Dining In: Asian inspiration – Making easy, tasty ethnic cuisine at home

We love eating out almost as much as we love dining in, and increasingly our favorite haunts are those that serve some type of ethnic cuisine. Whether it is Indian, Greek or Thai, we like to dine out at places that specialize in a style of cooking we don’t typically make ourselves.

Still, sometimes a good ethnic meal gets the culinary creative juices flowing, which has led us to come up with some easy ethnic-inspired dishes. It’s not the same as what you might find in a restaurant, but it’s a respectable approximation and a good way to broaden your culinary repertoire. That’s why we decided this month to share some Asian-style dishes of our own.

While fried rice and egg rolls tend to dominate the menus of local Chinese-American restaurants, a dish that is a true staple across eastern and Southeast Asia is a brothy, flavorful soup filled with vegetables and noodles. These one-pot meals are both inexpensive and extremely satisfying. There are many varieties, but the basic components are broth, vegetables, some kind of noodles, and perhaps a protein.

Tracey has come up with her own version of a Spicy Asian Noodle Soup, the beauty of which is a simple and healthful base, with a lot less sodium than you are likely to find in a restaurant soup. It takes just minutes to throw together, and you can vary the noodles or protein source depending on your mood.

To go along with it, Tracey made a delicious version of Pan-fried Dumplings using ground chicken, fresh cabbage and store-bought wonton wrappers, which can be found in most local grocery stores. The dumplings recipe yields a generous three dozen, which can be made ahead of time and frozen.  

To accompany the meal, we made a quick and easy Cucumber Salad, with a slightly sweet, tangy dressing that is light but offers just enough zing to complement the rest of the menu.

When eating spicy Asian food, we always like to serve a crisp dry white wine like a Spanish Albarińo or a Portuguese Vinho Verde. We also suggest a nice crisp Rosé, served chilled.