This delicious tomato salad is based on a traditional Yunnan dish. They’re like an appetizer and dessert in one.
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Here is my rendition of a kale noodle dish done right, with generous amounts of the iron-rich greens.
Read MoreLove egg drop soup? For the second video in the new Appetite for China Cooking Videos series, I decided to update this post with a fun visual guide on making egg drop soup with tomatoes. Let me know what you think!
I first made tomato egg drop soup in 2008 while living in Beijing during the Summer Olympics. At the time, I was in desperate need of something light and healthy for lunch to go with a salad, to counteract all the fried food I had been eating at the Olympic venues. And what could be more healthy and comforting at the same time than tomatoes and eggs in homemade chicken broth? Over the years I've tweaked the recipe bit by bit and come up with this revised version.
There are few ingredients in this soup, so it's important that the chicken stock (or vegetable stock) be homemade. (You can use either Chinese or Western homemade stock.) If you must use store-bought, try to find organic stock or broth that does not have too many preservatives in the label.
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Chinese marbled tea eggs are super easy to make at home and the aromas of tea, cinnamon, and star anise are intoxicating.
Read MoreIsn't this soup festive-looking? I first made red lentil and okra soup in the winter of 2009 after buying some gorgeous okra pods from a farmer's market. I sautéed them with onions and added both to the bubbling pot of soup close to the end of cooking. Not only is the soup hearty and filling, it's also colorful enough to beat the cold weather blues.
As a Chinese-born, New England-bred gal, I first tried okra at the ripe old age of 21. I was aprehensive, having heard okra derided as a bitter, gooey freak-of-a-vegetable (mosty by non-Southerners). Then I tried the Creole okra gumbo and fried okra at the magnificent Magnolia's in Cambridge, MA. What were these okra-haters thinking? These things are addictive!
(I came to the conclusion that the people who despise okra are the same who despise bitter melon. A microscopic bit of bitterness never killed anyone; it just makes the flavor spectrum more interesting.)
Granted, okra isn't just used in Southern Creole-inspired food. Indian, Middle Eastern, Caribbbean, and North African cuisines also incorporate okra in plenty of thick stews. As much as I like fried okra, gumbo and bhindi masala are hearty dishes that make the best use of okra's snappy texture and slightly bitter flavor.
Read MoreI first made these baked eggs with cumin and saffron when I lived in Shanghai a few years ago. I had recently become obsessed with cumin, after eating at many Muslim Chinese restaurants in Shanghai and Beijing that specialized in cumin lamb dishes. Of course, at home, I wanted to use cumin as much as possible, and worked the spice into this breakfast dish.
So here's a short, revised recipe, since I recently made this again and it was every bit as good as I remembered. The process is a piece of cake. You just sauté some shallots or onions in a pan, add the tomatoes, cumin, salt, and pepper, then transfer the mixture to ramekins. Then you crack an egg into each ramekin and sprinkle a bit of saffron on top. It looks really nice coming out of the oven with specks of bright red from the saffron and the egg still bubbling on top.
Read MoreYou can feel it in the air. Summer's almost over. Don't get me wrong — I'm going to miss the laid-back summer vibe of the city more than the weather itself. And I'd take a cool, crisp fall day over a sticky, 90-degree summer day anytime. I just hate to think about what comes after fall.
I've been trying to keep summer going by making as many light, refreshing meals as possible. Last week I got a serious craving for Vietnamese summer rolls but didn't want to head out to a restaurant just for 2 or 3 appetizer-sized orders (or endure the funny looks I'd receive.) So I decided to make them at home instead, using some recently-purchased mangoes and fresh mint from the market.
To make the filling for mango summer rolls, you'll need mangoes, mint, and fresh vegetables that can be cut into strips such as carrots and cucumbers. (Lettuce works too.) You'll also need rice paper wrappers and some rice vermicelli, both available in any large Asian market. The rice vermicelli noodles get soaked in boiled water to soften, then are laid on top of the soaked rice wrapper along with the fresh ingredients.
Read MoreIs it just me, or has August been a little hectic for you too? Sure, this is supposed to be the month when most of Western civilization takes long vacations and work a little bit less, if they work at all. But I've found myself thrown into weeks of teaching classes, more recipe testing, dealing with website issues, and working on potential business partnerships. All of this is very exciting (well, except for the web issues, which are a pain in the ___), but frankly, I'm exhausted!
Which is why cold summery noodles have been a life saver this month. I make a big batch just before the days I know I'll be swamped with work, store it in the fridge, and for the next 2 to 3 days just eat it cold come meal time. My standbys lately have been cold sesame noodles, kale and sesame soba, and zucchini noodles, but this week I made a big batch of peanut and lime soba noodles.
Read MoreI'm going to come clean about a recent addiction.
Don't worry, it's not drugs or smoking or cheap vodka. But my doctor still might not approve. You see, a few months ago I discovered my local co-op got fresh almond croissants delivered everyday from Cannelle Patisserie, easily one of the best pastry shops in New York. They are big and filled with almond paste and flakey in the best way possible. I can't get enough of them.
