Xinjiang style lamb kebabs

Kebabs are popular all across Central Asia, from Turkey in the west and up through North China. The differences in preparation are relatively minimal, depending upon the type and cut of meat, as well as the seasonings.

Out on the far west edge of China is a region they call Xinjiang ("the new borderlands"), which also has the old and much more romantic English name of Chinese Turkestan. A title like that summons up images of caravans on the ancient Silk Road that used to connect Xi'an in the east with Venice in the west, passing through fabled oases like Samarkand as spices and silks wound their way across the harshest terrain on the planet.

When we finally got enough money together to make our long-delayed trip to China, the first place on my list was China's wild west. It was the one place I was as yet unfamiliar with, but the Silk Road had haunted my memories ever since my youth, when I had read and then dreamed about bazaars and shifting sands, wanting to smell the aroma of whole lambs roasting over open fires. 

Cumin, chili pepper, & garlic

This is Central Asia seen through a Chinese prism, a region where Cossacks, Mongolians, Tibetans, Uyghurs, and Hui Muslims have as much claim to membership in China's glorious spectrum of cuisines as the Hans, their cultures intermingling with glorious abandon as spices from one region creep into and improve another, where cooking methods evolve as new generations grow up with the blood of many tribes mingling in their veins.

Take, for example, this wondrous skewered lamb dish from Xinjiang. It is something that speaks of an Uzbek mother somewhere upstream further west along the Silk Road. And yet, where Uzbekis might prepare this with lemon juice, onions, cilantro, coriander seeds, salt, and garlic, in Xinjiang all of these flavors are discarded (save for the salt and garlic so beloved by Chinese of every stripe) in favor of a simple dry rub of ground chili peppers and powdered cumin. As a result, this meat dish is ineffably Chinese and yet completely halal.

Dry rub as the Gobi

The traditional recipe for this kebab calls for oil to be mixed in with the meat. But I use the unsung and under-appreciated shoulder here (as in most of my lamb dishes) and have found that the fat already on this delightful part of the animal is just the right amount to both baste the meat as it cooks and provide a buttery flavor. Also, if you are cooking indoors, the extra oil often will cause billows of smoke, so try it without the oil first and see if you like it.

This recipe is so easy that I am always tempted to make a couple of pounds of the meat tossed with the dry rub for fast dinners later on in the week. It freezes well this way, too, and only needs to be defrosted before threading it onto the skewers.

You can vary the spices as you like, adding more chili pepper if you really enjoy hot foods, or tossing in some minced ginger. The cumin is what really makes this dish especially tasty, and for this I like to use freshly ground cumin seeds, which are much more aromatic than the fusty powder sitting on the back of your shelf behind an ancient jar of ground cloves.

Serve these kebabs with steamed rice or Xinjiang-style pilaf (coming soon), or with any number of flatbreads. I especially love these tasty nuggets wrapped up in a freshly-made thin griddle bread (also coming soon) with no more than a few sprigs of cilantro for contrast and a very unkosher cold beer to wash it all down.

Happy 2013!

Served on griddle breads

Xinjiang style lamb kebabs 
Xīnjiāng yángròu chuàn 新疆羊肉串 
Xinjiang

Serves 4 as an entree

1 pound boneless lamb shoulder (see Tips)

4 to 6 cloves garlic

2 tablespoons ground cumin

2 tablespoons coarsely ground chili pepper

2 teaspoons sea salt

1. Start this recipe at least 6 hours before you wish to serve it. Use 8 small or 4 large metal or bamboo skewers for the kebabs; I like long, forked bamboo skewers (see Tips), as the pair of tines helps hold the meat easily, and the sharp ends make threading the meat relatively easily. If you are using bamboo skewers, soak them in warm water for a few hours before you cook the meat.

2. Rinse the meat and pat it dry with a paper towel. Trim off and discard any silver skin or tendons, but leave on the fat. Cut the meat in long, thin strips against the grain; the length of the strips doesn't matter, but the meat should be about ¼-inch thick. Place the strips in a resealable plastic bag or a plastic container.

Marinating lamb

3. Mix the garlic, cumin, chili pepper, and salt together, and then use this as a dry rub for the meat. Toss the seasonings with the meat and lightly massage it into each piece so that the lamb is well seasoned. Close the bag or container and refrigerate for at least 6 hours and up to around 5 days, depending upon your fridge (again, the prepped meat also freezes well).

4. Prepare either a ridged grill pan for indoor cooking or an outdoor barbecue for grilling. Thread the meat onto the skewers, but don’t compact the meat too tightly so that it cooks evenly. Cook the meat on a grill pan or barbecue over medium heat. Allow one side to slightly char before turning the skewer over. The lamb is done when the second side is also lightly charred. Let the meat rest for about 10 minutes before serving.

