Category: How to Cook With Shaoxing Wine

A white bowl of dunjitang served with wontons and mushrooms and greens

How to Cook With Shaoxing Wine / Instant Pot-Friendly / Non-Spicy / Poultry / Soups & Stews

Clarified Old Hen Soup (Dunjitang, 炖鸡汤)

All-Purpose Golden Broth for Soup, Noodles, Chaoshou and More Documenting my mother’s recipe for 炖鸡汤 (dùnjītāng), stewed chicken soup, made me wonder what you can tell about someone from how they process a whole bird. It all starts with deducing a person’s qualities from the kind of chicken immediately at stake, a brand of kitchen table checkers I cherish. Someone who already had what they needed in the freezer is likely not just a regular cook, for example, but also a confident one—they don’t need to know the fate of...

Chinese New Year / How to Cook With Chinese Spices / How to Cook With Doubanjiang / How to Cook With Huajiao / How to Cook With Shaoxing Wine / How to Cook With Soy Sauce / Instant Pot-Friendly / Plant / Pork / Restaurant Classics / Southwest (Sichuan, Yunnan)

Pressure Cooker Sichuan Rice-Steamed Pork Ribs (Fenzhengrou, 粉蒸肉)

Taste of Lunar New Year Across South-Central China, just about every province cooks up some version of 粉蒸肉 (fěnzhēngròu), rice-steamed pork. In fenzhengrou, a special toasted rice powder coats the marinated pork before steaming and soaks up all the juices during. Despite originating in Jiangxi, Sichuan-style fenzhengrou with its Pixian doubanjiang base is arguably the most popular version today. Case in point: The China Cuisine Association named fenzhengrou one of Chongqing’s top 10 famous dishes and China’s 340 regional classic dishes in September 2018. Fenzheng dishes encompass rice-steamed beef, pork belly...

Steak Chow Fun

Beef, Lamb & Game / How to Cook With Douchi / How to Cook With Shaoxing Wine / How to Cook With Soy Sauce / Non-Spicy / Noodles / Restaurant Classics / South (Guangdong)

Cantonese Steak Chow Fun (Ft. Dried Ho Fun Noodles)

Chow Fun Any Place, Any Time The most important thing to know about this recipe is that unlike all other recipes for Cantonese beef chow fun, this one does not require you to make or find freshly steamed rice noodles. Instead it shows you how to make do with dried rice noodles. And in fact, more than make do, make something genuinely great. But first, a bit of why I, who cook almost exclusively Sichuan food for my spicy girl, am making Cantonese noodles. Spicy Sichuan dishes are Fongchong’s favorite,...

Braises / How to Cook With Chinese Spices / How to Cook With Doubanjiang / How to Cook With Dried Chilies / How to Cook With Huajiao / How to Cook With Shaoxing Wine / How to Cook With Soy Sauce / Poultry / Southwest (Sichuan, Yunnan)

Sichuan Braised Chicken with Chestnut + Shiitake (Banli Shaoji, 板栗烧鸡)

Cooking With Pixian Doubanjiang: Braised Chicken Sichuan braised chicken with chestnut and shiitake (板栗烧鸡, bǎnlì shāojī) in a dutch oven requires minimal babysitting for maximum flavor. Ma’s side of the family prepares shaoji with whole chicken and traditional taro obbligato, but this recipe combines bone-in chicken legs, roasted chestnuts and dried shiitake with the usual Pixian hongyou douban for everyday shaoji (within the hour!). The fact that we now call this dish “everyday” says it all. One godless fall day in her early youth, Mala Mama and her two older...

Sichuan cold rabbit

Beef, Lamb & Game / Cold Dishes / How to Cook With Doubanjiang / How to Cook With Douchi / How to Cook With Huajiao / How to Cook With Sesame / How to Cook With Shaoxing Wine / How to Cook With Soy Sauce / Restaurant Classics / Southwest (Sichuan, Yunnan)

Cooking with Pixian Doubanjiang: Erjie Tuding (二姐兔丁) Second Sister Rabbit Cubes

A Chengdu Hawker Original Chengdu’s famous Erjie Tuding is based off a Sichuan 凉拌 (liángbàn)/cold-dressed dish traditionally eaten in the fall. It belongs to our reader-favorite Cooking with Pixian Doubanjiang recipe series, which highlights Sichuan doubanjiang cooking methods that are less well-known than classics like Mapo Doufu and Twice-Cooked Pork. If you’ve never thought of using doubanjiang in a cold dish, this is your sign!  There are several variations of Sichuan’s cold-dressed rabbit (凉拌兔丁, liángbàn tùdīng; also 麻辣兔丁, málà tùdīng), but the most famous is Chengdu’s 二姐兔丁 (èrjiě tùdīng), “Second Sister Rabbit Cubes.”...

