Chinese Steamed Buns Mantou | Chinese Basic Dough 饅頭

My dearest grandma 奶奶 used to make basketfuls of these basic chinese steamed buns, known as Mantou 饅頭, and feed them to us hungry children day in and day out, filling our hungry growing tummies with this sweet fluffy bread.  

These buns are eaten all over China as breakfast, for a quick snack or just whenever one needs a filler.  When I was in my teens I could eat probably the whole plateful of the bread you can seen in the photo above in one go...yup, kinda gross but true, I could eat a lot of food back then.  

These classic Chinese buns are quite simple to make and delicious to eat, just sweet, white puffs of cloud like yummiliciousness.   The same dough is also a Chinese Basic Dough that can also be used to make all kinds of other stuffed and filled chinese buns and breads and the like!

Swiss Chicken Wings 瑞士雞翼

Swiss Chicken Wings?  What a minute...what the bloggity jazz is Swiss food doing in a post about  Chinese food?!  Well actually this yummilicious dish is not from Switzerland nor is it related to any kind of Swiss food.  These darkly glazed, succulently sweet and savory Swiss Chicken Wings 瑞士雞翅 are pure one hundred percent Chinese!  

The name of the dish comes about from a classic case of translation gone wrong: many years ago a tourist found his way to a western style Hong Kong diner called Tai Ping Koon 太平館, famous for its fabulous east west fusion dishes, and ended up ordering their house special, sweet chicken wings.  

Finding the chicken wings most delicious the tourist attempted to discover the name.  In classic translation comedy style, the waiter's Chinese accented "Sweet Chicken" sounded like "Swiss Chicken" to the tourist.  And thus the name and fame of the Swiss Chicken Wings was born.

Shanghai Pork Chop Noodles 上海豬排麵

Folks nowadays are so into instant noodles...I see families at the supermarket fill up their shopping carts with packets after packets of instant noodles!  And don't get me wrong, we love instant noodles as much as the next guy.  (My favorite flavor is the seafood curry!)  

But let's go back in time a bit, and consider, what came before instant noodles?  Well, I imagine it would be some like this...a quick and yummilicious bowl of soft slurpable noodles that fills you up with tasty crisp protein as well as hot and nourishing soup.  

This old classic noodle dish, the traditional Shanghai Pork Chop Noodles 上海豬排麵, is not only easy to make but yummy and satisfying to the tum as well!