Grand Marnier Marzipan Cherry Chocolates

Nothing says love as sweetly and sincerely as a luscious bit of elegantly presented chocolate.  So I decided to try my hand at handcrafting some chocolates for Valentine's Day to gift to my heart of hearts.  And let me add, before you get discouraged by the word 'handcraft', this little luscious bonbon is pretty darn easy to make at home!

Before deciding what kind of bonbon to make I had a rummage through my food hoard.  Amongst other treasures I discovered a load of marzipan that I bought on sale, some leftover cherries from making the decadent Eight Treasures Rice Pudding and lots and lots of chocolate.  (I have to hide my hoard of chocolate so that my  family won't make fun of how much I have squirreled away.)  

Add in a dollop of citrus scented liquor and I had the makings for very fancy handcrafted bonbons,  the very sexy Grand Marnier Marzipan Cherry Chocolates, a surprisingly easy to make chocolate and marzipan treat with a luscious surprise cherry heart that tastes amazing and looks seriously out of this world! A special 'from the heart' treat for a special Valentine!

Eight Treasures Rice Pudding 八寶飯

Almost time to welcome in the Chinese New Year 中國新年!  In preparation for the feasting this New Year I decided to make a treat that my grandma 奶奶 made for us when I was a little girl, the delectable Eight Treasures Rice Pudding, or 八寶飯, a traditional Chinese dessert that is a steamed glutinous rice pudding with a red bean paste center, beautifully decorated on top with all kinds of colorful dried fruits and nuts.

I still remember the first time my 奶奶 made it and how big and round my eyes grew as she carried it, gleaming with colors and fragrant with wonderful smells, to the dinner table.  I had never in my short life seen such a fancy cake before.  It was magical!

Three Bean Chinese Steamed Fish 欖角豆豉味噌蒸魚

OM-Goshilicious!!  Here's a truly beautiful something whipped up by my 老公, our resident expert of all things steamed and fishlike.  A super sexy version of the classic Steamed Fish with Black Bean Sauce, perfect for that super special and mandatory fish dish for the Chinese New Year.  We call it the Three Bean Chinese Steamed Fish but that's kinda cheating cuz it's not actually three beans, it just looks like it.

Anyways...this Three Bean Chinese Steamed Fish, or 欖角豆豉味噌蒸魚, infuses a most interesting and tongue enticing combination of three traditional flavors, the Chinese black olive, miso and Chinese fermented black bean, each quite strong on their own merit, to come together in a sauce that is the perfect complement to the delicate and tender steamed fish.

Golden Prawns with Salted Egg Yolk 黃金蝦

There are some foods that just have to be eaten with your fingers.  And then those fingers have got to be licked...slowly and thoroughly...  

This decadent seafood dish is definitely one of those dishes, it's so delicious that one can't stop salivating and licking fingers in anticipation.  Yum, yum, yum, yummy, yummy yum, yummy yummy, yummilicious!  This special little dish is just the thing for a proper Chinese New Year's feast, its golden yellow gorgeousness will bring you and yours golden luck all the year long.  

We present the very unique Golden Prawns with Salted Egg Yolk, or 黃金蝦, a stir fry of prawns coated with a lusciously clinging sauce made from the yolk of the Chinese salted duck egg, which, as my little girl knows, is the very best part!

Chinese Duck Lettuce Wraps with Duck Bone Soup 鴨鬆生菜包 | 鴨骨湯

This Christmas we roasted a duck and it was delicious!  But it was quite a lot for the three of us and thus we had lots of ducky leftovers.  Humm...what to do, what to do...and then a lightbulb hit us!  

We dusted off that old classic, the Chinese Duck Lettuce Wrap 鴨鬆生菜包, a simple and fabulous way to use up meat leftovers to create a scrumptiously savory mince that is then wrapped in fresh crunchy lettuce and eaten...with your fingers!  Yeah, I love finger food!  But wait...it gets better...

White Chocolate Mascarpone Frosting

Happy holidays!  And in the spirit of the holidays I give you...cake frosting!  And you're probably thinking...what the heck?  Well, it goes like this - we made a white chocolate Christmas cake which naturally had to have white chocolate frosting.  And thus we discovered our most favorite cake frosting ever!  

Recently we've been experimenting with all different kinds of frostings/buttercreams for our cakes.  After all a girl cannot ever have too much cake, amiright?!  Some frostings hubby found too sweet.  Others my little girl found not sweet enough.  And yet some others I found too buttery.  

But at long last we hit the jackpot with this White Chocolate Mascarpone Frosting,  an exquisitely light yet creamily chocolaty, slightly tangy and not overly sweet frosting that pipes like a dream, perfect for frosting and decorating cakes and absolutely yummilicious to boot!

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!

Pineapple Buns 菠蘿包

This recipe is for our reader Raymond who asked for a recipe for Pineapple Buns with the real traditional crackle cookie tops.

I hope that this recipe is the one he was looking for, anyways this is the one that we know as the traditional Pineapple Bun, or 菠蘿包, a soft fluffy bun underneath and a crunchy crumbly crackled sweet cookie like crust on top, invented in Hong Kong in the sixties and still a standard at all Hong Kong traditional bakeries.

A taste sensation, the cookie crust crumbles delightfully in your mouth when you bite into the soft warm tender bun.  Pineapple Bun, named for the texture of the crackle crust that resembles the real pineapple, is a real special afternoon or breakfast treat and an absolutely unique Hong Kong style bake!

Stir Fry Long Beans w/ Olive Vegetable Sauce 橄欖菜炒長豆

The wonderful thing about Chinese food is how diverse and deep the cuisine is.  The more you delve into into it the more there is.  It could be a conversion with a friend, a random article in a food magazine, a new dish discovered at a restaurant, or simply a stroll through your neighborhood Chinese food market or wet market.  

This simple and simply yummilicious  Stir Fry Long Beans with Olive Vegetable Sauce 橄欖菜炒長豆 was a result of discovering a wonderful traditional Chinese sauce made from Chinese olives through one of our readers.  Thanks Jackie!  

How to Make Your Own Lard

I know, I know.  Make your own lard?  Well, why not, lard is a super duper tasty fat and making it fresh at home only makes it that much more fabulous.  Lard makes things taste seriously yummilicious!  It's the secret to the sauce!

Making your own lard is not only easy but the lard is super fresh and way tastier than the processed stuff that you find in the grocery store.

Wait a minute, isn't this stuff suppose to be bad for you?  Well, if you follow health news at all you will have seen in the news a lot lately that lard is not bad for you after all...surprise, surprise!   Actually lard was never bad for you, if used in moderation.

What happened is that in the early 20th century a concentrated effort to vilify lard began, mostly in order to help companies sell their new products of margarine and vegetable shortening (transfat!) which as we all now know are very bad for your health.  Check out our post on Choosing Healthy Oils to see more about what we think are 'healthy cooking fats or oils'.

So the happy ending is that lovely creamy lard is not bad for you at all when used in moderation (hey, our ancestors used it for many millennium after all).  And it really is a very, very tasty fat!