Cookaholics Bulletin Board

I've been cooking from Lucky Peach's Asian cookbook, which is excellent, and wondering if it's worthwhile to subscribe to the magazine. It's awfully expensive, though, and now that I'm retired I've become quite money conscious. Thoughts?

Linsday,

The magazine is more edgy narrative than it is actual cooking. If you like to read, for example, chefs shooting BS with each other while drunk, or travelogues, or philosophical musings on the perfect Ramen, or similar, then yes. On the other hand, if you're looking mostly for recipes, I generally only buy 1 out of 3 issues.

Better: why not pick up one issue and see how much of it you read?

I quite like the magazine, but yah, it isn't a recipe magazine, and actually less so as time goes on. It is more *about* cooking (and eating). I like narrative so I buy them all (but don't subscribe)

They have revamped their website very recently to be more friendly to recipe finding and themes.

Lindsay, what are your favorite recipes from the lucky peach cookbook? They all look so amazing. How easy was it to find necessary ingredients? My Star Market has a decent "world" aisle but I wonder if I will need to make a trip to the Hong Kong Market (near BU, former Market 88). Thank you.

We made the chineasy cucumber salad last night, again, for the nth time from the cookbook, it is a favourite recipe around here.

Some recipes from the book will be supermarket friendly, but you will ant to visit a solid asian market at some point. I also brought pictures of the bottles, etc from the book with me, and showed some to the staff to help find the ingredients (we have a quite large asian supermarket, like medium Walmart sized, finding stuff can be crazy...)

Hi Ivy,

Sorry - I ran off to the Cape for a few days, so I didn't see this. I have an HMart near us - it's a Asian megastore with quite a few branches in various states, so I had no problems finding the ingredients. But it's definitely written for people that don't necessarily have access to the more esoteric items, and he does recommend substitutions. I'm having a great time working through the recipes - haven't met a dud one yet, although I would cut back on the water in the marinade for the Korean Grilled Chicken.

My favorites so far include the pesto with fresh ramen (this is the only recipe which does involve a hard-to-get ingredient, but fresh ramen was a revelation; it was fabulous with pesto. And I see that Kenji posted a way to imitate fresh ramen by adding baking soda to noodles, though I haven't tried it. I posted the URL below).

The Char Siu was excellent and I echo Paul on the chineasy cucumber salad. I've also made both the beef noodle and the chicken noodle soups and especially loved the broths/stocks that they make. I've been using the Chinese stock in a variety of ways and it really adds a wonderful dimension—I used it most recently in a broccoli/potato soup. I'm making the miso-roasted fish tonight. As you can see, I'm having lots of fun with this.

http://www.seriouseats.com/2014/10/baki ... -hack.html

Paul/Lindsay,
Thanks for the tips. I look forward to stocking my pantry so that I can try a few recipes. Good to know about HMart. If the Chineasy Cucumber Salad is anything like the one I had in Mission Chinese in SF a few years ago it will be amazing. The melding of favors in that salad were so delicious, really unlike anything I had had before. Are Persian cucumbers worth tracking down? I generally buy regular (non English) cucumbers because I think they are crisper and better tasting than the English ones. My cilantro needs harvesting, so the timing is perfect to make this!

Not sure what Paul will say, but I think any cucumber would work, though I like to seed mine regardless of the type.

I've made it with lebanese, english and "field" cukes and prefer them in that order, but all of them work well (it is a narrow preference). I leave the skins of the first two on which improves the appearance of the dish, not sure it makes a huge diff to the taste. I seed the latter two.

I guess you can't live on awards: They are closing

http://www.eater.com/2017/3/14/14926376/lucky-peach-folding-rip