Recipes

I really have a love-hate relationship with Americanized Chinese food.

Most of the time, the food comes from forgettable joints that use the same plastic placards from the same 1980s catalog of florescent food photos. The gooey sauces, soggy bite-sized fried meat, and liberal use of MSG will remind me why I only eat that stuff once every six months. 

But then, there are moments that remind me why Chinese-American food has thrived for the last century. My nostalgic obsession with one kosher Chinese restaurant in Brookline, MA, has already been well documented on this blog. And there is, of course, the ease of eating.

I will probably take a lot of flack for saying this, but whatever: some days I just don't want to deal with bones. I just want to be lazy and eat my bite-sized chicken or pork or beef and not have to find a separate plate for inedibles. No matter how easy that plate may be to retrieve. The ingenuity of this hybrid cuisine is that it appeals to an American's innate laziness, even if that American happens to also write about and teach Chinese cooking. 

Excuse me for a second, while I rhapsodize about fast food in Asia.

As frequent travelers know, the #1 cardinal sin when visiting a new place is eating at fast food chains (unless you are in a developing country and just need a clean public restroom.) I have had bad luck when breaking this rule. Food poisoning from a Beijing KFC, for example. I have also had good luck. On one of those painfully humid summer mornings in Shanghai, I escaped into an air-conditioned McDonald's and discovered the joys of Sichuan-spiced chicken sandwiches.

Then there is my relationship with Yoshinoya. I can't speak for the quality of Yoshinoya's chains in the US (one in NYC, the rest mainly in around LA). But while living in Beijing and Shanghai, every couple of weeks I would succumb to my immense craving for their beef bowl, or gyudon. Even if it meant eating in a dingy mall basement with ambient arcade noises, alongside mega hoards of teens.

A couple of years ago, when I posted a recipe for mango and coconut lassis, a commenter suggested I also try the salted variety.

Yes, it took me two years to get around to posted the recipe. In my defense, in the mean time I did try to seek out salted lassi in whenever dining out at Indian restaurants. The conclusion? It's damn hard to find. But given given the drink's popularity in its home country, salted lassi's availability on the menu, alongside the perpetual mango favorite, is a good indicator of how "authentic" your Indian restaurant is.

I don't know why we are ingrained from childhood to equate thirst-quenching drinks with sugar, but this particular salted drink holds up well on its own. A little cumin, some mint, and the optional dash of chili powder makes it sound like an Indian entree in a glass, but somehow it works as a refreshment. And the amount of salt here is miniscule compared to what is in Gatorade.

Some of you may be familiar with a Cantonese dish called yuk bang, which roughly translates into "pork pie." It's pretty much the Chinese version of meat loaf. But while meat loaf can be found on menus in both Southern and hipster diners, yuk bang is hardly ever served outside home. To call it rustic would be an overly generous. You mix ground pork with pickled mustard plant, splash on a bit of soy sauce, then press your ball of pork into a metal plate and steam it. As simple and unphotogenic as pork pie is, it tastes amazing mixed with white rice. 

In the absence of pickled mustard plant, and for leftovers that I wouldn't feel weird bringing to work, I turn to these minced pork and shiitake noodles.

If you have ever been to Hong Kong, Taiwan, mainland China, or Japan, you may be familiar with a dish of minced pork ladled over a bowl of boiled noodles. It's pure comfort food whenever you're exhausted and need nourishment, stat. Like, when traveling on foot in a subtropical Asian city, or even after staring at a computer screen all morning.

The simplest preparation involves just minced pork, onions or shallots, scallions, all simmered in sake or Chinese rice wine.  I throw in finely chopped shiitake mushrooms for extra flavor (lately, using these ugly shiitakes.)  You can really use any kind of noodles, but I prefer soba for their ability to not become saturated by sauces.

Also check out this radio segment from the Feb. 17th episode of The Takeaway (produced by WNYC, Public Radio International, and BBC World Service). I chatted with actor B.D. Wong about Chinese New Year foods and some picks from my list of 100 Chinese Foods to Try.

I just realized it has been a looong time since I did a recipe round-up on this site. Two and a half years, in fact. It's usually much more fun (for me and the reader) to have new content, but it seems fitting after this much time to gather up some of my favorite foods for Chinese New Year in this post. 

1. Chinese tea eggs - Everyone should make these.  They are one step harder than boiling an egg, taking only 5 minutes of hands-on time (not including boiling time). That marbly experior will impress all your guests who did not grow up eating tea eggs. If you want to get fancy, top them with caviar. 

2. Water chestnut cake - The Chinese eat all sorts of "cakes" for the new year because they symbolize growing very tall. Eating them never worked for me. But the idea is still nice.

As much as i love to cook, I never have time to plan weekday lunches. After a frazzled morning at the desk, trying to get just one more bit of work done, I am ravenous by 1 or 2pm. My lame attempts at breakfast (usually Wheatables and fruit gummies) do not suffice.

