Category: How to Cook With Chinese Spices

Chinese New Year / How to Cook With Caiziyou / How to Cook With Chinese Black Vinegar / How to Cook With Chinese Spices / How to Cook With Shaoxing Wine / How to Cook With Soy Sauce / Non-Spicy / Pork / Restaurant Classics / Southwest (Sichuan, Yunnan)

Jiujiu’s Sichuan Tangcu Paigu (Sweet and Sour Spareribs, 糖醋排骨)

Not Your Strip Mall’s Sweet and Sour Pork Everyone has That Dish they dream of reverse-engineering for themselves from a favorite restaurant or dinner party: Mine is this one, my dajiujiu’s 糖醋排骨 (tángcù páigǔ), or sweet-and-sour spareribs. I recall the vinegar-blackened, syrupy-sweet pork of a kind I’d never tasted in my mother’s economical, health-conscious cooking. I didn’t know ribs could be like this, glazed and decadent and sour-bright from the tang of aged vinegar. You’d be at a loss to find a gastrique as storied as my jiujiu’s in Paris....

Braises / How to Cook With Chinese Spices / How to Cook With Shaoxing Wine / How to Cook With Soy Sauce / Instant Pot-Friendly / Non-Spicy / Pork / Restaurant Classics

Beer-Braised Pork Trotters (Zhuti, 猪蹄) ft. Dried Tofu Skin

Pig Feet, a Lip-Smacking Delicacy I took braised pork trotters for granted, once. This delicious phantasm of a previous life startled me into remembrance after an estranged adulthood. Its irreplicable mouthfeel transported me somewhere: that barely-there bite through gelatinized skin; the TempurPedic-like fat layers, soft and plushy yet bouncy with just a little give; oozing with juices and draped in a coat of dark, sticky soy sauce. Lip-smacking, if lip-smacking were a single dish. But where had I eaten it? Who made it? When? For the life of me, I...

Chinese New Year / Cold Dishes / How to Cook With Chinese Spices / How to Cook With Shaoxing Wine / How to Cook With Soy Sauce / Non-Spicy / Plant / Poultry / Restaurant Classics / Vegetarian

How to Make Chinese Tea Eggs (Chayedan, 茶叶蛋)

Marbled Tea-Boiled Eggs A skill I’ve gradually accepted as necessary in my life is learning how to make Chinese tea eggs. These fractured “tea leaf eggs”, 茶叶蛋 (cháyèdàn), continue brewing through an overnight marinade of black tea, aromatic spices and soy sauce that seeps into each crack, creating its beautiful stained glass veneer. Soy saucey and tea-fragrant without being overpowering, chayedan previously came to me by the dozen (if not hundred). Out of stockpots, massive vats of never-ending tea egg, volunteer aunties might dole one out on our post-service Sunday...

Bao & Dumplings / How to Cook With Chinese Spices / How to Cook With Furu / How to Cook With Sesame / How to Cook With Shaoxing Wine / How to Cook With Soy Sauce / Non-Spicy / Pork / Restaurant Classics / South (Guangdong)

Chasiubao (叉烧包) BBQ Pork Buns: From Scratch

Red Chasiu Without Red Yeast Rice Powder or Food Dye Guangdong’s famous 叉烧包 (chāshāobāo/caa¹siu¹baau¹), aka chasiubao or “char siu bao,” are a dimsum staple!  Soft, fluffy buns envelop the chasiu—barbecue/roast pork—in these steamed bao that ooze with juicy filling. Although I didn’t grow up in a family that made or ate chasiu, we always bought chasiubao from Chinese bakeries. (Especially the “pineapple” bun version that took me 25 years to figure out had no pineapple whatsoever.) At home, Ma’s humble 包子 (bāozi) enclosed minced cabbage/chive and pork, a typical filling,...

Spicy cumin beef on knife-cut noodles

Beef, Lamb & Game / Braises / How to Cook With Chinese Black Vinegar / How to Cook With Chinese Spices / How to Cook With Doubanjiang / How to Cook With Dried Chilies / How to Cook With Soy Sauce / Instant Pot-Friendly / Noodles / Northwest (Xinjiang, Shaanxi) / Restaurant Classics

Spicy Cumin Beef on Knife-Cut Noodles (Ft. Dried Daoxiaomian)

Handmade Noodle Nirvana, aka Northwest China This is another in our series about making famous Chinese restaurant noodle dishes not with the usual freshly made noodles but with premium dried noodles. If you have the time and skill to make hand-pulled, hand-ripped or knife-cut noodles on the regular, then you can stop here. But if you haven’t mastered Chinese noodle making and still want a damn good homemade version of spicy, tingly cumin beef on wide, ruffly noodles, then all you need is some high-quality dried mian in your pantry....

