Crispy Pork Belly (Siu Yuk) on a Kamado grill

Guys, sometimes a recipe is just whatever I jot down after I'm done cooking...and sometimes, that has to be good enough, for now. Otherwise, I will lose the recipe, and all that hard work is wasted! So - Siu Yuk on a Kamado Joe. Enjoy.

Kamado-cooked Siu Yuk (Crispy Pork Belly)

Ingredients:
Pork belly, skin on
Powdered ginger
5 Spice powder
White pepper
Salt

Score the skin, or poke it several times with a knife. Rub the meat with seasonings, in order listed (ginger, 5 spice, white pepper, salt). Be generous!

Cook on a kamado grill over indirect heat at 250 for 1 hour. Move to direct heat and increase heat to 350. Watch carefully, cooking just until the skin is crispy.

Next time:
Rub the night before, and allow the meat to soak in the flavors.
Cook for at least 2 hours, until the meat is very tender.
Make sure the grill is set up for direct AND indirect grilling - I destroyed an oven kit moving my diffuser stone out of the way.

MaMa's Garlic Sauce

My mother in law made this sauce the other night for a large family dinner as a second option for dipping boiled shrimp. It was marvelous, and a big hit! I sent the leftovers home with my sister, which (by Murphy's Law) meant my husband of course desperately needed Garlic Sauce for his lunch the next day. 

He survived without his Garlic Sauce, barely, and I celebrated by begging his mother to teach me how to make it that night. We now have a small jar of this on the counter, and life is good again. 

This would be excellent drizzled on tofu, cooked veggies, mashed potatoes, rice, chicken....you get the idea. 

MaMa's Garlic Soy Sauce 

Ingredients: 

1/8 cup oil

10 cloves garlic, minced

1 cup soy sauce 

3-4 teaspoons sugar (or to taste) 

In a small frying pan, heat the oil over medium heat. It is ready when a wooden chopstick or spoon stuck into the oil puts it bubbles. 

Remove from heat to let cool slightly. Test the oil by dropping a piece of the minced garlic in- if it sizzles and gently starts to cook, your oil is ready. (If it sizzles violently and immediately turns dark brown, your oil is too hot.) 

Add your chopped garlic to the oil in the pan, and put it back over medium-low heat until the garlic is fragrant and cooked through. Test it by fishing a piece out and trying it. It should be nutty, slightly sweet, and not bitter or overly spicy. 

Remove from heat, allow to cool, and pour your garlic oil into a glass container. When completely cool, add soy sauce. Finish the sauce by stirring in sugar, to taste, about 3-4 teaspoons. 

Enjoy! 

Chinese five spice pulled pork

Inspired by a recent obsession into all things kamado (a type of ceramic charcoal grill), I put together an Asian-fusion pulled pork tonight in the crockpot. The results were delicious- moist, flavorful, and delicious. Enjoy! 

(This recipe works as a lean in a low-carb diet. I added no sugar to the rub. I added a large Caesar salad on the side to make it a complete Lean and Green meal.) 

I used a "Crock-Pot Pork Roast." Not entirely sure what made it different, other than some slow cooker-specific directions on the back. 

Aunt LoLo's Chinese Five Spice Pulled Pork

Ingredients:

1 medium sized pork roast

1/4 cup Chinese five spice powder (mine was a blend of orange, clove, cinnamon, anise, and ginger)

Salt, to taste

Place your roast in the cooker and dump your seasoning on. Use your hands to pat the rub into the meat, covering all sides. If you have a rack for your cooker, put the meat on a rack. Add 1" of water to the pot and cook on high 4-6 hours (6 if frozen), until it is fall-apart tender. 

Remove to large bowl and shred with two fork. Season to taste with salt. 

Serve with rice and/or veggies. 

Enjoy! 

Quick Pickled Daikon Salad

The other day, my mother in law picked out some beautiful daikon for me at the Asian market, and put them in my cart. They were young, and tender, so full of promise. I love daikon, but have no idea how to cook it so it doesn't come out bitter and nasty. I planned on having her cook them for me, but then...Life. My kids got sick, which got her sick, which meant we didn't see her for a few days, and before I knew it I was in danger of losing my daikon and PANIC! Google to the rescue - since daikon are simply really big white radishes, as far as I can tell, they can easily translate to other cuisines. I found a recipe that made a salad from daikon and carrots. Well, it sounded tasty enough, so I tweaked it for what I had on hand...and it was delicious. I mean, it was tasty the day I made it, but when we finally finished it off today (three days later), it was divine. Kids? Go find some daikon. You will thank me.

Daikon come in varying sizes, depending on how old they are. The daikon I used were on the skinny side, meaning they were younger. They were so sweet you could eat them raw and plain. Older, fatter, daikon isn't tasty raw, or plain. It is spicy and a tad bitter. Those daikon are delicious stewed, which is another recipe for another day. 

Enjoy! 

Quick-Pickled Daikon Salad

Ingredients:

3 young daikon (about 2" across and 18" long)

Salt

1 Tbsp. finely grated fresh ginger (grate on a microplane, if possible)

3 Tbsp. rice vinegar

2 tsp. lime juice

1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil

1 tsp. toasted sesame oil

1 tsp. sugar (optional)

1 green onion, chopped

Peel the skin off the daikon with a vegetable peeler, and then slice them into 1/4" thick rounds. (Taste the daikon first - if it is sweet, go 1/4" thick. If it is extra spicy or bitter, go thinner. You can also choose to shave the daikon with a food processor or your vegetable peeler.) 

Put the sliced daikon into a colander, toss it with 2 pinches of salt, and set it aside to drain. It won't lose a lot of water, but set it in the sink to be safe.