I storm out of the building in a mad search for anything edible on the street. Unfortunately, other than mediocre $10 sandwiches and faux-Mexican, there is nothing except Safeway and Whole Foods. So I go for supermarket soup. Soup is filling. Soup is warming. Soup is cheap (well, not at Whole Foods). But sooner or later, you get sick of Chunky Chicken Noodle and Spicy Southwestern Bean. I still craved a piping hot bowl of broth-and-protein in the early afternoon, but needed a change.

This week I decided to add a Chinese take-out touch to chicken noodle soup. And make a big batch on Sunday night. While I still like the hot and sour soup I posted two year ago, this one is much, much more filling. And if you are low on Asian pantry staples like canned bamboo shoots and lily buds, you can still make this. I went to the market and bought chicken breast, mushrooms, and scallions, et voilà. 

Before I put together the results of my edamame wiki recipe, I wanted to share a dish appropriate for the joyous cholesterol-clogging spirit of Christmas.

There are few vegetable dishes better than roasted brussels sprouts. Drizzle olive oil over them, add some sea salt and pepper, roast them in the oven until the leaves are brown and barely crunchy, and I'm a happy girl. But for the holidays, any self-respecting dish should make you consider elastic pants, for just a second.

That's where Parmesan and bacon come in. Well, that and keeping all your bacon fat. The new year is still a week away, and there's still time to indulge in a little decadence before then.

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The last few months have been incredibly busy and challenging for me. But in January I resolve to return to my regular posting in full force, and update you on all that has been going on. Thank you all for continuing to read these past two years. Have a very happy holidays.

It took a trip to Japan to realize I've been making edamame wrong all these years.

Well, not necessarily wrong wrong. But not the best way possible.

When I discovered the joys of edamame about 10 or 12 years ago, I would buy bags of the frozen stuff, microwave them, and sprinkle table salt on top. Then I progressed to boiling them in a pot. When I discovered fresh edamame in Chinatown, and replaced Morton with Malden, I thought this was as good as edamame could get. After all, it tasted the same as at all the Japanese restaurants in the US. 

Then I went to Japan. In Tokyo this past summer, I noticed something slightly different about the fuzzy little legume that was as good an accompaniment with omikase-style sushi as it was with beer at 2 a.m. My meals of tempura, sashimi, fugu, and yes, even fugu sashimi were all bookended by a dish of edamame that tasted, well, better. Was it just because my subconscious dictated that the Japanese food had to taste better in Japan?

One night when returning to the guest house, a traveler from the north of Japan was snacking on some edamame in front of the TV. He was watching game show contestants clad in knee pads and mud hurling themselves around an obstacle course. He offered me some edamame. 

When I was living in China, the kitchen was never without rice. Long grain, short grain, jasmine, or brown, a sack or bulk bin bag would slouch in the corner, just waiting to be cooked. I would steam it, fry it, or boil it to a pulp for congee. And one day, out of severe homesickness, I decided to make horchata.

A Chinese friend was over and watched me pull a plastic carton from the fridge, which I had filled the day before with pulvertized rice grains and water to soak overnight.

"What is that?" she asked. I explained that Mexicans make a really nice icy drink out of rice water.

"But that's just like waste water from washing rice," she said."We dump that stuff down the drain."

"Um, true," I paused. "But when you add tons of sugar and vanilla and cinnamon, it's a great drink to go with your tacos." 

"I'll stick with margaritas."

I couldn't convince her to try it, which makes sense. The Chinese think anything raw is for barbarians and marvel at how Westerners down large bowls of salad, so why would they go for milky water from soaking raw rice? Come to think of it, none of the Mexican restaurants in Shanghai (all operated by Chinese-Americans) served horchata either. The only time I encountered the drink in China was at a Mexican-run Mexican restaurant in Beijing, and its clientele was predominantly Mexican embassy workers.

With all due respect to Memphis and Kansas City, Californians know the nation's best barbecue may be in their own backyard. I've spent enough time in the Central Coast to know that no occasion is too small for Santa Maria-style barbecue. Fundraisers, Quinceañeras, and Saturdays are all reasons to fire up the 50-gallon oil drum grill and slow cook enough beef for the whole town. For my Foodbuzz 24, 24, 24 event this month, I attended to a local fundraiser for spare ribs cooked on a giant grill, then at night, made my own tri-tip feast.

So what exactly is Santa Maria-style barbecue? Well, legend has it that California's barbecue culture dates back to the early 19th century, when vaqueros ended hard days of cattle branding with feasts of fresh steer, bread, and beans. And they were economical too, these cowboys. When they couldn't bear to toss the triangular ends of their sirloins,
they made the tri-tip a regional Cal-Mex speciality.