Jasmine Rice

Rock shrimp are small and a bit sweet. You can also use small regular shrimp.

Ground, toasted rice adds crunch and a slight nuttiness to this salad. Thai basil, available at gourmet and farmers’ markets, has a licorice flavor, but you can use regular basil instead.

At a glance, this recipe may look like the one for Sizzling Crepes (page 274), and in fact these crepes from the central region begot sizzling crepes. But the popularity of the child has eclipsed that of the parent, and nowadays it is hard to get banh khoai unless you make them yourself or go to the source, Hue, where delightful crepes live up to their name. They are crunchy, rich from being cooked in a fair amount of oil, and full of toasty rice flavor. Banh khoai are traditionally fried in special small cast-iron skillets (five to six inches in diameter) with long handles (so you can avoid the splattering hot oil). They are difficult to find, however, so I use an eight-inch cast-iron or heavy nonstick skillet.

Named for the ssssseh-ao sound that the batter makes when it hits the hot skillet, these turmeric yellow rice crepes are irresistible. Fragrant with a touch of coconut milk, they are filled with pork, shrimp, and vegetables and eaten with lettuce, herbs, and a mildly garlicky dipping sauce. Most Viet cooks make sizzling crepes with a rice flour batter, but the results fall short of the nearly translucent ones made by pros in Vietnam. To reproduce the traditional version, which captures the alluring toastiness of rice, I soak and grind raw rice for the batter. It is not as daunting as it sounds. You just need a powerful blender to emulsify the batter to a wonderful silkiness. Adding left over cooked rice and mung bean, a technique I found buried in a book on Viet foodways, gives the crepes a wonderful chewy crispiness. Make your crepes as large as you like. These instructions are for moderately sized eight-inch ones. In Saigon, the same crepes are typically as big as twelve inches, but in the central region, they are as small as tacos. At my house, we serve and eat these crepes as fast as we can make them.

When I’ve got a crowd to feed and a tight budget, I turn to rice salad. I love its versatility: Simply add meat or shellfish for a heartier dish, but omit them for vegetarians. Sometimes I divide the rice mixture into two serving bowls before adding meat or shellfish, reserving one for my non-meat eating friends. It’s hard to beat homemade mayonnaise, which tastes fresher and richer than the commercial stuff. I’ve included a recipe for the mayonnaise we use at Rather Sweet Bakery & Café.

When the cooking times match up, it only makes sense to cook a protein and a starch together, as in this combination of fish and rice. It’s almost a one-dish meal, and I say almost because you do need to pull out a little bowl to make the spicy-sweet salsa while the pot simmers on the stovetop. This features my favorite way to make rice, an adaptation of the traditional coconut-milk rice that tastes good but is high in fat. The proliferation of coconut water as a healthful drink found in most supermarkets gave me a lighter—and, frankly, better—way to do it, and I haven’t looked back. Be sure to buy juice labeled 100% coconut water, as some juice-pack brands have other flavorings you wouldn’t want here, and some canned products include sugar and preservatives, defeating the purpose altogether.

Before I attended culinary school, my attempts at preparing rice were absolutely disastrous. Most often the final results were more like gloppy oatmeal, at best. The pilaf method I learned at L’Academie de Cuisine was my saving grace, which is why I call this recipe $20,000 Rice Pilaf (that was the cost of a year of school at the time).

This has always been my personal comfort dish, a meal I made from leftovers after roasting a chicken on the weekend. One day a friend was in the kitchen when I was making it, and she started asking innocuous questions: “Say, how much of the shallot are you using?” “Was that a half cup of olives?” I was so busy cooking that I didn’t really pay attention to what she was doing with the answers. She figured out the recipe and started making it for friends, who loved it and wanted the recipe too. I guess I wasn’t meant to hold onto this one. That’s okay. It’s really, really good, and I hope you get as much pleasure out of it as I do.

My cousin Julie learned this recipe when her sister, Abi, worked in Thailand. Julie throws in whatever vegetables she happens to have on hand, and the results are always outstanding. Instead of tofu, try substituting raw, peeled shrimp or scallops, chicken breasts, or fish fillets. Notice that this recipe does not call for water to hydrate the rice. The coconut milk provides enough liquid to cook the rice and make a wonderful curry sauce. It doesn’t seem to make any difference whether you use regular coconut milk or “lite.” Thai curry paste comes in yellow, red, and green—each works beautifully in this dish. Try the Mae Ploy brand found at Asian markets. Use more or less to taste; the amount here gives mild to medium heat.

This Glorious One-Pot Meal is a take on a traditional Indian dish. Consider changing it up with chicken, sweet potatoes, and broccoli in place of chickpeas, white potato, and cauliflower. Turmeric has anti-inflammatory properties and may be helpful for people suffering from internal swelling of joints or nerves, as with fibromyalgia, arthritis, and multiple sclerosis.

Larb is traditional Thai comfort food. The mint adds a clean jolt of flavor to this casserole-type meal. My cousin Abi lived in Thailand for a time and helped me fine-tune my version of this classic dish. Typically, the meat and rice are served over raw cabbage, but we think this style is pretty tasty as well. You can use serrano, Anaheim, or almost any other kind of chile pepper if you can’t find a jalapeño. Of course, your meal will be as spicy as your chile. Consider adding 1 tablespoon of chopped fresh basil or cilantro to the mint mixture for a slightly different taste.

The avocados in this recipe offer a cool, smooth counterpart to the spiciness of the fish and the rice. Even though they have been cooked with the rest of the meal, they maintain their shape and flavor delightfully. If you have space in your Dutch oven, try adding a handful of snow peas and sliced shiitake mushrooms to round out this Asian-inspired meal. While using plain water will result in a wonderful meal, you can add more depth of flavor by substituting broth. The rice will completely absorb the liquid during cooking, and in the process the fish will take on a delicate, poached texture that is a treat to eat. If you live in a dry climate, you may want to add an extra 2 tablespoons of water.

Rice pudding is an old-fashioned dessert and some might consider it dated. I find it a modern comfort. I adore the way chopped dates flavor the creamy sweetened vanilla-infused rice. A drizzle of lemon sauce over the top updates this old-time favorite.

I like the browned bits that cling to the skillet, like the socarrat of a paella, when I cook this side dish for my family. I like it so much, in fact, that I serve everyone the fluffy top part and when I’m back in the kitchen I scrape that part off and serve it to myself.