In a large mixing bowl, combine your grated ginger, rice vinegar, and line juice. While whisking, slowly drizzle in your olive oil, then your toasted sesame oil. Add your daikon rounds, and stir to coat. Add sugar, to taste. Add the green onions and stir to combine. 

Can be served immediately, or left in the refrigerator to further blend the flavors. Eat within 3-4 days. Stir well before serving. 

Soy Milk / Tofu Fa (Tofu Pudding) (Vegan)

Sometime last year, I heard about a book called Asian Tofu, by Amy Nguyen. I wouldn't usually be excited about a book on tofu, but this book had something different - tofu fa. Since living in Hong Kong over a decade ago, I have been looking for a way to make this treat at home. Sure, it is available at stores, but I could always find something to complain about. It had a weird odor. The syrup was mouth-numbingly ginger-y. It was only available at a tiny tofu shop on Mott Street, in NYC Chinatown. (*drool*)

So. This book was praised by someone I trust, AND it had a recipe for my elusive Tofu Fa! I was sold. Onto the Christmas Wishlist it went, and (lo and behold), there it was on Christmas morning. (Thanks, Aunt Winnie!!)

It still took me a few weeks to get my act together and gather the perfect trifecta of time, inclination, and ingredients. I followed Amy's recipe for soy milk, with one small change, but when it came time to make the actual tofu, I realized I had picked up the wrong solidifying agent. Oh well - it worked out in the end. 

Amy suggests using gypsum, a food-grade plaster of paris. I have never been able to find that in stores, so I grabbed agar-agar instead (a gelatin made from seaweed). I looked online, and found that the general consensus was to use a ratio of 1/2 tsp. of agar agar to 3 cups of soy milk. The resulting tofu was a bit firmer than the traditional tofu fa, and didn't weep at all. (Usually, water will seep out of tofu as it slowly becomes firmer. This tofu was...well, it was more like very tender jello. I didn't mind at all, but a purist might turn their nose up.) 

The other change I made was to remove the bean skins, after soaking the soy beans overnight. It only took a few minutes. I used my hands to crush the beans up a bit, and then scooped the skins out. If you do this under water, the skins will naturally settle to the top of the pile. If you agitate the water, it is pretty easy to pull out the skins. You don't need to get them all, but you want to get the majority out as they are pretty bitter. 

The night before you want to make your soy milk or tofu, put a scant cup dry soy beans into a large pot, and cover with water by about 3-4". The beans are ready when they split in half easily. Crush the beans lightly with your hands, and remove the bean skins from the mix. If you swirl the beans around with your hands, the skins will rise to the top of the beans and you can scoop them out and throw them away. 

When you are ready to make your soy milk and/or tofu fa, you need to get set up. Get out your blender, a large pot (non-stick is awesome here),  a colander, a bowl just smaller than your colander, a cotton towel, a potato masher, and a wooden spoon. Once you get started, you don't want to be wandering all over the kitchen looking for stuff! 

Put the colander over the top of the bowl, line it with a cotton towel, put the potato masher nearby, and set the whole thing aside. 

Drain your beans and put them in the blender with 2 cups of water. Meanwhile, put 3 cups of water in the large pot and put it on the stove to boil. Blend your beans until they are completely smooth and creamy, then add them to your pot of water. Bring the whole thing JUST to a boil. Be VERY careful. What you are looking for is for the whole pot to foam up. It will look like a root beer float, and you have about 5 seconds to kill the heat and do your best to beat back the foam if your pot isn't tall enough to contain it. Good luck. Don't blink! 

Once the foam has subsided, carefully pour the whole pot into the towel-lined colander set up. While that drains, immediately rinse your pot out in the sink. Once these beans get dried onto a pot, it's really, really, REALLY hard to get them off. Really hard. (That's a pun. Get it? It's hard? Whatever.) 

This was my Draining Set-Up. I lined the colander with a cotton towel (in the first picture), and poured my boiled "bean smoothie" into it. After it had drained for about 5 minutes, I gathered up the edges of the towel and twisted them together with one hand, compacting the okara into one glob. Then I kept twisting, and pressing on the bundle with my potato masher, until all the liquid had been extracted. 

(okara, after pressing out the soy milk)

(It is very important to rinse everything immediately. Otherwise, the leftover bean residue is pretty stubborn!)

My strained soy milk. Obviously, I used a pot to catch the milk, instead of a bowl. My second time, I used a huge 10 qt. non-stick dutch oven for all the stove-top bits, and it was a DREAM to clean up. I highly recommend it. Not as pretty as a lime-green Le Creuset pot, though. So, there ya go. Get your strained "milk" onto the stove, in something you don't mind cleaning afterward, and bring it to a low boil. Simmer it for 5 minutes to finish cooking the raw beans, and...congratulations! You have soy milk! It is delicious hot, it is delicious plain, it is delicious sweetened, and it is delicious cold. 

However, if you are like me and prefer to eat your soy milk in a semi-gelatinous state...keep going! Ladle half of your soy milk into a container. I like to use the container I am going to pour my finished tofu fa into, so I have one less dish to wash. So. Find a container that will hold at least 3 cups, and has a lid. Ladle about half of your soy milk into that container, and whisk in 1/2 tsp. of Agar-Agar. Bring your remaining soy milk back to a low boil, and pour your Agar-Agar/soy mil mixture back into the pot. Really stir this well - the Agar-Agar will want to settle to the bottom, and that won't give you nice tofu fa. Whisk it up, stir it violently...whatever floats your boat. Just get it back up to a boil, boil it for about a minute or so, and then kill the heat. 

