Milky White Fish and Tofu Soup 拆魚豆腐羹

Check this soup out!  This milky white, delicate and nourishing soup is made from nothing but fish and its bones!  A famous kind of soup which people murmur about in hushed tones, in awe of the whiteness of the soup and the culinary feats that are required to achieve that pure and awesome whiteness.  

Well, sorry to those folks and yet hurrah for them as well, cuz I'm here to say that this milky white soup ain't so hard to achieve after all, if you know how to go about it!  

No added milk, no added soup stock, just need some fresh fish and fish bones and you're well on your way to making a totally fabulous, milky white, Fish and Tofu Soup 拆魚豆腐羹, that not only is a beautiful creamy white but also tastes out of this work yummilicious!  (And it's the best thing ever for when you're feeling under the weather!)

Silver Thread Buns 銀絲卷

This playful and tasty bread is a great childhood favorite of mine.  When I was little we used to get to eat it only when we happened to go to Shanghai or Northern Chinese cuisine restaurants, a special treat.  

These Silver Thread Buns 銀絲卷 (or Gold Thread Buns 金絲卷 if deep fried to a golden crispy brown) were a real treat for us kids, delicate fluffy strands of sweet white bread all wrapped inside a bun, a surprise every time!  It was so much fun to slowly tear into the bread and pick out the delicate threads of bread, eating them slowly, one amazing stick at a time.  There's nothing like food you can play with, amirite? 

But, shucks, I gotta admit that I still secretly love to pick these buns apart now that I'm grown up.  (Shhh...don't tell!)  The only difference nowadays is that I can make these Silver Thread Buns myself and enjoy their sweet, delicate white fluffiness (and play with my food!) in the comfort of home!

Salt Marinated Steamed Fish 生死戀蒸魚

Wow, oh, wow, this humble dish is a super duper knock out!  We first tried it at a local restaurant, having been assured by the talkative waiter that this simple salted then steamed fish dish was something special and a great favorite with his regulars.  Well...I've heard that one before and then some...so we were skeptical but willing to try it out.

When the fish arrived at the table it looked simple...minimal even, just the fish, a piece of salted fish on top and a wee bit of shredded ginger on the plate, no sauce or slender curls of spring onion.  Could steamed fish finished off so simply without a sauce really work?  Well, it turns out that the answer is a big 'ol YES!

This Salt Marinated Steamed Fish 生死戀蒸魚 is super packed with tasty multilayered flavor, its meat oh so tender and luscious, you won' believe how super simple it is to make!

Chinese Steamed Buns Mantou | Chinese Basic Dough 饅頭

My dearest grandma 奶奶 used to make basketfuls of these basic chinese steamed buns, known as Mantou 饅頭, and feed them to us hungry children day in and day out, filling our hungry growing tummies with this sweet fluffy bread.  

These buns are eaten all over China as breakfast, for a quick snack or just whenever one needs a filler.  When I was in my teens I could eat probably the whole plateful of the bread you can seen in the photo above in one go...yup, kinda gross but true, I could eat a lot of food back then.  

These classic Chinese buns are quite simple to make and delicious to eat, just sweet, white puffs of cloud like yummiliciousness.   The same dough is also a Chinese Basic Dough that can also be used to make all kinds of other stuffed and filled chinese buns and breads and the like!

Swiss Chicken Wings 瑞士雞翼

Swiss Chicken Wings?  What a minute...what the bloggity jazz is Swiss food doing in a post about  Chinese food?!  Well actually this yummilicious dish is not from Switzerland nor is it related to any kind of Swiss food.  These darkly glazed, succulently sweet and savory Swiss Chicken Wings 瑞士雞翅 are pure one hundred percent Chinese!  

The name of the dish comes about from a classic case of translation gone wrong: many years ago a tourist found his way to a western style Hong Kong diner called Tai Ping Koon 太平館, famous for its fabulous east west fusion dishes, and ended up ordering their house special, sweet chicken wings.  

Finding the chicken wings most delicious the tourist attempted to discover the name.  In classic translation comedy style, the waiter's Chinese accented "Sweet Chicken" sounded like "Swiss Chicken" to the tourist.  And thus the name and fame of the Swiss Chicken Wings was born.

Shanghai Pork Chop Noodles 上海豬排麵

Folks nowadays are so into instant noodles...I see families at the supermarket fill up their shopping carts with packets after packets of instant noodles!  And don't get me wrong, we love instant noodles as much as the next guy.  (My favorite flavor is the seafood curry!)  

But let's go back in time a bit, and consider, what came before instant noodles?  Well, I imagine it would be some like this...a quick and yummilicious bowl of soft slurpable noodles that fills you up with tasty crisp protein as well as hot and nourishing soup.  

This old classic noodle dish, the traditional Shanghai Pork Chop Noodles 上海豬排麵, is not only easy to make but yummy and satisfying to the tum as well!

How to Store Cilantro

Here's our easy and handy dandy tip for storing Cilantro, also known as Coriander, 香菜 or 芫茜. Cilantro is used in so many Chinese dishes that it is almost as necessary as spring onion and ginger.  It's fresh green leaves and citrusy, slightly bitter, slightly peppery taste not only freshens your dish up with a lively blast of green but can bring the dish up to the next taste level as well.  

But the thing that was always annoying with cilantro was that by the next day, no matter what I did, the cilantro would be limp and start turning yellow.  Yiks!  What to do?!

Chinese Hot Pot Dinner 火鍋

One of our favorite at home eats throughout the cooler seasons is the famous and fabulous Chinese Hot Pot dinner which translates from Chinese 火鍋 to the more dangerously delectable 'Fire Pot'.  

Brought into China long long ago by nomadic Mongolian horsemen who ate on the run, so to speak, this super fun, relaxed, healthy, body warmingly yummilicious way of making and eating dinner together at the table is an eating event that is great for family, friends or even a party!

Salted Sake Chicken Wings 清酒鹽燒雞翅

If you love chicken wings you're going to food heaven when you taste these wings!  It's such a simple way to prepare the wings that it is incredible how good it tastes.  This is now officially the most requested chicken wing style in our house, which is saying mucho as we love our wings in many styles from soy sauce chicken wings to rosemary wings to soy braised potato wings.  

But this Salted Sake Chicken Wing 清酒鹽燒雞翅, so breathtakingly simple and easy, makes a plateful of wings that is soooo what perfect chicken wings should be that it's almost sinful.  Just tasting of fresh yummilicious chicken with just the right hit of baked salt on crispy skin to kick up the flavor a notch or two.

No extras, just 200% pure chicken goodness.  Oh folks, it's really, really good!

Pu-erh Tea Ice Cream 普洱茶雪糕

Something for the Chinese tea lover's pleasure...a soothing scoop or two of rich creamy homemade ice cream thoroughly scented and flavored with the earthy woodsy fragrance of Pu-erh tea 普洱茶.  We love Chinese Pu-erh tea in our house and drink it every single day.  

And since we also like to make our own ice cream (we've been doing for years even though we don't have an ice cream maker!) we decided to put these two favorite things together into one perfectly tea scented and creamily deliciously sweet Pu-erh Tea Ice Cream 普洱茶雪糕.  

Oh my gosh, I love this tea ice cream!  Why the heck didn't I do this before?  Turns out tea and ice cream is a made in heaven combination of fragrance and creaminess and just the perfect thing to go along with a leisurely afternoon tea break!