I’m very particular about my food––no surprise there. I like my own cooking, that goes without saying, but when I eat out in restaurants, I have the worst luck. It seems the universe is out to test my fortitude. Somehow it happens to me all the time. When we go out as a family, I’m […]
Appetizers and Snacks
The Woks of Life collection of appetizers and snacks
Chinese Curry Puffs with Beef
Curry Puffs are a classic Chinese bakery or dim sum item that has fallen to the wayside a bit. I can’t really remember the last time I saw or tasted a really good one while at a dim sum house or rolling through a Chinese bakery for a pineapple bun. Maybe it’s because they’re just […]
Shanghai Scallion Pancakes, A Street food Classic
Shanghai scallion pancakes were one of our favorite breakfast street foods among the many choices we featured in our recent Shanghai Breakfast post. I’ve eaten many a scallion pancake in my life, but what Judy and I had in Shanghai was by far the most decadent we have seen and also without a doubt the […]
Coconut Firecracker Shrimp
I was first made aware of the existence of firecracker shrimp rather late in life. Namely, uh…a month ago. When they were part of the Katie Chin cooking demo I participated in at Macy’s. Guess I’ve been living under a rock. We didn’t grow up making this appetizer, but I’ve come to know that it’s […]
A Beef & Cheese Empanada Recipe: Baked or Fried
When Sarah and I were kids, my dad would occasionally whip out one of the rarer of gems in his arsenal of recipes for delicious fried foods: the empanada. Okay, so we weren’t Top Chef-ing it up or anything—we used pre-made Goya wrappers. But they turned out perfectly crispy and crunchy every time, and the […]
Wood Ear Mushroom Salad 凉拌木耳
Well, you don’t see this dish everyday! It’s weird-looking and not particularly appealing at first glance, but this wood ear mushroom salad dish is literally on every menu in China. I wouldn’t have dared to share this Wood Ear Mushroom Salad recipe a few years back, as very few people outside of Asia know what this […]
Asian Snacks Roundup
Let’s talk snacks. Asian. Snacks. Geolocation wise, we’re going to take a trip down the snacks aisle of the Asian grocery store. You know the aisle of which I speak. Somehow, it’s shinier than the others, beckoning to you with row after row of shiny, packaged, salty, colorful, junky goodness in a seemingly endless array–calling at […]
Chicken Dumplings with Shiitake Mushrooms
With the exception of our vegetable dumplings, most of the dumpling recipes that we’ve posted on the blog thus far––from soup dumplings to wontons––have used traditional pork fillings. Most (if not all) of the dumplings I grew up eating have been made with some variation of a pork filling, and it’s true that pork is invariably […]
Fried Prawn Crackers for Chinese New Year & Tips on How to Celebrate!
When I was a kid, prawn crackers (sometimes also referred to as fried shrimp chips or “Ha Peen” in Cantonese) were one of my first waking thoughts on Chinese New Year morning. It might sound like an exaggeration, but it was reality for a chubby kid like me, who was also an early foodie! Later, when […]
Crispy Stuffed Lotus Root with Pork (炸藕盒)
I’ve had readers requesting this recipe for a while now, so firstly…sorry it’s taken us so long to post this! We’ve been waiting for Chinese New Year to make this srispy stuffed lotus root recipe, at a time when they are available in abundance at your local Asian markets. These tasty little fried meat sandwiches are deliciously savory, […]
New Year’s Eve Appetizers for Your Cocktail Hour or Party!
