Early spring is a beautiful, and sometimes tragically short, time of year. It’s in this season that the spring vegetables that thrive in cool weather truly shine — think brassicas like cauliflower and broccoli, leafy greens like gai lan and yau choy, root vegetables like daikon and carrots, and alliums like celery and garlic scapes. This is the perfect time of year to make the dish I’m sharing with you today. Toisan cauliflower — also known as Taishan, Chinese, karifurore, or fioretto cauliflower — is the star. It’s supported by an ensemble of laap yuk (Chinese cured pork belly), Chinese celery, and garlic. If you can’t find some of these ingredients near you, you can substitute them for American cauliflower, celery, and bacon (or protein of your choice), but I highly encourage you to seek out the Chinese versions because the dish will turn out even more tender and flavorful.

Toisan cauliflower is significantly different from American cauliflower, and I wish more American farms grew it. Its stalks are thinner, looser, more tender, and slightly greener. It has just a bit more of that pure cauliflower flavor. Chinese celery, too, is delightfully more bitter and thinner than its American counterpart, and because it’s less watery than American celery, it has so much more celery flavor. Chinese cured pork belly (laap yuk) is also harder than American bacon and packed with the flavor of soy and five spice. If you end up using American cauliflower or celery, I recommend cutting the cauliflower into pieces no more than two inches thick and the celery into pieces no more than one inch thick. If you use American bacon, use thick-cut bacon.

What’s cool about this dish is that it’s the kind I can find both in restaurants in Chinatown and in Cantonese (especially Toisanese) home-cooking. It’s particularly dear to my heart as someone who’s not only Cantonese but Toisanese. All these flavors are so nostalgic and work in amazing harmony — the fat from the pork lends depth to the cauliflower as the alliums provide an aromatic counterbalance.

Note:

Here is a picture illustrating what the pork belly looks like with the skin attached on top:

And a picture illustrating the skin that has been removed:

Happy year of the fire horse! I love hot pot year-round, but it’s so perfect for the winter doldrums and for any gathering with friends and family. I love the sound of bubbling broth. It’s the rare kind of meal that can be catered to almost any dietary restriction and still be incredibly delicious. I grew up with Chinese-style hot pot, or daa bin lou (打邊爐), as my family would say, which translates to “hitting the side of the pot.” My first memory of hot pot is doing it as a kid with my extended family. It started with a pot of plain boiling water (common for some Cantonese-style hot pots) that gradually took on the flavors of the ingredients added to it. I distinctly remember swishing a steaming slice of beef through a small dish of oyster sauce. Since then, I’ve made my own versions with light and flavorful (and sometimes spicy) broths and more complex sauces. I love how nourishing it is and how much depth the broth develops. I’ve observed the unique spins my friends’ families have put on it, and I’ve had so many different kinds outside of the Chinese version I had growing up.

For example, last month, I had the chance to learn about Japanese-style hot pots, too, (nabe or nabemono). There are two basic kinds of nabe: one that uses a lightly seasoned broth, sometimes with flavorful dipping sauces (yudofu or mizutaki are good examples of this kind of nabe), and one that uses a richer, saltier broth that provides most of the flavoring (like sukiyaki).

I took a sukiyaki class and learned how to make this richer kind of dashi broth infused with soy sauce, mirin, sugar, and sake. Napa cabbage, mushrooms, chrysanthemum greens, thinly sliced beef, shirataki and more are arranged in this broth and then covered for a few minutes. Unlike Chinese-style hot pot, in which ingredients are gradually added and eaten over the course of the meal, the ingredients in sukiyaki are cooked all at the beginning. Once you uncover the lid, you start eating and dip your ingredients in beaten, raw egg. It was such a delight to learn a new way of having such a nostalgic experience with a bunch of people I got to know for the first time, and with ingredients fresh from nearby farms. Unlike most cooking classes where you don’t really get to know your classmates very well and the work is mostly independent, hot pot is communal by nature. If you want to try making this yourself, I recommend checking out Real Japanese Cooking by Makiko Itoh.

I’m excited to show you how I personally prepare hot pot. I encourage you to include it in your Lunar New Year celebrations!

The first time I had perfectly cooked eggplant was at the now-shuttered restaurant Amazing 66 in back home in Chinatown. Among the many great food establishments on Mott Street, this was one of the best. The fried sea bass topped with diced bell peppers and eggplant batons all dressed in a tangy soy sauce quickly became part of our regular order. The eggplants were custardy but still had a pleasant bite. They were salted just right and were incredibly fragrant. It was so good that I’d been chasing that texture ever since in my own kitchen, and I’m so glad that learning a technique from A Very Chinese Kitchen by Kevin and Jeffrey Pang made it totally achievable at home without deep frying or soaking. (I also use this technique in my eggplant, tofu, and mushroom stir-fry.) Ever since I learned how to make eggplants the perfect custardy texture every time, they’ve become some of my favorite late summer produce.

Here I’ve used my mom’s method of making black bean sauce to make a particularly Cantonese version of yu xiang (fish fragrant) eggplant. Like many of my recipes, this is riffable — you can use a different kind of meat or no meat at all. You could add some bird’s eye chilis to make it spicy. As with all my recipes, I encourage you to make it your own!

the recipe

Ingredients:

• 2 pounds Asian eggplants

• 2 oz garlic

• 2 oz ginger

• 1/2 pound ground pork

• 1 Tbsp fermented black beans

• soy sauce to taste (about 3 Tbsp)

• oyster sauce to taste (about 2 Tbsp)

• salt to taste (about 1 Tbsp)

• 2-3 Tbsp neutral high-smoke point oil

• Shaoxing wine, whiskey, or sherry for deglazing

• a handful of cilantro

1. Prepare the produce: Remove the stems of the eggplants, chop them into 3 inch pieces, and then halve those lengthwise. Mince the garlic and julienne the ginger. Chop the cilantro. Rinse the fermented black beans.

2. Microwave the eggplants: Put the eggplant pieces in a bowl, and add 1 Tbsp of oil and 1 Tbsp of salt into the bowl, mixing them so that they evenly season the eggplants. Line a microwaveable plate with coffee filters and lay the eggplants skin side down on the filters (this will help preserve their purple color). Be careful not to overcrowd the plate. Microwave for 6 minutes. Check for doneness; any pieces that are fork-tender without much give can be set aside to be added to the stir-fry later on. Flip over any that are not done and microwave in 2 minute increments, checking for doneness each time.

3. While the eggplants are microwaving, start stir-frying: Heat a wok to medium heat and then add 1-2 Tbsp of oil, garlic, ginger, and fermented back beans. Stir-fry until fragrant, and add a pinch of salt. Add the ground pork and stir-fry until cooked, breaking it up into smaller pieces as you do so. Deglaze with a couple tablespoons of soy sauce and alcohol as needed.

   

4. Bring all the ingredients together: Mix a tablespoon of soy sauce and 2 tablespoons of oyster sauce into a small bowl with about 1/4 cup water. Add the eggplant and the soy-oyster sauce mixture to the stir-fry and mix together. Make a cornstarch slurry with about half a tablespoon of cornstarch and a 5-6 tablespoons of water (no need to be precise), and slowly add it into the stir-fry until it has reached your desired consistency. Add seasonings to taste.

5. Garnish and serve: Plate and garnish with cilantro. Serve!

Enjoy! I always love to hear when you all make these recipes, so please comment if you make this.

This is one of my all-time favorite foods. I always get excited when I go to yum cha and see a lady pushing around a giant wooden barrel of fresh silken tofu. I distinctly remember a time growing up when my love of dau fu faa had become such a well-known part of the family lore that my aunt brought me a whole 32 ounce tub of the fresh tofu from Brooklyn, adding “they make it even better there than in Manhattan!” I was so touched. When I went to Hong Kong for the first time this year, I was determined to have as much dau fu faa as I could get my hands on: first at the Po Lin Monastery on Lantau Island, which specializes in dau fu faa, and then on Lamma at a little restaurant. Both were incredible, but the one on Lamma Island pleasantly surprised me because the silken tofu was served cold. (In the U.S., it’s almost always served delightfully hot or warm.)