Sichuan mala hot pot with beef tallow

Beef, Lamb & Game / Chinese New Year / Fish & Seafood / How to Cook With Caiziyou / How to Cook With Chinese Spices / How to Cook With Doubanjiang / How to Cook With Douchi / How to Cook With Dried Chilies / How to Cook With Huajiao / How to Cook With Shaoxing Wine / Plant / Restaurant Classics / Soups & Stews / Southwest (Sichuan, Yunnan)

Sichuan Mala Hotpot, From Scratch (Mala Huoguo with Tallow Broth)

Hotpot Party at Your House Although this recipe for mala hotpot first published in early 2018 is the most popular recipe on our entire blog, we have revised and updated it as of November 2020. Why? Well, when I first developed it, there weren’t many recipes for Sichuan hotpot online in English—and none at all, that I could find, that included beef fat (tallow), a style of hotpot broth widely loved in Chongqing and Chengdu. There probably were Chinese-language online videos and recipes for it, but they were less accessible...

Braises / Chinese New Year / East (Jiangnan, Shanghai) / How to Cook With Shaoxing Wine / How to Cook With Soy Sauce / Non-Spicy / Pork / Restaurant Classics

Classic Shanghai Pork Belly: Hongshaorou (红烧肉), Red-Cooked Pork

Inspired by Red Cook: Hongshaorou I can’t tell you how many times I’ve red-cooked something. I’ve red-cooked the traditional pork belly many a time and have also tried red-cooking pork shoulder, chicken thighs and beef short ribs. But I’ve never settled on a favorite 红烧肉 (hóngshāoròu), red-cooked meat, recipe or method. Perhaps because I’m not Chinese, and my mom (or other family member) did not hand one down to me. But I have to have one. Because I have to pass the family red-cooking recipe down to my Chinese daughter. Otherwise,...

How to Cook With Shaoxing Wine / Poultry / Restaurant Classics / Southwest (Sichuan, Yunnan)

Sichuan Crispy Duck (Xiangsu Ya, 香酥鸭)

Chengdu Challenge #24:  Crispy Duck for Luck Happy Year of the Monkey! Chinese New Year calls for lucky food, food that calls down health, wealth and happiness for the new year. But be careful what you wish for. The Chinese eat dumplings shaped like gold ingots, whole fish because the word for it sounds like the word for surplus, long noodles to symbolize long life, and a whole chicken to represent family togetherness. I’m especially interested in laying the groundwork for family happiness and togetherness in the coming year, so...

Shui Zhu Beef

Beef, Lamb & Game / Chinese New Year / How to Cook With Caiziyou / How to Cook With Doubanjiang / How to Cook With Dried Chilies / How to Cook With Huajiao / How to Cook With Shaoxing Wine / How to Cook With Soy Sauce / Restaurant Classics / Sichuan Pantry Compatible

Sichuan Water-Boiled Beef (Shuizhu Niurou, 水煮牛肉)

Chengdu Challenge #12: A Sichuan Outlaw 水煮 (shuǐzhǔ), or “water-boiled” dishes, may be Sichuan’s most notorious food—feared and loved in equal measure. Shuizhu’s reputation as a dish for the daring precedes it. But those brave enough to dip into its sea of málà—chili peppers and Sichuan peppercorn—to fish out a piece of buttery soft beef (or pork, or fish) are rewarded with the realization that shuizhu is not nearly as lethal as its reputation. It was a shocking sight the first time I saw Chef Qing Qing make 水煮牛肉 (shuǐzhǔ niúròu),...

How to Cook With Shaoxing Wine / Non-Spicy / Poultry / Soups & Stews

Chinese Golden Chicken Stew (Huangmenji, 黄焖鸡)

Chengdu Challenge #7: Caramel, Wine and Ginger Make Stew Sexy Recently we had a Chinese friend stay with us for a week who doesn’t eat spicy food. Not even a little. And this was a real challenge for me, since almost everything I make has at least a hint of spice. But we adapted that week and still ate well. I just had to call on all the dishes I make that aren’t spicy, starting with this one for Shoaxing wine and ginger chicken stew, more poetically called golden chicken stew, which...

Beef, Lamb & Game / How to Cook With Dried Chilies / How to Cook With Huajiao / How to Cook With Shaoxing Wine / Southwest (Sichuan, Yunnan)

Sichuan Hot and Spicy Beef (Xiangla Feiniu, 香辣肥牛)

Chengdu Challenge #6: A Spicy Beef Challenge in More Ways Than One “This is the only dish that’s spicy enough for girls’ night,” said my 15-year-old daughter, Fongchong, as she dove into Hot and Spicy Beef. She may be right. Though I’ll be working hard in this blog to disabuse readers of the notion that all Sichuan food is spicy, some dishes are indeed fiery. And out of all the spicy Sichuan dishes I regularly cook, this one is the spiciest. As a result, we generally save it for Wednesday...

Fish & Seafood / How to Cook With Shaoxing Wine / How to Cook With Soy Sauce / Southwest (Sichuan, Yunnan)

Good-Luck Fish Head Recipe (Kaimenhong Yutou, 开门红鱼头)

Chengdu Challenge #4: Lucky in Fish, Unlucky in Friendship “I have a weird request for you,” I said to Hobo Mike, a commercial fisherman and the head fishmonger at my local Whole Foods.  “I need a giant fish head. No body. Just head.” “That’s not weird,” he replied. “Lots of people ask me for fish heads. I’ll put you on the waiting list.” “Cool,” I said. “But in that case, I’d like to place an order, because I don’t want just any old little snapper or salmon head. I need...