Oh, so yummy

I checked out Madhur Jaffrey's Step-by-Step Cooking from the Mérida English Language Library and now I want a copy of my own! Her World of the East, Vegetarian Cooking is one of my favorites. This one has wonderful meat recipes too. So far I have made Sichuan Shredded Beef with Carrots and Chiles, Pork with Long Beans and Chives ,Chickpeas with Garlic and Ginger, Miso Shiru (Pacsadelli has Aka miso in the refrigerated section) , Easy Beef Curry and Summer Soup with Pork and Cucumber.
The Sichuan Beef is really good, in fact I think it's good enough for company. The portions were very generous so next time I am going to use half the amount of meat, and maybe more carrot. Because I was feeling timid, I only used one green jalapeño rather than the 3 or 4 red or green chiles the recipe called for. I am going to search out some red serranos and use more. I think the red will look prettier. I generally use jalapeños when a recipe calls for chiles and doesn't specify the type.
Today we had the Summer Soup with Pork and Cucumber followed by Pork with Long Beans and Chives (except I used frozen string beans), Chickpeas with Garlic and Ginger, instead of rice there was quinoa.
To be honest, I had my misgivings about cucumber in soup, but it is a lovely to look at, delicate tasting soup. We´ll be having it again.
Husband really liked the Easy Beef Curry. It is a Thai recipe, and every mouthful was a little burst of individual tastes. Since I had sour orange at hand, I substituted sour orange zest for the lemon zest that Madhur Jaffrey suggested as a substitution for kaffir lime leaves, someone more discerning might have tasted the difference, but I didn't notice. The recipe calls for fish sauce, and honestly, I think I would prefer it without but I am not a fan of fish sauce.
If you want to add some exotic dishes to your cooking repertory, I recommend getting your hands on a copy of this cookbook.