Recipes By Sue Li
50 recipes found
Sautéed Peas With Anchovies and Scallions
Built for ease, this recipe uses kitchen staples like frozen peas, canned anchovies and garlic to make a quick side dish in minutes. Build flavor by melting anchovies and garlic into olive oil, then add frozen peas directly into the pan and simply stir until seasoned and warmed. (The peas do not have to be thawed prior to cooking, and they’ll thaw quickly in the pan.) If fresh peas are in season, please use them and cook them until they’re bright green. You can also substitute the peas with hearty greens like kale, Swiss chard or collard greens; just strip them off their stalks and tear them into bite-size pieces before adding them to the pan. This green side pairs well with roasted chicken, or toss it with cooked pasta, a few tablespoons of olive oil and a flurry of grated Pecorino to turn it into a meal.
Carrot Tart With Ricotta and Feta
Carrots work beautifully in this simple tart, but onions, parsnips, beets, zucchini or pumpkin work just as well. The key is to cook the vegetables before putting them on the tart, since the moisture released by baking raw vegetables would make the puff pastry soggy and prevent it from rising. Once you remove the tart from the oven, let it cool for 10 minutes before cutting to allow the cheese to firm up slightly. The tart can be served warm, or cooled to room temperature, and would make a great addition to a picnic.
Smashed Cabbage and Mushroom Veggie Burgers
This vegetarian burger patty is inspired by a love for caramelized cabbage. It isn’t a conventional burger patty made of grains and beans. Instead, cabbage and mushrooms lend a crunchy, slightly meaty texture that is hearty and reminiscent of okonomiyaki, and the patty is held together with chickpea flour. The recipe for the patty is gluten-free and, if you opt for a gluten-free bun (and your soy sauce is gluten-free), the whole dish can become fully gluten-free.
Lemony Shrimp and Bean Stew
With minimal prep and a quick cook time, this shrimp stew feels elegant for such an easy weeknight meal. You can also take the dish in a number of directions: Substitute the shrimp with an equal amount of flaky white fish or even seared scallops, or stretch the dish into a meal for six by stirring in some butter and serving over cooked spaghetti or rigatoni. A good glug of your best olive oil would also be a welcome.
Grilled Zucchini and Feta Toasts
Though its flavor is subtle, zucchini absorbs seasonings readily, and develops deep complexity when grilled. In this recipe, the grilled squash is doused with a flavorful oil made with garlic, cumin and coriander. If you have extra time, marinate the grilled zucchini pieces in the spice oil for up to 24 hours to help build flavor. You can serve the dish hot off the grill, or prepare in advance, then serve at room temperature.
Sweet and Sour Eggplant With Garlic Chips
This vibrant eggplant dish relies heavily on simple pantry staples, but gets its complex flavor from the clever use of garlic: First, you make garlic chips, then you fry eggplant in the remaining garlic-infused oil. Since garlic chips can burn easily, the key here is to combine the garlic and oil in an unheated pan for even cooking. As the oil heats up, the garlic will sizzle rapidly as the moisture cooks off. When it slows down, the garlic slices should be crisp. Be sure to remove the chips just as they begin to turn golden, as they will continue to cook after being removed from the oil. The rest is easy: Sauté the eggplant, create a quick soy sauce glaze, sprinkle with herbs and garlic chips, and serve.
Cheesy Eggplant and Rigatoni Bake
Put on your cozy pants and get comfortable with a giant bowl of this cheesy, eggplant-studded pasta. Don’t be shy about adding plenty of reserved pasta cooking water to the sauce; it's the magical ingredient that creates a silky sauce and keeps the pasta moist while baking. A little grated ricotta salata to finish adds a slight tangy bite that rounds everything out — but, truthfully, more Parmesan or any firm, salted cheese will do.
Sesame-Ginger Chicken Noodle Soup
This noodle soup is a grown-up riff on an old college favorite: Taiwanese instant ramen. The scent of the simmering, chicken-and-ginger broth conjures vivid memories of late-night instant-noodle snacks. This version has all of the good qualities of the store-bought kind, but it’s richer in flavor thanks to the bone-in chicken breast (bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs would work too). It hits all the comforting notes of a typical chicken noodle soup, brightened by a hint of sesame oil, fresh scallions and a heavy dose of ginger used in the broth and as a garnish.
