This recipe is both delicious and unusual, can be served hot, cold or warm… and you should make it right now!

Ingredients (for 4 servings)
Pasta
4 Tbsp rice vinegar
2 Tbsp soy sauce
2 Tbsp black vinegar
1 Tbsp chili oil (like Lee Kum Kee Chiu Chow Chili Oil)
1 Tbsp shrimp sauce (like Lee Kum Kee Fine Shrimp Sauce)
2 tsp sugar
12 oz Fettuccine (or whatever pasta you have on hand!)

Pork
1 Tbsp oil (I used olive oil, but any mild oil will work)
12 oz pork, minced
1 tsp salt
5 garlic cloves, minced
1 2-inch piece ginger, grated on microplane
4 green onions, light parts finely chopped, green parts reserved for garnish (see below)

Garnish
1 carrot, brunoised
3 Tbsp rice vinegar
1 Tbsp water
1 tsp sugar
½ tsp salt
½ cup cilantro leaves
¼ c Italian parsley leaves
6 radishes, julienned
Green onion greens left over from the pork preparation, sliced on the diagonal

For Pasta
Make dressing by combining rice vinegar, soy sauce, black vinegar, chili oil, shrimp sauce and sugar in a large bowl. Stir until sugar dissolves and set aside. Fill a dutch oven with water and season heavily so it tastes of the sea. Bring it to a boil and then turn off and cover. When all other components are ready to roll, bring the water back to a boil, add pasta and cook until just al dente.

For Pork
Mince garlic, grate ginger (if you use a microplane for this, there’s no need to even peel it!) and chop the light parts of the green onions and set aside. Mince the pork with a sharp knife (a good trick is to freeze the meat for 15 minutes or so and then mince it because that makes it easier to handle), and keep in mind that slightly non-uniform pieces are a good thing, as they add a nice contrast to the final dish. Heat oil in a larger frying pan over medium heat and add minced pork and salt. Cook for about five minutes, stirring occasionally, until pork is mostly cooked through. Add garlic, ginger and chopped green onions and cook for another 5 minutes or so. Taste for seasoning and add more salt if needed, then set aside.

For Garnish
To make pickling liquid, stir together vinegar, water, sugar and salt in a small bowl until dissolved. Brunoise carrot, then add to the pickling liquid and let set for 15 minutes (or more!) until ready to serve. Slice green onion greens on the bias, pull cilantro and parsley leaves from stalks and set in two piles on cutting board, then julienne radishes and reserve with the herbs.

To Serve
When the pasta is perfect, pull it out of the boiling water and drop directly into the bowl of dressing (I use tongs for this, as I’ll also use them to plate) and toss together until nicely coated. Use tongs to twirl a nice helping of pasta onto a plate or into a wide, low bowl on one side and add pork to the other side. If there’s more dressing in the bottom of the bowl, drizzle that over the noodles (yum!) then drain pickled carrots and sprinkle over pork. Arrange herbs, radishes and green onions over pork and pasta and serve it up!

This dinner started with an idea I saw in the New York Times, and quickly became my own!

I’m a fan of keeping a larder stocked with lots of things that make certain moments easier. Moments like ‘honey, some friends and I are on our way and everyone is famished’ or like ‘what a day, who’s cooking, oh shit it’s me’. You know those moments, or at least I’d like to think that I’m not the ONLY one with those moments. And in the spirit of sharing our superest and handiest secrets so we can all live our best lives, here’s an example of what one might do in just such a moment.

This is a dinner I threw together one bleak night after my fella and I had experienced a fairly long day. A day so long that we didn’t even want to go out and have someone else cook (!) and I couldn’t bring myself to do absolutely nothing, because doing even just a little something in the kitchen always makes me feel better. And so I turned to some tasty bits that are usually lurking in the back of the fridge and pantry to make a little something out of nothing.

First, I made a batch of tuna and chickpea salad (for which there really is no recipe, but does have lots of lemon juice and zest; chopped onion, parsley, celery and celery leaves; a bit of mustard; a good glug of olive oil and a generous amount of salt and black pepper), which you can see at the center of the board and lettuce leaves for dolloping it into and wrapping around for munching.

To the left is a dish of the most delightful Thousand Islands Dressing (recipe courtesy of Saveur) that our fridge is never without (we use it for dipping things into and spreading onto things and are always amazed at how delicious it is on EVERYTHING) and a variety of fresh veggies sprinkled around it for dunking.

To the far right is a tiny dish of the most potent Fromage Fort (from the incredible Jacques Pépin via Food and Wine, whose father made it originally by tossing bits and bobs of leftover cheese into a crock he kept in the cellar, covering them with a bit of wine and a few cloves or garlic and smooshing it around every now and again until it was spreadable). It is a truly magical recipe, as one can use any kind and amount of cheese, and it turns out differently and DELICIOUSLY each and every time. I’ve made at least a hundred batches of the stuff and I can vouch!

Thrown in some stone ground crackers, a dish of Truffled Marcona Almonds from the Trader Joe’s and a little pile of whatever charcuterie happens to be on hand, and you have yourself a perfect little picnic. We threw a blanket on the floor and opened a bottle of wine and enjoyed it tremendously.

And when you next have one of THOSE moments, I heartily encourage you to do the same!