a culinary genealogy
Below, view all our posts in chronological order, starting with the most recent. To browse recipes by category, course, or collection, visit our Recipe Index. Also be sure to check out our How-To section and Chinese Ingredients Glossary.
This sticky oyster sauce chicken has been one of our top chicken recipes on the blog since we published it in 2016, and for good reason! The chicken is infused with intense umami flavor thanks to oyster sauce and a classic trio of Chinese aromatics (scallion—AKA green onions, ginger, and garlic) to make for a luxurious,
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Welcome to our How to Grow Chinese Vegetables series: Choy Sum edition! In this post, we’ll talk about how to grow choy sum or cài xīn (菜心), AKA yu choy or yóucài (油菜). We have professional insights from Christina Chan, farmer and owner of Choy Division, a regenerative Asian vegetable and herb farm in the
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Today, we’re coming to you with a new mooncake recipe for the Mid-Autumn Festival! This one is a bit non-traditional. We’re making Pecan Pie Mooncakes! This recipe is for all of you out there who think you don’t like mooncakes or who want to try making them for the first time. The flavors are deliciously
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Winter melon soup is a popular home-cooked Chinese dish when winter melons are in season (late summer through fall). It’s also probably the most popular application of winter melon in China. Winter melon soups are often made with pork ribs, meatballs, and seafood like shrimp and clams. We have already published a meatball soup with
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This loofah stir-fry with chicken is a super tasty and satisfying way to cook loofah (luffa?), a Chinese vegetable (ahem, fruit) that doesn’t get enough love! What is Loofah? When we were promoting our cookbook last year, a journalist came out to our house (the TWOL HQ) for an interview, and we showed her around
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This stuffed bitter melon recipe in black bean sauce is a classic Cantonese dish that highlights a produce item in abundance right now in Chinese groceries and backyard gardens: bitter melon! While beef with bitter melon might be more well-known, this recipe might be tied with it for my favorite bitter melon dish! Interested in
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The Mid-Autumn Festival is the second most important Chinese holiday of the year (after Lunar New Year/Spring Festival). It’s a time to get together with family, eat, worship the moon, and celebrate the fall harvest! In this post, we’ll talk about how to celebrate Mid-Autumn Festival with friends and family! Note: This post was originally published
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The end of summer is approaching, and it’s time to review how the season went at The Woks of Life HQ. We had some excitement this year with our first real fruit harvests (last year we lost almost all of the fruit in our orchards to squirrels, birds, or fungal problems), as well as some
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This miso fish comes together with just four ingredients (not counting the fish, hehe). All you need is white miso, mirin, and sesame oil. It’s also REALLY easy. It’s a recipe born of necessity—those nights when I realized it’s 8:30, and I haven’t eaten dinner yet. There’s no complicated blackening technique, no fancy Japanese sake.
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Pho (Vietnamese Noodle Soup) has long been one of my absolute favorite things to eat. There has been more than one occasion in which I have actually gotten in my car and driven over 45 minutes for the express purpose of indulging in good bowl of the stuff, which is why this pho recipe is
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When I think of a good steak salad, I want freshly grilled steak served over crisp mixed greens and a summery dressing (no matter the season). This Thai Beef Salad fits the bill for me! You grill the steak, slice it thinly, and serve it over a bed of dressed salad greens! A Delicious Summer
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Hi everyone! It’s the end of August, and it’s time to talk about how to grow bitter melon in your garden. Some of you out there may never have heard of bitter melon, and we’re sure many of you have heard of it, but shy away from it due to its (you guessed it) bitter
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We’ve collected a bunch of back to school ideas for meals, with tons of recipes to help you get into the swing of the school year hustle. Summer may be ending, but we hope you can find some ideas—from packed lunches to busy weeknight dinners—to soften the blow! Delicious weeknight and school lunch recipes I
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Hainan Chicken Rice is a classic dish beloved by people in Singapore and all over Asia. Served room temperature, the chicken is incredibly silky. But the rice is really the star—cooked in the broth from poaching the chicken, served with a trio of condiments. This recipe takes some work, but it’s worth it! Note: This
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Salt and Pepper Chicken is a dish that we realized was missing from our lives. I’m sure this is a long overdue recipe for all of you who don’t eat pork, and I have to admit, I wish I had made it sooner. It is based on classic Cantonese Salt & Pepper Pork Chops, and
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I’m sharing our trip to Ireland! We rented a couple of cars and drove from Dublin down and across the country and back, and today we’re sharing some of the amazing things to do in Ireland and how to plan your own trip. A girls’ trip over 10 days with 2 generations and 2 cars
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Gyudon is a Japanese beef bowl consisting of thinly sliced fatty beef and onions in a lightly sweet mixture of mirin and soy sauce. Serve it over rice with a fried egg for a simple and delicious meal! Note: This post was originally published on February 25, 2016. It has since been updated with metric measurements,
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Today, we’re talking about cooking gluten-free Chinese food. Many of you have asked questions about which Chinese ingredients contain gluten or about gluten-free substitutions over the years, so we’re laying it all out here. We’ll discuss recipes and ingredients that are already gluten-free, as well as GF substitutions for key Chinese ingredients. An Easy Cuisine
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