Dragon Well Green Tea Shrimp Stir Fry 龍井炒蝦仁

Humm...besides making our lovely savory meat Zongzi and Grandma's red bean paste ZongZi for Dragon Boast Festival this year, I thought I would also make the traditional Dragon Well Green Tea Shrimp Stir Fry 龍井炒蝦仁 to celebrate both the rivers and the dragon boats that the festival centers around.

First of all, full confession, we didn't use Dragon Well tea 龍井茶 this time.  We meant to use this special tea but, rushing around at the last minute, found that our usual Chinese tea shop was closed for the day.  But we had all our shrimp already!  That's what happens when you decide things last minute...  But, in the end, things turned out okay, very okay as a matter of fact.  We had some tea at home and decided to just use what we had.  

Our Dragon Well (sometimes) Green Tea Shrimp Stir Fry 龍井炒蝦仁 turned out just fine, juicy velvety sea sweet shrimp dotted with tea leaves, smothered with an aromatic, smooth, tea scented sauce.  We actually liked this version better than when we made it with Dragon Well tea.

Easy Homemade Raspberry Jam

I just had to share this because this is the best and easiest jam you can make!  I know we have written previously about making homemade strawberry jam, which is pretty easy to make, but making this yummilicious raspberry jam beats it by a mile.   It's super easy!  And so yummy!  

In only about 10 minutes or so you can magically transform fresh raspberry fruit into a jar of gleaming ruby red jam.  And let me say that this Homemade Raspberry Jam is our all time FAVORITE jam, held above all others, always requested by my little girl, better tasting than store bought jams by a long shot!

Note:  This recipe is for lazy folk (like us!) who don't have the time and patience for the mass sterilization of jam jars and all that fuss that generally goes with jamming.  This is for making only one jar of delicious sticky red jam that can made in a flash and kept in the fridge to be eaten within a week or two, if it lasts that long!

Chinese Stir Fry Eggs with Flaked Crab Meat 蟹肉炒蛋

This deceptively simple looking egg dish is a fancy dinner party dish in comforting disguise.  You start with a familiar Chinese comfort food, the tenderly folded stir fry egg (see our Tomato Egg Stir Fry 蕃茄炒蛋 recipe and Shrimp & Eggs Stir Fry 蝦仁炒蛋 recipe for more traditional takes on egg stir fry) and pair with something fabulously posh like crab meat and WHAMMO!  You've got yourself a dish you could serve an Empress!

This Chinese Stir Fry Eggs with Flaked Crab Meat 蟹肉炒蛋 is one of those food matches made in heaven: tender just set egg perfectly complemented by the delectable bits of sea sweet, soft crab meat tucked gently into the golden folds.   A royally yummilicious dish to treat family and friends to!

Steamed Baby Geoduck on Vermicelli 蒸象拔蚌

What luck for those of us in Hong Kong to live next the the sea!  The weather's been so nice lately that we have been making a point of making time to go the wet market more and searching out the fresh seafood specials that are just waiting to be discovered.  

Our latest find are these humble looking bivalves that, to be honest, we passed by many a time before discovering that they were a species of the fabulous geoduck or 象拔蚌, that weird and very expensive clam with the huge long protruding elephant trunk.  Have you ever tried the geoduck?  It's divinely yummilicious sliced thinly and served raw.

Crispy Batter Fried Oyster Burger 蠔漢堡包

If you love fresh succulent oysters as much as we do, then you're in for a treat!  This is our version of the fabulous oyster burger, a rare sight, I'll admit, but much loved by those who have met and been utterly charmed by this culinary delight.  

I had my first in Vancouver, at a greek restaurant of all things.  It was love at first bite, really, I just couldn't believe how tasty the oyster burger was, crispy on the outside, juicy and tender and oh so oyster-y on the inside.  Pure heaven!  SO...zip to the future and we have discovered the joys of first rate frozen oysters and naturally decided we had to try to recreate that long ago sea kissed delight.  

It took a few tries, cuz you've just got to get the batter just right, but we do believe that we have nailed it with our Crispy Batter Fried Oyster Burger, a crunchy yet succulent tartar sauce touched seafood burger, or the 'Sea Burger' as we call it around here.

Chinese Salt Baked Quail Egg 鹽焗鵪鶉蛋

Cheep, cheep!  Presenting our interpretation of a 'natural' Easter: this year we bring together the idea of Easter eggs and the idea of street food culture in Hong Kong.  Our Easter nest is full of tiny naturally speckled eggs!  

Namely the delicate Chinese Salt Baked Quail Eggs, or 鹽焗鵪鶉蛋, usually found at your local street hawker, these roasty, just salty wee eggs come still piping hot in a paper bag.  There's nothing quite like it to have in your pocket on a windy day to warm your fingers with!  

Milk Bread Tangzhong 湯種牛奶麵包

I love making bread, there's nothing in this world as wonderful as the heavenly smell of baking bread emanating from your very own oven!  

But the thing about making bread is, after all that toil and trouble, homemade bread is amazing when still warm, great when cooled, still yummy on the second day, but downhill from then on.  It just gets stale so fast!  I've tried different methods of keeping the bread, which help only a bit.  

What I really want is to be able to make a bread and enjoy it for a good while, make sandwiches, have some toast, you know...just have a bit of bread about the house.  Now, finally, I have found this amazing Milk Bread Tangzhong 湯種牛奶麵包 that not only lasts a good long while but is soft, fluffy and tender yet strong enough to use as a sandwich bread.  Plus it's so easy to make and bake, it's become my favorite bread to make!

Tofu Skin Gingko Nuts Sweet Soup 白果腐竹糖水

We previously wrote about the traditional Chinese way to way "YES!" to love, with food of course, specifically with a wonderfully yummilicious plate of Sticky Rice Balls with Sesame and Crushed Peanuts 糖不甩, so stickily delicious that no one can resist your love.  

This time we are going to flip it over and talk about how to say a gentle "NO" to love, with food again of course, this time with a bowl of Tofu Skin Gingko Nuts Sweet Soup 白果腐竹糖水, a delicate, warm and comforting way to let a lover down.

Homemade Chinese Fermented Rice 自製甜酒釀

One of the special traditional foods that my grandma knew how to make was Homemade Chinese Fermented Rice, also known as Jiu Niang or 甜酒釀, a fresh, sweet and slighty winey fermented rice with a porridge like texture.  She would make tons of the stuff and pass it out to all the family but no one liked to eat it as much as me.  I loooved the stuff and would eat it slowly, one delicious creamy spoonful at a time, from a huge jar in the fridge.

Now I know that my childhood fondness for Chinese fermented rice was probably due in a large part to my predilection for the tastes and flavors of alcoholic beverages as this fermented rice is slightly boozy.  (Ummm...mom, dad, what the hey?!)  But I digress from the topic at hand.  

The point here is that I still love this stuff and I finally got up the gumption to try to make Chinese Fermented Rice at home.  Guess what?  It was easy peasy and it is so d*mn good when freshly fermented!  I'm over the moon...I can have all the Jiu Niang I want forever!

Sticky Rice Balls with Sesame & Crushed Peanuts 糖不甩

The end of the Chinese New Year period of festivities is marked by the Lantern Festival 元宵節, a sort of Chinese Valentine's Day.  Lovely glowing lanterns are hung everywhere from rafters and eaves.   Riddles are carefully composed, gracefully written out with brush and ink, hung alongside the lanterns and then the game is on to guess the answers to the riddles.

Traditionally this night is for young men and women to stroll about attired in their best, admiring both the lanterns and potential lovers.  And then if the heavens are aligned, love will blossom.  Or will it?