Category: North (Shanxi, Beijing)
Congee, An Old Buddhist Remedy When you find yourself tired or ailing, let this 皮蛋瘦肉粥 (pídàn shòuròu zhōu), century-egg and lean-pork congee, restore you. A thick suspension of pearl rice made creamy by time and preserved egg yolk, pidan shourou zhou is the most lavish of peasant (and monk) fare. The benefits are manifold for those who consume and proffer zhou—in ancient 10th-century Buddhist texts, the monk 義楚 Yichu describes the blessings of both eating and giving the gift of congee¹. Although my parents both grew up eating what they...
Dumpling Lessons If you have followed this blog for long, you have probably noticed a conspicuous lack of dumplings. It’s not that we don’t like dumplings, but more that we’ve never mastered making them from scratch. We almost always use pre-made dumpling wrappers in our house, to less-than stellar effect. (Though we usually serve them in a Zhong dumpling sauce, which makes anything taste good.) Besides being less fresh and tasty, they are also drier and significantly harder to work with in folding and pleating dumplings than freshly made dough....
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...
