Chinese Basic Congee 粥

What's the Chinese equivalent of "chicken soup"?  Why congee, or 粥, of course, that delectable, nourishing and soothing rice porridge cooked by the Chinese since time began. Recently I've been making a lot of chinese pickles, both the rice vinegar pickle and the soy sauce or hua gua pickle and, duh, suddenly realized that having tons of chinese pickles means congee heaven.

So I've started making congee a lot and it's not only easy and fun to make (you can throw most everything in and make delicious congee)  but also a serious nourishing the soul kind of food as well as being very, very good for babies, kids and persons feeling under the weather.  Did you know that Chinese moms always feed their babies congee?  

Little old chinese ladies used to stop us on the street and in the shops to ask us if we were making pork bones congee for our little girl when she was one or two years old.  And when we replied ashamedly "Umm, no...", those poor ladies always appeared very distressed and anxious.  Ah well, it's better late than never.

Chinese Soy Sauce Hua Gua Pickles 花瓜

This chinese Hua Gua pickle is just so easy and delicious that it's ridiculous.  Inspired by the success with our chinese vinegar pickle I was gripped with a nostalgia for the Hua Gua pickles, 花瓜 or 醬瓜,  of my childhood.  These are delightfully crunchy Taiwanese soy sauce pickled cucumbers that Mom bought in little glass jars to go with our congee.

It was such a tasty treat that we used to fight over these little suckers when the Grandma and Mom weren't looking.  There was never enough to go around with three hungry little chinese girls and just a little tiny jar of pickles.  And, just to be clear, hungry little chinese girls can eat alot of food!  Well, now all these years later I have discovered that, as I mentioned earlier, these pickles are just ridiculously easy to make and taste just like the (actually better!) store bought kind (minus the yummy (not!) flavours of chemical preservatives of course.)

The Pleasures of Chinese Cooking

Image from Jeanyee Wong website

Published: 2013-04-15

I was checking out some old Chinese cookbooks (a favorite pastime of mine) and happened upon this great old video made as promotion for a Chinese cookbook called The Pleasures of Chinese Cooking by Grace Zia Chu that was published in the 60's in USA.  

Had to share it, what a cool video!  Check out the big can of "Glutate" at 0:17 (MSG, anyone?) and the little monster heads arranged around the stir fried peas at 1:00!  Oh my gosh, what the heck kind of Chinese food is that!  Hee, hee...

Chocolate Cookies

This is the perfect chocolate cookie to go with the little cup of hot chocolate that I posted about the other day.  It's so nice to have home-baked cookies and these are especially easy and convenient in that you can stick them in the freezer and then bring'em out, slice and pop'em in the oven and ta-da!  Fresh, heavenly cookies!  

But these are not your ordinary chocolate cookies.  Oh, no, not at all. These are Mercedes Benz of chocolate cookies.  So chocolately, double chocolately actually with the chocolate chips, but not too sweet either, slightly crumbly, meltingly just moist and then there's the deliciously unexpected sea salt flavor that blooms on your tongue after a few moments.  What a wicked taste sensation!

Hot Chocolate - One Little Cup at a Time

My little girl doesn't particularly like milk too much so to tempt her I make a little cup of hot chocolate for her every once in a while.  It's a warm tasty homemade treat made all the more fun using the whimsical cups and saucers we discover on afternoon rambles through our neighborhood second hand shops.  

It's similar to the drinks that our Hong Kong coffee shops are starting to offer for children, usually know by the cute name of "babyccino."  My girl loves to play at being 'grownup' and carefully sips her hot chocolate in the most delightfully ladylike manner.  Try it as a special treat for kids (or yourself!) on a chilly day.

Easter Egg Natural Dye

Here's something fun and natural for Easter.  My little girl and I had made Easter Eggs for the first time last year when she was almost 3 years old.  It was really fun and we did a post about our tiny Easter Eggs, but in my heart I was a bit horrified by the obnoxiously bright fakeness of the food coloring dyes that we used and that were eventually eaten into our systems along with the eggs.  (No, we didn't eat the shells but the coloring kinda soaks in quite a bit, doesn't it?)  

So I was really interested when, this year, as I was mentally preparing for Easter Egg making, to see a blog article on using natural dyes to make really beautiful natural Easter Eggs.  We tried it and as you can see the result is quite a looker and very very safe to eat for your little ones. It takes a bit more time and effort but we definitely thought the results were gorgeously worth it.

Chinese Egg Fried Rice 蛋炒飯

Chinese Egg fried rice, or 蛋炒飯, is the quintessential leftover dish.  You open your fridge and you've got leftover rice, leftover char sui, leftover choi sum, etc from yesterday's dinner.  What're you gonna do?  Make chinese egg fried rice of course.   

As long as you have the basics, i.e. rice, egg, spring onion, then you just chop up and throw in whatever else leftovers that you have and you will end up with a easy to make, lip-smacking and creative dish that you can serve instead of plain rice.  (Kids love this!  My dearest Grandma 奶奶 used to make this as an after-school snack everyday.)

Chinese Pickles 酸瓜

Did you know that the Chinese love pickles too?  There are all kinds of chinese pickles, or 酸瓜, from all the different provinces of China.  In Sichuan they even have special pickling jars!

Chinese Pickling Urn
(Image from The Key to Chinese Cooking by Irene Kuo)

Chinese Red Cooked Pork 紅燒肉

I must confess to love, love, love chinese red cooked pork, or 紅燒肉.  This is meat cooked to fragrant, mouth melting perfection.  It is an all time favorite comfort food from my childhood, never failing to elict oohs and aahs from happy eaters.

Whenever my dearest grandmother, my 奶奶, decided to make her famous red cooked pork using the ham hock I would hover anxiously near the simmering pot on tiptoe, peeking in, fascinated to observe the beautifully huge round of thick skin, luscious fat and dark meat circling the thick leg bone slowly transforming into melt in your mouth porky deliciousness.  Let me tell you that grandmother's red cooked pork was not just food...it was an event!  I remember we had to use our biggest deepest soup bowl to dish up the pork when done and bring it to the family table.  What a spectacular sight!  

And then finally, at the go ahead, everyone's chopsticks diving in and  coming away with a bit of the skin, a bit of the creamy fat and a bit of the tender meat for each bite. Yummy, yummy, yummy!!  And dearest 奶奶 made it all look so easy, just throwing things casually into the pot and watching with half an eye, but let me assure you that her Red Cooked Pork 紅燒肉 is still the best I have ever had.

Chinese Jinhua Ham 金華火腿

Published: 2013-02-25

This is the best cured ham in the world:  Chinese Jinhua ham, or 金華火腿.  Isn't it beautiful?  Look at that beautiful ruby color!  But wait til you taste it!  Wow! Kazaam!  There's nothing quite like it: dense, chewy, bursting with layers of subtle flavors behind the first hit of salty/sweetness.  We find it in our humble opinion to be even tastier than jamon iberico , that also very delectable and worldwide famous ham from Spain.

Alas the Chinese give up their secret culinary treasures with so much reluctance, even to their own people, as it is very easy to buy Jinhua Ham but much much more difficult to buy quality Jinhua Ham.  As it is with so many Chinese things, you just have to "know" or you have to "know somebody who knows".  Or you can also do it like we do: the time wasting way (according to the Chinese), in other words by a series of trial and error.  There's nothing better to inform you of food quality than your own tongue as long as your palate is in good working order!