Category: How to Cook With Soy Sauce

Cold Dishes / How to Cook With Chinese Black Vinegar / How to Cook With Soy Sauce / Plant / Vegetarian

Cooking With Laoganma: Spicy Chili Crisp Potato Salad (Liangban Tudou, 凉拌土豆)

The Godmother Miniseries: Potatoes As many from-scratch recipes as I publish, what really drives traffic to my website is The Godmother, aka, Laoganma, whom I first wrote at length about in early 2015. People all over the world love these Guizhou-made chili oils as condiments and are also looking for ways to cook with them. So who am I to disagree? I have one very popular recipe on the site for LGM Black Bean Chicken, but I cook with both the Spicy Chili Crisp and the Chili Oil With Black...

Shui zhu yu (water-boiled fish) from The Mala Market

Chinese New Year / Fish & Seafood / How to Cook With Doubanjiang / How to Cook With Dried Chilies / How to Cook With Huajiao / How to Cook With Soy Sauce / Restaurant Classics / Sichuan Pantry Compatible / Soups & Stews / Southwest (Sichuan, Yunnan)

Water-Boiled Fish With Tofu (Shuizhuyu, 水煮鱼)

Swimming Fire Fish Shuizhuyu, translated literally as water-boiled fish, may be the most misleadingly named dish ever. Far from swimming in a sea of water, the fish fillets float in a luxurious bath of mala spicy broth. Restaurateurs in the U.S. often give it a more fitting translation, the most creative I’ve seen being “swimming fire fish.” And yet, as I previously discussed when I published a recipe for shuizhu beef, shuizhu dishes are not as explosive as they appear at first sight. Yes, the main ingredient shares space with...

Chengdu zajiang mian

How to Cook With Sesame / How to Cook With Soy Sauce / How to Cook With Tianmianjiang / Noodles / Pork / Restaurant Classics / Southwest (Sichuan, Yunnan)

Introducing Zajiang Noodles (Zajiangmian, 杂酱面), Chengdu’s Favorite Noodle

Just Don’t Call It Zhajiangmian As we learned in a guest post from Chengdu Food Tours’s Jordan Porter, zajiangmian is one of Chengdu’s most popular noodles. It is a heartier big brother to the diminutive dandan noodles, which is generally served in a small snack size, making the meal-size zajiangmian the more-common and more-loved noodle in modern Chengdu. But first, I want to share my closer-to-home inspiration: the zajiangmian at Mian, a real-deal Sichuan/Chongqing noodle shop in L.A.’s San Gabriel Valley. Opened by Tony Xu, chef-owner of the incomparable Chengdu Taste, it has...

How to Cook With Doubanjiang / How to Cook With Soy Sauce / How to Cook With Tianmianjiang / North (Shanxi, Beijing) / Pork / Sichuan Pantry Compatible

Eddie Huang and Tianmianjiang Pork (Jing Jiang Rousi, 京酱肉丝)

On Immigrants and Chinese Food: ‘No Coupons’ The National Immigrant Integration Conference came to Nashville this past weekend, and one of my favorite immigrant writers showed up to give the opening talk. The one and only Eddie Huang—Taiwanese-Chinese American chef, author and provocateur  of Fresh Off the Boat and Huang’s World fame—was in fine form (and even wore a suit!), giving a speech he wrote called “No Coupons.” I dragged my little Chinese immigrant along with me, hoping she would take to heart what he had to say.  He talked about...

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,...

Cold Dishes / How to Cook With Chinese Black Vinegar / How to Cook With Huajiao / How to Cook With Soy Sauce / Plant / Southwest (Sichuan, Yunnan) / Vegetarian

Hot-and-Sour Eggplant (Suanla Liangban Qiezi)

Chengdu Challenge #28: Eggplant, a Girl’s Best Friend What to send to school in your daughter’s lunchbox when she’s changing high schools as a sophomore and facing a lunchtime cafeteria where she knows no one and has no one to eat with? Her favorite vegetable, of course. The vegetable that makes her feel happy as she eats it no matter what is going on around her or how alone she feels. For Fongchong, that vegetable is eggplant. Now, I’d rather go over there and eat lunch with her in that...