It was so refreshing on that muggy May day. And now that we’re in the thick of summer here in the U.S. (and now that I’m recovering from wisdom tooth surgery), I couldn’t think of a more soothing and comforting dish to recreate.

The best dau fu faa is made from your own freshly made tofu, and there’s no getting around that. But, sometimes you just want a really good dau fu faa without all that work, and I still find this version very, very satisfying.

There are many versions of dau fu faa across various parts of China, Taiwan, and southeast Asia — some southeast Asian versions use syrups infused with jasmine or ube, others add coconut milk, and even others in northern China are savory or even spicy. Dau fu faa is served at dim sum or temples like Po Lin; it’s served door-to-door by hawkers in the Philippines; on the street in Vietnam and, when I was growing up, on the streets of New York’s Chinatown. It’s beloved not just by me but by millions of other people around the world.

This recipe is the version I grew up with, on easy mode. In the future, I’d love to do the long, real-deal version, but this is the perfect low-effort recipe to start with for now.

the recipe

Serves 2-4

• 1 pound silken tofu (or use 2 pounds for a very hungry group of 4 people)

• 1/4 cup honey

• 1/4 cup water

• 0.4 oz/10 g fresh ginger, peeled and sliced

1. Make the ginger syrup: Combine the honey, water, and ginger in a small pan, cover, and set to medium-high heat until boiling. Once it begins to boil, set the pan to a low flame, partially uncover, and just let the ginger simmer for ten minutes. Feel free to use a fork to stab holes in the ginger to infuse the syrup with even more flavor. After the ten minutes have passed, allow the syrup to cool for about half an hour and then strain out the ginger. It should noticeably thicken but it’s totally fine if it hasn’t either.

   

   

2. Ladle out the silken tofu into bowls: Use a ladle, rice paddle, or other shallow spoon-like utensil to carefully scoop wide, flat sheaths of tofu into your bowls. To me, this is the ideal texture. If you’re making the hot/warm version, use heatproof bowls.

   

3. If making hot/warm dau fu faa: Steam the bowls of tofu for about five minutes or microwave in short bursts. Note that steaming will likely heat the tofu more evenly. It’s OK if some water has accumulated on top, but you can remove it if you’d like.

4. Drizzle ginger syrup onto the tofu and serve!

   

When my family and I went to Hong Kong this spring, we went to the famous Sheung Hei Restaurant in Kennedy Town. After ordering the bou jai fan dishes that the restaurant is known for, we asked the waitress for recommendations for a vegetable side dish, and she suggested the baby napa cabbage, a.k.a. wa wa choy (娃娃菜 — “wa wa” being the onomatopoeia of a baby crying). It was popular among their regulars. She didn’t give many details about how the choy would be prepared but we were game to be surprised. What came out were wedges of steamed baby napa cabbage loaded with minced garlic, resting on a bed of mung bean vermicelli that was dressed in a savory garlic soy sauce. I had seen this kind of preparation before with shrimp but not wa wa choy before, and it was delicious! As I ate it, I already started to think about how I’d make it my own back home, and now I can finally share that with you.

In many ways, a dish like this is the perfect way to showcase the fresh napa cabbage that we have in season. Baby napa cabbage is preferable to larger varieties because it’s less watery, more tender, and has more of that beautiful Brassica flavor. (This advice goes for many other kinds of choy, too.) Even if you can’t find something in the store or market labeled “baby napa cabbage” explicitly, you can find it yourself by looking for heads of napa cabbage that fit in the palm of your hand.

Though Sheung Hei steams all the ingredients in the dish together, in my version, I’ve chosen to char the wa wa choy using a dual frying and steaming technique to bring out its natural nutty and earthy flavor, as well as to add smokiness and texture. It’s similar to the way potstickers are made. I’ve tried charring napa cabbage in the oven, but it just fell apart or became soggy. Trust me, this method is way, way better.

This dish is flexible. Add a protein to make it a full meal; swap out the oyster sauce for more soy sauce and some sugar to make it vegan; add more sauteed garlic on top if you want to make it closer to the traditional version (or if you just really love garlic). Any way you adjust it, it’ll still be incredibly delicious.

the recipe

Serves 4 as a side dish

• 150 g dried mung bean vermicelli

• 1/2 head of baby napa cabbage

• 2 tsp salt

• 4-5 Tbsp high-smoke point neutral oil

• 1-1.5 oz garlic

• 3-4 Tbsp soy sauce

• 2-3 Tbsp oyster sauce

• 1/2 cup water and more as needed

• your favorite chili crisp (optional)

1. Prepare the produce: Mince the garlic. Cut the cabbage into 1-inch wedges.

2. Prepare the mung bean vermicelli: Soak the vermicelli in boiling water for about 6-7 minutes. While that’s happening, heat about 2 Tbsp of oil in a small pot on low-medium heat, then add the minced garlic. Saute for about 30 seconds, then stir in the soy sauce, oyster sauce, and water (adjust seasonings to taste). Let this simmer for about a minute. When the vermicelli has finished soaking, drain well and snip into shorter strands (5-6 inches). Add the vermicelli to a large bowl and dress with the sauce so that it evenly coats the noodles. Spread the noodles out over a shallow dish.

   

3. Char the cabbage: Heat a frying pan (stainless steel, cast iron, or nonstick work best) to medium heat. If using stainless steel (my preferred choice), heat to the point that adding a drop of water to the pan makes it dance across the surface. Add a few Tbsp of oil and then gently lay the cabbage wedges into the pan. Sprinkle with salt, and let it char for 2-3 minutes before flipping the wedges to the other side. Sprinkle with a pinch more salt, add about 2-3 Tbsp water to the pan, and cover immediately. Wait for the water to be absorbed and turned into steam (about 3-4 minutes). Uncover.

   

4. Plate: Lay the cabbage on the bed of noodles. Top with chili crisp if you’d like (but it’s just as good without it, too). Serve!

   

I love reading cookbooks before bed, and most recently I was reading Teresa M. Chen’s A Tradition of Soup: Flavors from China’s Pearl River Delta. It does such a good job at describing how central soups are to Cantonese cuisine, whether as the base of porridges like jook, as a vehicle for noodles or crispy burnt rice, as a dessert, or a broth on its own. A soup can stretch one meal into many — turning carcasses and vegetable odds and ends into something almost decadent. But ultimately, the soups I grew up with aren’t all that decadent; they are beautifully simple. Describing how to make them feels less like a recipe than just common sense and like I’m doing something my grandparents, their grandparents, and their grandparents before them did too, and that feels kind of inexplicably special.

For this recipe, I’ve taken two classic Cantonese soup vegetables and combined them into a tong1 (“broth,” 汤) that has both the deliciously soft texture of the winter melon and the delicate and vegetal crunch of watercress. They’re effectively poached in a light broth of chicken wings and pork bones. It’s nothing fancy, but it really doesn’t need to be. It’s exactly the kind of hearty and delicious dish that so many Cantonese parents put on the dinner table. It’s the kind of Cantonese cooking you usually get at home rather than a restaurant, which makes it so nostalgic for so many of us who grew up with this tradition of soup.

This recipe requires half a normal sized winter melon. Despite its name, it’s actually in season in the summer, so this is the perfect time to make it. This recipe is very flexible, so as long as you have the vegetables, bones, and ginger, you can swap in or out other ingredients. I add dried shrimp and preserved turnip here for nuanced umami and salty flavors.

This recipe also uses the method of fei1 seoi2 (parboiling, 飞水) for the bones to produce a cleaner-looking (and to some, cleaner-tasting) broth. I’ve made this recipe with and without this method and both are delicious, so feel free to use this technique or skip it.

the recipe

Serves 4

Ingredients:

• half of a winter melon (about 1-2 pounds)

• 0.5-1 lb watercress

• 1 lb pork bones

• 3-4 whole chicken wings

• 3-5 oz ginger

• small handful of dried shrimp

• small handful of preserved turnip (dried or fresh), roughly julienned (If you have trouble finding this, I recommend this version from Yun Hai. They ship throughout the U.S.)

