Chinese Salt Pickled Vegetables 自製中式泡菜

These little veggie goodies that you can make at home are fantastic little bombs of fermented probiotic goodness!  With a simple brine of salt and water vegetables can be transformed into delicious health boosting pickles that can keep for a long time.  

This process to do this is known as lacto fermentation whereby good bacteria known as Lactobacillus are used to break down starch and sugars into lactic acid, a natural preservative.  The transformative result is veggie pickles with a tanginess introduced, flavors intensified and layered with new taste notes, texture still packing a bit of crunch.

As this was the traditional way to preserve vegetables in the days of old, one can find lacto fermented food in most every culture.  Sauerkraut, kimchi, jalapeños, dill pickles, yogurt, kefir, natto (our new obbession!), kombucha, tempeh and miso are just a few examples of the endless variety of fermented foods found around the world.  

Today we introduce the traditional Chinese way of making Pickled Vegetables 泡菜, a brine soak resulting in yummiliciously delicious veggie pickles infused with aromatic Chinese spices.  It's super simple to make, just need a bit of time and patience.

Chinese Style Chicken Liver Pâté 中式雞肝醬

I love getting a bit of organ meat into our meals if I can, they are just so power packed full of vitamin goodness.  One of my favorite ways to do this is to make liver pâté (with a Chinese twist of course!) which we then have in the mornings for breakfast, smeared on a bit of toasted homemade bread.

Yummy!  I love liver!  It's just so tasty.  It is definitely one of my favorite organ meats.  And if you make this Chinese Style Chicken Liver Pâté, it's super easy to make, very yummy, pretty to look at, and a little pate goes a long way!

Chinese Porcelain Spoons 中式湯匙

I lust after Chinese porcelain.  It's so seriously beautiful to me.  Sometimes I dream about it. (I know, I know, I'm really weird!)  Those beautiful, iconic, hand painted pieces of art that the Chinese use ever so casually as their dinnerware.  Gold edged, milky white, delicately patterned or decorated with miniature hand-painted scenes of flying dragons or pagodas on lonely mountains, these gleaming smooth spoons, bowls and plates always grab me by the throat.  I WANT THEM ALL!

Alas for me (but luckily for my 老公!), my house is too small (but of course it is, I live in Hong Kong!) and my pocketbook too limited to buy all the beautiful chinese porcelain that I find.  So most of the time I just stare at the porcelain loveliness and drool.  

However, we also like to poke around the old and second hand shops in Hong Kong and every once in a while we score some beautiful old porcelain ware, thrown out by their modern ex-owners (to be replaced by BPA infused designer plasticware).  We, on the other hand, a family of luddites confessed, lovingly scoop home and squirrel away our treasures.  Recently we discovered a stash of lovely old Chinese Porcelain Spoons or 中式湯匙...

Chinese Style Coarse Liver Pâté 中式雞肝醬

I love pate.  Or Pâté.  Or liver paste.  Or edible brown stuff.  Ah!  How yummy it all is, whatever the name!  For those in the know, liver is to be loved.  And yet, while I too love pâté, it is unfortunately too expensive (for me, anyways) to buy on a regular basis.  So one fine day, having made a delicious loaf of bread, I decided, enough is enough!  I must have some pâté!  To go with my delicious bread!  Life is too short to not have pâté!

So it was thus that I began to make my own pâté.  With a chinese twist, of course...and so we present to you a Chinese Style Coarse Liver Pâté, or 中式雞肝醬.