I’m not going to lie–if you put this Braised Beef Noodle Soup and my Spicy Beef Noodle Soup side by side, I would choose the latter. It’s not much of a surprise, since I’ve been known to post some of our more throat-burning, tongue-numbing spicy Sichuan dishes, but for readers with tamer taste buds, this […]
Rice, Noodles & Pasta
The Woks of Life Rice, Noodles & Pasta Recipe Collection
15 Minute After-School Special Noodles
15 Minute After-School Special Noodles is a recipe that has been our constant companion over the years. When I was eleven years old, my parents finally (“finally?”) deemed me and my sister old enough to stay home alone from when school let out at 2:45 to when they came home from work at 6:30. Before […]
Pad See Ew – Thai Rice Noodles
Pad See Ew is what I would consider Thai fast food, right up there with all of our favorite takeout noodle dishes––like lo mein, pan-fried noodles and Drunken Noodles. It comes together quickly as long as all the ingredients are prepared ahead of time and ready to go into the wok! It’s no wonder this […]
Long Life Noodles – Yi Mein (伊面）
Long Life Noodles (yī miàn, 伊面) or yi mein, symbolize longevity and can always be found on the banquet table at Chinese celebrations. Long noodles, long life, right? (We should make a t-shirt.) Actually, any type of long noodle symbolizes longevity, but Yi Mein (also known as e-fu noodles––try not to get confused by all these […]
Steamed Pork with Rice Powder (Fen Zheng Rou)
I know many of you are planning special dishes for the upcoming Chinese New Year festival. Today, I want to talk about a distinctive Chinese New Year dish––Steamed Pork with Rice Powder, or Fen Zheng Rou (粉蒸肉). This is not a dish that appears on restaurant menus. Not even in China. Nor is it a […]
Spicy Cumin Lamb Biang Biang Noodles
If this recipe for Spicy Cumin Lamb Biang Biang Noodles piqued your interest, you’re probably in one of two camps: 1. The “Hm, this looks intriguing” camp: You saw the picture of the finished dish and thought, “Hm, this looks intriguing. Homemade noodles? With cumin? And lamb? Never heard of a Chinese dish like that, […]
Braised Daikon with Salted Pork & Glass Noodles
I’m pretty excited about our Homemade Chinese Salted Pork recipe, which we posted last week. So if you decide to make a batch of salted pork, here’s a follow-up recipe for how to use it: Braised Daikon with Salted Pork and Glass Noodles. (Note: I’ve also posted a couple other recipes in the past that can use […]
Quick and Easy Kimchi Ramen
I’m always in the market for new ways to doctor up a packet of instant ramen. It’s one of our favorite things to do in the kitchen (or at the campfire)––as evidenced by our past published recipes for “Pho” Ramen and Curry Ramen––and this Kimchi Ramen is our third and latest creation. There has always […]
Shrimp Fried Rice – A Restaurant Quality Recipe
Shrimp Fried Rice was one of the most popular fried rice dishes in my parents’ Chinese takeout restaurant. People would order Shrimp Fried Rice by the quart, and it seemed like we were always peeling shrimp to keep up with demand. So popular was the dish that we pre-boiled 10 pounds at a time! As […]
Chicken Fettuccine Alfredo with Roasted Garlic
Growing up, the words chicken fettuccine alfredo held a special sway with Sarah and me. Chalk it up to our Chinese upbringing that tended to be devoid of most junk foods, and an overall desire to save money on the part of our mom. Case in point: Cheetos at the school lunch bargaining table were tantamount […]
10-Minute Tomato Egg Drop Noodle Soup, Plus a List of Last-Minute-Meal Recipes
What a wonderful time of the year it is! There are so many comings and goings––holiday parties, happy hours, family meals, Christmas shopping, and gift wrapping. I love this time of year. But how exactly does this Tomato Egg Drop Noodle Soup fit into a season of prime rib roasts and glasses of champagne? Hear […]
Shanghai Breakfast Rice Rolls (Ci Fan 粢饭)
Thanksgiving has come and gone, and by now all the leaves have fallen. As we gear up for the long winter ahead, our bodies are craving carbs. Its nature’s way of preparing ourselves for the cold and the dreary. So why not take this opportunity to eat something outrageous. Enter Chinese breakfast items, i.e., carbs […]
Easy Braised Turnip Rice Bowls
I know everyone’s busy running around raving about pumpkins, acorn squash, and butternuts (guilty as charged), but what about little old turnips?! Well. Chinese turnips are ALSO in season right now, and tis the season to eat lots of them. Did you know that the turnip is a cruciferous vegetable, and not just another root vegetable? […]
20-Minute Congee Recipe (皮蛋瘦肉粥)
BREAKING NEWS!!! Did you know that you can make delicious congee with slow-cooked flavor from scratch in 20 minutes? I’m not talking about getting it done in a pressure cooker either. This extremely exciting cooking technique I am about to reveal will cut the usual congee cooking time by at least two thirds, if not more. […]
Shanghai Hot Sauce Noodles (Lajiang Mian）
Shanghai Hot Sauce Noodles, or Shanghai Lajiang Mian (上海辣酱面) was one of the many noodle soup dishes we enjoyed during our last visit to Shanghai. It is mostly known as “la jiang mian” or sometimes “doubanjiang mian (豆瓣酱面) ,” and like any other dish, it has many variations. The dish is comprised of noodles, broth, […]
Xinjiang Lamb Rice, An Uyghur Food Favorite