• salt to taste

1. Soak the dried ingredients: In a small bowl, set the dried shrimp and preserved turnip (only if dried) to soak for about 10 minutes.

2. Parboil the bones: Put the bones in a large pot and fill it with enough water to cover them by about an inch. Cover and leave them to boil on high heat. Once it reaches boiling, let them boil for about ten minutes. Skim and discard the scum off the surface of the water, then drain the bones and wipe off any scum left on them.

3. Prepare the produce: Cut off the skin of the winter melon and de-seed it. Dice into 1 or 1 1/2 inch cubes. Chop the watercress into 1 or 1 1/2 inch pieces. Peel and roughly chop the ginger into 1 or 2 inch pieces.

   

4. Boil the soup: Add the bones, ginger, preserved turnip, and dried shrimp to the pot and fill it about halfway to 3/4 full with water. Set it to boil on high heat and then partially cover it and reduce it to medium or medium low. Let it simmer for about an hour, and then add the winter melon. (This ensures that it will still have the ideal amount of bite when you serve it.) The winter melon will turn from opaque to translucent. Let it simmer for another hour, salt to taste, and then add the watercress.

   

5. Serve: After the watercress has poached for about a minute and turns bright green, serve the broth. The bones can be discarded.

I hope you enjoy this nourishing and traditional soup!

This past spring, I finally did it: I went to Hong Kong for the first time with my family. It’s hard to describe how special it was to visit the place where so many of my favorite dishes have been created and refined for years. As cheesy as it sounds, it felt like a warm (let’s be real, humid) hug to once again be surrounded by Cantonese and speak it on a daily basis. I’m going to do my best to try to recreate what we ate and share the recipes in this newsletter. We went just at the start of the rainy monsoon season, when mangoes, herbs, gourds, and all kinds of choy burst into season. One of the best vegetable side dishes I had was very simple: blanched flowering chives (gau2 coi3 faa1) dressed in oyster sauce. We got it at a wonton mien restaurant in Tsim Sha Tsui and it was incredible. The hollow stalks were crisp and juicy with the perfect amount of bite. (If you’ve been following this newsletter for a while, you may remember a similar recipe for garlic chives that I published. Though these choys are similar, they are two distinct plants and have notable differences.)

When I returned home, I was pleasantly surprised to see some chive blossoms at the farmers market and had to recreate it. (Your best bet for finding gao choy faa if you can’t find it at your local farmers market, though, will probably be your local Chinese supermarket.)

Every part of this is edible, from the stalks to the flowers. The thing to keep in mind, though, is that like many leafy greens, once it’s bolted (when the buds have opened into flowers), the remaining parts of the plant begin to get bitter. It’s ideal to use stalks that have buds that haven’t opened yet. The flowers won’t be bitter though, and even taste pleasantly like onion, and you can pop them off the bitter stalk you discard to decorate your finished dish. You could even use a mushroom-based oyster sauce to make this vegan.

the recipe

Ingredients:

• 3-5 oz gau choy faa

• 1 Tbsp neutral cooking oil

• 1 tsp salt

• oyster sauce to taste (I used about 1 Tbsp)

1. Fill up a medium-sized pot about halfway full with water. Add the salt and oil to the pot — this will make the choy nice and glossy when after it’s blanched. Set it to high heat so that it comes to a boil.

2. Rinse the choy under cold water. Discard stalks that have bolted and reserve the flowers if you’d like. Cut off any dried stems if applicable. Chop or twist the choy into 3-4 inch pieces.

   

3. Once the water comes to a boil, add the choy and make sure its all submerged. What comes after is the most important part: you want to take it out the moment it’s just been cooked through. Cook for about one minute.

4. Use chopsticks or tongs to remove the choy from the water and plate it. Drain any remaining water from the plated choy and then mix the oyster sauce into it to taste. Serve.

I hope you’re able to find some gao choy faa near you and make this refreshing spring dish!

This recipe is largely inspired by an eggplant tofu dish at the Ann Arbor restaurant Evergreen that me and just about everyone I bring to the restaurant love to order. I wanted to see how I could recreate this recipe at home and add my own spin on it based on my knowledge of Cantonese cooking. It’s a delight to bite into so many different textures in this recipe. If you want to make this recipe vegan, just use mushroom oyster sauce.

The ideal eggplant

I’ve always liked eating eggplants, but this was the year I truly fell in love with them. The perfectly-cooked eggplant, to me, has custardy, fragrant insides with beautifully purple skin that gives it a bit of a bite. I struggled to cook them just right before nailing this recipe; they were always too soggy, lacked that custardy texture, or lost their beautiful color in the cooking process. But then, I discovered the best technique for cooking them for stir-fries and curries in one of my cookbooks, A Very Chinese Kitchen by Kevin and Jeffrey Pang, and I haven’t looked back: microwave them, skin-side down, on coffee filters. They come out the perfect texture and maintain their vibrant purple color every time. They’re immediately ready to be incorporated into a larger dish. No finicky deep frying or roasting required!

My favorite varieties of eggplant to use in this recipe and beyond are Asian eggplants and fairytale eggplants. They both have thin skins that lack the bitterness of globe eggplants and are often rich in hues of lavender or bright purple. Cooking fairytale eggplants in particular brings out their intoxicating fragrance. Nightshades are what makes this late summer/early fall season my favorite produce microseason!

Practice a dry-frying technique: Gon1 zin1 (干煎)

In last week’s introduction to dry-frying, I discussed the concept of gon1 zin1, which is a kind of shallow fry employed in Cantonese cooking to produce a golden, lightly crispy exterior on proteins that usually then get dressed in a sweet soy sauce or stir-fried with other ingredients. The crispy exterior adds an obviously mouthwatering texture while also preventing the protein from sticking to the wok or breaking apart during a stir-fry.

This recipe is a chance for you to practice that technique with tofu, which is a bit more forgiving than other proteins like fish. This can be done in a very well-seasoned carbon-steel wok, but since everyone’s woks are different, I think you will find the highest chance of success using a stainless steel wok or pan à la the Leidenfrost effect, so that’s what I use in this recipe. Long story short: always preheat your stainless steel pan or wok to medium heat for a few minutes before using the gon1 zin1 method. Drop a few drops of water into the pan to see if it’s hot enough. If it evaporates immediately, it’s not hot enough. If the drops don’t evaporate and instead slide along the surface, you’re ready to add oil and then the proteins.

the recipe

Ingredients:

• 1 package of firm or extra firm tofu, 12 oz

• 12-13 oz Asian or fairytale eggplants (about 3-4 eggplants)

• 6 oz, or about one bunch, scallions,

• 4-6 oz, or about a couple handfuls, beech mushrooms, seafood mushrooms, or other medium-sized mushrooms with long stalks

• 3-4 cloves garlic

• 1-inch piece of ginger

• 4-5 Tbsp high-smoke point neutral oil

• 1/4 cup Shaoxing wine

• salt to taste

• soy sauce to taste

• oyster sauce to taste

1. Press the tofu: Wrap the tofu in towels or paper towels and place a hefty dish or cutting board on top of it for about an hour to extract some moisture. You could leave this pressed overnight, but it’s not necessary.

2. Prepare the produce: Chop the eggplants into 2-inch batons that are about an inch in thickness and the scallions into 2-inch pieces. Break apart the mushrooms into individual stalks. Mince the garlic and ginger.

3. Microwave the eggplants: In a bowl, toss together the eggplant batons with a Tbsp of oil and about a Tbsp salt. Line a microwave-safe plate with opened-up coffee filters or parchment paper. Place the eggplants skin-side down on the filters, being careful not to overlap or overcrowd them (this can be done in batches). Start by microwaving for six minutes, checking afterward to see if their flesh is custardy. If not, microwave them more in two minute increments until you reach the desired texture. They should look a little shriveled.

   

4. Pan-fry the tofu: Preheat your stainless steel pan or wok to medium heat. Cut the tofu into approximately 2-inch cubes, pat dry, and sprinkle a little bit of salt onto them. Once the pan/wok is hot enough that drops of water slide on the surface, add a couple Tbsp oil. Gently lower the tofu into the oil, being careful not to overcrowd the pan/wok. Once a golden crust develops on the sides facing the oil, flip over the cubes to brown them on another side. Repeat until all sides have been seared, then remove and set aside on a paper-towel-lined plate.