Pasta Salad With Marinated Tomatoes and Tuna
Fresh, quick-marinated tomatoes make the best sauces for pasta salad because not much needs to be done beyond tossing the tomatoes with hot pasta, salt and olive oil. The juices from the tomatoes and the heat create a gloriously glossy combination. Feel free to make this pasta salad ahead of time, then toss in flaked tuna right before serving.
Taiwanese Popcorn Chicken With Fried Basil
This spiced fried chicken is a staple in the night markets of Taiwan. You can order the chicken in cutlet form or small bites like these, which are served in paper bags with wooden skewers. This recipe uses a few spices that cannot be skipped: five-spice powder and white pepper. The Sichuan peppercorns are a bonus, adding a little numbing tingle. If you can’t find Sichuan peppercorns, use black peppercorns instead. You won’t get the same tingly feeling, but the chicken will be just as good. This fried chicken recipe happens to be gluten-free thanks to the tapioca flour, which imparts the dish’s signature crunch.
Caramelized Onion Galette
This rich, autumnal galette takes its inspiration from the flavors of French onion soup. Seasoned with Gruyère and lots of cracked black pepper, the galette dough takes the place of the crostini, and the caramelized onion filling is fortified with beef broth and sherry. The dish is great for entertaining — it can be prepared in advance — but requires a little bit of patience: You’ll need to let the dough rest for at least four hours, which allows the flour to hydrate and will make the dough less crumbly to work with. Let the tart rest for about 10 minutes before slicing and serving. Eat it while it’s hot or serve at room temperature alongside a salad or steak.
Grilled Corn and Avocado Salad With Feta Dressing
This lively salad of corn, scallions, jalapeño and avocado tossed with a tangy buttermilk-feta dressing is like summer on a plate. The sweetness of peak-summer corn and the richness of creamy avocado balance out the tartness of the dressing. To choose the perfect corn, make sure that the corn husk is bright green and slightly dewy to the touch, and that the silks peeking out at the top are yellow, not browned. Finally, the corn should be heavy for its size: the heavier the corn, the plumper the kernels.
Sesame Candy
This sesame candy is a traditional Chinese candy that is available year-round but also eaten during the Lunar New Year celebrations. This recipe produces a slightly chewy candy, with some crunch on the sides. It’s a relatively easy candy to make, but you’ll want to follow the directions closely when preparing the syrup. The addition of water helps to evenly dissolve the sugar as the syrup cooks. Do not stir the sugar as it cooks or it will crystallize, forming small clumps instead of a smooth syrup. It can be hard to see a visual cue when toasting black sesame seeds. A subtle indication that they are toasted is that they feel a bit hollow compared to before they are toasted — or you can simply trust their scent: They’ll smell fragrant and toasted.
Creamy Turmeric Pasta
This earthy pasta is cobbled together using ingredients that you almost certainly already have in your kitchen. Its approach is fairly standard: Melt some butter, sauté some garlic and shallots, simmer with cream, then add some Parmesan and pasta cooking water to create a silky sauce. That alone would make a great meal, but what makes this recipe really special is the addition of ground turmeric, which gives this simple dish its vibrant color and sophisticated depth of flavor. This is meant to be a lazy meal — the kind of dish you throw together, then eat out of a big bowl while sitting on the couch — but if you're feeling the need for something green, serve the pasta with a simple salad dressed with vinegar and olive oil.
Creamy Blue Cheese Dip With Walnuts
Blue cheese can be a polarizing ingredient, but the sweetness of toasted walnuts rounds out the sharpness of the cheese in this creamy dip. If serving this dip to friends, surround it with large pieces of cabbage, sliced celery sticks and a sleeve of saltine crackers — and make extra, because it can disappear quickly. But it’s built for more than entertaining guests: Slather it on a potato bun in a chicken cutlet sandwich, or use it to dress up a BLT.
Potato Tart With Goat Cheese and Thyme
Store-bought puff pastry is the true workhorse in this elegant recipe, which involves three basic components: puff pastry, cheese and potatoes. When cooking with limited ingredients, quality is key, so use puff pastry made with real butter if you can get it — the flavor is better and the puff is, simply put, puffier. The dough is formed by a process called “lamination” in which alternating layers of butter and dough are folded together. As it bakes, the butter creates steam between the layers, providing the puff. Be sure to use the tines of a fork to “dock” the dough before baking; this creates little chutes for steam to escape instead of getting trapped and forming unsightly bubbles. Master the puff pastry part and this tart is easy and versatile: Play around with various spices and top with any fresh herbs you have on hand.
