Notes about Recipes in this book

• Pasta with ancho chile and tomato cream

  • rghowe2 on April 09, 2023

    I have to cut back on the chiles a bit because as is this was blistering hot... and I like my heat!

• Glazed orange-hoisin chicken

  • ashallen on October 16, 2019

    This recipe makes a really, really delicious and deeply flavored piece of chicken - orange, sesame oil, soy, honey, ginger, chili, garlic, hoisin sauce. Either sweet or bitter orange marmalade works fine. The only reason I don't make it more often is that bits of the glaze scorch during roasting - this adds delectably deep, smoky, and caramelized notes to the chicken but also necessitates good ventilation for the last part of the cooking process. Not that the whole kitchen will be full of smoke - but noticeable! Recipe has worked with or without the skin left on the chicken. I'm still working on nailing down how the get the skin to consistently render fully during roasting - it's really, really excellent when it fully renders and becomes one with the glaze. Using smaller thighs seems to help. Previously frozen thighs seemed to render a bit better, too. Air-drying the (unglazed) chicken first in the refrigerator also seems to help...

• Asian glazed pork tenderloin

  • jay.moe on April 14, 2023

    The marinade has a nice orange flavor, but overpowered the Asian flavors of ginger and hoisin. Was a very one-dimensional marinade.

• Glazed lemon sour cream cake

  • jay.moe on May 13, 2022

    Since the recipe didn't call for any salt, I added 1/2 teaspoon of salt to the batter. The cake turned out very lemony, especially around the crust where the lemon drizzle, consisting of lemon juice, zest and powdered sugar (almost a full cup of liquid) was poured. It was moist to the point of being 'juicy' (which is the term my son used to describe the cake). The texture of the cake was very tender. The recipe was easy to follow, the instructions were clear and the author gave some interesting information on how she developed the recipe. Overall, the cake was delicious and stayed moist for several days.