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.
Disclaimer: This recipe is not healthy. It’s basically fat city. #whocares #itsChristmas Yes, sausage balls aren’t exactly the healthiest of holiday appetizers. But what better time to indulge in a few of these awkwardly named treats than this time of year, when waistbands are loose and thoughts of dieting are quietly suppressed? I guess that
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It’s Christmas cookie season again everyone! We have a really crazy cookie recipe for you today, as well as an awesome giveaway, in which there will be 2 (count ’em, 2!)…winners. So Matcha Bacon Sugar Cookies. Is that a good combination, you ask? Why yes. Yes it is. The combination of tea and savory flavors
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This homemade mushroom shumai recipe is super easy to make. Today, we’re going with a vegetarian version made with sticky rice, mushrooms, and peas–perfect when dipped in a bit of soy sauce and chili oil. Shumai (shaomai in Mandarin and siu mai in Cantonese), according to the good folks at Wikipedia, is thought to have originated in Inner Mongolia, where it
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Pork Chive Dumplings are one of the most traditional dumpling types you’ll find in China. Chinese chives, also called garlic chives, are readily available at most Asian grocery stores, and they’re a snap to grow (really…it grows like weeds!). When they’re available in our garden in the spring and summer, we make these dumplings often. For
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Steamed Spare Ribs with Black Bean sauce is, in my humble opinion, one of the best and well-known dim sum dishes. We always looked forward to it when we would go to Chinatown for dim sum as kids. That was, uh…a while ago…but when we’d take my daughters, nieces, and nephews to dim sum, steamed spare ribs was
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I find that a lot of chicken stews are quite uninspired. Beef gets all the good recipes when it comes to stew, but what about the humble chicken? When you think “chicken,” “stew” isn’t the first thing to come to mind…which is totally absurd, because slow cooked chicken is really good. Well, while perusing Jamie
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Dim Sum Tripe Stew is one of those dishes that you either love or won’t touch with a ten foot pole. Guess which category I’m in? Read on and you’ll find out! Dim sum tripe stew, or niu za (牛雜), is pronounced phonetically in Cantonese as ngau tzop (excuse the weird spelling). Like many of these old and
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Every year, our NJ town turns into somewhat of a hub for everyone in the tristate area to pick apples and frolic in pumpkin patches. Barring the mildly irritating amounts of traffic, it’s actually a pretty delightful place to be–one chief reason being the abundance of locally-made apple cider donuts. I’ve always been more of an
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Twice Cooked Pork, or hui guo rou (回鍋肉), is a Sichuan dish of spicy seared pork belly that’s way too famous to ignore and too delicious not to share. If you’ve never tried it, you NEED to make this recipe. It is simply and unequivocally delicious! Yes, Shanghai Braised pork belly is irresistible and yes, Cantonese roast pork belly is delicious, but pork belly recipes
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Remember when kale was an under-the-radar vegetable–the woody stemmed leaves making an appearance only as decoration for the honey hams and turkey breasts in your supermarket’s deli case? Kale has experienced an extreme resurgence in the last couple years…coming out of the shadows and exhibited in everything from soups, salads, and stuffings to pastas, smoothies, and
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Sometimes you’re going about life, minding your own business and following your daily routine…when you have a thought. A thought that’s so utterly beyond the standard procedure that it demands attention be paid. Before you know it, your ho-hum corn muffin recipe is transformed into something nonsensically delectable. Today was that day. I was standing in the supermarket, pacing around the produce
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Thanksgiving is one of my absolute favorite holidays, for three big reasons: 1. It involves my favorite meal of the year (…Top 5 at least). 2. It heralds the start of nonstop Christmas music on the radio. Because I’m a weirdo who never gets tired of Perry Como and Nat King Cole singing about chestnuts on open
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Xiamen Chow mei fun (厦门炒米粉) is a tasty rice noodle dish served at many Chinese restaurants and often served at weekend dim sum brunches. Although it’s probably not as well known as the curry-spiced Singapore Noodles dish, it’s just as delicious. As far as Chinese noodles go, these rice noodles are among the top of my favorites list. The dish originates from a city in the Fujian province of southern China, where spicy foods
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For those of you who’ve been following us for a while, you may have noticed that lately, our recipes appear to be coming out of our American kitchen, rather than the broom closet that was the kitchen in Beijing. You’re eyes aren’t deceiving you. We’re making the official (and very belated) announcement that we’re now back from
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The first time I went to Shanghai, it was because I had failed. In my junior year of high school, I was rejected in the final round of interviews for a select academic summer program for high-performing high school students. Rather than spend the summer moping about my missed opportunity to run around with fellow nerds, my mom
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Homemade multigrain english muffins, hot right off the griddle are a real treat to have for weekend breakfast or a Sunday brunch. Our family has been eating my Homemade Multigrain Bread for a long time now. I make two loaves every couple weeks, and it’s always been a breakfast staple. The other day, though, Bill
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Sichuan Dry Fried Green Beans are a very popular dish both in China and here in the US, as Sichuan cuisine becomes more prevalent. This dish is also known as Szechuan dry-fried green beans of Chinese stir-fried green beans but if the restaurant is any good, they are prepared using the same method and quite
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Cuban sandwiches have become a favorite everywhere these days, from bodegas, to diners, to high end restaurants. The first time I had a Cuban sandwich was in Union City, NJ, where the population is over 80% hispanic. You can find food there from almost every Latin American cuisine, and I still go to Union City’s
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