Recipes By Francis Lam
44 recipes found
Filipino Embutido
This recipe for embutido, a festive Filipino meatloaf featuring ingredients that appeared in the Philippines during the American occupation, is adapted from Emma Phojanakong. She often prepares it as a stuffing for chicken; inspired by that, this recipe features a simple citrus-and-soy-spiked chicken sauce to go alongside. Serve it with watercress and steamed white rice, but it also makes great next-day sandwiches.
Potato-Cheese Pierogies With Bacon
With pliant skins surrounding a rich mash of potatoes and cheese, Julia Hlinka’s pierogies are the epitome of satisfying northern Slovakian farm food. Instead of the traditional sheep's cheese, she uses American cheese — a reminder of her move to the United States in the 60s — which melts into the potatoes. She tops the pierogies with bacon as a treat. Alternatively, you can also serve them dressed with a little melted butter and chopped chives.
Roasted-Mushroom-and-Broccoli Grain Bowls
Full of chewy grains, caramelized broccoli and juicy mushrooms, this delicious blend of textures and flavors can feel like the best way to get your vitamins and fiber. The omelet ribbons come together almost like fettuccine on top, and the lemony, herbal buttermilk dressing lends the bowl some decadence. If you have the vegetables and grains already cooked and stashed in the fridge, this dish comes together in just a few minutes. Feel free to use any combination of roasted vegetables and grains you like — this recipe can be a template for all your leftovers.
Tohu Thoke
This “tofu” comes together fast; it’s essentially a quick chickpea flour porridge that you cool and slice. The tart, savory tamarind dressing and crispy shallots and garlic with oil give the dish tons of flavor. As an untraditional addition, you could also add corn and diced tomatoes for a fresh summer meal.
Cheese Pupusas
Cheese pupusas — stuffed, griddled masa cakes — and their accompanying slaw, curtido, are quintessential Salvadoran street foods. This recipe is adapted from Janet Lainez, who has been making them for homesick Latinos every summer at the Red Hook Ball Fields for nearly 25 years. She likes to use mozzarella rather than Salvadoran cheese — preferably Polly-O, established in Brooklyn, 1899.
Auntie Khar Imm’s Chile Sauce
The author Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan’s family serves this simple chile sauce with everything; its heat and tartness complement this Singaporean braised duck nicely. It’s very hot, though, so feel free to add more citrus and sugar to suit your taste. It can keep for weeks, refrigerated.
Melted-Pepper Spread
Think of this as a cousin of the classic pepper stews pepperonata or piperade, but cooked down and caramelized to feature the peppers and onions' sweetness and luscious, spreadable texture. Its terrific as a condiment for eggs, simply cooked meats and fish, or spread on toast for a quick meal with hearty toppings, like cheese and herbs, leftover meats or roasted vegetables.
Singaporean Braised Duck
The Singaporean flavors of star anise, galangal and molasses-like soy sauce are a natural with duck — they may seem unfamiliar for some, but they parallel the idea of pairing fruits or warm winter spices with the bird. Reflecting her modern sensibility, Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan took this recipe from her grandmother and tweaked it to serve the duck at a slightly pink medium rather than fully cooked. Of course, you may cook it through if you prefer.
Pla Goong (Spicy Thai Shrimp Salad)
This dish is somewhere between a shrimp salad and a ceviche – just-cooked shrimp dressed with a sour-savory-sweet mixture of lime, fish sauce, and sweet chile paste, then showered with herbs and chiles. In classic Thai fashion, it’s combination of many tastes, each moment on your palate different from the next. It’s a favorite of Pornpong Kanittanon, the Consul General of Thailand in New York, and the recipe is adapted from his wife, Jaisamarn.
Feijoada
The mix of meats is personal to each cook. Have your butcher cut the feet and tails for you; they’re highly recommended for their rich gelatin and ‘‘piggy’’ flavor, but if you prefer, you can use more sausage, fresh pork belly or other cuts instead. Don’t be tempted to use too many smoked meats, though; the feijoada’s flavor should be beany and porky, not smoky.
