Dan Dan Noodles

 Dan dan noodles is one of those quintessential Sichuan dishes that you must try at least once if you're a fan of anything spicy. The chili-laced vinegar and sesame sauce is quite possibly one of the finest sauces that ground pork or beef can ever be cooked with.

Now, if you were to have dan dan noodles in Sichuan province, the noodles would come swimming in a chili-laced broth that is almost impossible for mortals (non-Sichuan-natives) to slurp. I like to do a less saucy version that tones the heat down slightly while still maintaining flavor. The noodles in this recipe are spicy enough for someone who doesn't mind a little heat in their food. But please feel free to adjust the amount of chili oil to your preferences. And slurping is, of course, encouraged.

The first time I ever had dan dan mian was years ago in New York's East Village. It was one of those insanely hot and muggy July days, and my friend Shar and I were walking on St. Mark's Place, sweaty even in tank tops and skirts.

"Where do you want to have lunch?," I asked.

"Anywhere with AC," was the reply.

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RecipesDiana KuanChinese, Noodles, Pork, Recipes, Sichuan Comments
Chicken Tikka Masala

On nights when I'm not recipe-testing for the cookbook, I crave at least one of the following: a) sushi, b) pizza, or c) Indian food. Good versions of first two are easy to find in my Brooklyn neighborhood, but the third is, sadly, lacking. I don't live anywhere close to Jackson Heights, Murray Hill, or East 6th St., so cravings have to be satisfied by just rolling up my sleeve.

(When I was in Beijing, which was lacking in not only good Indian food but stores to find non-Chinese spices, I periodically whipped up Chinese-Indian food like Gobi Manchurian and chicken lollipops.)

Chicken tikka masala might be many people's introduction to Indian food, even though it's more or less an Indian-British fusion dish. Some claim that it was invented in 1960's Britain, when chefs began adding gravy to chicken dishes to satisfy the British palate, while others argue that it originated much earlier in India during British colonialism.  It's such a part of British culture that 5 years ago British foreign secretary Robin Cook declared it "a true British national dish. The Scots claimed that it originated in Glasgow, much to the outrage of chefs in India. But whatever its original, there's little dispute that the yogurt-marinated chicken bathed in creamy tomato sauce is delicious and crave-worthy.

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BlogDiana KuanChicken, Indian, Recipes Comments
Edamame Fried Rice

Remember my last post, when I talked about fried eggs with oyster sauce over rice, the best umami-laden breakfast that takes almost no time to make? Well, I forgot to mention an even quicker one - a fried egg topped with furikake. Or for that matter, plain rice topped with furikake.

Furikake, if you're not familiar with it, is an amazing Japanese seasoning that's made up of dried seaweed flakes, sesame seeds, sugar, and salt. Sometimes there's also bonito flakes, chili flakes, dried salmon, miso powder, or egg powder, depending on the brand and its varieties. It's like having all the flavors of the sea (and then some) in one convenient little glass jar.

So it goes without saying that furikake is also great over fried rice. Yesterday, to take a break from all the recipes I've been fine-tuning for my cookbook, I made a variation of my standard fried rice with edamame instead of green peas. Doing so made me wonder why I don't always make fried rice with edamame. Don't get me wrong. Regular ol' peas are great, but edamame somehow felt more substantial, and I didn't feel the need to add anything else for flavoring except scallions, eggs, and salt and pepper.

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BlogDiana KuanChinese, Japanese, Recipes, Rice, Vegetarian Comments
Soy Sauce Eggs

I have a somewhat unhealthy addiction to eggs. In the past year, I was sometimes eating two or three eggs a day, just because they're so darn versatile and easy to prepare. (My doctor hasn't said anything about this habit...yet.) Breakfast? Scrambled eggs with salt and pepper. Lunch? Omelet with mushrooms and onions. As for dinner...well, you know how everyone has that secret, fool-proof, but embarrassingly unattractive dish they make when eating alone? Mine is a fried egg, still runny in the middle, slathered with oyster sauce, and plopped into a bowl of reheated rice.

Photogenic? No. Delicious? Quite.

