Green Mung Bean Popsicle 綠豆雪條

It's been so hot these few days.  Soooo hot!!  I'm melting!!  What to do?  Well, since we've got an excess of lovely green beans from making our Green Bean Licorice Prickly Heat Herbal Tea  生地綠豆甘草茶, I decided to make a batch of healthy yet still truly delicious popsicles to cool our feathers in the midst of this heat.  

These super easy to make Green Mung Bean Popsicles, or 綠豆雪條, are a classic ice lolly that is the favorite of every chinese kid.  No better way to cool off from the Chinese summer heat!

Green Bean Licorice Prickly Heat Herbal Tea 生地綠豆甘草茶

Do you ever think about how much beverage we buy and lug home to drink?  Water, juices, sodas, etc.  Heavy to lug home, liquid in bottles is heavy, amiright?  We buy beverages too, but it's been humming in the back of my mind for a while that there must be a better option.  

What, for example, did people used do for everyday for cool and refreshing drinks in the days before the invention of modern packaging?  They made their own drinks, of course!  

So recently when my little girl's eczema flared up again due to the already humid weather descending over Hong Kong, I decided to cook up a big ol' pot of Green Bean Licorice Prickly Heat Herbal Tea, or 生地綠豆甘草茶.  A cool, inexpensive, refreshing sweet Chinese beverage that makes a great everyday drink and soothes itchy skin and prickly heat.

Chinese Steamed Sugar Sponge Cake 白糖糕

Eating the deliciously bouncy Chinese Steamed Sugar Cake 白糖糕 always reminds me of being a kid.  Holding a squishy wobbly piece of cake in one hand whilst lazing on the sofa watching endless Road Runner cartoons.  Fighting over the last bits with my sisters.  Wondering why my cake had so many holes.  Thinking it was pretty cool that it had so many holes.  Trying to see through those many holes all the way to the other side.  And then eating some more.  

Remembering all these things that made me happy when I was a kid, I decided to make some wonderfully wobbly Steamed Sugar Sponge Cake 白糖糕 for my little girl today and, no surprise, she loved it!

Steamed Giant Grouper Fish Head with Tangerine Peel 果皮蒸龍躉頭

People usually think of fish as something small. You know, something that can be held with a hand or two.   I know I've always thought of them as small (and delicious) things. But as I have delved more into the tremendous varieties of fresh seafood that the Hong Kong local wet markets make available I have realized that some fish are not small. Indeed, some fish are really big! 

Recently we made the delectable Steamed Giant Grouper Fish Head with Tangerine Peel, or 果皮蒸龍躉頭,  which we have made many times before. Except this time I started thinking about the size of the fish that must go with such a head and ended up realizing that we were eating a giant fish head! Imagine that, I never knew!

How to Eat Sugarcane 吃甘蔗

When I was a little girl my 爸爸 took my sister and I to Taiwan.  It was my first trip to Taiwan as well as Asia.  I remember the hot wet air hitting us like a ton of bricks when we descended from the airplane onto the tarmac, the hot sluggish wind.  This was a completely different place from where we were growing up, a place full of strange new sights, sounds and smells.  

My 爸爸 had lived in Taiwan during his formative teen years and had never been back since.  He was emotional, full of half complete stories of his Taiwan years, stories sprinkled with joy, nostalgia and sadness.  

One of the side trips we took on this little family adventure was a long and winding bus ride that took us to the lush deep south of Taiwan.  It was on this never ending bus ride that I had my first lesson on How to Eat Sugarcane  吃甘蔗.  Munching away on a stick was never so sweet!

Chilled Bigeye Fish - Chiu Chow Style 潮州凍大眼雞

The thing about spring in Hong Kong is that it lasts only a few cool windswept weeks and then it's gone forever.  BAM! and just like that we're right in the midst of hot summer heat.  Yuck!   If there is one thing that I could do without it's those endless summery months!  

And yet one must soldier on nevertheless and thus we find our thoughts turned longingly towards those delicious cold dishes in the Chinese repertoire. We've posted about several Northern Chinese style cold dishes like the crunchilicious Chinese Cold Cucumber Salad and the cold Chinese Spiced Beef Shin.

Today I want to share our latest obsession, a Southern style Chinese cold dish, the very easy to make and really, really amazingly fresh and sweet Chilled Bigeye Fish - Chiu Chow Style, or 潮州凍大眼雞.  This cold fish dish is so tasty and it keeps so well in the fridge that we're making batches of it so we can have it all the time! It's that good!