Chicken and Rice With Scallion-Ginger Sauce
Chicken and rice is a favorite combination around the world. This version, an Asian-inspired one-pot meal, coaxes a lot of flavor out of a limited ingredient list. Rinsing rice until the water runs clear helps remove extra starch on the outside of the grains and will make rice less gummy when cooked. The most essential step when cooking rice on the stovetop is to resist the urge to peek under the lid; the telltale sign that the rice is done is when the steam rising from under the lid has subsided. (In the early stages of cooking rice, there may be visible steam escaping the saucepan, but as the moisture is absorbed by the rice, you may notice less steam.)
Beef Short Rib Rice Bowls
Inspired by galbi, or Korean barbecued short ribs, this recipe takes a sharp turn away from the traditional sweet, fruity treatment and instead skews savory, with warm spices like cumin, coriander and turmeric. Meaty short ribs generally require a lengthy cook time, but slice them thinly off the bone and they’ll tenderize quickly when seared on the stovetop—or you could use slivers of skirt steak or hanger steak instead. The skinny strips also have a higher surface area, which means they’ll quickly soak up the flavors of the marinade. Rice is the perfect canvas for the meat, and celery and lettuce balance out the bold flavors with lightness and crunch.
Radicchio Salad With Crunchy Shiitake Mushrooms and Barley
A colorful grain salad is the perfect light meal. Here, barley adds heft and texture to a bitter leaf salad that’s balanced with a sweet-tart dressing. The sleeper hit of this recipe are the crispy shiitake mushrooms, which impart deep flavor in two ways: They are pan-seared, and the caramelization left in the pan adds extra umami to the dressing. For gluten-free diets, you could substitute buckwheat groats or brown rice in place of the pearled barley.
Taiwanese Meefun
Meefun is a stir-fried rice noodle dish very common in Taiwan, and many cooks always claim that their version is the best. Traditionally, meefun has dried shrimp, but this vegetarian rendition gets its umami from dried shiitake mushrooms and gains a little heft from eggs. It’s delicious when first made, but can also be served at room temperature, so it will travel well to a picnic or gathering.
Somen Noodles With Poached Egg, Bok Choy and Mushrooms
The perfect salve for cold winter days, this vegetarian noodle soup can be cobbled together in an instant from the contents of a well-stocked kitchen. It takes its flavor from a quick bouillon using just four ingredients: soy sauce, sesame oil, scallions and shiitakes, which deliver a hefty, flavorful dose of glutamate. Poached eggs add richness to the clean and comforting broth. Fresh eggs have stronger, firmer albumen (egg whites) and will thus hold their shape better than older eggs, which have a tendency to unfurl. The main key to achieving that teardrop shape during poaching is allowing the eggs to simmer without disturbance until cooked.
Rice Cake Soup With Bok Choy and Edamame
This fresh soup is a riff on something that a Chinese or Korean mom might make, with rice cakes added to bulk it up. You can find the white, oval disks in most Asian supermarkets; they are made with glutinous rice flour and have a chewy texture. They are precooked, but will rehydrate and soak up more liquid in this soup. If you find that they have soaked up too much, simply add a little more broth or water to thin out the soup. Substituting one to two cups of cooked rice to the soup in place of the rice cakes works well if you don't have access to an Asian grocery store.
Five-Spice Roasted Carrots With Toasted Almonds
A complex combination of fennel seeds, anise, clove, cinnamon and Szechuan peppercorns, five-spice powder is a crucial ingredient in the Chinese pantry that also happens to be deeply versatile. It can be used as a dry rub for roast chicken, tossed with sautéed vegetables or sprinkled over toasted nuts. Here, five-spice powder, along with a bright splash of vinegar and ginger, dresses up simple roasted carrots. Preheating your baking sheet in the oven will help caramelize and crisp your vegetables, and will also speed up cooking time.
Fried Fish Sandwich
This fried fish sandwich doesn’t stray far from the classic fast-food staple: breaded fish, a soft bun, a slice of cheese and tangy tartar sauce. The best part is you can put it together in just about the amount of time it would take to stand in line and order it at the counter. Capers, shallots and fresh dill make this tartar sauce feel a little fancy, but a splash of soy sauce adds the umami that takes it to a very familiar place. Flounder is an affordable choice for the recipe, but if you can’t find it, substitute with sole or any mild flat fish.