You might want to put your container in the sink for this next step. You're going to pour the tofu fa mixture into the container, from at least 12" above the container. Putting it in the sink makes sure you don't need a step stool for this. Pouring it from high up makes sure that the whole mixture has one last time to really churn up and get that coagulant mixed through out the whole batch. Now cover the container with a towel, then the lid, and put it somewhere for at least 15 minutes. Don't touch it! After 15 minutes, you can carefully transfer it to the refrigerator. After an hour or so, your soy milk has magically transformed into tender, melt in your mouth...tofu fa! 

Serve topped with syrup. Plain old maple syrup will certainly work, and I think my tofu-loving 5 year old prefers Mrs. Butterworth's. The more traditional route would be to simmer 1 brick of Chinese brown sugar (pin tong) on the stove with about 1 cup of water to make a sweet syrup. A slice of ginger can be added as well. 

Divide the tofu fa between four bowls, and top with a few spoonfuls of the syrup. Enjoy warm or cold! 

Soy Milk / Tofu Fa (Tofu Pudding)

Serves 4

Ingredients: 

1 scant cup dry soy beans

Water, divided

1/2 tsp. Agar-Agar

Syrup (optional)

1 brick pin tong (Chinese brown sugar)

1 cup water

The night before: 

Soak your soy beans in enough water to cover them by about 3-4 inches. The beans will swell. 

Cooking time: 

Drain the beans and place in the blender. Line a colander with a tea towel, place it over a bowl, and set aside. Put a non-stick pot on the stove with 3 cups of water and bring to a boil. Put 2 cups of water into the blender and blend the beans until they are smooth and creamy. 

Pour your pulverized beans into the pot of boiling water, and bring back to a boil. Be very careful - it will foam up quickly and will overflow the pot if you are not careful. As soon as it foams up, turn off the heat and carefully blow and stir the bubbles back into submission. Pour the mixture into your lined colander and let it drain into the bowl. 

Immediately rinse out your pot, and put it back on the stove to use again. Gather the edges of your tea towel and press the bean pulp (okara/ dau ja) into a ball. Use a potato masher to press the remaining liquid out. (The okara can be discarded, or saved for eating in other recipes. I feed it to my chickens.) 

Pour the drained milk back into your pot and bring it to a boil. Simmer for 5 minutes, stirring constantly to prevent it from scorching. If you see a skin form on the top, you can pull it off and eat it. It is called tofu stick, and can be dried and saved. I prefer to call it a mid-chore snack, though. 

Stop here for soy milk. Allow to cool and store in the refrigerator for up to 4 days. 

To make tofu fa: 

Ladle half of the soy milk into a container that has a lid. Bring the remaining soy milk back to a boil. Whisk the Agar-Agar into the soy milk you ladled out, then carefully pour that mixture back into the pot. Bring the whole thing back to a boil for about 1 minute, then carefully pour it back into your container. Loosely cover with a towel, then put the lid on the container. Do not disturb the container for at least 15 minutes. After that, it can be moved to the refrigerator. Once the tofu fa has solidified, it can be served warm or cold, with syrup.* 

Syrup: 

In a small sauce pan, combine 1 cup of water and 1 brick of Chinese brown sugar (pin tong). Simmer until the sugar has dissolved. 

Enjoy! 

"Traffic Light"

No recipe here, just a fun picture of dinner.

My mother in law made this for dinner the other night - a stir fry of onions, green bell pepper, dried daikon radish (choi po lup), and sweet chinese sausage (laap cheong). She finished it with a soy sauce/sugar/oyster sauce/cornstarch slurry. It was absolutely delicious! What made it even more fun was when my husband told me the nickname for this dish - it's called Traffic Light. Red sausage, green peppers and yellow onions and dried daikon. Cute, right? 

So, there you go. Enjoy! 

Chicken and Red Date Soup

This soup is a classic in our house. Red dates are used in Chinese cooking to restore blood and energy, especially in women. If my (Chinese) mother in law has anything to say about it, I eat at least one serving of red dates every day for the first month after I give birth, or for the first week after I finish my monthly date with "Aunt Flo." I used to really detest the taste of red dates, but they have since grown on me. This is a truly simple soup, and pretty tasty!

Ma's Chicken and Red Date Soup

Ingredients:
10 red dates (hung jou) (紅棗)
1 chicken breast
3 quarts water (about half of a standard soup pot)

Bring ingredients to a boil, and reduce heat to a simmer. Continue cooking until broth is a rich brown color, dates have burst, and chicken is cooked through and can be shredded.

Salt can be added, but you certainly don't need it. Enjoy!

Asian Pear and Pork Stirfry

Myrnie, my partner in crime on this blog, brought up a really great point - none of us are getting any MORE free time, and we are quickly losing track of our favorite recipes while we wait for beautiful posts with beautiful pictures to happen.

So.

Before I lose track of this one, here's a recipe to use up the Asian Pears (or pear apples) that are coming into season right now. It's delicious, and a really unexpected addition to your dinner table!

Aunt LoLo's Asian Pear and Pork Stirfry
Serves: 4-6

Ingredients:
1/4 pound lean pork (I buy pork chops, trim them, and slice them into 1/4" strips)
3-4 small pear apples, cored and sliced (or 1-2 large)
3 cloves of garlic, minced
2 Tbsp. oil (I use olive oil)
slurry (1 spoon cornstarch, 1 spoon soy sauce, 1 spoon sugar, enough water to total 1/3 cup)
Optional: Rice wine

In a saute pan, combine oil and garlic. Heat over medium heat until fragrant, and add the pork strips. Cook for 1-2 minutes, then add your pears. Cook until the meat is cooked through, and the pears are just starting to soften. Add your slurry, and cook until the sauce bubbles and thickens. Thin down with water, or season with soy sauce to taste. (If using the rice wine, add it to the pan BEFORE the slurry. Cook until the pan is dry again, and then add your slurry. You are just using the wine to deglaze the pan - it's not part of the sauce's liquid.)

