Okay guys, I have a special announcement. The very first Woks of Life Public Service Announcement, that is. But first, let me begin with a story. When Sarah and I were growing up, we were big fans of the movie Matilda. For all you 90s babies out there, you probably remember the (in)famous scene wherein
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Life & Travel
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.
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This winter, I would like to add a couple of soup recipes to our collection, and what better way to start than with this soup from my hometown, Shanghai? When it comes to Shanghainese soups, Yan Du Xian (腌笃鲜), is pretty much the crown jewel. It was always reserved for special guests, because the ingredients were expensive
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When it comes to pumpkin scones, this isn’t our first rodeo (as evidenced by this recipe we posted way back in 2013). So…why are we coming back to you two years later with yet another pumpkin scone recipe? One word: glaze. There happens to be a large chain of coffee shops (rhymes with “tar ducks”) that
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Dong Po Rou (东坡肉) is a traditional dish of braised pork belly, supposedly created by Su Dong Po (January 8, 1037 – August 24, 1101), a famous writer, poet, painter, calligrapher, pharmacologist, gastronome, and statesman of the Song dynasty. Over the centuries, this Braised Pork Belly Dong Po Rou dish has become very popular, and once you taste it, you’ll know why. At a huge rummage sale I went
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This spicy chicken stir-fry was inspired by an episode of that guiltiest of guilty Food Network pleasures, Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives. At a restaurant called Blue Koi in Kansas City, one of the signature dishes is something called “Firebird Chicken,” a spicy chicken dish served over noodles, which had us drooling in front of the TV. (Plus,
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Ma la xiang guo (麻辣香锅) is definitely a “newer” dish. It doesn’t have hundreds of years of history, but I can tell you, this dish is a legend in the making. It’s so popular in China now that there are tons of restaurant chains like NaDu (拿渡) and ChuanChengYuan (川成元) thriving on just this one
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As a child stepping up to any Chinese bakery case––be it in Chinatown or, more typically, an Asian grocery store in a non-descript New Jersey strip mall––there was one item that I always overlooked: the ham and cheese bun. There was something about those ham and cheese buns that never sat well with me. Perhaps it
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