Too many cooks...

... do not spoil the broth in fact. After the overeating during Christmas, M and I are craving very simple and light foods, facilitated by the gifts of Arabic, Chinese, Japanese and Italian cookbooks we received. Aldo Zilli's The Zilli Cookbook and Claudia Roden's Arabesque - A Taste of Morocco, Turkey and Lebanon I have already mentioned below. But we also received Harumi Kurihara's Harumi's Japanese Home Cooking (from M to me) and Fuchsia Dunlop's Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook - Recipes from the Hunan Province (from me to M).

Kurihara's book features mouthwatering dishes such as Aubergine Gratin with Tofu and Miso Sauce, Ginger Pork Salad, and Japanese Style Sardines with Pickled Plums. Dunlop's book features Junshan Chicken with Silver-Needle Tea, Slow-Braised Beef with Potatoes, and Stir-Fried Broad Beans with Minced Pork.

Tonight after work, we stocked up on Chinese ingredients - Sichuan peppers, cassia bark, soy sauce, Shaoxing wine and groundnut oil - for our store cupboard at Chinatown's Loon Fung and on Japanese store cupboard ingredients - mirin, dashi base, firm tofu and cooking saki - from Arigato on Brewer Street in Soho. At home, we stir-fried rice noodles, pak choi, and tofu chunks with slivers of red chilli, garlic and spring onions in soy sauce and red chilli oil and ate it drinking loose-leaf green tea that kept hot in the lidded mugs we'd also bought from Loon Fung.

We felt very healthy.