How to Cook With Soy Sauce / Poultry

Cooking With The Godmother: Laoganma Black Bean Chicken

A Sichuan “Mom Recipe” My blog is all about cooking “authentic” Sichuan food. But my definition of authentic doesn’t mean always using specific recipes, it just means cooking Sichuan food the way it would be cooked in Chengdu. So I do not feel guilty about this shortcut recipe for black bean chicken, since I know that people in Sichuan cook this way and would eat this in a heartbeat. People all over China—and increasingly the world—love Laoganma and cook with her often. My ode to The Godmother—China’s Best Chili Oils and...

Chinese New Year / How to Cook With Chinese Black Vinegar / How to Cook With Dried Chilies / How to Cook With Soy Sauce / Poultry / Restaurant Classics / Sichuan Pantry Compatible / Southwest (Sichuan, Yunnan)

Gongbao Chicken With Cashews (Gongbao Jiding, 宫保鸡丁)

Chengdu Challenge #27: The Do’s and Don’ts of Kung Pao The Mala Project (now The Mala Market blog) turns two years old this month. It hasn’t made me rich or famous (far from!), but that wasn’t the goal. The immediate goal when I started it was to be a better mom to my immigrant daughter by being a better Sichuan home cook. I did it in blog form because I thought that if I committed publicly I’d be far more likely to stick with it. And it worked! Two years on,...

Tiger skin peppers

How to Cook With Caiziyou / How to Cook With Chinese Black Vinegar / How to Cook With Douchi / How to Cook With Soy Sauce / Plant

Tiger Skin Peppers (Hupi Qingjiao)

Chengdu Challenge #23: A Tiger on the Plate You can see in the photo above why this dish is called 虎皮青椒 (hǔpí qīngjiāo), or tiger skin peppers: The peppers are seared in the wok on both sides until the skin is puckered and striped with black char like a tiger. While this side dish is seriously delicious, it does not take itself too seriously. It is yet another example of a whimsical, poetic Chinese name for a fairly simple food. (The Chinese must find the tiger a whimsical animal, because...

Cold Dishes / How to Cook With Chinese Black Vinegar / How to Cook With Soy Sauce / Noodles / Poultry

Jisi Liangmian (鸡丝凉面): Cold Noodles ft. Shredded Chicken

Chengdu Challenge #19: Jisi Liangmian, White Cloud in a Perfect Storm Fongchong’s latest obsession is these 鸡丝凉面 (jīsī liángmiàn), Cold Noodles With Shredded Chicken. It’s a regretfully boring name for something so singularly, aggressively tasty, so you’ll have to take my word for it—you really want to try this. Liangmian with chicken totally deserves a more poetic name, like Ants Climbing a Tree, another beloved Sichuan noodle. Something like, perhaps, White Cloud in a Perfect Storm. Or maybe not. But just don’t let the boring name fool you. Especially since cold...

zhongshuijiao

Bao & Dumplings / Chinese New Year / How to Cook With Chinese Spices / How to Cook With Soy Sauce / Pork / Restaurant Classics / Southwest (Sichuan, Yunnan)

Chengdu Zhongshuijiao (钟水饺) Concocted Soy/Red Oil Dumpling

Chengdu Challenge #15: It’s All About the (Zhong) Sauce If you’ve ever had 钟水饺 (zhōngshuǐjiǎo) dumplings in red oil at a real Sichuan restaurant then you know it’s all about the sauce. While every Chinese cuisine can claim a wonton, jaozi or siumai of its own, only Sichuan floats its famous zhongshuijiao in a sweet-hot special sauce. As such, it kind of blows all other dumplings out of the water. It’s hard to guess exactly what’s in that special sauce, besides chili oil, but you know it when you taste it. You also...

Chinese New Year / How to Cook With Chinese Black Vinegar / How to Cook With Soy Sauce / Plant / Sichuan Pantry Compatible / Southwest (Sichuan, Yunnan) / Vegetarian

Kung Pao Lotus Root (Gongbao Oupian, 宫保藕片)

Chengdu Challenge #13: The Unbearable Easiness of Real Kung Pao Everybody knows kung pao chicken—called 宫保鸡丁 (gōngbǎo jīdīng) in China—but did you know that you can kung pao other foods as well? My personal favorite vegetable given the gongbao treatment is lotus root, a mild, crunchy, stunningly beautiful vehicle for the mala-meets-sweet-and-sour sauce adorned with home-fried peanuts. (Now, admittedly, fresh lotus root is somewhat difficult to find in the U.S. outside Asian markets, so feel free to substitute potatoes for an equally delicious if less photogenic dish using the exact same...