Asian

There are as many varieties of dal (the nourishing lentil soup) as there are towns and villages in India. Our recipe is inspired by the one served at Kasa Indian Eatery, just down the street from the Market. It gets a dose of butter, which makes the soup incredibly rich in flavor, and pureeing half gives it extra creaminess. This recipe can easily be doubled.

One of the benefits of working with so many chefs at the Workshop is that the experience sometimes takes us out of our comfort zone. We tend to shy away from spicy foods at the winery, but with this dish, Honolulu chef Alan Wong, who participated in the 1990 Workshop, reminded us that we don’t need to be so cautious. Our wine can happily accompany a dish with Thai flavors if the heat is balanced with a touch of sweetness and citrus and mellowed with coconut milk. We were pleased—and admittedly surprised—at how seamlessly our Anderson Valley Pinot Noir married with Alan’s red-curry sturgeon. Accompany the fish with stir-fried bok choy or spinach and steamed rice to soak up the luscious sauce.

As Cakebread Cellars expanded sales overseas, we began inviting chefs from abroad to participate in the Workshop. Predictably, some new and intriguing scents soon emerged from our kitchen. This warmly spiced lentil soup is Brian’s invention, but he devised it after working with Indian chef Sujan Mukherjee at the 2008 Workshop and observing his spicing. Now Brian makes this wholesome soup with the Napa elementary school students that he teaches regularly, and he demonstrates the recipe at our employees’ wellness classes.

Japanese eggplants are more slender, lighter in color, and have a slightly sweeter, creamier flesh than the larger, pear-shaped globe varieties. To prevent the flesh from discoloring, cut the eggplants just before you’re ready to steam them.

Although you could certainly substitute one-quarter cup bottled teriyaki sauce for the homemade version in this recipe, the resulting dish won’t taste nearly as fresh and vibrant.

Steamed fish is a healthful and quick-cooking dinner option. Adding a few aromatics to the steaming liquid enhances the taste of the fish without using any butter or oil. Haddock, halibut, or other firm-fleshed white fish can be used in place of the cod.

Uncooked salmon patties can be refrigerated, tightly wrapped in plastic, up to one day. Or wrap individually and freeze up to two months in a resealable plastic bag (thaw in refrigerator before cooking). Serve with the mayonnaise and noodles below, or mixed greens.

Store-bought curry paste is a handy shortcut for preparing Thai- and Indian-style dishes at home. Here, just one tablespoon adds the characteristic color and flavor to beef and noodles. Look for the paste near other Asian ingredients in the supermarket.

There’s no need to boil the noodles separately; here, they are cooked in the savory broth that serves as the base of this soup. Look for soba noodles in the Asian-food or pasta section of the grocery store. If you can’t find them, use whole-wheat spaghetti instead.

WHY IT’S LIGHT Cut strips of sliced cabbage to resemble long, thin noodles and you can reduce the amount of real noodles by half. Cooked briefly, the cabbage wilts slightly but retains some of its characteristic crunch. Linguine stands in for the usual wheat-flour noodles (called lo mein) in this version of the Chinese take-out favorite, but you can use Asian noodles if you have them.

FLAVOR BOOSTERS The bracing combination of fresh lime juice and mint adds minimal calories and not a trace of fat, yet tastes out of this world. Scallions, cucumber, and chopped peanuts up the flavor ante while also adding crunch. Soba noodles, made from buckwheat, are nuttier than those made from wheat.

FLAVOR BOOSTER Toasted sesame oil, used in many Asian dishes, has a robust and nutty taste. Combined with rice vinegar, lime juice, garlic, and red-pepper flakes, it multitasks in this recipe as both marinade and salad dressing.

GOOD TO KNOW To release the citrusy flavor of lemongrass, pound the stalks with a meat mallet or the bottom of a heavy pot. If you can’t find fresh lemongrass, look for dried in the spice aisle of your grocery store, or at Asian food markets.

GOOD TO KNOW Using poached chicken keeps this Asian-style soup on the more delicate side; with this method of cooking, you get tender and moist meat as well as a tasty broth, which you can use in a variety of dishes.

I love a dinner of make-it-yourself sushi. I put a large bowl of sushi rice on the table with squares of toasted nori, thinly sliced fish and vegetables, and some pickled ginger and wasabi. Everyone rolls his own and eats them out of hand.

This sauce is a version of a raita, the cooling South Asian yogurt sauce, which is often seasoned with cumin seed, cinnamon, and cayenne. Try different varieties of cucumber such as lemon, Armenian, or Japanese. If the cucumbers have large seeds, use a spoon to scrape them out after you cut the cucumbers in half. A cool growing season sometimes yields bitter cucumbers, so taste each cucumber; a bitter cucumber will spoil the sauce.

This is a simple, refreshing dish that perfectly represents the current trend in Baja-Mediterranean cuisine: the fusion of local ingredients and cooking techniques with European (mostly Mediterranean) ingredients, with an occasional Asian ingredient showing up in the mix. Variations of this dish pop up in restaurants all around Mexico, some adding spicy avocado dressing or fresh orange juice to the mix. I like to keep it simple to let the fresh taste of the ingredients shine through.