Serve over rice.

Scallops in Black Bean Sauce

I found a half-full bag of scallops in the freezer this afternoon, and decided to serve them for dinner. Lo Gung (my husband) and I love scallops, but I try not to make them too often, so they don't lose their mystique. I pulled out my favorite asian cookbook (aptly named...The Asian Cookbook) and found this recipe. We love black bean sauce, so this was a no-brainer! I served it to my husband, and sister, and we all agreed....I didn't make enough scallops. It was that good. You get sweet, from the sugar and the scallops, cut with the floral notes from the rice wine, and umami from the soy sauce and black bean sauce. Yum!

(Psst...hey, guys? Just because I love this cookbook THAT much, I did some research.  I found my copy of this book at the student bookstore of the Culinary Institute of America, in New York. You, though, can get your copy online! There are a few copes available here, at Thriftbooks.com. If you are interested in Chinese, Thai and Indian cuisines, this is hands-down my favorite cookbook. Everything is just delicious.

(PS - Do you know what I also love? Thriftbooks.com. Most books, including this cookbook, are about $4, and shipping is free. )

(PPS - Thriftbooks doesn't know I'm mentioning them here, but a friend is one of the owners, and it's just all-around an awesome resource for really inexpensive used books.



Scallops in Black Bean Sauce (Si Jap Chaau Dai Ji)
Adapted from The Asian Cookbook, from Parragon Press

Ingredients:
2 Tbsp. Olive Oil
3 cloves garlic, sliced thin
1/4" fresh ginger, minced
1 Tbsp. Black Bean & Garlic Sauce (I like Lee Kum Kee brand, available in most Asian markets, like this)
18 good sized scallops (I used previously frozen scallops, and thawed them ahead of time)
1/2 tsp. soy sauce
1 tsp. rice wine
1 tsp. sugar
3-4 green onions, chopped (just the green part)

In a wok or dutch oven, heat your oil over medium-high heat. Add the garlic and ginger and stir-fry those for about 1 minute, or until they are fragrant (but not burnt!). Add the black bean sauce, stir to combine, and then add the scallops. Stir-fry those for 1 minute, to get some color on them, then add the soy sauce, wine, and sugar.

Lower the heat and continue to cook for 2-4 more minutes, or until the scallops are cooked to your preferred done-ness. Stir in the chopped green onions, and serve immediately. Serve over rice.

Radish Cake (Loh Baat Gou)

Radish cakes were one of my first loves at the dim sum parlor. The flavor is fairly bland, so it is perfect for introducing the uninitiated to the wonders of dim sum!

You'll need to find some of these sausages - they're available at nearly every Asian market. There are two types - Taiwan style sweet sausages are, well...sweet. They would also be tasty, but these "Chinese Style" are more traditional. They are waxy, fatty and meaty tasting, with no detectable seasonings above some salt and sugar. 

You'll need to chop up a few sausages and sauté them in a pan until they just start to crisp up. 

We grated our daikon in a food processor fitted with a grating blade. It only took a few minutes - my mother in law was very impressed. (She's always done this step by hand.) 

These are dried shrimps, or haa mai. They are salty, shrimpy and a little sweet. They come in several sizes - you'll want to look for ones that are about 3/4" long dried. I think you can find them at Asian markets, but we usually get them at Chinese medicine shops. These are great to keep on hand - they're awesome in fried rice, rice noodles, or chow mein. We keep a small jar of these in the refrigerator at all times. (Refrigeration isn't necessary, but growing up in HUMID Hong Kong convinced my husband that all dried things should be kept in the refrigerator to keep them dry.) 

Maggi is another great thing to keep around. It's very salty, and the flavor is like nothing else...except maybe Vegemite. I think it's a by-product of creating Vegemite, but I could be mistaken. 

The daikon after it has been steamed and mixed with some seasonings. I got called away so I missed the part where Ma mixed in the rice flour, but it ended up looking like a very sticky cookie batter. Make sure you taste the final product - the basic flavor won't change after you steam it! Bland radish cake is just sad. 

The finished cake, cooling on the counter after being steamed. 

Ma's Homemade Radish Cakes (Loh Baat Gou)

Ingredients: 

6 Chinese Sausages, diced

2 large daikon, grated (about 5 lb. total)

2 tsp. chicken base (or 2 bullion cubes, crushed)

1/2 cup dried shrimp, soaked and chopped (haa mai)

1 1/2 lb. rice flour

2 Tbsp. chopped green onion

2 Tbsp. soy sauce

2 Tbsp. Maggi sauce

1 Tbsp. sugar

2 tsp. each salt, sugar (to taste)

Water, as needed

(Yield: 5 pie plates of cakes)

Cook sausage on the stove until shiny, a bit crispy, and slightly translucent. 

Put grated daikon into a large pot and add 1 cup of water and the chopped dried shrimps. Cover and cook over medium heat. Add more water as necessary. Steam until the daikon is cooked - it will be soft, and will have lost its peppery bite. 

Add rice flour, green onion, soy sauce, Maggi sauce, sugar, salt and 2 cups of water. Stir and season to taste. 

Spray pie plates with cooking spray and spoon daikon mixture into prepared pie plates. Steam each plate for about 30 minutes, then set aside to cool. These cake rounds can be wrapped well in plastic and frozen for later use. 

To serve, slice the cakes into flat slices and pan fry in a little bit of oil until they are crispy on the outside and soft on the inside. 

