Chinese Ginger Milk Pudding 薑汁撞奶布丁

Recently we made the smooth and creamy Double Skin Milk Pudding 雙皮奶 and were so delighted with the lusciously milky results that we determined to further explore the "Milk-y Way"!  To that end we decided to make this traditional oh so easy to make treat that originates from Panyu 番禺, Guangzhou 廣州: the Chinese Ginger Milk Pudding 薑汁撞奶布丁, also known as Ginger Milk Curd.

This pudding is really magical because its puddingness is set thru the interaction of fresh ginger enzyme and hot milk!  And that's it!  Milk with a touch of sugar is heated in a pot and then poured, bang!, into the freshly squeezed ginger juice.  Then a wait and, tada, the pudding is made!  

Delicate, milky, ginger-ly spicy, smooth and oh so comforting is this super duper easy to make Chinese Ginger Milk Pudding.  Try it, you'll see!

Gingerbread Cookies

We discovered this gingerbread cookie dough when we made our own Gingerbread House. It makes such a wonderful ginger cookie, the flavor is just spicy enough, the cookie comes out firm enough to hold the cookie shapes well through the bake yet is still tender when you bite into it.

So nice it is that we now use the dough to whip up loads of simple gingerbread cookies to have around the house all through the holidays!  Dress the cookies up with a bit of icing and you've got a great little holiday cookie ready in no time at all!

Chinese Sweet Potato Ginger Dessert Soup 番薯姜糖水

Brrrrrr! All day long a chilly autumn wind has been blowing in through the crack in my window, outside its been raining on and off and the world is all wet and dreary.  On days like this there's nothing that warms you up better than a touch of the right kind of traditional Cantonese sweet soup.  

And the right kind of sweet soup, at least for me, is the kind of sweet soup with a bit of ginger in it, no, no, I must be upfront, a darn boatload of ginger in it.  Yummm...that delicious spiciness of ginger!  How good this Chinese Sweet Potato Ginger Dessert Soup 番薯姜糖水 is, soft comforting pieces of luscious yams floating in a sweet and fiery soup that warms you right through to the tips of your toes!

Abalone Steamed with Tangerine Peel 陳皮蒸鮑魚

Again we have to celebrate the glories of Hong Kong's access to fresh, fresh seafood!  Whenever we can we go to the Hong Kong local wet markets and are spoiled for choices and bargains amongst their amazing selections of fresh and live seafood.  It's always an interesting journey with the seafood varying day by day, depending on the fisher men's catch.  One day it may be a surplus of tenacled squid, the next a influx of deep sea shrimp and freshly shucked scallops.  

Today we found one of our favorite fish stalls awash in baskets of small fresh abalone and quickly grabbed a bagful for a great bargain.  It was time to cook Abalone Steamed with Tangerine Peel, or 果皮蒸鮑魚, an easy and delicious seafood treat!

Black Sesame Tang Yuan 黑芝麻湯圓

Tong Yuans are sexy.  If you've ever had a Tong Yuan you'll have to agree with me.  These Chinese sweet rice dumplings are smooth lusciously unctuous round balls of delightfully ricey gooeyness hiding a center of sublime sweetly fragrant filling just waiting to ooze out into your waiting mouth.

Now that I've totally grossed you out (and captured your attention!)  let me state that I stand by all that I have just written.  For it is all true, Tong Yuans, or 湯圓, are one of very few truly sexy chinese foods.  The excitement of the mysterious center filling, the senses awakened by the richness of the filling contrasting the simplicity of the rice dough, the delightfully perfect round fullness,  the absolute pleasure of the act of eating a tender, tasty, sexy Tong Yuan...

Chinese Candied Ginger 薑糖

The Chinese love ginger when they cook and rightly so.  A bit of ginger makes everything taste better.  Another favorite use of ginger for the Chinese is to expel the cold and inject warmth in the body.  A traditional chinese medicine concept of keeping a certain balance in your body.   

Another favorite way to reap the benefits of ginger is to eat Chinese Ginger Candy, or 薑糖.  A spicy, hot, and sweet treat that is good for your body. (But don't eat too much if you are a "hot" natured body!  It's better for "cool" body types.)

Stir Fry Crabs with Ginger and Scallions 姜葱蟹

This is the best crab dish.  Bar none.  Even better than the popular curry crab dishes that abound (which I think are overrated anyways).  Just fresh crab, ginger and scallions.  A simple trinity of three foods to create an absolute.  Absolute of taste, that is.  Simplicity and decadence on the same white plate.

For this Stir Fry Crab with Ginger and Scallion, or 姜葱蟹, we picked up from the wet market a mud crab which is a more meaty crab.  But any crab will do for this dish as long as it is fresh. And there are all kinds of crabs, an abundance of choice really, at the wet markets in Hong Kong.  

Ah, to live by the sea!  What a dream come true.  Of sorts anyways.  We have all the seafood we can possibly cook and eat but are stuffed like sardines into shoebox sized homes piled in towering, untidy heaps along a polluted harbor.  Sigh...