Everybody loves a lettuce wrap. But what’s even better? A bok choy boat! Lettuce is bland and tends to be just a flimsy vehicle for delivering the filling into your face. Baby bok choy has a nice flavor and crunch, which complements the filling nicely and serves as a sturdier scoop. It also presents nicely, so…
Tag: Chinese
Mian Restaurant Review
Gold Dig #38 Mian is a noodle house in the San Gabriel Valley (what I like to think of as LA’s real Chinatown). It is one of two restaurants by chef Tony Xu that makes Jonathan Gold’s 101 Best Restaurants list – the other is Chengdu Taste (check out my Chengdu Taste Gold Dig too). It’s a fairly…
Sweet & Spicy Broccoli
My mom taught me this awesome trick to make broccoli a gorgeous color and great crunchy texture. You basically throw it into boiling water, then immediately pull it out and run it under cold water. Then you can quickly stir-fry it over high heat to infuse whatever flavors you’d like – I like these spicy…
Chili Garlic Snap Peas
I always loved it when my mom made snap peas, because the snap peas are barely touched by heat so they stay nice and crunchy. I think lots of people grow up hating veggies because they are frequently over-cooked and under-seasoned. Chinese veggie dishes tend to be only slightly cooked so they maintain their flavor…
Red-Braised Ribs
These red-braised ribs are fall-off-the-bone tender and pretty easy to make. The hardest part is cutting the slab into individual ribs – my mom always used a cleaver. The second hardest part is having the patience to wait 90 minutes as the braising slowly breaks down all the connective tissue of the ribs, filling your…
Steamed Chinese Mushroom Chicken
Steamed Chinese Mushroom Chicken was one of my favorite dishes growing up. Steaming the chicken in the sauce keeps it super tender and lets it absorb all the great flavors. The Chinese mushrooms add a great woodiness and bit of chewiness. And the Chinese sausage gives some pop and sweetness. It’s also easy to make,…
Spicy Eggplant with Pork
Spicy Asian eggplant is a pretty common dish at Chinese restaurants. This is my re-creation of it, with pork added, because what’s good without pig is even better with it. This can be done more simply by skipping the salting, cornstarch coating, and frying of the eggplant – just sautéing it with the pork instead….
Bringing In the Year of the Rooster
A couple weeks ago, we celebrated Chinese New Year by closing out the Year of the Monkey. Now we get to celebrate by bringing in the Year of the Rooster! Many of the dishes are family traditions which will look familiar from the last feast, but I love to eat these foods so I don’t…
Gailan with Oyster Sauce
Cookbook Club – All Under Heaven; Land of Fish and Rice For January’s Cookbook Club, we celebrated Chinese New Year with two cookbooks – All Under Heaven by Carolyn Phillips and Land of Fish and Rice by Fuchsia Dunlop. I chose the Gailan with Oyster Sauce. Go to my Cookbook Club site to see the…
Closing Out the Year of the Monkey
Chinese New Year is one of my favorite holidays. It’s largely centered around food, and you go home with sweets and red envelopes full of money. Need I say more? I inherited my love of food from my family, so there is no shortage of good eats at our Chinese New Year feast. It typically…
Lychee Longan Pie
For Chinese New Year, my cousin had the genius idea of making a Lychee Longan Pie. As far as Chinese desserts go, canned lychee and longan are better than most in my opinion. You just open the can and eat the fruit, but it’s way better than that red bean nonsense that passes for dessert…
Sticky Rice Stuffed Chicken
When I was a kid, my grandma often made sticky rice wrapped in lotus leaves. I loved it, but she lived across the country so when I couldn’t get it from her, it would always be one of the items I ordered at dim sum. There was something kind of magical about peeling open the…