Buffalo Wings Baked in the Oven

This post is kinda serendipitious.  You know, happily accidental.  In my food wanderings online recently, I stumbled on this baked method of making buffalo wings by the famous Kenji Lopez at Serious Eats and got really excited by it.  Ironically, I totally didn't realize that Super Sunday, the holy grail of buffalo winging, was coming right up!  It's hard to remember that date here in HK, lol.

My hubby loves buffalo wings.  Not really sure why but it's okay cuz we love them too, just not as much, haha.  We've made them many times before, baking the chicken wings before dunking into that gorgeous buffalo sauce.  But they never seemed quite right, the baked skins lacking the crispness of the deep fried buffalo wings that you can get at restaurants.  Without that crispiness the sauce just doesn't cling convincingly enough, does it?

So Kenji's method is supposed to make the baked chicken wing's skin as crisp as if you deep fried the wings!  Does it work?  Oh yeah, it sure does!  Super crispy skinned juicy baked buffalo wings coming right up!

Baked Sweet Potato 烤番薯

Dear readers...winter draws ever nearer.  And as the chill winds of the season sweep over us what should appear on street corners all over Asia but the wonderful street hawkers that sell roasted sweet potato.  OMgosh, the aroma of that roasting sweet potato!  So good!  That hot plump sweet potato is exactly the thing to hold in your chilly hands.  Not to mention that first luscious bite of the creamy, sweet hot potato flesh.  Just the thing to warm you up and put you to rights inside and out!

And if, poor darlings, you don't have a friendly neighborhood sweet potato hawker, don't worry a bit, we're here to save the day!  Cuz, guess what, you can easily make superb baked sweet potato at home that tastes just as good as any you can get from a street vendor. 

Baked sweet potato 烤番薯 is so super simple to make.  And oh so yummy to eat: hot, sweet and creamy.  It just warms the ol' heart, it does.

Chinese Five Spice Ribs 五香烤排骨

It's getting chilly in Hong Kong (finally!) and the cool refreshing winds that were absent all summer (and most of the autumn...sigh) are now come back, nipping at my legs and arms, urging me to dig out those stored away down jackets.  I'm loving it, the coolness, the brilliant blue of the almost winter sky, the feeling of space opening up everywhere.  

I love the cooler seasons and all that it brings and especially love the food!  These are the warming foods, the foods that insist on warm huddles about the table, the cold kept out as we devour the foods that warm and sustain us with the extra energy we need.  

One constant at our autumn and winter table is this Chinese Five Spice Ribs 五香烤排骨, ribs marinated with a special dry rub spice mix then slow roasted at low heat until the flavor infused meat tenderly, deliciously falls off the bone and straight into your mouth.  YUMMM!  If you like eating spare ribs, you've gotta try this easy foolproof recipe.  You'll find yourself making ribs at home that are as good as or better than what you've ever had outside!

Salt Baked Fish Head 鹽焗魚頭

Nowadays you can get sashimi and sushi just about everywhere as folk all over have fallen in love with the deliciousness of the fresh raw fish that Japanese cuisine has introduced to the world.  Twenty years ago I'll bet most of these people could never have imagined themselves eating and loving raw fish!

One of the unexpected benefits for seafood lovers such as ourselves is the fact that supermarkets that produce sashimi and sushi for sale are left with very very fresh fish heads.  And they put these out for sale at very reasonable prices!  Whoppee yeah!  Well as least for fish head lovers.  

For those of us in the know, fish head is deliriously delicious, amirite?  Fat and fatty meat and cheek meat (yum!) and soft cartilage, crispy skin...  Oh yeah...seriously yummy.  

How to Wrap a Mooncake 月餅皮做法

Have you ever wondered how to get that homemade mooncake skin as thin and even as possible?  With machines it is very easy, obviously, but when hand pressing mooncakes at home it can be quite tricky.  If you're not careful you'll end up with some sides thick and some sides thin.  Uggh...not a pretty sight.  I know that there is a 'professional' hand method to make wrap mooncakes but my clumsy hands haven't really mastered it yet.  

However, as we really love making homemade, hand pressed mooncakes, we have developed a 'cheat', so to speak, our own unique easy method of wrapping the mooncake, whether for snow skin mooncakes or traditional baked mooncakes, that produces a a thin even skin on all sides of the mooncake.

Spicy Indian Baked Chicken Masaledar Murghi

Something easy and super tasty for dinner, right, that's what everyone wants?  This is the second post about our adventures into real Indian cuisine, about our mini Indian feast that we indulged in starting with the vegetarian dish Spicy Indian Potato Cauliflower Aloo Gobi that we wrote about the other day.  

To go with these delicious dry curry vegetable dish we made this super easy Indian Spicy Baked Chicken Masaledar Murghi, a tender, fragrant, super spiced up meat dish.

Chinese Baked Pork Chop Rice 焗豬扒飯

One of the best "if you are really starving and in need of 'comfort food'" food ever.  Hummm...  Did that make any sense? Well, you know what I mean!  Or, to be absolutely correct, you will know what I mean after you try this Chinese Baked Pork Chop Rice, or 焗豬扒飯.  

This is a local Hong Kong classic, an absolute standard at all the cha chaan teng, or 茶餐廳 in Hong Kong.  Cha chaan teng is the name for the local style dinners/cafes that dot the culinary landscape of Hong Kong.  Small affordable chinese food eateries that serve up fast, greasy food in big portions; interiors done up with lots of fluorescent lighting and rows of small eating booths.  A cha chaan teng has to have a decent Chinese Baked Pork Chop dish to serve to the hungry masses if it wants to be taken seriously as an eatery!