Chinese Steamed Eggplant 蒜蓉蒸茄子

The beautiful purple...the wondrous color of both poison and eggplants.  This chinese preparation of the humble eggplant is simple but really good, resulting in a flavorful, creamily tender vegetable dish that makes you go back for more and more.  And versatile too.  If you're not the garlic type or nervous of the chilis, just take em out, no problem and you will still have a fine lip-smackingly delicious dish.

Rabbit Fish Steamed with Tangerine Peel 果皮蒸泥鯭

I've always thought of these little silvery yellow fishes as fishes that should be painted.  So here is my photo version of a fish painting of the delectable rabbit fish otherwise know as the 泥鯭.  This fish is a scavenger fish and can even be fished from the shores of Hong Kong. 

Spiced Edamame Soybeans 涼拌毛豆

This addictive little spiced edamame dish is soooo easy to make and so yummy to eat that it's unbelievable.  You could make them as one of the dishes for a chinese dinner or you could boil up a pot full and have them around for snacks.  They go great with beer too!  And the little ones love popping the lovely green soybeans out straight into their mouths to crunch on (and it's a great protein source!).

So if you see these fresh at the market grab a bag; I guarantee you'll love eating these green pods as much as we do.

Homemade Playdough

I couldn't resist to throw this playdough recipe into the mix.  After all this playdough that you can make in your own kitchen in 10-15 mins is cooked.  And it totally kicks ass compared to the stuff you pay pretty big bucks to buy:  it's absolutely safe with no weird chemicals, it feels great, it lasts long and you can decide the colors.  If your kid eats it, no problem, it's just very very salty.  

My little girl loves to help me to make the playdough and then we spend long hours making colorful playdoughy cakes and pizzas for all the stuffed critters in the house. (The lil' zebra above is one of her favorites and we are having a birthday party for him.)  So why not try it?  It's so easy and fun and you can save a bundle!

Chinese Radish Salad 紅蘿蔔沙拉

Here's a cool, crunchy, vinegary dish for the hot Hong Kong summer.  And you can make this Chinese Radish Salad  紅蘿蔔沙拉 in under 5 minutes too.  Isn't it a pretty sight on the dinner table with it's blushing reds and delectable whites? What a charmer, eh?  If you need another dish for dinner during the hot summer, why not add a quick cold chinese salad dish like this?  

Radishes are great for you, lots of vitamin C as well as iron, magnesium and calcium.  My little girl loves this radish salad too!  Pink one, pink one, she says.  Don't worry about the peppery taste of the red radish eaten raw as it will be transformed into vinegary sweet mellowness when prepared into this radish salad.  Hope you like it!

Grandma's Zong Zi Meat Dumpling 肉粽子

Zong zi, I think, is love. A tender and lovingly wrapped package of pure love.  Find this hard to swallow?  Prove it to yourself by unwrapping and eating a zong zi, or 粽子, that is laboriously prepared by someone who loves you and see if you don't feel completely satisfied, happy, really loved after that deliriously aromatic, droolingly savory (or sweet) zong zi.  

I know that I had that feeling often enough in my childhood, while happily eating the 粽子 that my dearest grandmother made just for us.  I truly believe, as taught to me first by Tita from the wonderful story Like Water for Chocolate, that the feelings and love that you have inside can be transmitted into the food that you cook and thereby to the people who eat your food.

Jellyfish Salad 涼拌海蜇

A really weird yet delicious Chinese delicacy food is marinated jellyfish salad.  That's right, jellyfish, those delicately glowing  creatures of trailing tentacles and mushroom bodies that float like so many deadly but beautiful sea fairies through the ocean's waters.

Humm, how ever did my Chinese ancestors ever figure out you can eat this?  Well, I guess this is just more proof that the Chinese eat everything under the sun!

Birthday Cake for my Little Girl

It was recently my little daughter's 3rd birthday and she decided quite early on that she wanted a birthday party with all the works (...Mommy, I want a birthday dress and birthday cake and party decorations and presents...) just like she always sees in the birthday parties in those endless cartoons she watches.

So with the ridiculous but amazing heroism latent in all mothers, I decided fulfill these wishes to the best of my ability. I mean, my little baby who could barely speak (and walk) just a few mere years ago was now asking specifically in her little baby voice for, among other things, a "birthday cake!"  And on her own initiative!  What kind of mother could possibly refuse?  Even though I am no cake maker by any means.

Chinese Pu-erh Tea 普洱茶

Published: 2012-06-17

Dear reader, if you have never had the experience of '茶', or 'chinese tea', you must try it at once.  There is nothing that can make you feel more authentically 'chinese' than to have a proper cup of chinese tea.  The true chinese sits around all day with a good cup of tea, just as those in the west sit around all day with their cups of coffee.  Ahhh!  A time to relax and contemplate the world.  

Bubbly hot water swirled expertly into the delicate chinese porcelain holding the small handful of dried tea leaves, cover for a minute or so and then lift the lid: poof!, a misty puff of the delicately tender fragrance of chinese tea to please your senses.  Holding your sleeve out of the way (if you have long flowing sleeves, that is) carefully pour out the tea into your teacup, hold under the nose a moment to appreciate the aroma and then take the first carefully appreciative sip.

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...