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 steamed shrimp recipe is inspired by a dish we had at a restaurant down the street called Ku Xia (translation: “Cool Shrimp”). The restaurant serves a duo of shrimp dishes—one with garlic, and one with cilantro and green chilies. They steam the shrimp in a flavorful sauce, with glass noodles at the bottom, and
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Lots of families are big on chicken. Roast chicken, grilled chicken, chicken pastas, chicken pot-pie, chicken Caesar salad, you get the drill. But for as long as I can remember, whenever my family had a choice of protein, the default tended to be beef. Steaks, not chicken on the grill, steak, not chicken on top of
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In China, people often distinguish themselves as Southerners (南方人) or Northerners (北方人). It’s a question you’ll get often in taxis or first meetings. The biggest distinguishing features for us, anyway, are the regional cuisines. Southern cuisine is roughly more delicate, refined and sometimes sweeter in taste, while northern cuisine is a bit heavier and stronger in flavor. In
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Can you feel it guys? The days are getting shorter, the air cooler. I can smell the hayrides, apple cider, and pumpkins all the way from Beijing. In other words: summer is nearly over, my favorite season is on the horizon, and I have scarves and flannel shirts at the ready. But my nemesis, aka summer—with its white-hot
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In the continuing quest to rid our pantry of an overabundance of ground almonds, courtesy of Kaitlin and her impulsive, trigger-happy nature (she took to the food processor and was deliriously pulverizing our entire supply of almonds before she even knew what to do with them. Why? I’d put my money on sleepwalking.), I have been diligently
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This Scallop fried rice will blow your mind. It’s not just the fresh bay scallops that make it a treat for seafood lovers, it’s the XO sauce and of course, the crispy garlic chips, that bring it to another level. It all started when we received a jar of very high quality scallop XO sauce from
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When Kaitlin was here in Beijing last week (TWOL newcomers: click here for context!), she took about 2 whole pounds of almonds and ground them up into almond meal. After this moment of lapsed judgement that has of yet been left unexplained, she didn’t end up actually doing anything with the almond meal, leaving me with 2
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This vegetable lo mein isn’t so much a takeout dish makeover so much as just a really simple, versatile noodle dish that can be a staple vegetarian meal or a go-to meatless Monday dinner. Vegetable lo mein is healthy, tasty, and very easy to make. In China, fresh eggless hand-pulled noodles are readily available (understatement), so that’s
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So after we munched on the glory that was our first Frizzled Chive Flower Flatbread, we were definitely looking for other ways to cook our in-season chive flowers. And what could be better than a little chive flower Japanese tempura? We were inspired by the fried zucchini blossoms of the Mediterranean, and it turned out
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For the last couple of weeks, I found myself back in Beijing with the family. This always means food, food, food–lots of it and super cheap! We always have the list of places we go back to time and again, but this trip we discovered something new at our local wet market. Chive flowers! And
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This Hunan Steamed Fish, or “Duo Jiao Yu” in Chinese, is a famous Hunan-style dish. Traditionally, this dish is served using the upper part of the fish including the fish head (or sometimes ONLY the fish head. Uh, a really big fish head), but we have seen it served with a whole fish also. This
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Is there a dreamier dessert out there than banana cream pie? Yes there is. Boozy banana cream pie. That is all. Bourbon Banana Cream Pie: Recipe Instructions Start by preheating your oven to 350 degrees. Stir the crushed cookie crumbs with 6 tablespoons of melted butter until the texture resembles wet sand. Press the mixture into
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This week, my sister and cousin Kim have been here in Beijing visiting, which means it didn’t take long before we were on our obligatory pilgrimage to a local Peking Duck joint for what is arguably Beijing’s most well-known dish. Accompanying the crispy bird was an assortment of other very filling dishes, which led to the
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I remember the first time I had beef rendang. I was about eleven years old, sitting in a Malaysian restaurant in a NJ strip mall, and it was one of the most amazing things I’d ever eaten. I figured that it would be an extremely difficult dish to make, considering the complexity of the flavors
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It was a long time ago now that I first discovered the epic, umami-laden combination that is butter and soy sauce. I first tried it in a Japanese restaurant in New Jersey, of all places, when I was still in high school and didn’t like sushi (*gasp!*). Eschewing all of the raw fish on the menu,
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Clams seem to go hand-in-hand with summer, and we have gone way too long on this blog without dishes involving bivalves! These clams in black bean sauce were so good; I know Judy has a particular weakness for them. We haven’t had a good black bean recipe yet either so this should cover at least
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In China–Beijing especially, it seems, you’ll see a lot of things served with bread–pillowy soft steamed buns, doughy pancakes, and small hollowed-out bread “cups” that you can fill up with meat and vegetable fillings. Yes, here in China, the carb fest extends far beyond just rice and noodles. In the spirit of blissful carbohydrate intake–with a
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This noodle soup with pork and pickled greens (xuecai rousi mian / 雪菜肉丝面）is one of my absolute favorites. It’s an easy, satisfying comfort food meal in Chinese households everywhere, where all you need is a few items from your pantry. My grandmother used to make this for lunch when she’d come to visit, and now it’s
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