For someone who was all “Harrumph! Cacio e Pepe Does Not Contain Cheddar Cheese.” a few weeks ago, I have some nerve telling you what I’m going to next, which is that I’m pretty smitten with an unapologetically “100% Inauthentic!”-boasting cookbook, the celebration of American-Asian cuisine that is 101 Easy Asian Recipes from the editors of Lucky Peach magazine. There are recipes for “Mall Chicken,” for Rotisserie Ramen, Dollar Dumplings, Miso Claypot Chicken (No Claypot), and then, the recipe in the dessert section that’s going to make you shut the book and never look back again, that for sliced oranges. You know, like the kind they put out at Chinatown restaurants at the end of a meal.
But wait, hear me out. The miso claypot chicken can be made in a rice-cooker, as in, while you are at work, ready when you get home. In fact, the rice-cooker is one of only two specialty cooking items they recommend, that and a wok, and you can make all of the dishes with neither. The rotisserie ramen makes use of not just the pickings, but the carcass of a storebought bird to make a more robust broth. The dollar dumplings, guys, they’re hilarious: “Even if your first dumpling is fugly, the fortieth will be respectable looking, and by your hundredth you’ll be muttering under your breath in Chinese, wondering when the mah-jongg game is gonna get started.” Oh, and, “Sauceless dumplings are like the crying-on-the-inside kind of clowns; they look the part but something important is missing.” The orange slices? Apparently, this is more of a thing than I thought; Joanne Chang steps in to explain that meals with company were always ended with fruit. Baked goods are for daytime meals, with tea.
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