Umeboshi Roe Pasta

This lovely pasta dish is actually a happy mistake...no, not a mistake, more like a happy meander that occurred when we were trying to recreate another Japanese dish known as mentaiko pasta (which is super nom nom!)  

The problem with recreating that particular dish is that we couldn't find the main ingredient for it, Japanese cured cod roe.  So we played around and came up with something just as good (we think!) 

Our Umeboshi Roe Pasta is a simple to make creamy yet light pasta with a delicately tangy sauce dotted with umami bursts of roe that is so delicious and totally addictive.  Umeboshi really rock the flavor!

Black Sesame Walnut Mooncakes 黑芝麻核桃月餅

Yay, it's almost time for Mid Autumn Festival 中秋節...my favorite Chinese festival!  I love the fact that it's a night festival (I'm an owl for sure) and the extravagance of Chinese lanterns floating like glowing gems thru the velvet night, illuminating the happy faces of children up well past their bedtime.  And...glory!...the sight of the Moon Goddess Chang'e 嫦娥 floating high in the sky in all her silvery glory is not to be missed.  

And besides all that I love making and baking and eating mooncakes, those wonderful moon shaped cakes stuffed with all manner of decadently delicious fillings.  (See the list of our other yummilicious mooncake recipes at the end of this post!)  And out of all those decadent mooncakes I think these particular mooncakes might be my favs.  

Maybe cuz I dig the fragrant nuttiness of roasted black sesame.  Maybe cuz I lust after walnuts. I don't know...maybe I'm just nutty.  

I just know that I love eating these deliciously satisfying Black Sesame Walnut Mooncakes 黑芝麻核桃月餅, with its tender golden crust wrapped around an oh so fragrant sesame filling dotted through with delicious bitter sweet bits of walnut.  I can eat a whole plate of these in one go!  That's right...the whole plate means all five of the mooncakes on the plate you're looking at...gulp, gulp...gone already!  Hee hee...

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.  

Quick Salt Pickled Cucumbers

Here's a quickie...a lovely little thing to have as bit of a side dish on your dinner or lunch table.  A small dish of something piquant and refreshing to contrast against the main dishes in your meal.  

I discovered this japanese shiozuke style of Quick Salted Pickled Cucumber that is, to my delight, super duper easy and so quick to make that you can just toss it together as you're beginning to cook and have it ready by the time you're putting the meal on the table!

Red Bean Curd Nam Yue Chicken Wings 南乳雞翅

One can never have enough chicken wing recipes, amirite?  This all around favorite finger food for both big and little kiddos comes in all kinds of flavors such as the classic soy sauce chicken wings and our current favorite salted sake chicken wings...so easy and so yummy!  

The wings we're making today are uniquely Chinese with the addition of fermented bean curd to create the finger lickingly yummilicious Red Bean Curd Nam Yue Chicken Wings 南乳雞翅, where crispy skinned chicken gets coated with a clingy luscious red bean curd sauce that packs an umami flavor punch that gets downright addictive!

The Yummiliciousness of the Mud Crab 清蒸奄仔蟹

While doing research for our Soy Sauce Marinated Crab 醬油醃蟹 post I got pleasantly sidetracked on to the very interesting subject of the mud crab 青蟹 (which is the type of crab we decided to use for our soy sauce marinated crab.)  The more I looked into the information on the mud crab the more various names for the crab kept popping up.  

Lots and lots of names...it was crazy.  What was going on?  How many names could one crab possibly have?  

Well, it turns out that this humble looking green shelled mud crab 青蟹 has specific Chinese names for many stages of its life, each stage offering a different yet equally yummilicious taste and textural experience.  It's so amazing the different offerings this little crab has to offer to the seafood lover!

Chinese Preserved Radish Omelette 菜脯煎蛋

This humble Chinese comfort egg dish (EGG PIE!) is a cheat.  Actually all Chinese egg dishes are cheats: simple ingredients that are usually on hand anyways, easy peasy and fast to make and most importantly super duper yummy to eat!  

For a Chinese style dinner where there are always at least 3 dishes served, an egg dish is a most excellent and efficient choice to include on the menu for a cozy family dinner.

And thus, ta-da!  Our latest easy egg dish the Chinese Preserved Radish Omelette 菜脯煎蛋 is a traditional home cooking favorite, so good and so easy to make this egg pie!

Mung Bean Paste 綠豆沙餡

This is one of the classic Chinese pastry cake fillings, the Green Mung Bean Paste 綠豆沙餡, a light, creamy, beany and nutty sweet golden filling that is one of my favorite fillings.  We used this paste to make our yummilicious Green Mung Bean Cakes 綠豆糕 for Duanwu Dragon Boat Festival  端午節 this year but actually it is more often used in as a tender filling for various Chinese cakes, pastries, cookies and even mooncakes.

Mung Bean Cakes 綠豆糕

It's almost time for Duanwu Dragon Boat Festival 端午節 when the mighty dragon boats are once again afloat on the harbors to race each other to the booming beat of drums!  

Did you know besides the making and eating of yummilicious zong zi to celebrate this festival (usually either the savory meat filled zong zi 肉粽子 or the sweet red bean paste zong zi 紅豆沙粽子) the origins of the Duanwu Festival also has to do with a traditional time of ritual protection against pestilence and poisonous animals brought on by the heat of the summer season?

One of the things done in order to protect against summer sickness was to consume 'cooling' foods to help the body dispel heat and eliminate toxins.  Happily one of the traditional 'cooling' foods made for this purpose is the delighfully light and sweet Green Mung Bean Cake 綠豆糕, an elegant mold shaped sweet pastry of fragrant mung bean paste stuffed with sweet red bean paste.  

So beautiful to look at and tasty to boot...you won't believe how fast these little cakes disappear!

Soy Sauce Marinated Crab 醬油醃蟹

This marinated crab dish is SO AMAZING!  Crazy amazing!  Super duper seafood delight-O with stars bursting in the sky amazing!  

I've been wanting to make it this for ever so long ever since I heard my mother 媽媽 reminisce how her mother made this dish frequently for the family when she was a child growing up in Zhejiang 浙江.  They made their marinated crab quite simply by soaking in rice wine and I remember thinking...interesting...how would that even work?  

Well, that crabby thought floated around in my head for a long time until I recently watched the Netflix food show 'Flavorful Origins' and had my mind totally blown away by...well, everything that food show had to say really.  If you love Chinese food, you've got to check that show out...I think I watched it 3 times in a row!  

Anyways, back to crabs, this Soy Sauce Marinated Crab is inspired by the 'Marinated Crab' episode (drooling!) and the result is raw crab meat and roe completely transformed into something succulent, meltingly tender and mindblowingly TASTY!