rice. Then add the egg, bacon, cilantro. (You can add more curry powder now if you like, personally I'm a big fan of the cilantro.)

A Week's Groceries.

Time magazine has a slideshow of photos of families around the world, and what they eat in a week. Really interesting... and it makes me wonder what my own week would look like. Probably a huge pile of veggies, eggs, rice, pasta and bacon, with a slightly smaller pile of delicious coffee drinks.

Rice-Cooker Gourmet

Via AtomSmasher. Make your own!

Do They Have Salsa In China?

The always-awesome "Do They Have Salsa In China?" blog has a really tempting recipe for tapenade tarts. Most definitely NOT China-friendly, but a good one to bookmark for stateside cooking.

By the way, we DO have salsa in fridge right now!