Category: Food

Growing up, I had heard about 螞蟻上樹 but had never had it. In my mind, I pictured something like ants on a log with raisins on celery sticks filled with peanut butter. But, it is a real Sichuan dish, which I found in the the re-issued edition of The Food of Sichuan by Fuchsia Dunlop.

I used Korean sweet potato starch noodle, just because it was what I had on hand. However, one bundle of noodles was quite large, and threw off the recipe. I had to make some adjustments to compensate, as well as add some additional seasonings because my pixian broad bean paste was not as red as the version I saw on YouTube.

I prepared this dish based on the Caramelised Lotus Root recipe from Kylie Kwong’s My China with some substitutions and modifications.

• 3 pieces of lotus root, peeled and sliced thinly
• peeled and sliced ginger
• 2 cloves of garlic
• garlic olive oil
• 1 tbsp brown sugar
• 2 tbsp shao hsing wine
• 1 tbsp chinkiang vinegar
• 2 tsp soy sauce
• 1 tsp chili oil with black bean
• chili oil
• fresh herb, such as cilantro or basil

Add oil to a hot wok. Once the oil is heated, add the ginger and whole garlic cloves, and stir-fry until toasted and fragrant. For that extra boost of garlic flavor, I add a splash of garlic olive oil, which is sold at Costco. Next, I stir fried the lotus root for a few minutes, before adding the sugar, wine, vinegar, and soy sauce. The sugar and vinegar gives it a pleasant sweet-and-sour flavor. Kylie’s original recipe called for 1/4 cup of brown sugar, which I thought was a bit excessive. I ended up closer to the 2-3 tsp mark, and you can always add a bit more at the end if the balance between sweet and sour is off.

As the lotus root caramelizes, add 1 tsp of chili oil with black bean. I use the 老干妈 (laoganma) brand and stir fry for another minute. I finish the dish with some additional chili oil, and then some chopped fresh cilantro or basil leaves, depending on what I have on hand.

After having 干锅菜花 at a few Chinese restaurants, I’ve worked on a home version of my totally non-authentic dry roasted cauliflower. First, I start off with Chinese cauliflower, which I found available at select 99 Ranch markets. I’ve been finding it consistently at the Cupertino and Mountain View stores, but not the Foster City one.

Ingredients
Chinese cauliflower
1 shallot, sliced
1-2 chili pepper, remove seeds and sliced.
2 Tbsp Shaoxing wine
1 Tbsp Light soy sauce
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp Chili oil with black bean
Hunan bacon 湖南臘肉, cut into slivers.
1/4 tsp Chili oil

1. Preheat a large cast iron skillet on low heat. I started with the 10.25-inch Lodge cast iron skillet, but switched recently to the 12-inch Lodge cast iron skillet. With 30% more surface area, I could precook all my cauliflower in one batch instead of two.

2. Wash the cauliflower and cut it into bite-sized pieces. I then dry the cauliflower in a salad spinner so that the cauliflower will roast instead of steam.

3. Add a thin layer of olive oil to the cast iron skillet. When hot, add the cauliflower. I leave the cauliflower alone for 5-10 minutes, allowing it to sear. As the cauliflower sears, I turn the pieces over and leave it undisturbed for a few more minutes. Repeat as needed. Once the cauliflower has been roasted evenly on all sides, remove it from the skillet.

4. In a hot wok, add some oil and stir fry the sliced shallots and chili peppers. I’ve used red chili peppers or green jalapeños, sometimes even both. As the shallots caramelize, add a pinch of salt and sugar. Add Hunan bacon to taste and continue to stir fry. Add the chili oil with black bean. I use the Lao Gan Ma 老干妈 brand of chili oil with black bean sauce.

I’ve been using the Hsin Tung Yang 新東陽 brand of Hunan bacon. I’ve found this in the refrigerated dried meats section at 99 Ranch and also in the dry goods shelves at Marina Food. I was perplexed, but the packaging states that it only needs to be refrigerated after opening. When refrigerated, the Hunan bacon gets hard and difficult to slice. Nowadays, I purchase a package of Hunan bacon and allow it to return to room temperature. I thinly slice the entire package and store it in a plastic food container in the refrigerator.

5. Add the roasted cauliflower to the wok. Add the shaoxing wine, soy sauce and sugar. For this dish, I don’t use measuring spoons–just a splash her and a splash there. After stir frying for 2-3 more minutes, I start taste testing.