Tips

I like lamb shoulders because the meat is flavorful and tender without costing much. Also, if the butcher bones it first, this makes life a whole lot simpler. If you buy a whole shoulder, you can divide it into smaller portions and freeze whatever you are not using within the next couple of days.

Organic lamb really shines in this dish, as it is all about the quality of the meat.

Pretty bamboo skewers

Like many spices, cumin is best when it is freshly ground. I buy whole seeds and then grind around ¼ cup of the spice to have on hand for my far west binges, as this way it stays fresh and fragrant.

For my money, the best skewers are double-tined bamboo. First of all, they are relatively cheap but still can be used a few times before discarding. The ends are needle sharp, which makes threading the meat a breeze, and the two tines allow the meat to not only be skewered, but also wrapped around the bamboo as needed. Very convenient. Just be sure to soak them well so that they don't burn up.

Buzzfeed reprints my Lucky Peach dim sum guide

Last month the great food magazine Lucky Peach published a history of dim sum I had written for its Chinatown issue, as well as a field guide to the 24 most popular things you can get at a Cantonese-style teahouse. 

And now, the equally great Buzzfeed has reprinted that field guide (and a bit of that background history as a teaser) on its website here. 

Instead of the line drawings I made for Lucky Peach, this time around there's actual photographs of the actual dishes, which gives my peek into traditional South Chinese brunch a whole new look. 

You can almost smell the chicken feet, and that's a very good thing. Check it out...

The Essential Guide To Dim Sum

Know exactly how to order thanks to this breakdown of 24 dishes, including photos and Chinese pronunciation.

FIRST, A QUICK HISTORY LESSON.

Unusual suspects for a great meal

Nowadays, the term "dim sum" (點心 in written Chinese, and pronounced dian xin in Mandarin) is a meal—usually taken on a weekend morning—that encompasses a vast roster of small dishes selected from carts.

In the beginning, dim sum was a verb that merely meant “to eat a little something.” Cantonese dim sum culture began in tearooms in the latter half of the nineteenth century in the city of Guangzou, possibly because of the recent ban of opium dens. It spread and gained popularity—especially in nearby Hong Kong...

Read the rest on Buzzfeed!

Photos from Buzzfeed's website.

Naomi Duguid's "Burma: River of Flavor"

Once in a great while, a little-known cuisine gets itself introduced to the English-speaking world via a well-written cookbook, and life for those who love to eat and cook changes for the better.

This usually has a lot to do with how sublime that cuisine is – a cookbook can crystallize whatever innate qualities make a particular food culture unique and unforgettable.

But what really matters is how much the writer loves that cuisine, how much she understands the people who make it and how much she is willing to submerge herself in this completely foreign approach to food. And no one does this better than Naomi Duguid, whose most recent book, Burma: Rivers of Flavor, opens the long-locked doors to Myanmar and allows us to partake of its exciting food.

Long isolated from the rest of the world by the ruling military junta, Myanmar has been moving toward democracy over the last two years. (Duguid writes that Myanmar, the country’s current official name, refers to the homeland of the dominant ethnic group. She prefers Burma, which she says includes the entire country.)

Much like the award-winning cookbooks Duguid co-authored with ex-husband Jeffrey Alford, this one moonlights with equal aplomb as a travel guide, a history book, an ethnographic study, a photographic essay and a guide to understanding a culture totally foreign to the West. Short chapters – often not more than a page in length – succinctly describe the intersection of Duguid’s personal experiences with the history and heritage of a remarkable people....

Read the rest here in my full review on Zester Daily! 

And you thought miso was only for the Japanese...

Miso is usually introduced as a Japanese invention, but this is something that has also existed in China for hundreds of years as part of its beautiful spectrum of fermented bean sauces. 

Called mianchi 麵豉, this is one of the three fermented condiments referred to in Chinese as chi. In addition to Cantonese miso, there are also the very familiar fermented black beans (douchi 豆豉), as well as Cantonese fermented olives (lanchi 欖豉), which are dearly beloved in the Guangdong area but rarely used anywhere else. (We'll talk more about fermented olives in a future post. I should also add here that the Cantonese call dried oysters haochi 蠔豉, sort of straddling the line between condiment and the more hefty ingredients.)

Chinese miso

The Cantonese village of Gulao in near the city of Heshan is believed to have been where mianchi was first made, and as this place was already very famous for its soy sauce, the people there probably didn’t require too much of a stretch on imagination to expand into making miso. Both soy sauce and miso are created by inoculating steamed soybeans, allowing them to mold, and then mixing them with salt before they are left to ferment for months. The secrets to great sauces of any kind – and there always are secrets – are the proportions, the strain of molds, the other ingredients added to the mix, and how they are fermented.