New Year’s Eve is a holiday fraught with indecision. Where do you go? What do you do? Who do you spend it with? How do you manage to squeeze out the last drops of happy times from the old year in preparation for the new year? Well just like the rest of you, we don’t have […]
Next-Day Thanksgiving Pastries (A Thanksgiving Leftovers Recipe)
On the day before the BIG day, i.e. Thanksgiving, the most gluttonous holiday of the year, we’re sliding in at the last minute with another Thanksgiving leftovers recipe! While our other Thanksgiving leftover recipes (i.e. this Turkey Congee and this Turkey Ramen) focused on ways to make the most of a good turkey carcass, this […]
Buffalo Chicken Potstickers
You’re about to do something slightly different today with a pile of dumpling wrappers. Rather than fill them with the usual vegetable or pork fillings, you’re going to take ground chicken, Frank’s hot sauce, lots of cheddar cheese, and a few other ingredients, and you’re going to make buffalo chicken potstickers. Because it’s the right thing to do. […]
Har Gow (Dim Sum Shrimp Dumplings)
At dim sum houses, the server with the steamed crystal shrimp dumplings, commonly known as “xia jiao” or “har gow” in Cantonese, is always the most popular person on the floor. I’ll even dare to stick my neck out and claim that har gow might be the #1 dim sum item of all time. At least, I wouldn’t […]
Homemade Spring Rolls
When I was growing up, Chinatown was the only place you went for authentic Chinese food, but it was almost exclusively Cantonese-style restaurants. Nowadays, Chinese food in the US has come a long way, thanks to an influx of immigrants from all over China. So it’s no surprise that two distinct types of Chinese spring […]
Sichuan Spicy Wontons Recipe
Sweet, savory, garlicky, and not as spicy as they look, Sichuan spicy wontons (aka Hong You Chao Shou, 紅油抄手, in Mandarin) are a delicious combination of sweet soy sauce, raw garlic, roasted red chili, and a touch of vinegar to balance things out. In the U.S., we’re in the midst of a huge explosion in the […]
Shanghai Savory Mooncakes (Xian Rou Yue Bing)
I won’t bore you by getting too deep into the fairytale that surrounds the Mid-Autumn Festival. In short, it’s a forbidden love story between a girl living on the moon and a young man living on earth. They are only granted one meeting per year on September 15th of the lunar calendar. Today, we celebrate […]
Vegetable Dumplings – A Healthy Potsticker Recipe
My senior year of college, I had a life-changing dumpling experience. For much of my childhood, I had been a meat-only filling kind of person––carnivore that I was. In my family, pork was usually the only filling we’d use, and the only variation generally came from the kind of vegetable that went along with it, […]
Edamame Beans: How to Cook Them the Chinese Way
Boiled or steamed edamame beans are one of our favorite healthy snacks (mindless munching has never been so healthy). Just in case you didn’t know, edamame is actually just a green soy bean in its fresh state in the pod. In China, fresh edamame is harvested during the summer months. By now, they are all […]
Fried Wontons – A Favorite Chinese Appetizer
Fried wontons are a crispy, crunchy, and delicious appetizer that will have your guests talking about them at the office on Monday morning. We make these for dinner parties and sporting events, and they always disappear. When you hear the word wonton, you usually think of soups. But as taboo as fried food may be, […]
Shou Zhua Bing (Crispy Chinese Pancakes)
It’s been five months since we left Beijing, and while we’re so happy to be back in the States (and living with clean air), what we really miss is the food. To help ease the nostalgia and withdrawal symptoms, we have cooked and posted many of the favorite dishes we’d have all the time in […]
Shumai – A Cantonese Dim Sum Favorite
Shumai or Siu Mai wasn’t necessarily always our first choice at Sunday dim sum. It was usually dominated by steamed pork ribs, chive dumplings, sticky rice, and congee. But in the end, we always had a little room on the table for some traditional shumai, and it would end up on the table in one way or […]
Kimchi Fries
SO excited about this Kimchi fries recipe, everyone. When I was living in Beijing, I went to a Korean-Mexican restaurant that had kimchi fries on the menu, and I’ve been wanting to recreate it ever since. I mean, kimchi cheese fries? What could be more awesome? The fries are baked in the oven, seasoned with Korean […]
Fried Calamari – Best Homemade Recipe
This fried calamari recipe is the best we’ve ever had. It satisfies that restaurant-appetizer itch gloriously. (Y’all know what I’m talking about–when the only thing you want in life is to devour a platter of calamari and a TGI Friday’s appetizer sampler: buffalo wings, mozzarella sticks, potato skins–the works. Is it just me?) We use […]
Taro Cake (Chinese Wu Tao Gou)
Taro cake! A crispy, golden brown Chinese New Year and Sunday dim sum favorite. If you’ve ever been to a Chinese grocery store, you’ve probably seen big, brown, hairy, vaguely coconut-ish tubers shelved somewhere near the carrots and sweet potatoes. What on earth are these hairy brown fibrous beasts, you might ask? They lack the coconut’s roundness […]
Sausage Balls 2 Ways
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 […]
Sticky Rice Mushroom Shumai w/ Homemade Wrappers (Vegan)
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 […]
Pork Chive Dumplings (and homemade dumpling wrappers!)
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 […]
Copycat Takeout Egg Rolls
Egg rolls–the quintessential Chinese takeout food. This egg roll recipe is a copycat of the basic version you’ll find in takeout places and Chinese buffets. Egg rolls are a very much Americanized creation that evolved from Chinese spring rolls (check out our Shanghai Style Spring Roll recipe). We decided to post this egg roll recipe after one of […]
Tostones with Tomato Salsa
Tostones is a classic across Latin America and definitely a favorite of ours at The Woks of Life. These days, some takeout Chinese restaurants are actually serving up fried plantains on their menus. They’ll slice the plantains, freeze them in single portions, and quickly drop them into a fryer when ordered. That’s a method you could potentially use […]