   

5. Stir-fry all the ingredients: Wipe out the oil in the pan/wok you just used or use a clean wok and place on medium heat. Add a couple Tbsp oil, the minced garlic, and the minced ginger. Once it’s fragrant, add the mushrooms and about a teaspoon of salt. After a couple minutes, add the seared tofu, eggplant batons, and scallions. Deglaze with soy sauce and Shaoxing wine (and feel free to do so throughout the process as needed). Add oyster sauce to taste.

   

6. Serve!

Shishitos are some of my favorite summer produce. They’re crunchy, bite-sized peppers that just need some charring to bring out their flavor (and be warned that about one in every ten are really spicy). Don’t worry too much about burning your tongue off, though, because these are generally a mild pepper.

When I went to Tokyo last year, I savored every grilled shishito I had at the izakayas. My family and I sat at a bar, elbow to elbow with others, and ordered skewer after skewer (and then many subsequent orders) of grilled shishitos, scallions, shiitakes, and chicken. One day, I’ll have to develop recipes for the grilled skewers we had!

Since then, I’ve made wok-blistered shishito peppers at home. I made this dish for a picnic with friends earlier this summer because they’re so easy to make and produce such satisfying results. I was so happy when I saw people get seconds and thirds! The recipe uses gomashio, but if you don’t have that, you can just use sesame seeds and salt. I’ve adjusted this recipe to be a hearty side dish for just 3-4 people. Enjoy this very easy, quick recipe!

the recipe

Serves 3-4

Ingredients:

• 1 lb shishito peppers

• 2 Tbsp high-smoke point neutral oil

• gomashio to taste

• salt to taste

1. Prepare the peppers to be stir-fried: Heat up a wok or large frying pan to medium high heat. Wash the peppers and dry them with a towel or paper towel.

2. Stir-fry the peppers: Once the wok is heated, add the peppers and a little bit of salt and stir-fry them until they begin to have some brown or charred edges, which should take about five minutes. Stir-fry them in batches if you need to.

3. Dress the peppers: Turn off the heat and add the gomashio and salt to taste.

4. Serve!

Until next time,

Shannon

When I briefly returned to New York’s Chinatown last month, I saw handwritten signs on bright pink and orange paper outside restaurants and written on chalkboards that advertised soft-shell crab. Out of curiosity, my family and I tried it, and oh my god it was amazing!The crabs were prepared salt and pepper style (which uses white pepper instead of black pepper) with lightly stir-fried slices of green pepper that added just the right amount of freshness and mild spice to the dish overall. The legs were delightfully crunchy and the meat so tender and juicy. The best part was you could eat the entire crab and taste the variety of textures. The plates were practically licked clean at the end. Soft-shell crab is by far my new favorite kind of crab to eat.

Soft-shell crab is seasonal, generally running from May to July, during the brief period after crabs have molted their old shells but before they’ve developed new, hard shells.

After that first mindblowing soft-shell crab experience, I went to another restaurant I don’t normally go to because I heard they were famous for their soft-shell crabs. I was so excited and afraid they’d sell out that I went there early for lunch. It wasn’t too busy, so the waiter started chatting with me and asked “Neih hai bin douh yahn?” which literally means “Where are you from?” but also means “What ethnicity are you?” and, as I understand it, has the subtle undertones of “To which people do you belong?” This is a question I’ve gotten asked a lot throughout my life as a mixed race person, and I almost recited the answer I’ve practically memorized in Cantonese, the spiel I have to give whenever I meet a new person. But I kind of surprised myself when I joked “Ngoh hai tohng yahn gaai yahn” — I’m a Chinatown person. He chuckled and walked back to the kitchen. And the answer felt as true, in a different way, as the spiel I would have given.

Chinatown is the place where my mom and her siblings grew up. Just a few blocks away from their tenement is where she raised me. Everyone in our family has been shaped in one way or another by this precious neighborhood that takes care of us from “cradle to grave,” in chef and Chinatown advocate Grace Young’s words. In the discourse of Cantonese diasporic identity, it often feels like you only hear the phrases jook sing (literally “hollow bamboo,” metaphorically a Chinese person born overseas who’s on the more assimilated side) and lo wah kiu (old-timer Chinese immigrant) exchanged regularly. But, of course, the reality is that there are so many people who exist between and beyond these labels and all their connotations. I feel like I’m one of them, and I know I’m not alone.

So when I created this recipe for ginger scallion soft-shell crab, it felt like a nice culmination of some of my Chinatown experiences thus far: the nostalgic ginger scallion lobster of my childhood and the soft-shell crab I discovered this spring in the neighborhood, which continues to surprise and delight me as an adult. I don’t normally say this, but this recipe is incredible. I made it for a close friend recently before she went away for a while. If you love lobster as much as me but are intimidated by how much work it is (or if you’re squeamish at the thought of killing a live crustacean), this is the easier, equally delicious route. Make it while it’s still in season!

the recipe

Serves 4

Ingredients:

• 18 oz soft-shell crabs (for crabs that are 5-6 inches wide, make two per person)

• 3-4 cloves garlic

• 3 oz ginger

• 4 oz scallions (approximately 8-9 scallions)

• 3/4 cup and a few tablespoons soy sauce

• 1/2 cup Shaoxing wine

• 1/4 - 1/2 cup high-smoke point neutral oil

• sugar to taste

• 1 lime

1. Prepare and marinate the crabs: Ask your fishmonger to clean the crabs or clean them yourself. Marinate them in roughly 3/4 cup soy sauce and 1/2 cup Shaoxing wine for about fifteen to twenty minutes. (Thank you, ArChan Chan, for the tip in your book Hong Kong Local!)

   

2. Prep the aromatics: While the crabs are marinating, mince the garlic, peel and chop the ginger into 1/4-inch slices, and chop the scallions and cilantro into one or two inch pieces.

   

3. Dredge and shallow-fry the crabs: Heat a wok or frying pan to medium or medium-low heat, depending on the strength of your stove. Once it’s heated, add the oil. You want the oil to be hot enough that it glides quickly around the bottom so that the crabs immediately sizzle when you put them in. To test this, you can hold a chopstick in the oil. If oil bubbles around the chopstick, you know it’s hot enough. Spread out the cornstarch on a plate or shallow dish, using just 1/4 cup to start with, and lightly dredge the crabs. Place one or two crabs gently in the wok, depending on the size, and be careful not to overcrowd it. Fry the crabs for two minutes on each side. They should look golden brown. Once fried, place the crabs on a paper towel-lined dish. Change out the oil as needed (I usually do this halfway through and use a paper towel to wipe off any little burnt bits.) Once all the crabs are fried, remove all but a tablespoon of the oil from the wok.

   

   

4. Make the sauce: Add the ginger to the wok and stir-fry for about 30 seconds, then add the garlic and scallions. Add soy sauce, sugar, about a quarter cup of water, and a squeeze of lime (one of my twists!) to taste, and stir fry. The cornstarch from the crabs should thicken up the sauce a bit, but if you prefer it thicker, you can add a little bit of cornstarch slurry to the sauce. Once the sauce is to your liking, shut off the heat and add the crabs back in, folding them into the sauce just enough to be lightly coated all around.

   

5. Garnish and serve: Transfer everything to a dish and garnish with cilantro. Serve it to your favorite people with rice and your choice of sides!

   

The arrival of strawberries at farmers’ markets every June is the greatest herald of summer. I make this when I’m craving a classic Asian chiffon cake with whipped cream and fruit but don’t have the time or energy to make an entire cake.

This simple dessert actually involves quite a bit of technique to get it just right, but the result is definitely worth the effort. (I promise it’s not that hard.) I tested this recipe over and over again this weekend. Crème fraîche, marscapone, or gelatin? Medium peaks or stiff peaks? How long should the berries be macerated? I did the work for you so you don’t have to test it all out yourself.