The miso of China looks, smells, and tastes quite different from the Japanese version. For one, the Cantonese manage to create a fruitier, more alcoholic aroma, one that an American friend recently described as reminding him of mincemeat. Mianchi is also more liquid and loose with puddles of the juice gathering around the more solid islands. It also is distinctly full of beans, with shards of soybeans shimmering darkly against the mahogany-tinted mixture, and it is kept at room temperature, where the sauce has a chance to continue fermenting and changing and becoming more fragrant with the passing weeks.

It is only recently that Chinese miso has hit my local Chinese grocery store, and I pounced upon it with whoops of delight, scaring the ladies pushing kids and carts around me into allowing me a wide berth. Once I had tasted it, I immediately went back and bought more, happy in the knowledge that it will continue to evolve and ferment quietly on my kitchen counter. 

Beautiful Chilean sea bass

This dish calls for Chilean sea bass, which when cooked this way turns into possibly the nearest approximation of fish-flavored butter imaginable. Yes, sea bass is expensive – count on between $8 and $10 a person here – but it’s worth every penny. I love watching my guests take a first bite, thinking it’s nothing more than an everyday piece of fish, and then enjoying how their eyes pop out as they quickly snag another bite.

For this reason, I portion out the fish onto individual plates. It prevents all of the fights that would otherwise ensue.

Broiled buttery sea bass 
Yānjú lúyú  醃焗鱸魚
Guangdong 

Serves 4 to 6

1½ pounds (more or less) Chilean sea bass

1 tablespoon grated fresh ginger

3 tablespoons Cantonese miso (mianchi, see Tips)

3 tablespoons rice wine (mijiu)

1 tablespoon sugar

Spray oil

Olive oil

Ginger, sugar, mianchi & wine

1. Start this recipe 3 days before you wish to serve it. Scale the fish and rinse it under cool running water. Pat it dry and cut it into 4 to 6 even slices (depending upon how many people you wish to serve).

2. Use a resealable container for marinating the fish. Place the ginger, Chinese miso, rice wine, and sugar in the container and mix them together. Add the fish and coat each piece thoroughly. Cover the container and refrigerate it for 3 days, turning the fish over twice a day.

3. Heat the broiler to high and place the rack about 5 inches below the coil. Spray a broiler pan with oil. Lightly rub some olive oil over the skin side of each piece of fish and place them skin side up on the broiler pan. Broil the fish until the skin is bubbly and brown. Turn the pieces over and dribble any remaining marinade on top of the fish. Broil the fish again until the flesh side is browned on top and almost black along the edges. Remove the fish, plate it, and pour the hot sauce over the pieces. Serve hot.

Marinated fish

Tips

If you cannot find Cantonese miso in your market yet, use red Japanese miso instead. It’s not perfect, but all in all a good approximation.

Other fish might work well here as long as it is very meaty and juicy. But I have never tried anything else, as the sea bass is just so insanely delicious cooked this way.

Comfort via Sichuan: pork & pickle soup

This is one of those dishes we would order at least once a month under a number of different incarnations when we lived in Taipei. It’s great as is or served over a bowl of noodles, where it makes the perfect complete meal. And if you would prefer this as a simple stir-fry, just blanch the pickles as directed in step 2, drain them thoroughly, and add the pickles to the wok in step 4. Simple and delicious!

The only real variable here is the saltiness of the pickle, so taste them and the broth after the zhacai has been blanched the first time.

Unlike so many of Sichuan’s street foods, this is not in the least spicy. In fact, it is downright mild. The main seasoning is the pickle, which (literally) tarts up the dish to such an extent that just about anything else would be superfluous, and so it is left with the starring role here.

What I’ve done instead of tossing in my usual handful of chilies is introduce more savory elements to the original recipe. Traditionally, pork shreds are simply added to the simmering pickles, and that’s it. It’s okay that way, but not stellar, because even if you use fatty pork instead of a lean cut, the fat ends up as cumbersome blobs that require serious chewing, and the broth never really coalesces into something truly flavorful.

Served with noodles & bok choy

So, I have substituted Chinese black mushrooms for half of the pork, and they provide a really lovely savory note, a richness that otherwise is missing. Then, because the meat is so lean, I stir-fry it in some oil that has been seasoned with a good helping of garlic and ginger. These, plus a nice glug of rice wine, give this soup its necessary oomph and transforms a ho-hum comfort dish into something stellar.

