Hi everyone, Sarah here. Okay. So let’s be real. I LOVE this chicken with sticky rice. I pine for it. I request it often. I’ve always depended on my dad to make it, since I had no idea how to make it myself. And that was kind of tragic, especially since he’s thousands of miles […]
Kaitlin’s Special Noodles (Ground Pork Lo Mein)
This recipe is Kaitlin’s invention, whipped up on a rainy afternoon in Beijing from a few ingredients that we had on hand. Made with lo mein noodles, these special noodles are spicy and incredibly flavorful, and we all bowed down to her greatness after we finished every bit of what was on the plate. Kaitlin’s […]
HUANGSHAN: SO. MANY. STAIRS.
Around the same time that we went to see the Yungang Grottoes and the Hanging Temple, we visited Huangshan (translated as: Yellow Mountain). Huangshan is a large mountain range in Anhui Province. It’s often featured in Chinese artwork and poetry and really does look like a Chinese watercolor painting come to life. Again, in our inexperienced […]
Braised Oxtails – Chinese Home Cooking
Braised oxtails is one of Judy’s specialties, which she likes to whip out on special occasions. It’s an incredibly simple, flavorful dish, made with some really strong, pungent spices like star anise, bay leaf, and cloves. One particular ingredient is somewhat unusual. Rock sugar is what gives these Braised Oxtails their slightly sweet flavor and amazing glazed […]
Tea Eggs
Tea eggs are basically hard-boiled eggs infused with the flavors of Chinese tea, spices like star anise and cloves, and soy sauce. They’re sold all over China by street vendors, especially at breakfast time. In fact, there’s a vendor just down the street from our apartment, near where the local market is. They sell for […]
Roast Pork with Five-Spice
This is a knockout recipe. You may have seen a similar kind of roast pork before. In most Cantonese places, they have the meat hanging in the window for all to see. Better to draw customers in, of course. This is our homemade version and it’s pretty much as easy as it gets! You get a really […]
Banquet Fried Rice
A Chinese banquet is a long, extravagant affair. Usually reserved for special occasions like weddings, Chinese New Year, and big birthdays (like, your great grandmother turns 90…that kind of big), there’s a certain procedure that gets followed. You go to a big restaurant in Chinatown, sit at a table of 10-12 people, and eat a […]
YUNGANG GROTTOES AND THE HANGING TEMPLE
We recently took a weekend trip to see the Yungang Grottoes in Shanxi province, outside the city of Datong. We’d never heard of this place before moving to China, as it’s not quite as famous or widely known as, say, the Terra Cotta Warriors in Xi’an or the Temple of Heaven in Beijing, but we […]