• Xinjiang Noodle Dough Enchiladas. Really.

    With my crock pot full of fermenting cabbage this month, I’ve had to start re-thinking my usual culinary fall-back techniques of, well, throwing everything in the fridge into the crock pot and hoping for the best.  Since I went a…

  • Not Your Grandma’s Bazlama: Turkish Wok Bread!

    As you probably already know (or don’t care), I lived in Turkey for 6 years before moving to China. For the first 2 years before I moved to Istanbul, I lived in a small city called Kayseri, on the edge…

  • Potato Pierogies for the People!

    One of the unexpected things I’ve learned over the years of living in inconvenient places and having to improvise ways of making the comfort foods of my homeland is that the home made version is so much better than the…

  • Half 荞 Chapati, Half 荞 Noodle: It’s Wonder Dough!

    I’m starting to think this blog should be renamed, “Watch me make flatbreads! That’s all! Kthnxbye!” Although I’ve been busy cooking all sorts of other lovely things for our meals (remind me to tell you all about that spicy chicken…

  • The Hundred Beans Campaign: Red Chili For China

    Shanghai’s frigid and grim season has landed with a cold, heavy thump. Last night in bed, my hands went kind of numb as I tried to read a book under my two thick duvets, with just my head and fingers…

  • 5-Spice Qiézi: Fun with Aubergines

    I should be trying to sleep right now. It’s nearly 10pm and I have an 8am train to catch tomorrow morning, whisking me off to the glittering metropolis of Hefei, the esteemed capital city of Anhui province which is about…

  • Spicy 卡罗来纳州 Style Crock-Pot Pulled Pork

    I should preface this one by noting that I’m sick today. Part cold, part sore throat, part achy dopiness. Which is why I kind of screwed up some key parts of this recipe. If you look below at the recipe,…

  • شىنجاڭ‎ Uyghur Irish Stew

    Now this one…this one’s going to be a search engine disaster in the making. It may also be the one that gets me pushed over the proverbial edge of the Great Firewall. Sorry. This stew is technically a basic Irish…

  • Gnocchi with Pesto Cream Sauce à la Wok

    I’m in the middle of a personal dilemma of sorts this week. I’ve been feeling extraordinarily exhausted and unmotivated, craving hibernation and inactivity and solitude as much as possible. However, my inner cheerleader (damn her!) has been trying her best…

  • Salma, the Ancient (and Awesome) Pasta!

    My unemployment is showing. I haven’t done a lick of work since the end of September.  I’ve kept myself occupied with bursts of scone-baking (using the leftover whey from the ricotta cake topping from last week), minestrone-cooking, tortilla-wokking and waaaay…