A few days ago I decided to make a few days' worth of eggs in one go, that can be reheated and eaten with rice or other sides at a later, lazier time. I then remembered what my mom used to do on weekends to prepare for a week of after-school snacks. On Sunday nights, she would just simmer hard-boiled eggs in a soy sauce broth with some sugar and ginger slices added in. I would eat one immediately out of the pot, and on subsequent days the rest would be scarfed down straight from the fridge or warmed in the microwave.

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BlogDiana KuanAppetizers, Chinese, Eggs, Gluten-Free, Gluten-Free Adaptable, Recipes, Vegetarian Comments
Vietnamese Caramelized Pork

 It's hard to believe that when I first made Vietnamese Caramelized Pork almost four years ago in China, I had the hardest time finding fish sauce. Beijing locals know what they like to cook at home, and it's not Cantonese or Southeast Asian. (Regional culinary borders are much stronger in China than they are here, so even wonton wrappers or thinner dumpling wrappers were available in only a handful of markets.) Luckily, finding fish sauce is much easier to find in my neighborhood in Park Slope, whose fish markets and Korean-run bodegas stock fish sauce now and then. (Being a short subway ride from Sunset Park helps too.)

Here's a revised version of the caramelized pork recipe I first posted on December 28, 2007. Updates include more braising liquid and a longer simmering time for more fork-tender, melty pork. I've remade this over the years with both pork shoulder and pork belly, and both are phenomenal with this caramelized sauce. Give it a try and let me know what you think!

I never thought I would have trouble finding fish sauce in China. Growing up, many of the Cantonese dishes my mother cooked contained fish sauce. In New York's and Boston's Chinatowns, Squid Sauce and other varieties of nam pla were staples in every market.

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BlogDiana KuanPork, Recipes, Vietnamese Comments
Sparkling Watermelon Lemonade

Happy 4th of July weekend! I just wanted to put up a short post before the long weekend, to have something nice and refreshing for you to look at when you stop by. Plus, it seems as though we're all looking around food blogs for ideas for picnic- or barbecue-appropriate foods and drinks (I certainly am), so here is my contribution.

Somewhere in my parents' house is a photo of me, at age 2 in southern China, gnawing on a slice of watermelon bigger than my head. That I'm able to hold up this huge watermelon slice is pretty amazing. There is syrupy juice dripping down the side of my arms and, if you look closely, on the edge of my mouth too. Sitting next to me is my 3-year-old cousin, concentrating on his own watermelon slice, but seemingly edging away, as though I would steal his at any moment.

To say that we, as toddlers, had watermelon for dessert everyday in the summer is not an exaggeration. To escape the stuffiness of houses in the summer in Guangzhou, my cousin and I would bring our slices outside to courtyard and see how far we could spit our seeds. This, of course, attracted armies of ants, which our parents were not too happy about. We tried to remedy this problem by showering them with a watering can, but in hindsight, not spitting seeds on the ground at all would have been a better idea.

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BlogDiana KuanDrinks, Recipes Comments
Hibiscus Mojito

I am sitting here writing this blog post in 100 degree (!!!) weather. The apartment I'm moving out of has no air conditioning, and all I have to prevent myself from melting is a fan and a hibiscus mojito. We hardly had a spring (at least here in New York), but summer came in full force!

A few years ago while living in China, mojitos became my de facto drink for cooling off during the muggy summers in Beijing and Shanghai. The main reason, other than the fact that mojitos are delicious, was that Bacardi rum seemed to be the only liquor that wasn't outrageously more expensive than it is in the U.S. Don't ask me why. When I traveled down south to Macau I could cool off with all the vinho verde I wanted, but up north in China, rum cocktails were the only good drinks I could have that didn't break the bank. So when I found a great gigantic tea market on the outskirts of Beijing, I bought hibiscus tea in bulk and made hibiscus mojitos every week.

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Blog, RecipesDiana KuanCocktails, Drinks, Recipes Comments
Black Pepper Beef Stir-fry

Back when I made black pepper beef in Beijing,  flank steak was surprisingly difficult to find. Sure, black pepper beef is more of a Cantonese stir-fry, and the Chinese eat pork way more than beef, but somehow I just didn't expect to have to buy all my flank steak at a gourmet market for expats. Luckily, now I'm back in Brooklyn and living within walking distance of at least five big grocery stores, all of which have flank steak in abundance.

