Green tea and red rice add more than color and an East Asian twist to this soft bread loaf. Lightly enriched with sugar, butter, and an egg yolk, the subtle tastes of both ingredients pull through along with their many nutritional benefits.
The health benefits of green tea are well-documented, but red rice may be a [...]
White-cut chicken is a traditional Chinese preparation that calls for poaching, cutting on the bone, chilling, and serving with a flavorful dipping sauce. Chicken doesn’t have to be fried, crisp, or golden brown to be delicious. When it comes to Chinese dishes, “traditional” usually implies “old as hell” and “bajillions served,” so they must be [...]
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Do you try and remember the first things you learned to cook? My memory is a bit hazy, but here’s my list so far:
Rice, because some Filipino kids are forced to cook as soon as they can lift a pot.
Eggs, sunny-side up.
Hot dogs, cut with a butter knife to resemble octopi.
And of course, this crab [...]
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Dongpo Pork is a minimalist recipe for braised pork belly that needs only a few Chinese pantry staples — ginger, scallions, soy sauce, and Shaoxing rice wine. Ever ordered anything “drunken” at your local Chinese restaurant? Odds are you’ve had Shaoxing. It is the most widely used rice wine in Chinese cookery so invest in [...]
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If you have a nagging need to apply heat to apples before enjoying it, try steaming for a change. Cooking and baking cultivars such as Granny Smith Apples can be steamed with good results, changing its distinctive crispness into a spoonable consistency. Steaming also intensifies the flavor of apples while retaining much of its fresh [...]
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Pureed red bean paste is wrapped in a thin blanket of crisp-fried crepes in this sweet Shanghai classic. Traditionally served on its own, toppings such as toasted sesame seeds and light syrups are certainly welcome. My favorite addition is Japanese kinako, an aromatic flour of roasted soybeans, adding a subtle nuttiness that always plays well [...]
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Sweetened azuki bean paste opens the door to East Asia, where it is widely used in a variety of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean sweets. Whether used in bread or pastry fillings, sweet soups, pancakes, or ice cream, the essential azuki bean is usually highlighted as the main flavor. Its assertiveness is best complemented with neutral [...]
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This deceptively simple steamed dessert has only three ingredients — peaches, dates, and brown sugar. I wasn’t too excited about it at first because I like peaches raw and I’m not too fond of dates. Since I was steaming chicken for dinner and had some fresh peaches on hand anyway, I figured that I might [...]
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Family recipes are great, especially if they’re not from my own. Having said that, my food-obsessed relatives are sure to disown me, so I’m going to explain myself in case my grandmother finds this while googling my name in search of my Twitter account.
I’ll never get tired of the foods of my childhood and will [...]
Cooking for a small crowd can be really stressful for the budding Michael Chiarello. However, it can be one of the most fun things you can do for friends and family. There is something perversely satisfying with making something delicious and sharing it with people you really really care about. A lot of things can [...]
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