Get the latest recipes from Bondc http://www.grouprecipes.com/people/bondc Here’s a birkenstock and dreadlock wearing, slobbering at the mouth, “Bush is HITLER!” chili recipe, dedicated to those Seattle moonbats who make Dagoba free-range organic chocolate — indeed, in honor of crunchy Obama-fainting limousine liberals everywhere, but particularly Seattle. http://www.grouprecipes.com/43996/moonbat-chili.html These are the gooiest, fudgiest brownies you can make. RESIST the temptation to add more chocolate. If you do, they'll be soup. To make the best dessert in the world, top with Haagen-Dasz chocolate-chocolate chip ice cream and hot fudge. http://www.grouprecipes.com/43993/dinah-shore-brownies.html Sigh. I had the most amazing twice-cooked pork at the Szechuan Gourmet in midtown, and dislike every recipe I have for it (WAY too sweet), so I've been trying to recreate what I had there. This is as close as I've come,and it's pretty good, if I do say so myself. http://www.grouprecipes.com/32016/twice-cooked-pork.html It's soup, so you can put just about anything else in it you want. I've put in just the basics. You may, of course, add tofu, but I never, under any circumstances, eat tofu. Never. http://www.grouprecipes.com/31997/hot-and-sour-soup.html Adapted from Dunlop's Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook. The name alone is worth making it. http://www.grouprecipes.com/31994/sounding-radish-xiang-luo-bu-si.html This really is one of the most amazing things I’ve eaten–and the most uniquely flavored. Purists will object to my use of fresh tangerine peel, but dried tangerine peel is often not available at the Chinese grocery (I dry my own because tangerines are not usually available year round), and orange peel is an entirely different thing, “sweeter” in flavor while tangerine peel is almost bitter, maybe grapefruit-y, and orange peel produces a very different, inferior dish. I also double the chilis when I make it, but I love painfully hot food–but before you do the same, note that because of the way this dish is prepared, four chilis will give what most consider to be a spicy dish. Of all my recipes, this is easily one of the five or six most valuable. This is from Irene Kuo's Key to Chinese Cooking, which I'm sad to say was out of print the last time I checked. http://www.grouprecipes.com/31780/tangerine-peel-chicken-szechuan.html Most cookbook recipes are awful, telling you to do idiotic things like removing excess fat, or asking the butcher to cut the ribs off, or putting all kinds of nonsense on it. Sheer idiocy. The fat provides much of the flavor, which is why the rib is the best cut. You can remove fat after the roast is done. Carving a rib roast, including removing the bones, is child's play. And a rib roast should never be desecrated with tons of ludicrous seasonings. This is beef, and it stands on its own. Two things: You need at least two ribs, better three or more (leftovers won't last long), and you should never put a roast directly from the refrigerator into an oven. http://www.grouprecipes.com/31515/rib-roast.html Just say NO! to blender Hollandaise, mock Hollandaise, and all those other abominations. There is Hollandaise, period. This isn't hard to make and takes all of five minutes, although if you've never done it, you do need to be careful (I haven't used a double boiler in years, and I have never had a sauce break on me). Do this right before you serve it; keeping Hollandaise warm is often a disaster. http://www.grouprecipes.com/31464/hollandaise-sauce.html My grandmother's recipe. Pie crust has an undeserved reputation as being difficult to make. It isn’t. But there are important points that aren’t usually included in recipes, so I’ll include them below. You may use a vegetable shortening, or you may use half lard (or shortening) and half butter, though the crumb will be shorter. Do not try to make a pie crust with all butter; if you want to use all butter, go with a short crust instead. Too much fat makes the crust shrink when you bake it (if you’ve ever used those pre-made crusts from the store, they always shrink because they contain too high a proportion of fat). Too much flour will make your crust tough, which most people know. But too much water will also make your crust tough — and most people use too much water. The überprinciple here is handle the dough as gently and as little as possible! http://www.grouprecipes.com/29788/my-grandmothers-apple-pie.html For those of you who like western Chinese, I plan to put together a tip sheet on what different products are, where to find them, and which ones you do and do not need. Until then, however, here are a couple of recipes, one for chili oil, the other for salted chilis. Chili oil you can buy in most supermarkets these days, but it's strained, and ridiculously expensive, and as easy as it is to make your own, there's no reason to waste your money. You can find unstrained chili oil at any Asian market (usually as homestyle chili oil), but it's still more expensive than it should be. You won't find salted chilis, even at the Asian market. They're used primarily in Hunan, and one of those things you make at home. Since both are, well, just chilis, you can use either to make something non-Chinese hotter. For both, you need some kind of glass container with a tight-fitting lid. There is no need to refrigerate either of these. http://www.grouprecipes.com/26725/chili-oilsalted-chilis.html