First, I’m looking at the texture of the cauliflower. I want the cauliflower to be cooked, but still retain some crunch. I’ll take a bite and adjust my cooking times accordingly. Next, I’ll adjust the seasoning of the cauliflower to taste with more soy sauce or salt. Once the texture and flavors are to my liking, I add just a touch of chili oil. I recently started a new bottle of Hsin Tung Yang chili oil just for variety. I’ve also used the S&B La-Yu Chili Oil before. Each has its own taste, so use whatever you like.

I’ve been making braised beef shank for many years, but the end product had never quite matched the description in my cook book. I’ve tried braising in a cast iron pot for 2 hours. I’ve also left the beef shank in a crock pot for 8 hours. In the end, I’ve never achieved the jellied braising sauce until now.

To start, I adapted the braised beef shank recipe from Ken Hom’s Fragrant Harbor Taste. I vacuum sealed the following ingredients in a FoodSaver bag, and let it marinate for a few hours.

1½-2 lbs of beef shank
6 star anise
2 Tbsp whole unroasted Sichuan peppercorns
2 oz rock sugar
3 Tbsp dark soy sauce
1½ Tbsp light soy sauce
4 slices of ginger
2 two-inch sticks of cinnamon
2 tsp five-spice powder

Next, I cooked the beef shank at 175°F for 16 hours. When the beef shank was done, I removed it from the bag and filtered the reserved juices. For the first time, the braising sauce coagulated from all the gelatin extracted from the shank. The meat was incredibly tender.

I sliced the beef shank thinly, added a dab of hoisin sauce, and wrapped it all up in a green onion pancake.

This is my way of making green onion pancakes or 葱油饼. It is not the traditional way.

1. Boil a cup of water.

2. Measure 10 oz. of all purpose flour and pour into a food processor.

I don’t use anything special. Just the industrial size bag of flour from Costco. I’ve tried countless green onion pancake recipes, and never without success. The pancakes would always end up hard like a cracker, so I abandoned the printed proportions and made the dough by sight and touch. Better, but inconsistent. After reading The Science of Good Cooking by Cook’s Illustrated/America’s Test Kitchen, which explained how measuring flour by volume was imprecise, I switched over to measuring flour by weight. My dough is now consistently soft.

3. Measure 6.25 oz. of boiling water, slowly pour it into the food processor as it is running, and let it run for a few minutes after the dough has come together.

I place a liquid measuring cup on the kitchen scale, zero it, and then ladle the boiling water into the measuring cup. The pyrex measuring cup makes it easy to pour the water into the food processor. After the dough comes together, I let the food processor run for about two minutes. The end product looks something like this:

Note: 6.25 oz is about right for the 25 lb bag of Costco flour. I recently switched to the smaller 2-10 lb bags of organic unbleached all purpose flour (also from Costco). I had to add a touch more water–6 3/8 oz–or else the dough ended up a bit dryer.

4. Remove the dough and knead it a few time. Cover the dough and let it rest for 20 minutes.

In a small rimmed baking sheet, I add a bit of flour. I use a rimmed baking sheet just to keep the flour from getting everywhere. I also dust my hands with flour and remove the dough from the food processor. On the baking sheet, I knead the dough a few times until it is in the shape of a ball. Use just enough flour to keep it from sticking. I then line a large bowl with a sheet of parchment paper, drop the dough ball inside, and cover with plastic wrap.

5. Chop the green onions and clean up the food processor.

Now is a good time to clean up the food processor before the remnant dough dries out. Also, chop about 2-3 stalks of green onion.

6. After 20 minutes, cut a wedge of dough. Heat up a flat bottom pan on low heat.

I had a sharp scraper that came with the food processor. I cut a wedge that is 1/6th of the dough ball so that I end up with six green onion pancakes. Now is a good time to heat up a pan. I cook my pancakes on low heat. So some oil and let the pan slowly warm up.

7. Roll the wedge into a ball, and then use your thumbs to press a dimple into the dough.

Again, I dust my hands with flour, grab the wedge and shape it into a ball. I use my thumb to press down the center of the dough, while turning it around to make the center even. This is the non-traditional part. Every other recipe will tell you to roll out the dough, spread the green onion/sesame oil/salt mixture, and roll up the dough into a log. Then, coil it like a snail shell before flattening it again with a rolling pin. I’ve always had problems with the green onions bursting out and blackening during the cooking process so I do it my way.

8. Fill the dimple with chopped green onions.

9. Close up the dough.

Hopefully, this part will not be too confusing. The best way to describe this is like if I were making a bun/bao. I pull up the opposite sides of the dough until the green onion is covered, pinch the top together, and give it a twist.