Serve with soy sauce, maggi or hoisin sauce to dip. 

Miso Ginger Chow Mein

This was a recent experiment, and it was pretty decent! Be very generous with your flavors - you have to make them stretch a very, very long way. 

Miso Ginger Chow Mein

Ingredients: 

3 rounds of dried ramen noodles 

1/4 cup miso paste

5 tbsp olive oil

4 slices of ginger

Soy sauce and sugar to taste

Sliced green onions, to garnish

Bring a pot of water to boil and cook your ramen noodles according to package directions. Drain and set aside. 

Meanwhile, in a large wok or dutch oven, heat your olive oil and add the ginger slices. Stir those around to give the olive oil plenty of ginger-y flavor. Add your miso paste, and stir, stir, stir. (You might need to add a little water here, just to get things blended). When everything is mixed, add your noodles back in and toss to coat. Cook for just a minute more, to make sure everything is hot through, then season with soy sauce and sugar. Serve topped with sliced green onion. 

Korean Sweet Potato Noodles

ETA: I've been informed these noodles are called "glass noodles" or "japchae". Thanks, Myrnie!


I wish I really knew what to call these things. The official name  on the front of the package is something like "Korean Taste Noodles", which really isn't helpful. I don't think they taste like a Korean at all. (baBOOM) A quick look at the ingredient list shows that the main ingredient is sweet potato flour, so we call them Sweet Potato Noodles. The noodles are long, slightly bendy, hard, and very faintly purple. They cook up in about 6 minutes, but it seems impossible to overcook them. Even left overnight, in the refrigerator, in a pool of broth, they remained very nearly al dente.

If you run into these noodles in your Asian market, grab a package. They're only about $3, with enough noodles to feed four people.

Enjoy!

PS - These noodles? Extremely slurpable. So, go ahead - slurp it up!

Korean Style Sweet Potato Noodles with Tofu

1 package Korean Style noodles (sweet potato)
1 package tofu (silken or firm), diced into 1/2" cubes
1/4 cup soy sauce
1 cup water
8 Tbsp sugar
2 Tbsp sesame oil
1 tsp black pepper
2 tsp roasted sesame seeds

Fill a large pot with water, and bring to a boil. When that's ready, pop your noodles in and cook those for about 6 minutes, or until tender. Drain and rinse with cold water. Set aside.

In the (empty) pot, combine soy sauce, water, sugar, sesame oil, black pepper and roasted sesame seeds over low heat. Add tofu and cook for 3-4 minutes, until the tofu is a rich brown color. Return noodles to the pot and cook gently until they are just a bit shiny.

Serve garnished with scrambled egg, strips of meat, green onion or vegetables.

Sweet Potato Dessert Soup with Tong Yuen

 

After a long day of sick kids, cancelled plans and one truly awful dinner (made by yours truly), Lo Gung and I both deserved something tasty (and filling..since dinner was so nasty). This is what came to mind. I had a few sweet potatoes in the refrigerator, and some ginger that was only getting spicier by the day. Sweet potato dessert soup (fan syu tong seui) is kind of a perennial staple around here. However, I am an absolute sucker for anything involving glutinous rice flour, so I got fancy and threw a few fresh tong yuen into the mix. The result was tasty, satisfying…and almost made us both forget about the long day we had just survived.

 

Aunt LoLo’s Sweet Potato Dessert Soup with Tong Yuen

Makes 2-4 servings

Ingredients:

2 medium sweet potatoes, peeled and chopped into 1” pieces (fan syu)

3-4” knob of ginger, peeled and cut into 1/2” chunks (geung) (fyi – ginger is super easy to peel – scrape it with a spoon)

1 lime-sized chunk of Chinese rock sugar (bing tong)

1/2 of a dried satsuma peel (chaang pei)

15-20  plain glutinous rice dumplings (tong  yuhn) (recipe here) (to make 15-20 dumplings, you will need approximately 1/2 cup glutinous rice flour and less than 1/4 cup water)

Water (4 rice bowls full)

 

1. Put your water, ginger and satsuma skin into a medium sauce pan, cover, and bring to a boil.

2. Add your chopped sweet potato, reduce heat to medium, and simmer until potatoes are almost fork tender.

3. Meanwhile, prepare your tong yuen. When the sweet potatoes are about 2 minutes from being done, drop your tong yuen into the simmering water. Continue to cook until the tong yuen float, then add your rock sugar and stir to melt. Taste the broth, and add more sugar if necessary.

 

Enjoy!

Tong Yuen

My apologies. This post has been sitting in my queue for…well, since the Super Bowl. I didn’t want to publish it until I could successfully use it to make my own tong yuen. And tonight…I did it! Tong Yuen are very simple, if you know what you’re looking for. Simply combine glutinous rice flour with enough water to make a dough. Easy peasy.

Tong Yuen are one of my favorite Chinese treats. One of my companions introduced them to me when I was a missionary in Hong Kong. We were both craving something sweet and, since I was freshly arrived from America, my sweet companion was scouring the grocery store for ice cream that didn’t cost half of our weekly food budget. “No,” I said. “I don’t want something that sweet…” Right after she picked her jaw up off the floor (she knew I had a sweet tooth!), she grabbed a package of tong yuen from the freezer department. “Try these!” she said. We brought them home and boiled them up. They were delicious! Soft and chewy, filled with sweet black sesame seed paste, they were amazing. They are still one of my favorite ways to satisfy a sweet tooth, but I rarely get to enjoy them. They aren’t too expensive ($4 a package for the good ones), but I always seem to want to save them for a Special Occasion.