The key to this recipe is 1) macerating the berries in sugar for an hour so that they release their sweet juices but still retain their shape and 2) adding marscapone to the whipped cream. Why add anything to the whipped cream to begin with? Because even homemade whipped cream can lose its shape quite quickly and make the whole thing a bit soupy. Stabilizing it keeps it rich and airy. I found that crème fraîche was just too tangy and overpowering while gelatin was a bit flat and tended to solidify awkwardly when refrigerated. Marscapone, which beautifully stabilized the cream while providing a subtle addition of fat and salt that made it that much more decadent, was the clear winner.

Use this recipe as a jumping off point for experimenting with different flavored creams or for different berries. The main takeway is learning techniques you can apply to anything you want.

the recipe

Serves 2 (or 1 strawberry-obsessed eater like myself)

Ingredients:

• 8 oz strawberries, hulled, the fresher the better

• 3/4 cup cold heavy cream

• 5 Tbsp marscapone (ideally removed from refrigeration about 15 minutes in advance so that it’s soft but still cold)

• 2 Tbsp granulated sugar

• powdered sugar to taste

• A flavored extract of your choice to taste (vanilla is the traditional choice but you could go with any flavor you fancy. Pandan is great)

1. Prepare the strawberries for maceration: Halve or quarter the strawberries so that they are uniformly bite-sized pieces. Place them in a bowl, and mix the granulated sugar into them so that all the pieces are coated. Set aside for an hour.

   

2. Make the marscapone whipped cream: Pour the whipped cream into a bowl affixed to a stand mixer or a bowl with which you can use a hand mixer. If you’re able to chill the bowl in the refrigerator in advance, this may make the process faster, but it’s not necessary. Whip the cream on low speed so that the cream doesn’t splash out of the bowl. Once the cream has thickened, add the extract and the powdered sugar to taste (I recommend starting with a teaspoon of the extract and a tablespoon of the sugar). Increase the speed to high and whip until you have achieved medium peaks. Then, with a rubber spatula, mix in the marscapone until it’s evenly incorporated.

   

3. Serve: Put a heaping few dollops of cream into a bowl and top with the macerated strawberries. Drizzle the juices on top. Enjoy outside if possible!

Fried rice is so wonderfully versatile and can be a great way to clean out your fridge, but this fried rice will always be my favorite. This was another one of those dishes my mom would have ready for me when I got home from a late-night flight or bus ride. I remember doing homework on the kitchen table, swinging my legs from the chair, and savoring the smell of this on the stove. The savory sweetness of the Chinese sausage (a.k.a. lap cheong, 臘腸) goes perfectly with the dried squid, which, as with dried mushrooms, is even more flavorful than its fresh counterpart. Working with dried seafood is one of the tastiest ways to cook Cantonese food. I know it’s cheesy to say this, but it feels like a hug in a bowl to me — I think everyone should have a recipe that makes them feel that way in their back pocket!

Chinese sausage is generally widely available, but I know that it can be hard to find dried squid in some places. I’ll work on a recipe that uses fresh squid soon and/or update this page with tips for using fresh squid, since that’s a bit more widely available in the U.S.

A quick guide to dried squid…

Dried squid is commonly used in East and Southeast Asian cooking to add an extra oomph of flavor. It tastes mild but savory. Unlike salted fish (a.k.a. haam yu), it’s not very pungent, so you don’t have to worry about overpowering a dish with its flavor. You can usually find this on the streets of Chinatown in New York, but you may also be able to find it in your local Asian supermarket. You may see dried white crystals that looks like a fine powder on your dried squid — that’s totally normal. It’s the dried salt crystals from the water where the squid was caught. It’s best to keep dried squid in a plastic bag in the refrigerator, and it’ll keep for months.

This recipe is designed to be made entirely in one cooking session — including cooking the rice! There are well-documented textural benefits to using leftover rice for fried rice, but I don’t always have leftover rice when I want to make this, and I don’t let that get in the way of my craving! Plus, the way I cook the rice in this recipe allows it to soak up the flavor of the lap cheong.

the recipe

Serves 2

Ingredients:

• 3 Chinese sausages

• 1 dried squid

• 2-3 cloves garlic

• 3 eggs

• 1 1/2 cups uncooked white jasmine rice (can sub for cooked rice)

• 3 scallions

• 2-3 Tbsp high-smoke point neutral oil

• soy sauce to taste

• salt to taste

• sesame oil to taste

• Shaoxing wine to taste (optional)

1. Soak the dried squid: This can be done 20 minutes or so in advance. If you want the squid to be ready faster, soak it in hot water.

2. Cook the Chinese sausages and rice: Wash the rice a few times. Fill a medium pot with the washed rice, level it, and put the sausages on top. Now we’re going to fill the pot with water with a modified finger trick! Fill the pot with water such that when you touch the tip of your finger to the top of the rice, the water reaches just a few millimeters BELOW your first finger knuckle (just eyeball it). This is a little less water than I usually use to make rice but it will ensure that the rice used in the fried rice will be on the drier side. Set the pot to medium and leave it uncovered. Once it starts bubbling, partially cover it and turn it to medium-low. Once you see islands of rice appear as the rice absorbs the water, fully cover the pot and turn the heat to low. Check the pot again in 10 or 15 minutes. Once it starts to smell wonderfully toasty, cut the heat and allow it to steam the rest of the way through with the residual heat, for another 10 or 15 minutes. The whole process should take around 45 minutes, depending on your stove.

   NOTE: If you are using leftover rice, steam the sausages on a steaming rack or in a steamer for 15 minutes.

   

3. Prepare the reconstituted squid: Once the squid is soft and pliable, you’ll know it’s ready to be cooked with. Remove the cuttlebone (a clear, thin, plasticky piece of cartilage) and beak. Score the body of the squid with diagonal cuts going one way and diagonal cuts intersecting them in the other direction. Slice the squid into half inch pieces and set aside.

   

4. Prepare the aromatics and eggs: Mince the garlic and dice the scallions and set aside. Whisk the eggs in a separate bowl.

5. Slice the Chinese sausage: Once the sausages and rice are done, bring the sausages to a cutting board and carefully slice them into 1/4-inch pieces on the bias.

   

6. Stir-fry: Set a wok to high heat. Add the oil, and once it has heated to the point that it slides easily across the pan, add the garlic and stir-fry until fragrant. Move it to one side of the pan. Add a little bit more oil and then add the eggs, scrambling them in the pan. Add the Chinese sausage and squid and stir fry for a few minutes. Deglaze with a little bit of soy sauce around the perimeter of the pan (and Shaoxing wine, optionally). Add the rice and mix everything together. Spread the fried rice across the wok to increase its surface area, and let it cook undisturbed for 2-3 minutes, or until the rice becomes a little crispy. You can add a bit of oil around the perimeter if you want to be sure it crisps (which can be particularly helpful if you’re not using a carbon steel wok). Add the scallions, then add more soy sauce and sesame oil to taste.

   

7. Serve with your favorite choy!

   

If any of you make my recipes, I’d love to hear how they go!

Till next time,

Shannon

This is the perfect dish to make for your gatherings with friends and family, especially for the lunar new year. Many foods eaten on this holiday hold auspicious meanings, and red bean soup is no exception — the red color of the beans is often associated with luck and prosperity. Tong jyun, if added as a topping, symbolizes family reunion. Most importan…

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This is one of my favorite things to get at Chinese restaurants, and I’m so glad that it’s not hard to recreate at home! Black bean sauce is so easy to make at home that I highly encourage you to do it if you can. I consider it a Cantonese mother sauce.

Hot take(?): clams are the easiest meat to cook. If I were to teach a beginner chef, I would start them on clams. All that’s required is an easy saltwater soak. No marinating, tenderizing, or slicing is required. They have an easy indicator of doneness: they just need to open up (though, the texture will vary depending how open they are). They just require a watchful eye (and/or ear) because they pop open in just a handful of minutes.