On a good week, I'd get one or two for breakfast and be done with it. During weaker periods, I'd succomb to three or four in a week. Self control, at least when it comes to croissants, is not my strongest quality.
In an effort to prevent my diet from being way too carb-heavy, I've been experimenting with some healthy lunches that aren't rice- or noodle-based. Or rather, wheat-noodle-based. I still like the thought of having noodles, so why not just make them out of vegetables instead?
Read MoreAfter seeing most of May in cooler temperatures and sporadic downpours, it feels like New York has been suddenly thrown into the middle of summer. It's been in the high 80s and low 90s for the past few days, and even hotter in my apartment. I'm refilling the ice cube trays about 5 times a day. I fantasize about seeing some blockbuster in the theater just to spend 2 hours in a cool room. I'm trying to hold off on turning on the AC for as long as possible, but it's likely my resolve will break soon.
A few days ago I had bought a bunch of asparagus and radishes, fully intent on roasting them for a nice spring side dish. But it was way too hot to turn on the oven. Instead, I decided to do something similar to a Japanese dish of blanched green beans with sesame-miso dressing. The asparagus was easy enough, since you just blanch it for 2 minutes or less. As for the radishes, I'm used to eating them raw, but sautéing them on the stove with butter for a mere 5 minutes gives them a nice tenderness without being overly softened.
For the dressing, I just mixed some red miso paste with mirin and sugar and heated the dressing up just until thickened. (You can also use sake and add about 1/2 teaspoon more sugar to match for the sweetness in the mirin.) The total time in front of the stove was about 10 minutes. So if it's already super hot where you live, and you're still trying to hold on to spring and want a new way to cook asparagus and radishes, try out this recipe and let me know how it goes!
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This recipes calls for smaller clams such as Manila clams and other cockles. The dish easy to make and packed with tangy, spicy, and briny flavors.
Read MoreI've been on quite a shellfish kick lately. In the span of a month, I've eaten mussels and clams almost every time I've had dinner out, from French-style mussels steamed in white wine at a local hangout to Chinese clams with black bean sauce at dim sum. Maybe it's because of spring and warmer temps, but restaurants have been putting up seafood specials left and right, and I happily indulge.
Fortunately, living near two good seafood markets means I can decide on whim to have mussels and clams for dinner and just walk down the street to pick them up. A couple of days ago, I decided to do an easy meal of mussels with ginger and shallots, steamed with Chinese rice wine.
Sometimes I cook mussels with Chinese black beans and chili paste, but this time I opted for forgo heavier flavorings in favor of a lighter dish. Chinese rice wine, much like a dry white wine in preparing moules marinière, compliments and shows off the sweet brininess of the fresh mussels. And once you debeard the mussels, the actual cooking time is super quick.
Read MoreI don't know what it is about chicken and nuts, but they seem to go perfectly together. Other than pork with peanuts, no other meat gets the same natural pairing, at least with whole nuts. There's a well-known chicken dish for just about every kind of nut out there, from Kung Pao chicken to chicken with cashews, all with different sauces and slightly different preparation methods.
Almond Chicken is another winner to add to that list. It was a pretty popular dish starting around a century ago, served alongside egg foo young and chop suey at Chinese restaurants in the U.S. From the 1940s through the 1960s, cookbooks aimed at American housewives printed recipes to allow them to recreate the popular dish at home. Why its popularity waned (at least on the East Coast!), when cashew chicken and walnut chicken are still Chinese menu standbys, is a mystery for the ages.
This recipe for almond chicken is adapted from Ken Hom's Easy Family Recipes from a Chinese-American Childhood. He writes that the more old school Chinese-American restaurants serve the dish with a "dark-brown sauce, a sort of ready-made gravy that is artificially colored to make our American customers more comfortable with Chinese dishes."
Read MoreIt's hard to get too much of summer corn. Every time I visit a farmer's market here in the city, there is always a crowd of people gathered around the corn bins selecting their perfect ears, even if it's late in the day and the sellers are packing up their trucks and vans. Even if I've had corn 3 or 4 times earlier in the week, all those overflowing bins become a huge magnet. Corn is one of the reasons I finally bought a virtually indestructible Lands End tote bag, since my other totes weren't cutting it anymore for hauling heavy grocery loads home via subway.
So what can you do with all this sweet corn other than roasting it whole, creaming it, sprinkling kernels on salads and pastas, and making corn bread? How about a Chinese soup?
If you're like me and kind of adore Chinese chicken and corn soup (homemade or take-out version), you'll probably also love this light soup made with corn, cabbage, mushrooms, and carrots. The cob goes right into the pot to flavor the vegetable or chicken broth, and the rest of the ingredients take 10 minutes or less to cook through.
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Cantonese tomato beef, a Hong Kong classic, is great for nights when you need a fast dinner.
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