ChineseCookingDemystified

Early Look: Chengdu Tomato & Egg Noodles

Sometimes a dish is just in the right time and the right place, and this was definitely the case with Chengdu tomato and egg noodle soup. The dish isn't rocket science: it's more or less just fried eggs and cooked noodles, all smothered smothered in a rich tomato broth.

The genesis traces to the early 00s. China's post...

Early Look: Ghost Fire Green (鬼火绿)

Beans and rice. Pickles and rice. Hot dogs and baked beans.

Everywhere’s got something. And in Yunnan, that tasty, humble light-on-the-wallet dish is guihuolu –literally, “Ghost Fire Green”.

It’s a pretty simple concept at its core: the dish is mix of fresh chili peppers, herbs (and herb roots),...

Early Look: Three Cantonese Dishes to Smother Over Rice

I love big bowls of rice smothered with various dishes. Maybe it’s in my blood as an American – I mean, we are the proud originators of innovative food concepts such as the ‘garbage plate’ and the ‘slop bowl’.

This is why I adore Chinese ‘fast food’ counters and Thai ‘curry’ counters: there�...

Early Look: 'Cheese Potstickers', a rare recipe

So... we have an increasingly problematic collection of old Chinese cookbooks.

The vast majority of them are from 70s, 80s, and 90s. And flipping through them, it really impresses on you just how different Chinese food was back then. While there's certainly a hunk of the classic dishes that we know and love......

Early look: the best way to store homemade stock

I've always understood the instinct to store homemade stock in an ice cube tray, but... it always would (1) take a lot of freezer space for a single batch of stock and (2) risk a bit of grease spilling in the freezer (a risk I'm somewhat paranoid about).

In the last year or so we've started using these 'ice bag...

Early Look: Cantonese Doggy Pot [anything]

This has been a video that's been in the works for a while.

This dish is a very a traditional Cantonese dish, reportedly popular in the 19th century, called gouzaie (狗仔鹅): literally translated, "doggy goose pot". What it did was use the flavor profile that would have traditionally been ap...

What is 'Chinese Valentine's Day' Food, Traditionally?

On the 7th day of the 7th lunar month – coming up this August 29th – throngs of couples will celebrate Qixi, commonly translated as “Chinese Valentine’s Day”. For a flower shop, it’s one of the busiest days of the year. Ditto for a western restaurant, or any similarly photogenic ‘romantic’ restaurant. Across C...

Early Look: "Stir Fry Sauce" and the Western Weeknight Stir Fry

I’ve always loved the dishes that sit awkwardly in between cultures: the well-done Cantonese steaks, the Canadian Hawaiian Pizzas, the Japanese boxed curries.

They give a rare honest prism into how the world views actually eachother’s food… but above all, they’re fun. They break the mould. After all, if...

Early Look: The Best Fried Wontons (in my opinion)

I have probably overly developed opinions on the topic of deep fried wontons.

Everybody loves a deep-fried wonton, of course, but they’re among my favorite dishes to order at a Cantonese restaurant. Given that they’re a perennial foreigner favorite, I’m probably living up to somebody's stereotype somewhere… but ...

Early Look: Macau's (Puzzling) Tamarind Pork

Porco Balichão Tamarindo is a Macanese dish, and it’s not just a tasty stew — it’s a dish that really changed the way I looked at food, and how food spreads.

The city of Macau, of course, wears its cross cultural influences on its sleeves. While you can find Portuguese-inspired restaura...

Early Look: Breakfast Potato Pancake Rolls (土豆丝卷饼)

If there’s one thing that I – and most foreigners in China, it seems – love, it’s some kind of bing in the morning.

There’s a lot of great breakfasts that can be had in China, of course. Doesn’t matter the city, you’re usually not overly far away from some sort of breakfast snack stall. In urban C...

Early Look: Guizhou Master Stock Noodle Soup (卤粉)

Lushui — Chinese master stock — is something you can find all across the country. It might be a bit more concentrated in the south (Cantonese and Teochew-style master stocks are quite famous)… but there’s equally Sichuan-style master stock, Yunnan-style master stock, Henan-style master stock. ‘Stewing meat ...

Sichuan Chili Oil: The Complete Guide

As a home cook, I’ve always hated what I call ‘nested’ recipes.

You know the sort —open up some cookbooks, and it’s like a damn matryoshka doll: recipes needing a spice blend given at page 6, a prepped sauce from page 35, which in turn uses a stock from page 12.

Of course, there’s a reason these cook...

Early Look: Cantonese Brisket Pot (牛腩煲)

What Chili is to America, Stewed Beef Brisket is to the Cantonese world.

It’s a dish, yes. A tasty and much beloved one, for sure. But Chili would not have the cultural cachet it does today without chili fries, chili mac, chili dogs, and (everybody’s favorite) chili-over-spaghetti. It’s as a sauce that t...

Early Look: Crispy Pork Noodles (脆哨面)

These are crispy pork noodles, from the Guizhou province. At some level, I probably don’t need to elaborate any more here: if you like spicy noodles, and if you like crispy pork, jump straight into the recipe above. It’s not difficult, and can be whipped up pretty quick.

The dish originally hails ...

Early Look: Egg Battered Fries with Spicy Lemon Dip (元江蛋酥洋芋)

In a province of great food, the town of Yuanjiang has stood out to us so far as one of our favorite places to visit.

Administratively, it sits underneath our current home of Yuxi, and rather close to much of Han Yunnan as the bird flies. But this place exists smack dab inside of a canyon formed by the Hengdua...