9. Add a pinch of kosher salt and gently roll out the pancake.

Try to keep the green onions inside the pancake.

10. Cook the pancake.

Hopefully, the pan is hot by now. I might 1-2T of oil into the pan. I just want enough so that the pancake is in contact with the oil so that it will cook evenly. I cook the pancake in a covered pan for a few minutes. It all depends on the heat of the pan. Once the pancake is cooked on one side (I go by looks), I might add some more oil back in the pan as I am flipping it over to cook the second side. Hopefully, the end product will look like this:

It all started at Howie’s Artisan Pizza. I really loved their pizza crust. After buying a dough ball from them, I discovered how dough should feel in the hand: soft and malleable. In other words, I was not using enough water in my recipes. With this insight, I was finally able to crank out green onion pancakes (葱油饼) fairly consistently by relying on my eyes and sense of touch, instead of the measuring cup. Now, on to the naan.

I started with Mark Bittman’s naan recipe from How to Cook Everything.

2 tsp instant yeast
2 Tbsp milk
2 Tbsp yogurt
1 Tbsp sugar
4 C all-purpose flour
1 egg
2 tsp salt

I’ve made this a few times. Bittman has a specific order for mixing some of the ingredients (i.e., yeast, milk, yogurt and sugar), but I was even more minimalist by adding all the ingredients (except for the water) together in the food processor with no ill effect.

With 葱油饼, naan or pizza dough, getting the right amount of water is crucial. Too little and the dough is hard. Too much and the dough is wet and sticky. Better to get it right on the first try, than to tinker around and try to fix your mistakes. So, with the food processor running, stream the water slowly into the food processor until the dough comes together into a ball. The first time I tried this, I used warm water (like with 葱油饼) and the dough rose nicely. The second time, I tried making the dough in the morning with room temperature water and leaving the dough in the refrigerator all day to let it rise, as Bittman suggested. I’m not sure that the dough rose at all in the second instance, but the naan was just as delicious.

Instead of an oiled bowl, I usually just place the dough in a bowl lined with parchment paper.

After the dough has risen (or not), I slice a wedge of dough and shape it. For that piece, I think I added some chopped green onions.

Here’s where I depart from Bittman. I have had no luck making the naan in an oven, even with a baking stone. The end result always ends up too dry. So, I tried it in a covered frying pan (just like with 葱油饼) with a touch of oil.

A touch of butter at the end is optional. Maybe this is not authentic naan, but naan “with Chinese characteristics.” Regardless, the end result was pretty close.

Rice cookers are truly the work horses of the Chinese kitchen: toiling each day behind the scenes and maybe even taken for granted despite their constant effort to optimally prepare a bowl of rice. Our National rice cooker has faithfully delivered thousands of bowls of perfect rice over the years. However, it was beginning to show its age.

The once pristine pan had accumulated some unsightly nicks and scratches in its non-stick coating. While purchasing a new rice cooker is one option, a cheaper alternative may be to just buy a replacement pan.

So now, the rice cooker has a new non-stick pan which I purchased from the Panasonic. If your rice cooker pan starts wearing out, don’t forget to consider purchasing a replacement part instead of buying an entirely new rice cooker.

Last weekend, I found a copy of Momofuku by David Chang and Peter Meehan at the local library. It’s part autobiography and part cookbook with plenty of color and colorful language. While I’ve never set foot inside a Momofuku restaurant, I have read or heard quite a bit about their famous pork buns, so I decided to tackle that recipe first.

The roast pork belly was simple to prep and cook. However, being an experiment, I did not cook the requisite 3-pound slab of skinless pork belly. Instead, I started with a 1-pound slab of skin-on pork belly, which was quite decent in size. I thought I would end up with more than enough roast pork, but the original square slab of pork belly reduced to a rectangular package of caramel goodness while in the oven.

The tender pork was quite good, particularly when nestled between a steamed (store-bought) bun and accompanied by a smear of hoisin and shredded green onions. The first batch with skin-on was a bit too crunchy, so I removed the skin for the second batch. Needless to say, the port buns were well received. However, considering the amount of fat and oil that oozed out of that delicious slab of meat, I don’t see this dish making a frequent repeat appearance on the dinner table.

The ginger scallion sauce was also well done. I love adding it to rice, noodles, and just about everything else. I’m still searching for a recipe that I can make repeatedly. Someone of the other recipes (Pig’s Head? Seriously?) seem totally off-the-wall for home chefs. I have to test some of the other recipes to see if I can find something more practical that would justify buying the cookbook after I return this current copy to the library.