tossed reganmian in ceramic bowl

How to Cook With Chinese Spices / How to Cook With Sesame / How to Cook With Soy Sauce / Non-Spicy / Noodles / Plant / Restaurant Classics / South (Guangdong) / Vegetarian

Wuhan Reganmian Hot Dry Noodles (热干面) ft. Dried Jianshui Alkaline Noodles

Guozao With Wuhan’s Famous À La Minute Sesame Noodles In South-Central China’s landlocked Hubei province, the capital city Wuhan is beloved for its breakfast staples and snacks—chief among them 热干面 (règānmiàn) “hot dry noodles.”  Served steaming and soup-less in to-go bowls with a barely-saucy coat of ground sesame paste and simmered house stock, reganmian was invented and popularized around 1930 by two local noodle shop owners, Li Bao and his apprentice Cai Mingwei. Now, reganmian is regarded alongside Sichuan 担担面 (dàndànmiàn), Shanxi 刀削面 (dāoxiāomiàn) knife-cut noodles, and Beijing 炸酱面 (zhájiàngmiàn)—not to be...

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...

Xiaoguo Mixian

How to Cook With Chinese Spices / How to Cook With Doubanjiang / How to Cook With Soy Sauce / Noodles / Pork / Restaurant Classics / Southwest (Sichuan, Yunnan)

No Sweet Sour: Yunnan Small Pot Rice Noodles (Xiaoguo Mixian, 小锅米线)

Yunnan Noodles, Far From Home Ask about the best-known Yunnan rice noodles across China, and many would nominate 过桥米线 (guòqiáo mǐxiàn), “crossing the bridge noodles.” However, for Yunnan locals, 小锅米线 (xiǎoguō mǐxiàn) or “small pot rice noodles” are no doubt the everyday staple. Xiaoguo mixian are hearty, down-to-earth, simple to prepare and available in almost every noodle shop.  Although xiaoguo mixian are a go-to breakfast for most people in Kunming, I prefer to eat it later as a comforting late-night meal. I learned to cook this dish from the noodle...

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...

aromatic chili oil in glass sealed jar

How to Cook With Chinese Spices / How to Cook With Dried Chilies / Plant / Restaurant Classics

Aromatic Sichuan Chili Oil (Xiangla Hongyou, 香辣红油)

Lajiaoyou the Mainland Sichuan Way, ft. Caiziyou (Pt. 2) Picture this: It’s Fall 2021 and you’re making your own aromatic Sichuan chili oil at home, ready to shovel down yesterday’s leftovers with an onslaught of 红油 (hóngyóu), literally “red oil,” straight from the (gorgeous! reusable! glass!) jar. The Mala Market’s 菜籽油 (càizǐyóu)/roasted rapeseed oil is in stock, Adele just dropped her six-year-comeback divorce album, Seasonal Affective Disorder has yet to creep in, and now your hongyou chaoshou game has never been better. Life is good. The first whiffs of five-spice...

yunnan mushroom hot pot

Chinese New Year / How to Cook With Chinese Spices / Non-Spicy / Plant / Poultry / Restaurant Classics / Soups & Stews / Southwest (Sichuan, Yunnan)

No Sweet Sour: Yunnan Mushroom Hotpot (Huoguo, 火锅)

Wild Mushroom Heaven I was so thrilled when I received the gorgeous handmade brass hotpot from The Mala Market. Finally, I could prepare a proper Yunnan mushroom hotpot in Norway! I love hotpot (火锅, huǒguō) not only because it is a fun way to cook food, but also because hotpot brings to mind a warm sense of social gathering. Whenever I meet old friends back in Kunming, we often share a hotpot meal while catching up with each other. Hotpot varies depending on the different geographic regions of China. In...

Suanla mian

How to Cook With Chinese Black Vinegar / How to Cook With Chinese Spices / Noodles / Pork / Restaurant Classics / Southwest (Sichuan, Yunnan)

No Sweet Sour: Kunming Sour and Spicy Noodles (Suanlamian, 酸辣面)

Karaoke Noodles Unlike our recipe for Sichuan-style sour and spicy noodles, which features sweet potato glass noodles topped with a fried egg, this suanlamian noodle soup from Yunnan is made with wheat noodles. Not only does Michelle’s recipe produce a gorgeous bowl of noodles, it also includes an ingenious method of cooking the noodles and a bonus recipe for spiced pork tenderloin to be used as a noodle topping or served on its own as a cold (side) dish.~~Taylor Text and photos by Michelle Zhao I can’t think of anything...