Farofa
Manioc flour can be found in Brazilian stores. It resembles a light bread crumb, but do not confuse it with tapioca flour or starch. Once toasted in fat — here, bacon, but other kinds may be used — the manioc flour can serve as a crisp topping to the feijoada, or served alongside to soak up the juices.
Machuca
Machuca is a staple of the Garifuna, descendants of intermarried Africans and Carib natives who live on the Atlantic coast of Central America. It's a sticky, satisfying mash of sweet and green plantains, rolled into bites and dunked into flavorful soups, similar to the fufus of West Africa.
Edna Lewis’s Corn Muffins
After reading that Edna Lewis preferred extra-fine cornmeal, I adapted her recipe to use corn flour. (Be sure to get corn flour, not pure white cornstarch.) These muffins have great corn flavor, and they have a very tender, creamy texture when hot and stay moist when cool. If you’re using regular cornmeal, the muffins are still delicious, especially warm; just reduce the buttermilk to 2 cups.
Hudutu
This origins of this seafood soup — seared fish, shrimp and conch quickly poached in a simple coconut broth — can be discerned by its elements. It's a specialty of the Garifuna people, descendants of intermarried Africans and Carib natives who settled on the Atlantic coast of Honduras (as well as Belize, Guatemala and Nicaragua), and the tropical coconut and abundant seafood speak to where they live. The fact that it's always served with machuca, a mash of sweet and green plantains, reflects the Garifunas' West African origins, where cassava and plantain mashes called fufu are a staple.
Haitian Cornmeal Porridge (Mayi Moulen)
About as humble as a dish can be, with simple ingredients and cooking instructions no more complicated than boiling water, this Haitian recipe may shock you with its deliciousness — a base of warming, garlicky polenta-like porridge topped with a velvety purée of black beans and coconut milk (see the corresponding recipe for black-bean sauce). Slices of nutty avocado offer a gentle contrast in texture and another element of richness. It was adapted from the Haitian cooking instructor Cindy Similien-Johnson, who remembers it being made in her grandmother’s house.
Sampita
This traditional Montenegrin dessert, adapted from Jasmina Bojic, is a kind of open-faced marshmallow sandwich. The syrup from the meringue seeps into the cake as it rests, befitting Montenegro's position between layer-cake-loving Central Europe and the syrup-soaked pastry traditions of the Mediterranean. Serve with strong coffee to balance the sampita's rich sweetness.
Edna Lewis’s Garden Strawberry Preserves
In “The Taste of Country Cooking,” Edna Lewis offers two recipes for strawberry preserves — one for wild and one for cultivated fruit, using different techniques to highlight their nuances. For garden berries, she gives an unusual method of heating the sugar separately, cutting down on the actual cooking time of the strawberries and preserving their delicate, fresh flavor.
Chicken Kottu Roti
This recipe for kottu roti, a popular Sri Lankan street food, comes from Sanjeewa Gooneratne, who prepares the dish at events around New York on a griddle the size of a sled. A flaky flatbread is stir-fried with eggs and spices and finished with a curry sauce. Don't let the long list of spices deter you from making the dish. You can omit a few and still experience its fantastic depths of flavor.
Ají Cuencano
Tomate de árbol (also called tamarillo) is an unusual ingredient that tastes like a savory, tomatolike passion fruit. Available frozen or as pulp at many Latino or South American grocers, it is blended in the mountain city of Cuenca into an easy vinaigrettelike sauce with chiles, onion, cilantro and oil. Use it as a hot sauce, a dip or an accompaniment to meat or fish.
Edna Lewis’s Smothered Rabbit
Edna Lewis's family looked forward to visitors during hunting season, and they would prepare elaborate, generous breakfasts like this smothered rabbit to fortify them. You brown the rabbit in butter and bacon fat, drape it with sweet onions and then slowly cook it until the onions give up their juices. The Lewises served it with biscuits or corn muffins, jellies or preserves, oatmeal and coffee or hot cocoa.