This recipe is heavily inspired by the one published by Chinese Cooking Demystified, which is a YouTube channel that does a great job at recording and preserving dishes that are specific to different regions of China. I borrow a couple things from their version and add my own flourishes to amplify that delicious clam flavor and make it my own. Thank you, Steph and Chris, for teaching me so much about how to make this dish!

the recipe

Serves 2

Ingredients

• 2 lb littleneck or manila clams

• 1/3 cup kosher salt

• 1 small- or medium-sized shallot

• 2 scallions

• 1-2 small sweet peppers or 1 red bell pepper

• 1 thumb-sized piece of ginger

• 5 cloves garlic

• 1 Tbsp dau si (fermented black beans)

• 3 Thai chilis

• soy sauce to taste

• a pinch of sugar

• 1 Tbsp cornstarch

• 1 Tbsp high-smoke point oil

• Whiskey or wine of your choice to taste (I use Johnny Walker but Shaoxing wine or sherry will work well, too)

• oyster sauce to taste

• 1-2 Tbsp cilantro for garnish (optional)

• 1 lime

1. Inspect the clams: Clams should be alive when you cook them. They should be tightly closed with smooth, unbroken shells. If you see any clams with cracked or broken shells, throw them out. If you see any clams that are open, even a little bit, tap another clam against it to see if it will close. If it does, this clam is still alive and edible. If not, it’s dead and should be discarded.

2. Soak the clams in very salty water for one hour: This will purge the sand and grit out of them. Fill a large bowl or pot with about a gallon of water, and then stir in the salt until it’s mostly dissolved. The exact salinity of the water isn’t super important, and I often eyeball it, though for this recipe, I find that Master Class’s ratio of 1/3 salt to 1 gallon water is effective. Add the clams and then put the pot or bowl in the fridge to soak.

3. Prepare the vegetables and aromatics: While the clams are soaking, finely mince the garlic, peel the ginger and slice it into quarter-inch rounds, chop the scallions into 2-inch pieces, slice the shallots, dice the sweet peppers/bell pepper and Thai chilis, and rinse the dau si. Arrange everything but the garlic and dau si on a plate.

   

4. Pound the garlic and dau si: Do so until the dau si starts to become incorporated into the garlic, but no need to make it into a paste. You can do this in a small bowl with the butt of a cleaver or with a mortar and pestle. Add about a tablespoon of soy sauce and a pinch of sugar and mix. Set aside.

   

5. After the clams have soaked, remove them from the refrigerator, wash them, and cook them: Place a wok on high heat and add about a cup of water, no need to be precise. The water is just for steaming them. Add the clams and then cover the wok. After a couple minutes, check to see if any clams have opened up. No matter how open the clam is, even if it’s just a crack, rest assured that it is cooked. The less the clams are open, the softer the meat will be. Allow the clams to cook and open up to your desired texture — I usually take them out when they’re halfway open. Place any opened clams into a bowl. If there are still clams that haven’t opened, put the lid back on and let them steam for another couple minutes. If you hear any faint popping sounds, open up the lid and check if any clams have opened. Allow the clams to steam until they’ve all opened. The longest I would wait for this is about ten minutes. Any clams that have not opened up by then are not edible, and you should toss them. Reserve the delicious clam juice that’s left in the wok and pour it into a small bowl!

6. Make a clam juice slurry: In a small bowl, mix the cornstarch into the clam juice to make a flavorful slurry and maximize the clam flavor! Set aside.

7. Stir-fry the aromatics: Keeping the wok on high heat, add the oil and swirl it around. Add the mashed garlic and dau si, and stir-fry until fragrant. Then add the ginger, all the peppers, the shallots, and the white parts of the scallions. Stir-fry for another minute before adding soy sauce and whiskey or wine to taste.

   

8. Add the clams: Mix all of the ingredients together, then add oyster sauce to taste. Add the green parts of the scallions. Add the clam juice slurry to the wok a spoonful at a time, and after each spoonful, mix everything together until you reach your desired viscosity. I prefer the sauce to be just thick enough that I can easily get it inside the clams without it sliding off, but not thick like honey. Once you have your desired thickness, shut off the heat.

   

9. Add fresh lime juice: This provides the dish with a final dose of acidity that clarifies all of the other flavors. Cut off a slice or wedge of the lime and squeeze into the dish. Mix it together and taste it to see if it needs anything else.

10. Garnish with cilantro (optional) and serve!

‘Til next time,

Shannon

This dish really epitomizes the elegance of Cantonese home cooking. The technique of steaming the dish is light and simple but maintains all of the rich, savory flavors of the mushrooms and chicken. It comes together quickly, which makes this a very satisfying weeknight meal. My mom and I had this in our weekly rotation growing up, and I never got tired of it! Normally, my mom asks the butcher in Chinatown to chop up a whole chicken into pieces for this dish. Since this service isn’t available at every butcher, this recipe uses skinless, bone-in chicken thighs.

I think many people by now are aware of the unique power the wok has to add wok hei to stir-fries, but I don’t see the wok’s steaming powers — which produces equally delicious results — as magnified in the public eye. It’s a shame. To anyone who says that Chinese cuisine is particularly “unhealthy,” I say — have you ever tried steamed Chinese food? That’s got to be one of the healthiest cooking methods around, and it’s one of the most commonly used techniques in Chinese home-cooking! (Not to mention that every culture has its healthy and unhealthy food, and that it’s worth interrogating what “healthy” food is and what the relationship is between diet and overall health.)

The Woks of Life has a nice guide to setting up your wok or pot for steaming. Even if you don’t have a steaming rack or bamboo steamer, the basic idea is that you need:

1. a dish that can withstand high heat (like a glass plate or pie dish)

2. a way to elevate that dish. Steamer racks have worked the best in my experience, but you can prop up your dish with balled-up tin foil if you’re in a pinch. Feel free to get creative!

3. a well-fitted lid to keep the steam in. It’s OK if a little steam escapes, but you want the majority of the steam to be cooking your ingredients.

This recipe takes advantage of the power of a few key umami-filled ingredients: dried shiitake mushrooms, dried woodear mushrooms, and salted turnip. Dried mushrooms are widely available at most Chinese supermarkets around the country, and when rehydrated, they provide so much more inherent flavor than their fresh counterparts. The shiitakes are excellent at holding flavorful sauces because they’re so absorbent, and the same goes for the woodears because of their little crevices (which also provide great textural contrast). You can optionally add dried lily bulbs to this recipe, though I think what it provides is mostly a slightly crunchy texture rather than flavor.

It may be harder for you to find salted turnip — at stores this may be labeled “preserved turnip” or chung choy (沖菜). You may see it as one big turnip quarter (my preference) or as little batons of salted turnip. Either are fine to use. Rather than provide a sour or sweet flavor, they provide a truly delicious and unique source of salt to the dish, kind of like capers. And just like capers, you shouldn’t overload a dish with it, or else it’ll come out too salty.

the recipe

Serves 2 (with leftovers!)

Ingredients:

• 1 lb skinless, bone-in chicken thighs

• 1.5 oz dried shiitake mushrooms

• 0.5 oz dried woodear mushrooms

• 0.5 oz chung choy

• 3 Tbsp soy sauce

• 0.75 Tbsp cornstarch

• 1 Tbsp neutral oil

1. Soak the dried shiitake mushrooms (in advance, preferably): You can do this in a couple different ways. I like to soak the mushrooms in room temperature water for at least a few hours (you can soak them overnight or start soaking them in the morning before you leave for work so they are ready for you by dinnertime). If you can’t do that or you forgot to soak them in advance, you can soak them in boiling water for about 20-30 minutes or until they’re fully rehydrated. You’ll know that they’re done soaking when they’ve grown bigger and are soft and pliable with no more hard parts. You can save the soaking liquid to make shiitake dashi at a later time!

   

2. Soak the woodear mushrooms (no need to do this in advance): You can simply soak the woodears in room temperature water for about ten minutes or so. They are thinner, so they should rehydrate fairly quickly. Like the shiitakes, you’ll know when they are done when they are big, soft, and pliable.

   

3. Prepare the chung choy and rehydrated mushrooms: Cut off a few slices of chung choy, and give them a quick rinse so that the dish isn’t too salty. Julienne the slices. Chop the rehydrated shiitake mushrooms in half (no need to do so for small mushrooms.) Chop the woodear mushrooms into 1 inch pieces.

