A very simple fiery and flavourful chicken dish that comes together quickly. The most unexpected part of the flavour medley is the candy-like sweetness of the fried (until charred) sweet peppers.

From Wikipedia:
Kung Pao chicken (also spelled Kung Po chicken) is a classic dish in Sichuan cuisine, originating in the Sichuan Province of central-western China. The dish is named after Ding Baozhen (1820–1886), a late Qing Dynasty official. Born in Guizhou, Ding served as head of Shandong province and later as governor of Sichuan province. His title was Gōng Bǎo (宮保), …

This post was originally published on September 17, 2008. It has been updated once since then.
My father’s pelau is (not surprisingly) my favourite and has been a staple over the long Carnival weekend in my family, for as long as I can remember.
Now my father is a man with a very narrow cooking repertoire, but what he does do he does well. You’ve already experienced his truly excellent pepper sauce, so why not give this one a try? This recipe is his as he gave it to …

This recipe for Ciabatta-Wrapped Striped Bass just caught my eye and is definitely a novel and creative way to use ciabatta bread!
Combining the flavours of a saffron sauce with a tomato-fennel stew, and easily adaptable to kosher restrictions, this will definitely be gracing my dinner table in the near future (I’ll probably be leaving out the capers though, can’t stand those! )

Ciabatta bread is still relatively unknown here in Trinidad however gourmet stores and bakeries are increasingly including it in their offerings (I personally buy mine at Peppercorns …

Finally! I have completed (and posted) a Daring Cooks Challenge on time! I have been cooking along with this most recent adjunct to the Daring Bakers community but have always ended up missing the deadlines for one reason or another. No more!
This time around the challenge was Indian Dosas. I’ve made dosas before but this was my first time doing so with gluten-free flour. Two suggested accompaniments were also given; a curried chickpea filling and a coconut curry gravy. I decided to use the recommended filling but broke away …

I did it! I finally bit the bullet, pushed through my fear and made pasta! That’s right, thanks to Daring Bakers, I have finally achieved something that I’ve wanted to do since starting this blog in 2006
With the late showing of this post you would never believe that I actually made this lasagna over a week ago. What can I say? It’s been one of those weeks (for the past few weeks)! But better late than never, right?
For this lasagne I pretty much followed …

From April 17-19 2009 Trinidad will host the Fifth Summit of the Americas. In recognition of this event, I am cooking my way through the dishes of the member countries. Enjoy!
My first stop on my culinary tour of the member states that will be coming down to Trinidad next month for the Summit of the Americas is Peru, a country that I know very little about except for the odd mention in a history book, nature channel show, or piece on International News. Food wise, I knew …

Without a doubt this is definitely one of the best bean soup recipes that I have tried. I have no idea where I got it from, it’s been floating in my recipe file for more than a few years. One of the reasons why I think I avoided it was because parts of the instructions seemed off putting to me. For example, cooking the beans in PLAIN water or 90 minutes seemed totally UGH! However that is all in the past now. I am glad now however that I tried …

Big Night, was a movie that I knew nothing about until becoming aware of it via Joelen’s Culinary Adventures “Foodie Film” event. Warm and poignant the movie centers around the ambitions of two brothers, Italian immigrants to the US, intent on making their dreams of bringing authentic Italian cuisine to the masses a reality. The passion which the main chef ‘Primo’ has for his cuisine, causes him to refuse to change any element of it for the American palate. As a result patronage suffers, as people flock to a nearby …

When I first learnt about Chef Spotlight Dinners organised by Joelen of Joelen’s Culinary Event I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to showcase another raw dish and to learn about those chefs who specialise in preparing (and popularizing) raw cuisine. Among the key names that I came across (and whose work really resonated with me) were Chad Sarno, Sarma Melngailis, and Roxanne Klein. However, for this challenge I decided to prepare a recipe by the British raw chef, Russell James. Like the other chefs mentioned I like his …

Don’t you just love when a recipe has superlatives built right into the title? This recipe for ‘Best Ever Lentil Soup’ was one that came bundled with my copy of MacGourmet and comes from the beautiful vegan blog Vegalicious. In the past the only lentil soups that I’ve tried have had either a West Indian flair, or an East Indian slant, so the first few sips of this version came as quite a shock to my tastebuds. Instead of the sweetness of plaintains, or the aromatics of cumin, …