This Lamb Rice or Xīnjiāng shou zhuā fàn in Mandarin (新疆手抓饭) is a signature dish in Xinjiang home-cooking. It’s very special and usually reserved for holidays only––for good reason. Sheep are a precious commodity for Xinjiang or Uyghur people. Their wool is a good source of income, and their milk is an essential part of […]
Pork Chop Sticky Rice Bake with Bacon
Hold on to your hats, kids, because today, we’re wrapping things in bacon. I have made the following assessment: When faced with all of the world’s bacon-wrapped delights, this one crushes them all. Wait for it…the PORK CHOP STICKY RICE BAKE. Don’t those words just make you want to run out and buy a pound of bacon […]
Caramelized Soy Sauce Noodles with Sweet Potato & Mushrooms
Ever since we started The Woks of Life, we’re always looking for new and creative ideas to experiment with on the blog. As such, I’ve started looking at every visit to a new restaurant as “research.” (As you can imagine––especially when the four of us are together––this can lead to major cases of over-ordering. Because apparently […]
Supreme Soy Sauce Fried Rice
You may have heard of soy sauce fried rice before, but what about “Supreme” Soy Sauce Fried Rice? No? Me either! You were probably expecting a big reveal, but I made this one up. This is another dish that took shape from our recent trip to Shanghai. I noticed that many restaurants had soy sauce […]
Chicken Lo Mein – Restaurant style
Chicken Lo Mein is a classic takeout dish that we’ve all probably eaten at one time or another. We find, however, that it’s getting harder than ever to get a good lo mein these days! Hence the need for this recipe. Chicken Lo Mein: A Takeout Favorite Growing up, having Chinese takeout for dinner was […]
Roasted Cherry Tomato Pasta Puttanesca
My parents’ tomato garden is officially in business. After weeks of poking, prodding, and waiting for the tomatoes that we weren’t sure would end up making an appearance this summer, we’ve received a bounty of cherry tomatoes, with about a pint of them ripening and ready-to-be-picked each day. It’s all we can do to keep up, which […]
Ginger Garlic Shrimp Fried Rice
Ginger Garlic Shrimp Fried Rice is one of those deliciously simple concoctions that’s perfect for when you’re at the bottom of your refrigerator, or you haven’t had time to run to the grocery store lately. With a few well-chosen pantry items, you’ve got a delicious and easy dinner. If you have a food processor for […]
Campfire Curry Ramen – An Easy Camping Meal
Kaitlin totally outed me in her Pho Ramen post from a few weeks ago. We had planned to blog this campfire curry ramen recipe while camping in the woods of California’s Sequoia National Park, but I forgot the curry powder to make it. It was a devastating blow. Of course, we ended up with an off-the-cuff Pho […]
Penne alla Rosé
There’s something extremely invigorating about being a girl (Woman? Lady? Gal? I’ll spare you all my existential quarter-life crisis) and completely embracing PINK. The bar is one such place where so-called “cool” decision making is put under a microscope. Are you ordering the super local, single-batch, no name manly man IPA or the pink, coconut […]
Easy Curry Beef Rice Bowls
When Sarah and I were in school, weekends sometimes entailed trips to Chinatown (Manhattan, natch) to visit relatives. When we rolled through Chinatown’s main thoroughfares, we always made a trip to Great NY Noodletown for a couple of orders of Beef Curry over rice. The sauce was deliciously glossy with an intense aromatic curry flavor, […]
Pho Ramen (Over a Campfire…Or Your Stove!)
When it comes to camping and cooking, we have a long and storied legacy–braised lamb shoulder, rice and beans, rotisserie chicken, fried fillets of large mouth bass, smoked turkey legs, apple cobbler–these are ALL things that we have cooked at one point or another, OVER A CAMPFIRE. Over the top? Perhaps. An epic good time? […]
Stir-fried Carrot Noodles with Chicken
After a long period of resistance and general skepticism, I have finally discovered the awesomeness of vegetable noodles, specifically carrot noodles. It happened kind of by accident. I was planning on doing a noodle dish with chicken, ginger, and spinach, and I––in pretty typical fashion––forgot to buy the noodles. Derp. What I did have, though, was […]
Udon Noodle Soup with Chicken & Mushrooms
I want to love Udon Noodle Soup. Usually though, if by some random turn of events (i.e. I’ve suddenly decided to forgo the sushi/sashimi option, which is rare), I order it at a Japanese restaurant, I’m always a little disappointed. Because udon noodle soups––in American Japanese restaurants anyway––can be a little bland. I love the thick, chewy noodles and the […]
Vietnamese Noodle Salad with Seared Pork Chops
I’m usually pretty good about packing a lunch to bring to work everyday. More often than not, it’s leftovers from whatever massive blogging session we had the previous weekend. But for those weeks when we didn’t blog recipes, and I didn’t end up cooking at all, I’m not above ordering out. One of my favorite places […]
15-Minute Lazy Noodles
It’s an exciting day here at The Woks of Life. Because today, I have an AWESOME noodle recipe for you guys and it’s a lazy noodles recipe! We all know how amazing Dan Dan Noodles are. They’re the perfect balance of spicy, savory flavors. But as any of you who’s seen––or actually managed to tackle––our […]