   

4. Prepare the chicken: Trim any excess fat. Dice the chicken thighs into 1-2 inch pieces. Cut as much meat as you can around and off the bone, but know that it’s also fine to leave some meat on the bone. The bone adds a crucial amount of flavor to the dish that I didn’t get from testing this dish with boneless thighs.

   

5. Assemble the ingredients onto a heat-proof dish that will fit inside your wok: Combine the mushrooms, chung choy, and chicken. Add the soy sauce, cornstarch, and neutral oil. The cornstarch is crucial to keeping in the moisture of your ingredients and will make the chicken tender — doing just half of the velveting process produces great results.

6. Set up your wok (or large pot) for steaming. Fill your wok with a few inches of water and set the heat to high. Cover the wok to make it boil faster. (PV=nRT, anyone?) While you wait for the water to boil, your ingredients are undergoing a quick marinade.

7. Steam: Put the dish onto the steaming apparatus in your wok and then cover the wok. It will be there for about 16 minutes total, or until everything is cooked through. At around the 9-10 minute mark, give everything a good mix so that the steam can touch the uncooked parts of the chicken. Once the 16 minutes are up, try one of the bigger pieces of chicken to see if it’s fully cooked. If it’s not fully cooked, give the contents another stir and cover it again for another couple minutes.

   

8. Serve: This recipe goes well with white rice and choy.

   

‘Til next time,

Shannon

My boyfriend and I came home around midnight from hanging out with one of our friends this week. We had such a good conversation and laughed so much that we realized only once we got back that we were actually starving. I rummaged through the cupboards and the fridge and realized I had everything I needed to make what I call midnight instant ramen, or 宵夜公仔麵 (siu1 je6 gung1 zai2 min6). 宵夜, or siu yeh, is the term Hong Kongers and people in other southern Chinese communities use to refer to a midnight meal or snack. The phrase has been actively in use since the Tang Dynasty. Restaurants and dai pai dongs throughout the city open their doors to the late night crowd so that customers can grab noodles, jook, fried and stir-fried seafood, fish balls, and even dim sum as late as three or four in the morning. I feel that this recipe honors that tradition, especially if you make it for others.

The second part of the name of this recipe, 公仔麵, means “Doll Noodles,” which is what everyone around me growing up called instant ramen because it’s the name of a popular brand in Hong Kong. (It’s a proprietary eponym kind of like how sometimes people just call a tissue “a Kleenex” here.)

When my mom wanted to eat a midnight snack and didn’t mind putting in a little extra effort, she usually made a version of this recipe while watching TV. The smell always drew me out from my room so I could beg for a few bites. It was my first introduction to getting creative with instant ramen. I learned that we weren’t the only ones who remixed the ramen formula when I went to a friend’s apartment for dinner one night during my sophomore year of college. These apartments were generally very quiet and relegated to the farther corners of campus. The apartments were literally and almost aggressively gray, inside and out. I imagined that if I lived there, I would feel kind of lonely, but the tempting part, in my mind, was that you had a kitchen to yourself. I watched my friend boil the Shin ramen and throw in not only the flavor packet it came with but soy sauce, chili oil, and fish sauce until the ramen turned golden. As a finishing touch, he cracked a couple eggs into the spiced water to poach them. Needless to say, it was delicious.

Since then, I’ve met a few other people who have their own “house” instant ramen recipe. I see it as a window into their pantry staples, which vary so fascinatingly from person to person. I think it makes the perfect midnight snack — low effort with high, umami-filled rewards. This recipe is a reflection of my pantry, and it’s kind of loosey-goosey because it’s meant to be easy! I encourage you to look through your pantry and try to make your own “house” instant ramen.

I hope you enjoy the way I riffed off my mom’s recipe!

the recipe

Serves 2

Ingredients:

• 3-4 stalks of scallions

• 2 packets instant ramen of your choice

• 5 garlic cloves

• Soy sauce to taste

• Oyster sauce to taste

• Sesame oil to taste

• 1 tsp sesame seeds (optional)

1. Par-boil the noodles: Set a pot of water on high to boil. Once it’s boiling, throw in the noodles and cook until they’re around halfway done (no need to be too precise). These will be stir-fried later, and we want to make sure they’re still somewhat springy by the end. Drain and set aside.

2. Prepare the produce: While the water is boiling and the noodles are cooking, chop the scallions into 2-3 inch pieces. Julienne the white parts if you’d like. Mince the garlic.

   

3. Stir-fry: This part happens fast, so have all your sauces ready. Heat up a wok or large pan to medium high heat. Add the garlic and scallions and stir-fry until fragrant and even a little charred. De-glaze with soy sauce. Add the noodles and continue to stir-fry. Add oyster sauce and sesame oil to taste.

   

4. Garnish and serve: Plate and add your choice of garnishes — chili oil and/or sesame seeds make great toppings. You could top it with a fried egg for some protein. Serve.

   

‘Til next time,

Shannon

Late summer and early autumn are some of my favorite seasons for produce. Gorgeous, ripe tomatoes and shishito peppers are everywhere, and honeycrisps are at their prime. This recipe is best made during tomato season, when you can get tomatoes that are naturally juicy and sweet.

Tomato and egg stir-fry is a classic Chinese dish, and it’s one of those recipes that’s shared, albeit with key differences, across many cultures. (Shakshuka and uova in purgatorio immediately come to mind.) To me, what distinguishes the Chinese version is ginger and soy sauce (and a few other ingredients, though I think these have the most effect on the flavor profile). I loooove the combined taste of ginger and tomato. This dish is comforting, quick, and easy to whip up when you don’t have much time or energy. The number of versions of this recipe is almost as large as the number of families who love cooking this — this is just my version. Read all the way to the end to see my mom’s take on this (which is my personal favorite)!

For this recipe, I used the best tomatoes I could find and definitely went overboard on my nightshade purchases. The best variety I found for this recipe were Pink Brandywine heirloom beefsteak tomatoes. (Any Lord of the Rings fans?) These tomatoes were just the right balance of sweet and tangy. Don’t worry too much about finding Pink Brandywines — just find the freshest (ideally beefsteak) tomatoes you can.

the recipe

Serves 4

Ingredients:

• 1.5 lb tomatoes

• 3 eggs

• 1 scallion stalk

• 1.5-2 oz. ginger

• 3 Tbsp neutral, high-smoke point oil

• a few springs of cilantro for garnish

• soy sauce to taste

• Chinese black vinegar to taste

• sugar to taste

• 1 tsp salt plus more to taste

1. Prepare the produce: Slice the tomatoes into one or two inch wedges,peel and cut the ginger into 1/8 inch slices, dice the scallion, and roughly chop the cilantro.

   

2. Scramble the eggs: Crack and whip the three eggs in a bowl very well — they should be a bit frothy. Add 1 tsp salt to the egg mixture.

   

   Set a wok to high heat. Add a Tbsp of the vegetable oil and swirl it around. Once it’s heated up, add the eggs. I like my eggs on the wetter side, loosely cooked in a Whampoa style. The way I do that for this dish is to make sure not to touch the eggs until I see the edges cooking and bubbling, and once that happens, to use a spatula to gently lift up one part of the egg mixture over the other so that you make a few layers of scrambled egg. Once it looks around 50-75% cooked (depending on your preference — it will continue to cook later in the recipe), immediately remove the eggs from the wok and scrape off any remaining bits of egg. If the egg is a pale yellow, you’ve cooked it too long. (That’s OK; it’ll still taste good.)

   

   

3. Cook the produce: Turn the wok down to medium and add the remaining two Tbsp of oil. Swirl it around, then add the ginger. Stir-fry the ginger for a minute or two so that it softens a bit and becomes fragrant. Add the chopped scallion, and then add the tomatoes. Cook the tomatoes down for about 4-5 minutes until they’re a bit jammy but retain some bigger pieces. You can use a spatula to gently press the tomatoes against the wok to make this go faster.

   

   

4. Assess the flavor: Pour about a Tbsp of soy sauce around the perimeter of the wok and stir it into the tomatoes. Taste the tomato mixture. Add whatever it needs (if anything) to taste: for sweetness, add sugar; for tanginess, add the black vinegar; for salt, add more soy sauce and salt. If you’re using fresh tomatoes, you may not need to adjust much at all. Once you’re satisfied, turn off the heat.