 

When my mother in law came to visit this month and told me she knew how to make them herself, I was so excited! She whipped these up, literally, an hour before we took her to the airport to fly home. They come together quickly, but create a lot of dirty dishes as there are several components coming together.

 

The trickiest part is, of course, making up the tong yuen. They are a simple mixture of glutinous rice flour and water. That’s it!

This is too dry.

 

This is too wet.

This is just right! It should resemble…playdough? It’s similar to the Gaak you might have played with in elementary school (cornstarch and water). It stretches if you pull slowly, but snaps off if you pull quickly. You need to be able to roll it out into firm balls that will hold their shape. Just keep adding glutinous rice flour, or water, until you’ve got it right. My MIL started out with 2 cups of flour, and then decided to just mix up the whole bag. We made it our lunch. Yum!

The boiled, and syruped, tong yuen waiting in a pan to be eaten.

Our “dipping plate.”

 

One very excited Lo Gung. He hadn’t had his mothers homemade tong yuen in years! (I was smarter than him, though. While he was busy watching the Super Bowl, I was hovering near his mother in the kitchen, hoovering up any unclaimed tong yuen as fast as I could. Heh.

 

These are very “traditional”. MaMa laughed when I said I wanted to learn. These are the treats of her youth, not the lovely filled ones you can find in Asian grocery stores now. However, I think these are just perfect. If you like fillings in your dumplings, you could definitely use this recipe to wrap up some red bean paste or sesame seed paste.

 

MaMa’s Tong Yuen

Makes enough for 4-6 people

Ingredients:

Dip:

2 Tbsp. sesame seeds

3 tsp. white sugar

1/4 cup nuts (cashew, peanuts, almonds, etc. Whatever you want.)

 

Syrup:

2 bars Chinese brown sugar (pin tong) (these are sold in Asian grocery stores and look like small bricks)

1/4 cup water

 

Tong Yuen:

2 cups glutinous rice flour, plus extra for adjustments

1/2 cup water, plus extra for adjustments

 

1. Prepare a medium sized pot and fill it about half way with water. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and let it simmer until you are ready to cook your tong yuen.

 

2. In a small sauce pan, combine your pin tong (Chinese brown sugar) and water. Simmer, stirring occasionally, until the sugar is completely dissolved. You may need to help it along by breaking up the sugar bars with your spoon.

 

3. In the bowl of a small food processor, pulse your nuts until coarsely ground. (Alternately, you can put your nuts in a plastic bag and use a mallet or rolling pin to bash them up.) It should look like chunky cornmeal when you are done. Combine with your white sugar and sesame seeds in a small bowl, and set aside.

4. In a bowl, combine your glutinous rice flour and 1/2 cup water.  Mix it with your fingers and adjust the water or glutinous rice flour until you have the right consistency. Do not over-mix this. Over-mixed tong yuen are chewy, gummy, dense tong yuen. Not good eats. Use three-four fingers to lightly mix the flour and water together, sort of pinching and folding until everything is right. You should be able to roll it out into balls that will keep their shape. It will look a little like spackling!

 

5. When your tong yuen are rolled out, carefully lower them into your simmering water. Return to a boil, and cook until the tong yuen float (about 2-3 minutes).

 

6. When the tong yuen are finished cooking, use a spider or slotted spoon to fish them out of the water and into the pot of syrup. Stir to coat, then use your spider or slotted spoon to remove to a serving dish. You can sprinkle with your nut/sugar mixture, or allow your guests to dip their tong yuen individually as they eat them.

 

Enjoy!

Gai Mei Bau (Rooster Tail Bun)

Hello, all! Welcome to my crazy. I am trying (and trying and trying) to recreate the Hong Kong Gai Mei Bau (雞尾包). It is my husband’s favorite bakery bun, and we haven’t found any great ones near our home. Oh, I’m sure they’re out there, but I’m too lazy to drive around and test buns from all the local bakeries to find a great one!

 

I’m just lazy enough to stay home and test recipe after recipe to figure out how to make them myself. Because that is how my crazy works.

 

My first attempt was using a recipe from Auntie Yochana (here). They were delicious. I omitted the Mexican Cream topping, as well as the egg wash and the sesame seeds. (They would have been delicious, I’m sure, but at that point in the day, I was tired of adding butter to my creation, and I was just tired in general. So…there.)

 

Oh my goodness, guys. These buns were seriously delicious. However, as tasty as they were, they didn’t taste like the real buns. The filling was declared “right” by Lo Gung, and so I will keep that portion of the recipe. The bread portion came out tasting a lot like the Australian Toaster Biscuits I loved to eat when I was a kid (and didn’t realize how much butter could be packed into a baked good. Mmmm…those were the days!).

 

So. Here’s the filling recipe (adapted from Yochana’s Cake Delight!)

Coconut Filling for Buns

250 gm. Butter, softened
250 gm. shredded coconut
120 gm. plain flour
100 gm. powdered milk
1/2 tsp. Vanilla extract

 

Combine all ingredients  in a bowl and set aside.

When I made my initial batch of buns, I made a half batch, and froze half of my filling mixture. If that doesn’t work out well….well, then, I will let you know.

My next attempt at the dough will be using this recipe, from Hong Kong Breads.

The first recipe I tried involved custard powder, which is fabulous in other applications, but I don’t think it quite works here. I’ll let you know how this goes!

Chinese Tomato Salad

The day’s haul from Mom’s greenhouse, getting a cool bath in the sink

 

I made this salad the other day, after picking some truly gorgeous tomatoes (red roma and yellow cherry) from my mother’s greenhouse. This salad is so light and refreshing – it’s perfect for a summer meal. The dressing is so striking, this dish will work with winter-time grocery store tomatoes, but summer time is the BEST time to enjoy this dish!

