what i'm eating

most great chefs will tell you you don't need much to make a decent meal -- fresh ingredients, a good knife and a heat source should be sufficient. in principle i agree, but in my experience, a comfortable environment is key to cooking. that doesn't have to mean a fancy, expensive environment. but one you feel happy working in, since, at its best, cooking is a creative endeavor. a real kitchen was one of my priorities when we were looking for a new place. having just left our old, hot, cramped little kitchen in favor of a modern one with counter space and a real oven, i have to say it makes all the difference.


for our first meal in our new apartment, i asked john what he was in the mood for and he mentioned mango salad with avocado. this is one of my favorite salads to make. it's colorful, the flavors are a little surprising together (especially here in thailand, where we eat lots of mangoes but rarely eat avocado), and it tastes and smells really good. serve this salad at any dinner party and i guarantee people will be raving about it!

but how do you build a meal around just one dish? there are different schools of thought on this, but i really like it when the different pieces of my meal compliment each other in one way or another. i wouldn't serve korean bulgogi with paella, for example, as they have few flavor elements in common, both have very aggressive (and very different) flavors and they're both heavy. too confusing! it's hard to enjoy either of them.

the mango salad john wanted me to make has strong citrus, onion and cilantro flavors in it. while i don't want to outright copy them in the rest of the meal, i want to connect them. one flavor that works well with the ones i already have is cumin. i don't know why it is, but cumin is really yummy with avocado and citrus flavors, and you see this combination in lots of mexican dishes. since i have some chicken in the fridge i don't want to waste, i'll marinate it in a mixture of lime juice, soy sauce, garlic, cumin and bit of sugar. really just a bit for its meat tenderizing properties, the mangoes are enough sweet for a meal! so if you want to try this as a vegetarian recipe, ditch the sugar.

although i'm hating carbs lately for their fat creating properties, i just can't deprive myself when i'm making a home cooked meal! we love rice here in asia, but i'm going to mix it up a bit by adding a little saffron. the saffron and the cumin will make this meal... assertive. no boring flavors here!

mango salad
1 ripe mango, cubed
1/2 ripe avocado, cubed
1 cup cherry or grape tomatoes, cut in half
2 tablespoons red onion, cut into long strips (the amount varies with the strength of the onion. no one likes a shy salad but it's no fun when the onions are burning your mouth, either)
1/2 bunch cilantro, roughly chopped
juice of 1/2 a lime
salt to taste

toss the mango, avocado, tomatoes, onion and cilantro with lime juice. add salt to taste. cover and refrigerate for an hour. this can be eaten immediately, but it tastes better once the flavors have had a chance to mix.

cumin chicken
2 whole chicken breasts, sliced in half as though you were butterflying them except that you will actually split them into two thinner breasts

marinade
1/2 cup soy sauce
1/4 white wine (you can skip this entirely)
1 tablespoon sugar
2 cloves garlic, crushed
juice of 1/2 of a lime
1/2 tablespoon sesame oil
1 tablespoon ground cumin

mix marinade together in a plastic bag. add chicken, seal the bag, squish it up to make sure all the meat is covered and refrigerate for at least 2 hours, preferably 4.

grill chicken over coals, bake in the oven or cook in a pan (the chicken breasts are thin, so get the pan really hot and cook for just a couple of minutes per side).

saffron rice
add a little salt and few threads of saffron to your rice while it's cooking, whether you make it on the stove or in a rice cooker.