5. Add the eggs to the tomato mixture. Break up the egg into smaller pieces.

6. Serve: You can serve this with white rice, garnish it with cilantro, and call it a day. OR you can make this a twofer and do it Mama Ho Yeh! style by combining this recipe with a beef and tomato recipe. Pour the egg and tomato mixture into a large dish and then add stir-fried beef (sans the vegetables in the linked recipe) on top of it so that it won’t get soggy. Then, when you eat it, mix all of it together. This way is my favorite. But sometimes you gotta take the cheap and easy (and still delicious) route. Either way, enjoy!

   

   

‘Til next time,

Shannon

Hot and humid summers call for refreshing drinks that you can put together quickly and enjoy outside. That’s one of the merits of this simple but supremely delicious smoothie, which may be one of the easiest recipes you’ll ever make. Sai gwaa bing (西瓜冰) literally translates to “watermelon ice,” and that’s essentially it, which makes this recipe so elegant.

One of my strongest memories of summer growing up is when my mom and I would grab watermelon smoothies and fresh, handheld cheung fun from a bakery on Grand Street to snack on while grocery shopping and running errands. I loved watching the people behind the counter add the cups of chopped watermelon, ice, and a dash of milk to the line of blenders, whip it all together, then seal them, boba-style.

Earlier this week, I made this smoothie to stay hydrated while presenting my work at the Ann Arbor Art Fair. A rain of marble-sized(!) hail drove us out for a few hours, and in the meantime, I blended some fresh watermelon and fed my nostalgia.

The key to this drink is to get the sweetest, freshest watermelon you can find. Over time, I’ve gathered some auntie-knowledge and firsthand experience to picking out good watermelons. If you have any other tips, leave a comment!

1. Pick up the watermelon. Check that it feels firm and heavy.

2. Smack the watermelon. You want one that sounds hollow.

3. Find a watermelon that has a yellow spot (also known as a field spot). This means it sat in the patch until peak ripeness before it was picked.

the recipe

Serves 4

Ingredients:

• one 6 lb seedless watermelon

• 3 cups ice

• 1/4 cup water

• optional: coconut milk to taste

1. Cut a watermelon in half so that you have a flat edge. Cut off the rind and cut the red parts into 1-2 inch pieces.

   

2. Blend the watermelon. You might have to do this in batches depending on the size of your blender. Fill a blender 3/4 full of watermelon pieces. Add some water (and coconut milk, if using) and blend until smooth.

3. Optional: Strain the watermelon smoothie and remove the pulp.

4. Serve with snack of your choice! (Here I had some daan tats.)

‘Til next time,

Shannon

This is a classic, homestyle Chinese dish that showcases a couple key principles of Cantonese cooking: quickly stir-frying with the high heat of the wok and using the freshest possible ingredients. One of the strengths of this particular recipe is its versatility — I use garlic scapes (syun sum, 算心) here but you could easily swap those out for snow peas, celery, long beans, etc. My mom actually likes to combine the beef with her tomato and egg recipe. This dish brings all the rich flavors of beef and vegetables together quickly, making it my ideal weeknight dinner.

This dish is great for practicing your stir-frying timing because it’s so important not to overcook any of the ingredients so that you can retain their color and crunch. As chef Leah Cohen has said, the mark of a good chef is tasting as you go. Combined with my own takeaway from years of cooking — that texture is as important as flavor — I want to emphasize that nailing the crunch of the vegetables is as important as making a flavorful beef marinade.

the recipe

Serves two as an entrée

Ingredients:

For the marinated beef:

• 1 lb flank steak

• 3 Tbsp soy sauce

• 3/4 Tbsp garlic powder

• 1 tsp salt

• 1 Tbsp sesame oil

• 1/2 Tbsp cornstarch

For the stir-fry:

• 2 Tbsp oyster sauce

• 2-3 oz crunchy and tender seasonal vegetable(s)

• 3-4 stalks of scallions

• 1 oz ginger (or small knob)

• 2 cloves of garlic

• 2 Tbsp neutral, high-smoke point oil

Preparing and marinating the beef

1. If your steak has any large swaths of fat or blood vessels, trim them. Cut your steak into smaller steaks around 3-4 inches in width. This will help make your slices bite-sized.

   

   

2. Slice the steak against the grain at a 45 degree angle into thin (approximately 1/8 inch) slices. This will increase the surface area that can absorb the marinade and make the beef more tender.

   

   

3. Wash the beef in a colander in the sink and give it a good massage as you do so. This will also contribute to the beef’s tenderness as well as wash away any blood or gamey taste. Squeeze out all the water and then put in a small bowl.

3. To this bowl, add the soy sauce, garlic powder, salt, sesame oil, and cornstarch. Mix well and set aside to marinate on the countertop.

   

Preparing the vegetables and aromatics

1. Mince the garlic. Peel, wash, and slice the ginger into thin (approximately 1/8 inch slices). Wash and chop the seasonal vegetables and scallions into 2 inch pieces. Since all of this will be stir-fried, all the components except the garlic should be chopped into pieces of generally the same size. I don’t mince the ginger here because I like having larger pieces to bite into that subtly influence the flavor of the beef.

   

Stir-fry

1. Heat a wok or large pan up to medium-high heat. Add the neutral oil and let it heat up until it’s glossy and runs easily around the wok.

2. Add the garlic and ginger and stir until fragrant, for a little under a minute.

3. Turn the heat up to high and add your seasonal vegetables. Stir fry until it’s halfway cooked (taste as you go to check).

   

4. Add the marinated beef. Stir fry until the beef is brown and no longer red.

   

5. Add the scallions and oyster sauce to taste (I recommend about 2 Tbsp.)

   

6. Cover the wok for about 30 seconds to let the scallions cook a bit more but not get soggy.

7. Taste each ingredient. It’s best to check on the early side. The vegetables should be cooked but still retain their color and crunch. If they’re undercooked, continue to stir fry.

8. When everything is just cooked through, plate and serve with white rice and a choy of your choice.

   

Enjoy!

Shannon

This recipe illustrates a delicate method of blanching and dressing choy that is essential to the Cantonese kitchen. One of the greatest lessons I’ve learned as a cook that texture is just as important as flavor, and if you do this method correctly, you will end up with bright green choy that has crunch in every bite. It works best for vegetables with tender, leafy greens like yau choy (sometimes romanized as “yu choy” or known by its very close variant choy sum) and gau choy (a.k.a. garlic chives) that can soak up the oyster sauce. Gau choy works marvelously for this recipe because the oyster sauce perfectly complements its texture and garlicky flavor.

This comes together so quickly that it works well for nights when you don’t have much time or you want to focus your attention on other dishes.

the recipe

Serves 2 (with a little bit left over)

Ingredients:

• 1 lb gau choy (or choy of your choice)

• 1 Tbsp neutral cooking oil (ex. grapeseed)

• 1 tsp salt

• oyster sauce to taste (here I used approximately 2 Tbsp)

1. Fill up a medium-sized pot about halfway full with water. Add the salt and oil to the pot — this will make the choy nice and glossy when after it’s blanched. Set it to high heat so that it comes to a boil.

2. Rinse the choy under cold water. Cut off any dried stems if applicable. If you are using gau choy, chop or twist the choy into 3-4 inch pieces. If you’re using any other kind of choy, feel free to just leave them whole.

   

3. Once the water comes to a boil, add the choy and make sure its all submerged. What comes after is the most important part: you want to take it out the moment it’s just been cooked through. If you’re using a very leafy, delicate choy (like gau choy), only cook it for 45 seconds to 1 minute. If you’re using a choy with a thick stem (like yau choy or gai lan), only cook it for 1 or 2 minutes. You’ll want to keep a close eye on it. When the leaves are wilted and the vegetable is bright green, that’s generally a sign you can take it out.

   

4. Use chopsticks or tongs to remove the choy from the water and plate it. Drain any remaining water from the plated choy and then mix the oyster sauce into it to taste.

5. Serve as a side dish.