Fish Tail Rice Soup 魚尾泡飯湯

Here's a great two in one Chinese seafood dish that will make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside.   For the Chinese there's nothing like fresh fish and super duper nothing like hot, aromatic, milky white fish soup!  

So if, one of these days, you thinking what to make for dinner, but humm...you're feeling a little lazy, plus you've got a sudden craving for fish and soup and have some leftover rice in your fridge, why not try this yummilicious and easy to make Fish Tail Rice Soup, or 魚尾泡飯湯, and get two (and a half, really) dishes for the effort of making one!

Homemade Peanut Oil 自製花生油

The glistening golden liquid in this delicate porcelain dish is something that y'all have probably never tried in your life!  Actually, until very recently, we had never tried it either!  

My 老公's mother had an old friend of hers from her home town of Xinhui 新會區 (near Macau) bring down a bottle of her 媽媽's homemade peanut oil!  This homemade peanut oil was lovingly prepared from the peanuts all the way thru the process of cleaning and crushing of the peanuts to the long wait of extracting the oil.  You would not believe how easy it is to make and how divine this peanut oil smells and tastes!

Chinese Pan Fried Fish with Sauce 煎紅衫魚

This simple and easy to prepare pan fried fish dish is a favorite in our house for the rare times when we decide not to steam a fish for dinner (usually our favorite way to prepare fresh fish!)  

Deceptively simple to look at and make, we find this fish dish incredibly tasty: a firm white fish meat cooked to golden crispy skinned perfection, then, at the last minute, inundated with a multi flavored sauce that permeates every bite with dash, zip and multiple layers of tastiness.  Try this Chinese Pan Fried Fish with Sauce, or 煎紅衫魚, and see if you don't find it just as yummilicious as we do!

Five Nuts Mooncake Part II 五仁月餅

We're finally ready to assemble our deliriously nutty and yummilicious Five Nuts Mooncake!  Only we seem to have missed Mid Autumn Festival!  Ooops!  To check out our excuses for posting late and our detailed and crazy Five Nuts Mooncake ingredient sourcing and pre-assembly phase, please see our previous post Five Nuts Mooncake Part I  五仁月餅.  

So, at this point we have all the ingredients sourced, toasted and roasted, chopped and bopped into the right configurations.  It's time to put this Five Nut Mooncake together!

Five Nuts Mooncake Part I 五仁月餅

Okay, so first off, I know this post is kinda late.  No, no, you're right, it's not kinda, it's totally late!  (And I apologize.)  Mid Autumn Festival is over and done with, lanterns are doused, etc., but, darn it all, I'm going to post this traditional Chinese Five Nut Mooncake 五仁月饼 recipe anyway.

I think I have a couple of pretty good excuses for my lateness, the first being that this wonderful, amazing, fragrant to the heavens, nuttily delicious, soul gripping Five Nuts Mooncake was a b***h to make and the second being that it took us forever to source some of the really traditional ingredients that are supposed to be in the Five Nuts Mooncake.

Boiled Water Caltrop 鮮煮菱角

Nope...these things are not the deadly bat shaped ninja weapons that you're thinking they might be.  Rather, these are Water Caltrops, or 菱角, which are probably some of the funkiest, strangest nuts that ever existed.  I mean, who would know that these are 1) made by Mother Nature herself and 2) that one could actually eat these?!  It looks way too dangerous to eat!  

But it turns out that these mysterious nuts from an aquatic plant similar to the water lily has been cultivated and eaten in different countries for centuries.  The water caltrop even shows up as a motif in one of my favorite books of all time, The Dream of the Red Chamber, where one of the minor characters is even named Xiang Ling 香菱, translated to mean Fragrant Water Caltrop. (You have to read this novel, it's so amazing!)

Wuxi Spareribs 無錫排骨

This is my dish, this is me:  Wuxi Spareribs!   Hee, hee!  This is a famous dish from my hometown, Wuxi 無錫 in the province of Jiangsu 江蘇, where my 爸爸 was born and grew up and where my ancestors lived peaceably for generations before the upheavals of the twentieth century tore them up and threw them, topsy-turvy, all over the place.  

The famous cuisine of Jiangsu is known for its wonderful red braising, a star combination of soy sauce and sugar, slowly cooked down and caramelized into sweet, meltingly tender meat dishes. I grew up on this stuff!  Pots and pots of delicious red braised meats...yummilicious!  (uh, oh homesick now!)  

The star of the meaty bunch is this absolutely delectable Wuxi Spareribs, or 無錫排骨, tender, almost melting off the bone meat enrobed in a glossy thick gorgeous herb infused soy based sauce.

White Rabbit Creamy Candy 大白兔奶糖

I can still remember very clearly the first time I had one of these little milk candies.  I was still a wee lass, we were in LA Chinatown, buying a bit of chinese groceries, which in those long ago days (eons really!) were hard to come by even in LaLa Land.  My dear 爸爸 spotted them and immediately bought a bag of White Rabbit Creamy Candy as a treat for us girls.  (He was really thrilled to find these!)   

Curious and excited, I carefully untwisted the beautifully colorful waxy wrapping paper with the cute bunny on it.

Chinese Shrimp & Eggs Stir Fry 蝦仁炒蛋

Another favorite comfort food that we grew up with is the easy to prepare and delicious to eat Shrimp and Eggs Stir Fry, or 蝦仁炒蛋.  Tender soft flakes of egg clinging gently to plump pink sea fresh shrimp.  Two of my all time favorite things in one dish!  

Too bad that my eczema acts up if I eat this too often, otherwise I would seriously make this dish at least once a week.  But no one likes a grumpy gal with itchies all over, so we only have this every once in a while.  But when we do, it sure is a treat!  While this homey Chinese dish is quite straight forward to prepare, one does need to have a few things in their bag of tricks to pull it off.

Stir Fry Lotus Root and Chives 韭菜花炒蓮藕

Ah! The lovely lotus!  That delicate flower that rises gracefully from the dark still waters of Chinese lakes.  What a wonderful flower!  Not only supremely beautiful (inspiring Chinese painters to masterpieces for thousands of years) but also a giver of life and sustenance.  Every part of this flower can be used for food, from the roots to the flowers to the seed and the leaves!  How cool is that?!  

I am always constantly amazed by the lotus flower, seemingly so delicate and fragile, yet so strong and resilient underneath.  We use the delightfully crunchy sweet lotus root to make this easy stir fry vegetable dish, Stir Fry Lotus Root and Chives, or 韭菜花炒蓮藕.