Over the years I've altered my recipe (first published July 27, 2008) to include ground black pepper in the sauce instead of the marinade, so the flavor is now more pronounced. The proportions of the sauce ingredients have also been updated; this sauce has less sodium, less sugar, less oil, but still maintains plenty of flavor. Try it out and let me know what you think!

Flank steak is something I hardly ever cook in China, mostly because I am almost never in the vicinity of a good butcher. But last weekend, I decided to treat myself to a massage to help with a sore back. Walking out blissful and somewhat painfree, I realized I was near Boucherie Michel, the only place in town where I could find quality cuts of meat and imported cheeses and wine and pricey organic food. (How I miss the days when I could pop down to the Fairway in West Harlem for all my grocery needs.)

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RecipesDiana KuanBeef, Cantonese, Chinese, Recipes Comments
Shrimp Lo Mein

Greetings from Atlanta! I'm down south for BlogHer Food 2011 and getting ready for two days of panels, talks, and events with plenty of other food bloggers from around the country. I got in a few hours ago, wandered around downtown enjoying the sun, and even managed to find and scarf down some Cajun-Chinese food for lunch. (To be recapped in another post.)

Oh, so you may have noticed the new layout. After 3 1/2 years of blogging on Drupal, I finally made the long-overdue switch to Wordpress. I have a feeling this is going to be change my life. Or at least, be a major headache reducer. As flexible as Drupal can be, and as much as tech-savvy folks rave about it, it was not the easiest CMS to work with if all you want to do is blog and not tweak a lot of code. And I sort of really dislike code. I've been working with Wordpress for only a few days and it already feels way more intuitive...kind of like when I switched from a PC to a Mac in 2005 and never, ever looked back.

(One of the best new additions to the new design is a little Print-Friendly button at the end of each post. Just click on it, and a window sans sidebars will pop up, and you can select which elements you want to keep and delete.)

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BlogDiana KuanCantonese, Chinese, Noodles, Recipes, Seafood, Shrimp Comments
Thai Ground Pork Salad (Larb Mu)

Pork salad! If these two words make you perk up at your desk, please read on.

[But before I begin, an apology first to anyone who has used the "Contact Me" form in the past couple of months. It had been broken for a while before a vigilant reader got a hold of me through Facebook and I realized this error. (And I've always wondered, when using contact forms myself on other websites over the years, if messages just disappeared into a black hole because of coding errors.) So I got rid of the form, but still want to hear from you guys! From now on, just email me at appetiteforchina (at) gmail (dot) com with any questions or comments.]

Now on to the salad. I first learned how to make larb mu (also spelled laap mu, larb moo, laap moo, etc.) from my friend Sandra, who taught cooking classes with me at the Hutong in Beijing. When we met, she already had already built an impressive globetrotting life, having lived and worked (mostly for NGOs) in Haiti, Vietnam, Taiwan, and mainland China, with Afghanistan soon to follow. In her spare time she made a habit of sniffing out the best local restaurants and street food wherever she was, and developed a ravenous curiosity for ingredients and techniques. Lucky for me, she had also spent a good amount of time traveling in Thailand and Laos, where this salad comes from (it originated in Laos and spread to Northern Thailand). After Sandra taught her Thai cooking class at the Hutong and made 4 pounds' worth of larb mu, I couldn't stop talking about the salad for weeks.

Over the years it's become an standby for whenever I crave Northern Thai food and want it fast.

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RecipesDiana KuanPork, Recipes, Salads, Thai Comments
Thai Peppered Asparagus

These days, over the course of a typical week, I bring home and cook about five pounds of meat and seafood. This may not seem like much for a family of four, but when you're one person testing and retesting full recipes for a cookbook, it amounts to a lot of carnivorous consumption a week. (Leftovers, of course, are cheerfully shared.)

Meat is great and all, but sometimes you just crave vegetables for a meal.

It's not that my cookbook has no vegetarian recipes, but as far as Chinese food goes, almost all of the most beloved dishes involve meat or seafood in some form or another. In both China and the US, all-vegetable soups often have a base of pork or chicken stock. Vegetarian stir-fries and tofu dishes sometimes have dried shrimp or ground pork as flavor enhancers. The only vegetarians you are likely to find in China are Buddhist monks.

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RecipesDiana KuanRecipes, Thai Comments