 

Chinese Tomato Salad

Adapted from The Asian Cookbook, from Parragon Publishing

(I don’t usually link to books on Amazon, but this book is one of my favorites, and very inexpensive. I highly recommend it!!)

 

Ingredients:

Tomatoes (2 large, or enough to fill a small serving dish), sliced

Chopped green onions (I used the top 5-6” of three green onions)

Chopped garlic (2 cloves)

Sesame Oil (1/2 tsp)

Rice Vinegar (1 Tbsp)

Salt (1/2 tsp)

Pepper (white or black, one pinch)

Sugar (one generous pinch)

 

Combine your green onions, garlic, sesame oil, rice vinegar, salt, pepper and sugar in a large bowl. Whisk, and taste. Adjust seasonings to taste. Add your sliced tomatoes, gently fold to coat and transfer to a serving dish. Garnish with additional sliced green onions if desired.

 

Optional: If using only large tomatoes, the tomato slices can be arranged in a ring on a serving platter, and the completed dressing can be spooned over the top.

 

Can be made ahead of time. Serve at room temperature.

Hong Kong Egg Waffles (Gai Daan Jai) (雞蛋仔)

(Gai Dan Jai, and the Nordic Ware Egg Waffle Pan. The pan is currently only available in America at Williams-Sonoma, for about $50. Or you could go to Hong Kong and buy one there. Your choice. But going to Hong Kong seems a bit drastic, just for a pan. There are no other American options besides mail-order, so I was pretty thrilled when I saw this pan come through my inbox.)

 

These were my favorite street-vendor treat in NYC’s Chinatown, and my husband has fond memories of eating these as a child on the streets of Hong Kong. Even my Mother in Law couldn’t contain her excitement when she saw the pan I had brought home from the mall. “My grandpa used to make me gai dan jai every Saturday for breakfast when I was a little girl!” My Mother in Law is a fabulous cook, and nothing I do in the kitchen ever excites or surprises her. When I served her her first homemade gai dan jai in 50 years…her eyes sparkled, and she actually giggled. It was worth every penny for that pan. (Actually, these waffles sell for $3 each on the streets of NYC, so the pan really isn’t that bad of a deal.)

 

Even though these are technically waffles, in Hong Kong they are hardly ever eaten for breakfast. These are generally served piping hot, in a small paper sack, and enjoyed while walking home from school.

 

Hong Kong-Style Egglet Waffles (Gai Dan Jai) (雞蛋仔 )

(Adapted from Christine’s Recipes)

(This recipe is in grams, and that is honestly the best way to make it. It’s super easy – put your bowl onto your digital scale, pour in your ingredient until you reach the desired amount, tare off, and do it again! If you do not have a digital kitchen scale, I have included approximate “American” measurements.)

Ingredients:

140 g. (1 1/4 cup) all-purpose flour

7.5 g (1 1/2 tsp.) baking powder

1 T. custard powder (instant vanilla pudding will work here, and is MUCH easier to find.)

28 g. (2 Tbsp.) tapioca starch (available at any Asian market for approximately $1 for a small bag)

2 eggs, beaten

140 g (heaping 1/2 cup) white sugar

28 g. (approx. 2 Tbsp.) evaporated milk (coconut milk is also a tasty choice here)

140 ml (2/3 c.) water

2 tsp. vanilla

oil for your pan

 

1. Sift together your flour, baking powder, custard powder and tapioca starch.

2. Add your eggs and sugar, and beat well to combine.

3. In a small bowl, mix together your milk, water and vanilla. Gradually add to your flour mixture, and beat until there are no lumps.

4. Refrigerate the batter for one hour before using. (This step is not strictly necessary, but I did find that it made a nicer, lighter waffle.)

5. When your batter is done resting in the fridge, pull it out and prepare your Egg Waffle Pan. (Any waffle pan would work, but it wouldn’t make the signature egglet shape that gives these waffle their name.)

6. Separate your pan, lightly grease both sides, and preheat.

7. To make your waffles: pour approximately 3/4 cup batter into one side of the pan, and shut the lid. Wait about 30 seconds, flip the pan over, and cook for another 2-3 minutes.  Be careful not to get the pan too hot – your waffles will burn before they are finished cooking.

8. Remove from the pan and place on a wire rack. Serve warm. These can be pulled apart and eaten as is, or wrapped up with berries and cream.

Pai Gwat (Chinese Spareribs)

During my mother in law’s most recent visit, I took a major stab at cataloguing some of our favorite recipes. This is definitely a keeper! These ribs are tender, salty and completely yummy.

MaMa’s Pai Gwat (Spareribs)

Ingredients:

1 lb pork spareribs

1/4 cup Soy Sauce

1 tbsp. Sugar

2 tbsp. Cornstarch

4 cloves Garlic, minced

2 tbsp. Oyster Sauce

2 Tbsp. oil

 

1. A few hours before (or, even better, the evening before!), prepare your marinade. Combine soy sauce, sugar, cornstarch, garlic, and oyster sauce in a large plastic zip-top bag or bowl (with a lid). Adjust seasonings to taste. Add your spareribs and stir to coat. Cover and refrigerate until you are ready to cook.

 

2. When it is time to cook your spareribs, prepare a dutch oven with 2 Tbsp. of oil, over medium heat. Add your marinated spareribs, stir around a bit so they don’t stick. Cover and cook until tender, about 45 minutes.

 

3. Remove the lid, spoon off the collected oil from the bottom of the pan and replace it with water. (Just eyeball it. Spoon the oil into a bowl, then add that much water back into the pot.) Cook a few more minutes to heat and combine. Serve over rice.

