Steaming food is just as important in Asian cooking as baking or roasting is in Western cooking. Chinese and other Asian cuisines feature steamed vegetables and proteins, but also steamed buns and breads, dumplings, and even desserts. Knowing how to steam food, therefore, is a crucial skill in any Asian kitchen. But while the idea […]
Start Your Chinese Pantry with 10 Essential Ingredients
Whether folks out there are beginners in the kitchen or experienced home cooks looking to try their hand at Chinese cooking, the single most common question we get here on the blog concerns substitutions––mostly for some of the seemingly less common Chinese ingredients. What’s a substitute for Shaoxing wine? Will it taste the same without […]
How to Season a Wok and Daily Wok Care
If you have read our post, “What is the best wok to buy?” you now know that our personal preference here at The Woks of Life is a classic carbon steel wok, and you may have even gone out and purchased one. While we think carbon steel is the best all-around wok, it’s important to know […]
What is the Best Wok to Buy?
If you’re short on time, scroll down to the FAQ section of this post for condensed answers to all your questions about choosing the best wok for your kitchen! If you’re new to Chinese cooking, you’ve probably asked yourself: What is the best wok to buy? Well, we’re here to help you with a guide […]
Chrysanthemum Tea Benefits (and How to Make It)
This is less of a recipe and more of a PSA about some of the health benefits of Chinese chrysanthemum tea. I’m no expert or in any way technicallyyy qualified to give health advice, but I was once a very very grumpy chrysanthemum tea drinker and have since become a pretty strong and zen believer […]
How to Grind Meat without a Grinder in Minutes
How to Grind Meat without a Grinder in just a few minutes. Sounds like a topic that will probably elicit a lot of questions from our readers. Like: Q: Really? Minutes? A: You betcha. Q: Noooo…You must be kidding? A: Not really! Q: Wait, why would you want do that in the first place? A: […]
How to Make Dried Tangerine Peel
How do you make dried tangerine peel (chén pí 陈皮)? Or maybe the question is, why would you want to? Here’s why: dried tangerine peel is one of the key aromatic ingredients in many Chinese dishes, like one of our favorites––Tangerine Beef. (I’ve compiled a more comprehensive list of recipes using dried tangerine peel at […]
How to Make Soy Milk at Home
I don’t know when it was exactly that my days of drinking a glass of milk with every meal ended, but I think it was around the same time that one of our family friends turned vegan and started solemnly telling us about how the body doesn’t actually need dairy (or any other animal products, […]
