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.
Beautiful tofu! It comes in all shapes, sizes, and textures, and we can’t get enough of it. Today, we’ve rounded up a list of our favorite tofu recipes from across the blog. These are some of our best recipes—some go far back, but most are so popular that we’ve since replaced old photos with newer
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Back in early June, we posted a spring garden tour at The Woks of Life‘s new HQ. Spring was incredibly busy, and things didn’t let up much over the course of June and July. But now that it’s August, we’ve transitioned from planting, cultivating, and growing to harvesting and enjoying. Time to show you guys
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Pressed tofu or dòufu gān (豆腐干), is a lesser known ingredient to non-Chinese cooks, but it’s featured in many of our family’s favorite recipes! In this quick article, we’ll tell you everything you need to know about this ingredient—how it’s used, where to buy it, and how to store it. What Is Pressed Tofu? Dòufu
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Kaitlin here. It’s been a while since we’ve released a travel guide hasn’t it? But we once again find ourselves on a Woks of Life family vacation. This time we’re coming to you from Newport! Last summer, while we were putting the finishing touches on the first complete draft of our cookbook manuscript, the Jersey
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Summer is in full swing, and that means swampy weather, sweaty commutes to and from work, and very little desire on the part of this food blogger to stand over the stove for an extended period of time. Enter: This recipe for a Vietnamese Rice Noodle Salad with Chicken, or bún gà nướng. Note: This
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This beef with oyster sauce recipe is simple, savory, and delicious with steamed rice. Served over a bed of blanched Chinese broccoli, it’s also a full and balanced meal! The Magic of Oyster Sauce Oyster sauce may sound like it tastes fishy, but nothing could be further from the truth. Oyster sauce is pure savory
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Little smelt fish get the Cantonese salt and pepper (white pepper, that is) treatment in this salt and pepper fried smelts recipe. We can’t resist the masterful light and crispy batter here, and the aromatic yet simple spices that are delicious with just about anything: shrimp, squid, and tofu. We’ve even had it with king
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When you crack open a jar of yellow lantern chili sauce, the heat is immediately evident—prickling your nose and reaching up into your sinuses, accompanied by the promising aroma of pickled garlic. What is the Hainan yellow lantern chili? The Hainan yellow lantern chili (海南黄灯笼椒) is a spicy little guy that looks just like the
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You may have heard of seitan as one of those new age vegan/vegetarian ingredients. However, it’s been around in Chinese and Buddhist cuisines for centuries. Known in Chinese as miànjīn (面筋), it believed to have been invented in ancient China as a meat substitute for Buddhist monks. It’s also delicious! Like tofu, it comes in many forms and
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Tofu knots, or bǎiyè jié (百叶节), are an interesting ingredient that highlight one of the key aspects of Chinese cuisine that isn’t as strongly emphasized in Western cuisines: texture. These little knots of tofu add a delightful change in texture in soups and braised dishes, and while they may be an unfamiliar ingredient, we’ll tell
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We’re back with the next installment of our How to Grow Chinese Vegetables series. This time, we’re talking about how to grow napa cabbage, a versatile vegetable that’s great for long-term storage, pickling, fermenting, stir-frying, braising, adding to soups, making dumpling or wonton fillings, and even serving raw. We’ll cover common varieties of napa cabbage,
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This recipe for spicy Thai basil clams is a tasty take on stir-fried clams that’s great with a cold beer. You can use littlenecks or cherrystone clams here, and we have a great method for purging them to make sure you end up with a really clean, fresh-tasting dish! A Long Journey to Clam Appreciation
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Vegetable Ramen is a simple and easy-to-make meatless Monday meal all instant ramen lovers must try. The recipe is vegetarian and vegan, but you could also add your favorite protein—chicken, shrimp, pork, beef, or tofu! (Just click on those links to find out how to prepare them for stir-frying.) Note: This post was originally published
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Taiwanese beef rolls consist of thinly sliced, aromatic braised beef, wrapped with sweet hoisin sauce, fresh scallion, and cucumber in a crispy, flaky scallion pancake. If that description doesn’t have you immediately interested, I don’t know what will! A Beloved Taiwanese Snack We’ve covered several Taiwanese classics on The Woks of Life, including Beef Noodle
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Celtuce may be unfamiliar to you, but it’s one of our favorite vegetables. It’s delicious cooked as well as raw in this Celtuce Salad with Scallion Oil. Celtuce is gaining popularity in the West, going by other names like stem lettuce and asparagus lettuce. Let’s talk about what it is, and why you should head
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Mushroom fried rice is sometimes forgotten, but it’s really delicious! In fact, when I brought up this recipe, Kaitlin asked, “Is that a thing?” I’m here to tell you, yes, it is “a thing!” Fresh or Dried Over Canned My mushroom fried rice has come a long way from my days working at the restaurant.
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This is the best restaurant-style salsa recipe—at least, by our family’s estimation! It’s pretty straightforward to make, and you can’t help but dunk chip after chip after chip! Everyone we’ve made this for has loved it. There are a few secret ingredients here that make this salsa taste like you spent a lot more time and
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Biǎndòu mèn miàn (扁豆焖面), or steamed noodles and green beans, is a delicious noodle dish that you’ll only find on family tables rather than restaurants. Steaming the noodles makes them extra chewy! Note: This recipe was originally published in July 2015. We have since updated it with clearer photos, metric measurements, and nutrition information. The
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