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.
Happy Chinese New Year, everyone! The Year of the Horse starts tomorrow, and being a Horse myself on the 12-year Chinese Zodiac cycle, this is only the second time it’s happened in my lifetime. It also–disturbingly–means that according to the Chinese calendar, I’m 24 years old. At 24, my dad was gearing up for his
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The Lunar New Year is upon us! Though back in the U.S. we don’t get so much as a sick day off for this holiday, here in China, we get a week off work. Beijing has emptied, as most of the city’s residents headed back to their home villages to see family. This means that we
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Before two of us moved to Beijing in 2011, we were relatively new to traveling in China. We’d made one trip in 1997, and went back ten years later in 2007. But that was about it. Now that we’re living the expat life, however, we take advantage of every opportunity to travel the country. Thankfully,
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This crispy duck wrap dish is a bit more complicated than most, but it’s worth it. The duck legs are braised to perfection, de-boned and then wrapped in a scallion pancake blanket and pan-fried until crispy. We then used the braising liquid to make a French style sauce making the dish a luxurious dinner. If
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We’ve been making some version of this vegetable five spice tofu stir-fry dish for dinner once a week for as long as we can remember. It’s healthy, vegetarian, and very easy to make. Recipe Instructions Wash and julienne the five spice tofu and vegetables. Heat 2 teaspoons oil in the wok over high heat. Stir-fry
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Frittatas are traditionally an Italian dish, but the Chinese have a similar chive frittata dish, often using Chinese or garlic chives. You can find them at the Chinese grocery store, and if you can get the seeds, they grow like grass. We have five chive plants out in the backyard, and we just trim them
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This is pumpkin granola is our family’s favorite granola recipe. It’s relatively low in sugar and fat compared to other similar recipes, and the inclusion of the pumpkin gives the granola the perfect crunchy, slightly “clumpy” consistency. We’ve tried the egg white trick that other cluster-loving bloggers and granola aficionados have suggested, but I’ve found
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This easy mushroom noodle stir fry is a great dish for mushroom lovers, as well as vegetarians and vegans alike (just leave out the pork). We were looking for a simple dish to try out the black mushrooms we recently dried on the window sill. It’s only been a few weeks since we dried them,
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In China, you’ll see a lot of dishes with the description “Yu Xiang,” (鱼香), which literally means “fish fragrance,” or “fish flavor.” There’s actually no fish involved in the dish, and there are tons of different versions. In the U.S., you might find the American takeout version of Yu Xiang Rou Si, known as Chinese
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This braised tofu or hongshao dofu is my grandpa’s favorite dish when we go out to eat at this little Cantonese restaurant on Division Street in Chinatown. I have to say that this is a pretty crazy authentic homemade version, courtesy of my dad, natch. Tofu has got to be the most awesomely delicious food
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The house is officially occupied again! We’ve all made the pilgrimage back to NJ for Christmas, and the holiday shenanigans have officially started. We barely had time to remove the thin layer of dust on the furniture and crank up the heat and hot water before it was time to break out the butter and
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I’ll keep the intro short on this one, folks. A couple months ago, I made this pie for the first time. My dad, the world’s nit-pickiest pie eater, with over forty years’ pie eating experience, named it the best pumpkin pie he’d ever had. It was there on Thanksgiving, and in all likelihood will be
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When I was a kid growing up in upstate New York, we kids made pancakes frequently for breakfast on Saturdays. One day, my father suggested that we make a savory version of Chinese turnip pancakes. These days, all sorts of Asian style or Chinese pancakes are quite common…scallion pancakes, Korean kimchi pancakes, etc. but to
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UPDATE: Check out the recipe for the marinade AND how to roast your turkey! (Note: in this recipe, I really should have pulverized the garlic until it really became a smooth paste, but the food processor I was working with wasn’t cooperative. Check out the other recipe for more info!) Ahh Thanksgiving. That sweet sweet time of
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A very traditional and perhaps forgotten Chinese takeout dish is Pepper Steak, which is simply beef, green bell peppers, and yellow onions cooked in a brown sauce. Honestly, this wasn’t one of my favorite dishes to cook in the restaurant, but I’ve since developed a lighter, tastier remake. Using a colorful mix of peppers makes
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If you’re one of those people who hates broccoli, then you probably haven’t had it like this before. One thing that Chinese cuisine does particularly well is make vegetables that taste really really good including a broccoli stir-fry. We don’t want to toot our own horns here too much, of course, but it’s a fact
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I learned this Chinese Roasted Ribs recipe from my father, who worked as a cook. In their heyday in the 1970s, people would pile in from New York City to the summer resorts in the Catskills, where we lived. People call it the Borscht Belt now, but it was just home to me. My father
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Ok, I’m going to be up front with you all here. This post is blatantly just an excuse to post a bunch of pictures I took of lunch the other day. So yeah… Dumplings, Chinese dumplings in Beijing China. We went to this new place and ordered a bunch of different kinds. In Beijing, dumplings
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