Garlic | Sybaritica

This dish, which is vaguely Chinese in spirit, combines, fried pork-belly slices with garlic, chili, and the last of the Bok Choy grown by my wife this past season…  Read more

I have recently featured a couple of different back-rib recipes. Both used fairly complex seasoning mixtures and respectively employed the techniques of pre-cooking and  the indirect heat grill method. Today, I am cooking back-ribs again but I am going to grill over a direct flame after a marinating the meat using only garlic and herbs…  Read more

Having a jar of home-made garlic infused oil on hand is almost a must in my kitchen. You can use just a bit of the garlic in recipes that call for it (and it is so much better than the commercial varieties of chopped garlic), or you can also take only the oil for stir-frying, or adding to salad dressings, etc. I personally find using a little of both is great for the base of marinades and the like.

Making some for yourself is not difficult at all, but you do need to be a little careful as improper procedures can result in potentially harmful spoilage. Both salt and refrigeration are required if you wish to keep the preparation for any longer than a few days and, after years of doing things this way, I can happily say that I have never had any problems… Read more

Although I enjoy experiencing all sorts of different foods from that varied cuisines of China, I also enjoy the western variety of ‘Chinese’ food from time to time and I have to confess to a certain weakness for the ubiquitous ‘combo’ specialty known as ‘Honey Garlic Ribs’. In truth, sugar, rather than honey, is used in just about every restaurant offering you are likely to encounter but that is actually fine by me as I have tried made with real honey on a number of occasions and wasn’t all that keen on the result.

Garlic ribs have to be pretty bad before I won’t eat them, but I am least fond of those cooked in copious amounts of sauce and braised for so long that, not only is the meat falling from the bone, but it has lost all of it’s chewy texture and flavor. This particular post will feature a version that is closely derived from a popular Chinese preparation in which fresh ribs are braised with rock sugar and fairly small amounts  of either water or stock to which soy sauce is added. My twist on the traditional kind uses regular white sugar, ribs that are previously browned, and just a little so Read more

Chili, Ginger and garlic, are a trio that come together in all sorts of dishes and, in Indian cookery especially, many cooks pre-make their own pastes from the ingredients and keep it on hand as a convenient time-saver. It is tremendously versatile, being used as-is or as the base for more complex Masalas, and it keeps very well indeed. Most recipes you come across suggest that it will keep anywhere from a week to a month (or longer frozen, of course) but, if a little salt (or sometimes vinegar) is added, it will last for ages. I actually have some in my fridge right now that is pushing six or eight months in age and, although the color has faded just a little it still tastes great. Still, the original fresh taste of the chili has diminished a bit and I thought it time that I made a new batch and share the process with my readers… Read more

I have three bags of the Mirabel Brand Frozen Clams I featured in a recent ‘Foodstuffs’ post and I thought I would use a couple to make a nice light meal for me and the wife. The first time I used this product, which was only a few weeks before I started writing this blog, I steamed a bag of the clams in a rich liquor made up of soy, ginger, garlic, sugar and rice wine, along with a small bunch of fresh basil. For this experiment, I wanted to use Basil again (as I still have some which needs to be used up) and I thought I might try something a little more delicate using white wine…  Read more

Lee Kum Kee is a producer and worldwide distributor of many Asian cooking products. I have seen quite a few rather snotty comments about LKK products on the Internet and this seems to stem from the fact that they have become so ubiquitous. It is rather as though, being commonplace, people no longer regard them as being as ‘special’ as less common equivalents. This however, is an unfortunate example of food snobbery and does the company a bit of an injustice, in my opinion. There is no doubt that the entire product line is a sometimes hit or miss as far as quality goes – some items are great, others less so – but I have generally found them to be pretty good on the whole. Their Chili Garlic sauce, while not the best of their entire product line, is still a very versatile and useful addition to anybody’s food cupboard…  Read more

Roasting red peppers gives them a lovely sweetness and, when stripped of skin, sliced, and marinated in olive oil, they make a delicious Italian Antipasto. Pureed, either alone or with other ingredients, roasted peppers can also make a wonderful and versatile sauce whose uses are limited only by the imagination…  Read more