Boot Jai Go

 

Boot Jai Go (Little Pudding Bowls)

(Adapted from this recipe here.)

Ingredients:

1 cup hot water

4 Tbsp. sugar

1/2 cup cold water

3/4 cup rice flour

1 Tbsp. tapioca starch

1/4 tsp. almond (The original recipe called for 1 tsp., but I found this to be way too strong.)

 

1. Prepare a way to steam your puddings. Ideally you will steam them in mini muffin cups, so find a way to make that work. Otherwise, use very small bowls. Spray your cups, muffin tin or ramekins with cooking spray.

 

2. In a medium bowl, mix together your hot water and sugar until the sugar is dissolved. Add your cold water, rice flour and tapioca starch whisk until completely combined. Add your extract and mix for another 30 seconds. (As I mentioned above, I used 1 tsp. of almond extract, and it was way too much. I would cut this down to 1/4 tsp. next time. These should be fairly flavorless puddings – the fun is in the texture. Like an edible, soft eraser. Heh.)

 

3. Pour your pudding mixture into your prepared tins/bowls/etc., filling them only 80%. You may top with red beans if you like. (My ramekins were way too large for this project, even at just 4 oz. These steamed for nearly an hour. Oops.) If using mini muffin tins, steam for 10 minutes. The puddings will rise slightly, and the edges will become slightly translucent.

 

4. Cool for a few minutes, then carefully remove the puddings from their cups. Run a knife around the edge, then gently *pop* them out with a spoon. Serve warm, or wrap tightly in plastic wrap and chill.

Jyu Lei (Pork Tongue)

Guys, we’re good friends by now, right? And we can tell each other anything? Well. I have to tell you….that I’ve dabbled in the “Nasty Bits.” I don’t think I will ever develop any real affection for chicken feet or monkey brains (I haven’t tried brains…and not sure that I ever will!), but tongue? Well, now that’s just good eats.

 

My first experience with pork tongue was in Hong Kong. I was a fairly new missionary, and a church member had invited my companion and I to eat dinner at her house. Just before we arrived, she had run down to the street market and come back with a bag of mixed meat, as far as I could tell. It all was pork, but  most of the pieces had bones in them. I was unfamiliar with the skill of nibbling the meat off the tiny bones, and then spitting the bones out. Frustrated, I looked into the bowl for something that might not be all bone. Finally, I found something that looked like it was all meat. Excited, I picked it up with my chopsticks, tapped it off on my rice, and brought it up to my mouth. Only then did I really look at it. It was the front three inches of a tongue. To say I was shocked would be an understatement. I didn’t want to offend my hostess, so I carefully ate it. I couldn’t get over the fact that I had two tongues in my mouth, and only one was for chewing.

 

It wasn’t until I met my mother in law that I had pork tongue again. And I have to say, hers is delicious. The meat itself has very little flavor – just a vague reminiscence of organ meat.  The marinade is so fragrant, full of garlic, ginger and soy sauce. Are you ready to get started?

 

First, pick out your meat. Just choose a package with tongues that are…pretty. Or at least, not overly ugly!

Prepare a small pot of water over high heat. When the water starts to boil, add in your tongues. They only need to cook for about 5 minutes, just until the outside turns white.

Pull them out and…well, this is the most time consuming part. All that white part? It needs to come off. My mother in law uses a paring knife, and about 45 minutes, to clean off 3 tongues.

 

The white part is tough, and not good eats.

Once you get the tongues cleaned off, set them aside and pull out some mui choi (salted turnip). You don’t need too much…just about 12” of it. Run it under cool water to clean off any extra dirt and some of the salt. Chuck your mui choi into a small bowl of water, and set it aside.

 

Now, it’s time for some flavor! Grab your pot, make sure it’s reasonably dry, and add about 1 Tbsp. oil, two cloves of garlic (smashed and minced) and two slices of ginger (also, smashed and minced).  Cook over medium heat until you can smell the ginger and garlic and the oil is hot. (This cooking method is called “bau”, and it’s pretty standard practice for almost any Cantonese recipe.) Once the oil is hot and fragrant, add in your cleaned pork tongue. Stir those around to coat in oil, then add 1 Tbsp. soy sauce (si yau), 1 Tbsp. tamari (lou chau) and 1/2 tsp. salt.

 

When your soy sauce mixture has come to a boil, add 1/2 cup water, cover, and cook until the tongues are tender, about 30 minutes. While the tongues cook, go and find your mui choi. Cut it into bite sized pieces, and throw them into the pot about half way through the cooking time. (This cooking process is called “mun”, and is basically braising…on the stove. Right?)

 

 

 

To serve, slice the tongue into 1/8” slices and serve with rice.

 

MaMa’s Braised Pork Tongue

Makes 3 pork tongues

 

Ingredients:

3 pork tongues

2 cloves of garlic, smashed and minced

2 slices of garlic, smashed and minced

1 Tbsp. oil

1 Tbsp. soy sauce

1 Tbsp. dark soy sauce (tamari or lou chau)

1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 cup water

1 piece of mui choi (salted turnip), washed, soaked and chopped.

 

1. Boil your tongues in a pot of water for 5 minutes, or until the outside turns white.

2. Remove from heat and carefully clean off the white outer layer from all three tongues. Dump out your water.

3. In the pot, add your oil, garlic and ginger. Heat until fragrant, then add in your tongues. Stir to coat, then add in soy sauce, dark soy sauce and salt.

4. Heat until boiling, then add water. Cover and simmer for 15 minutes.

5. Add mui choi, cover and cook another 15 minutes, or until tender.

 

Slice and serve with rice. Enjoy!