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.
Three recipes for the price of one today! Pinchos, or pintxos, are a Spanish snack related to tapas, but usually served on bread and skewered with toothpicks to keep the toppings on the bread (and to keep track of how many one’s eaten as the toothpicks pile up). We tried pinchos for the first time
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For a long time, Ratatouille was a big fat fail in this house. Undercooked, overcooked, lacking in flavor, there was no good ratatouille recipe to be found. The usual reaction it elicited from everyone was something more or less along the lines of, “eh…” Which is so wrong because that Anton Ego guy like, totally
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For dessert at the Indian Extravaganza posted a couple days ago: Honey Banana Cake! I am of the opinion that one can never have enough banana dessert recipes. Our impulse to buy an entire bunch of bananas at the market has been a long and storied one (if, “We buy a crapload of cheap bananas
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We LOVE Indian food. Every time we visit Kaitlin at college, we go to this Indian buffet place and eat an obscene amount of daal, aloo gobi, and saag paneer. We carb it up with loads of naan, rice, and samosas, and do so without shame or regret (in part because you can access the
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The Rice Bowl To End All Rice Bowls. The Clay Pot Rice Bowl That Launched A Thousand Ships. The rice bowl that needs only fifteen short minutes of cooking time before you’re happily scarfing it down. This Clay Pot Rice Bowl is actually somewhat similar to a Korean bibimbap, in that you get those slightly
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This. Cake. It lights up my life. It’s the wind beneath my wings. It has made it into the pantheon that is my top five list of best cake recipes of all time. I mean, come on. A pumpkin cake, with Mexican Chocolate Whipped Cream? Ba-BAM. It was, in actuality, an accident. We had a
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Have you ever cooked something that actually tastes a lot better the next day? Well these Chinese restaurant takeout style spare ribs are a perfect case. A few months back, we posted a recipe for these Chinese roasted ribs. We decided to post it again using the second half of the BBQ sauce that we’d
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Lightning. Meteorological phenomenon? Or the perfect metaphor for this chicken & rice dish? When the midday hunger pangs strike without warning and you’re at home cooking for yourself (as I usually am), this lightning-fast chicken & rice is the perfect answer to your lunchtime cravings. Just quickly chop up a few ingredients, take out some
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These little crispy, fluffy, chewy pillows of scallion-y deliciousness were a must-order at the Chinese grocery store we used to frequent in the vast wild blue yonder of suburban NJ (as opposed to the vast, wild gray setting we find ourselves in now. Harumph). So, as a continuation of our recent all-purpose Chinese bun (man tou)
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Steamed buns, or “man tou,” are a staple in the Beijinger’s diet. I see people buy them by the dozen, dainty Chinese girls eating huge, fluffy ones with their stir-fry for lunch at the local food courts, and plates of them served with various dishes in restaurants. Man tou delivery guys, with bags and bags
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My family is Cantonese, from Guangdong and Hong Kong, where fish dishes are steamed or fried and almost never spicy, like this Cantonese Steamed Fish. But with a more diverse mix of Chinese emigrating to the US, going out for Chinese food can be a new experience at each restaurant you try. We first tried
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Some of you may have visited the blog this past Saturday, and for that, I am sorry. I’m sorry for any and all eye injuries sustained from being exposed to the hot mess that was this site three days ago. A bad plug-in + 3 failed tech support live chats + the fact that this
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Most days during the week, I have a bowl of cereal or toast for breakfast. But on the weekends, I like to do something a little more extravagant. And after Skyping with the family in Beijing on Friday nights, wherein I inevitably get to see their Saturday morning Chinese breakfast goodies, I inevitably wake up
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This past October, we moved from one Beijing apartment complex to…a different Beijing apartment complex. It doesn’t sound particularly exciting, but it meant moving from a fully furnished service apartment, which felt a lot like living in a hotel–with its cold stone floors, gold console tables, and strangely patterned carpeting (I maintain that brick red, kelly
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As many of you have probably guessed, I love using fruit and/or vegetables in my baking, whether it’s in this Apple Cinnamon Coffee Cake, these heavenly Dark Chocolate Pumpkin Scones, my personal favorite–Peach Pie, or even these tragically failed blackberry squares. It’s my way of clinging to some last vestiges of healthiness and nutritional value whilst I
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Sometimes, no matter how many amazing Chinese restaurants we go to, or fruit-filled wet markets we shop at, or how many Honeymoon Desserts and Paris Baguettes we have mochi and pastries in, we get homesick for the good ol’ U.S. of A. Probably on a daily basis. It sounds weird to be homesick for New
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Today is the day. Even from Beijing, we plan to watch the SuperBowl, courtesy of our phone alarms (a 6:30 ET kick-off means a 7:30 AM kickoff here on the other side of the world), a brand new HDMI cable, FOX Live Streaming, and a hope and a prayer for our VPN and the apartment’s
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The day has arrived, and the Year of the Horse has officially begun. It was a pretty casual New Year here in Beijing. After a Skype session with Kaitlin in the morning, we made dumplings, ate peanuts, cooked a chicken (recipe posting in a couple days!), and watched American Hustle, during which Christian Bale’s 40-pound
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