Gaeng Hung Lay- Northern Thai Pork Curry

Gaeng Hung Lay is a northern Thai pork curry with Burmese roots. It reflects the long connections between northern Thailand and neighboring Burma, now Myanmar.

Burmese, Shan and northern Thai communities traded, migrated and shared cooking traditions across the region. The name carries that history: gaeng means curry in Thai, while hung lay comes from the Burmese hin le, a curry name that traveled with the dish.

Tender pork, ginger and warm spices come together in a rich sauce balanced with tamarind and a little palm sugar. There’s no coconut milk, so the spices and pork really shine.

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Beef Bourguignon, Classic French Beef Stew with Red Wine

Beef Bourguignon is one of the great classics of French country cooking. It’s the kind of meal that would have been slowly simmering on a farmhouse stove or served in a neighborhood bistro on a cool evening in Burgundy. While some versions can be quite elaborate, the heart of the dish is surprisingly simple: good beef, red wine, vegetables, and patience.

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Delicious Moroccan Chicken with Honey and Almonds

This is a very favorite dish of mine, which I found in Claudia Roden’s wonderful book, “Arabesque”. It is pure Moroccan simplicity which blends the ingredients to create an end result which is much more than the sum of its parts.  This dish never fails to impress and it makes the entire house smell wonderful and cozy.

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Taiwanese 3 Cup Chicken Recipe- San Bei Ji

I’ve made a lot of Chinese food in my life, but I’d never made 3 Cup Chicken-San Bei Ji, which is kind of a Taiwanese classic. I was really missing out. This is one of the best things I’ve ever made and super easy. Absolutely stunning. This is the Taiwanese version with basil.

The name “three-cup chicken” traditionally refers to the three principal seasonings: rice wine, soy sauce and sesame oil. The “cups” describe the balance among those ingredients rather than requiring modern home cooks to use a literal cup of each.

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