Roasted Duck Salted Egg Bok Choy Soup 燒鴨鹹蛋白菜湯

There's nothing quite like soup.  Especially for the Chinese.  Soup is like life sustaining nectar to the Chinese.  When I was a little girl we had a soup everyday with dinner.  As part of a Chinese family meal of say four different chinese dishes and one soup.  We always had the soup last of all, as my 爸爸 did not like us to drink soup while eating.  When the rice was all done (and the rice had to be eaten down to the last grain!) we could then use the soup ladle to help ourselves to a bowl of lovely savory soup to finish our dinner.  

Yum, yum...  I can picture it right now: our little family tightly crowded around that dinner table...the three kids fighting over this and that...媽媽 telling us to be quiet...奶奶 bringing over dish after dish hot from the stove...爸爸 quiet and waiting for his rice to cool.  What a precious thing it is to have food memories!  

Nowadays, we're much more lazy about soup (even though in our hearts we long for soup) because, well, it's another dish, another stove going, etc.  So it is that this Roasted Duck Salted Egg Bok Choy Soup, or 燒鴨鹹蛋白菜湯,  has become a favorite soup for us.  It's easy, quick, super tasty and provides you with not only a deliciously savory soup but also a meat and vegetable dish for your Chinese family style dinner. Two dishes in one!

Hand Painted Easter Eggs

When I was a little girl growing up we didn't do much for Easter.  More like nothing, actually.  Not that we didn't want to. Us kids wanted to, it was just that my 媽媽 and 爸爸 didn't really know how to celebrate a lot of these western holidays.  But I remember so clearly that one year when my parents somehow miraculously brought home these beautiful boxes of decorated chocolate Easter eggs, one for each of us girls.  

That Easter egg, in my memory, has got to be one of the most beautiful things I had ever seen in my life up to that point (and probably well beyond.)  I stared and stared at that amazing, delicate, beautiful Easter egg for probably a month, not even daring to open the box and eat it.  I can't remember what eventually happened to that egg.  I only remember being in love...

Handmade Bamboo Steamer 手作竹蒸籠

Have I mentioned that we love bamboo?  Yes...well, let me say it again anyways:  We love bamboo!  Slowly but surely we have switched over to bamboo for most of the cooking utensils for our little kitchen, at least all those that are available in bamboo.  Our chopping boards, our spatulas, our chopsticks, our steamers...

A strong, light, durable, inexpensive, mold resistant (much more so than wood!), heat resistant, wildly beautiful material, bamboo's use in Chinese cooking is crowned by this: the wonderful fragrance and taste it subtly infuses when you cook with it!  Once you've tried it there's no going back, you'll be hooked.  Recently, in need of new bamboo steamers, we decided to make a little pilgrimage and procure ourselves a true Hong Kong handmade bamboo steamer!

Passion Fruit Ice Cream

Passion... Fruit... Put those two words together and what do you visualize?  Something gorgeous and sexy and exotic, no doubt.  But in actuality the real passion fruit is a plain 'ol thing: round, dull purple, wrinkled, ugly even.  Well, at least till you take pity on the poor 'ol ugly thing and open it up.  And then it clicks...that gorgeous lusciously goopy yellow orange flesh with its perfectly black oval seeds... Yes passion, yes fruit...  Yeah for the gorgeously sexy insides of the Passion Fruit!  

And then you scoop a mouthful, bite in...and your face puckers.  Yikes!  It turns out that passion fruit tastes sour sweet. This makes it the perfect fruit to make a summery, refreshing to the palate ice cream!  Just add a generous bit of sugar to balance the sour and you have the makings for Passion Fruit Ice Cream, a seductive dessert that is fantastically tasty and refreshing after a summery meal.  Plus gorgeous to look at!

Chinese Steamed Spareribs with Black Truffle Sauce 黑松露醬蒸排骨

We've heard all that jazz about Black Truffle, that great European gastronomic treasure, but for some reason or the other have never actually tried it.  (Too poor, probably and too busy eating yummilicious chinese food!)  Anyhow, recently someone gave us a bottle of Black Truffle sauce and suddenly there we were, at our virgin tasting of this famous food.  

Out of the bottle and onto crackers, it had a surprisingly sharp aroma (almost garlicky) that one could smell all over the house and an intense mushroomy, slightly earthy, yet delicate taste.  Surprisingly delicate really, I'd have thought black truffle would be something that grabs you by the throat and makes you swoon with lust.  To be honest, it was not what we expected.  But then I'm not sure what we expected...

Chinese Shrimp Roe Noodles 蝦籽麵

This is a classic Cantonese Noodles dish, the Shrimp Roe Noodle, or 蝦子麵.  It's a traditional chinese noodle dish that has fallen out of favor in recent years because...well, actually, I don't really know why!  

It is a stunning, simple yet complex, gorgeous to look at, and extra super yummy noodle dish (if made correctly!)  Plus, I don't know of any other noodle or pasta dish quite like this. If that ain't enough to make this Shrimp Roe Noodle dish a super star, I don't know what is!!

Sweet & Sour Braised Fish 酸甜魚

I love, love, love the amazingly delightful taste of the Chinese sweet and sour sauce, but I have to seriously protest against that bright orange gooey guck that passes for sweet and sour sauce these days.  What is that stuff?  And why is it so bright orange?!  Everyone must be using the same bottled stuff because it tastes and looks exactly the same from restaurant to restaurant.  

If you love the taste of Chinese sweet and sour, why not try the traditional Chinese way, and make the very delicious Sweet and Sour Fish, or 酸甜魚.  I promise, this traditional preparation tastes way better than restaurant style sweet and sour!  Plus it's easy peasy!

Rose Apple 蓮霧

A delicious fruit that is a cross between an apple, a pear, and cotton candy?!  What the hey?!  What sort of fruit-strosity could that be?  Why the Rose Apple, or 蓮霧, of course, that little lady of the exotic tropical fruits, beloved and cultivated in Taiwan for hundreds of years.