Shredded pork and pickle soup 
Zhàcài ròusī tāng  榨菜肉絲湯
Sichuan

Serves 2 as a main meal over noodles, 4 to 6 as a soup course

4 ounces lean pork

½ a piece of Sichuan pickle (zhacai; see Tips)

Filtered water

A large handful of fresh noodles, or 2 bundles cellophane noodles, optional

4 large Chinese black mushrooms, fresh (or plumped dried mushrooms)

3 tablespoons peanut or vegetable oil

2 or 3 cloves garlic, finely chopped

1½ tablespoons finely chopped fresh ginger

¼ cup rice wine

A large handful of cleaned and trimmed bok choy or other greens, optional

1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil

1 green onion, trimmed and cut diagonally into fine slices

1. Place the meat in the freezer for about an hour before you cut it so that it is easier to slice.

Pork, mushrooms & zhacai

2. Rinse the zhacai under cool running water, pat dry, and slice it into thin pieces about ⅛-inch thick. Then, cut these slices into thin julienne matchsticks; you should have about ½  cup. Place the pickles in a medium saucepan and cover with around 4 cups water; bring the water to a boil, simmer for about 10 minutes, and then taste both the broth and the pickles. If either is too salty, discard half of the water and add 2 cups more water to the pan; bring the broth to a boil again and then slowly simmer the pickles while you prepare the rest of the ingredients. (If you are serving this over noodles, you may add them to the broth, but pour in more boiling filtered water as needed so that you end up with around 4 cups liquid.)

3. Slice the meat very thinly against the grain and remove any fat or gristly pieces before cutting the slices into a thin julienne. Remove and discard the mushroom stems; slice the caps horizontally in half and then crosswise into thin julienne.

4. Heat the oil in a wok over medium-high until it shimmers and then toss in the garlic and ginger. Fry these for about 10 seconds to release their fragrance before adding the pork and mushrooms. Stir-fry these together until the meat starts to brown. Scrape the pork mixture into the broth, add the rice wine, and bring the soup to a boil. (If you are serving this over noodles and want some more veggies in the mix, add the bok choy to the broth now.) Lower the heat and simmer the soup for around 5 minutes, taste and adjust seasoning, and then sprinkle on the sesame oil and green onions. Serve very hot.

Tips

Two whole pickles

Sichuan pickles used to only be available in cans, but more and more Chinese markets are now offering them either in shrink-wrapped bags or loose in a pickle jar or already packaged and weighed.

The best pickles are whole and covered with a light chili paste that – oddly enough – never gets absorbed into the pickle, so I have no idea why anyone uses it, but it does look pretty.

Keep any unused whole or halved pickles wrapped airtight and refrigerated, where they will remain happily for a very long time.

These pickles are made out of the knobby stems of a type of mustard called Brassica juncea that is salted, the juices are squeezed out, and it is partially dried. It is then coated with ground chili powder and allowed to ferment. The Chinese name – zhacai – literally means "squeezed vegetable" because the juices are wrung out before it is pickled.

Northern Chinese don't roast chickens... or do they?

Roasted meats are rarely found in Chinese homes mainly because ovens have traditionally been reserved for restaurants. Be that as it may, they do exist, and sometimes they exude a startling originality. 

I immediately think of Cantonese cooking whenever roasted Chinese things are mentioned, but once in a while there are surprises along the way, as today's dish from Shandong in northern China: this is one of the “three roasted dishes of Qingdao,” the other two featuring fish and meaty pork ribs.

It was created by the local famed chef Pan Xiaoliang in the early years of the last century. His original recipe called for a young rooster to be marinated in salt, rice wine, and soy sauce before being quickly fried in very hot oil. The bird was then roasted with such things as green onions, ginger, and Sichuan peppercorns and then served in its juices. You can see how Shanghai finagled its way into this dish from Shandong’s coastal area, the green onion oil giving away its secrets with an almost giddy glee.

A more modern interpretation eliminates the frying, and as you’ll see, that dip in the oil is truly unnecessary because the skin crisps up beautifully in the oven while the meat stays moist and flavorful. A nest of lettuce leaves protects the chicken from drying out, and it also cooks down into a wonderful accompaniment after an hour in a very hot oven.

Spatchcocked & ready to go

That very hot oven is one of the secrets here. Start your oven as soon as you begin working on this dish, as it needs to get as hot as possible, usually 550°F on most American ovens. The super-hot air seals the juices in by shrinking and crisping the skin, and then a merely very hot oven (425°F) finishes the job.

You’ll notice that the chicken is split up the back and laid flat on top of the lettuce. This cuts way down on the cooking time since there’s no cool cavity to deal with. This is called spatchcocking or butterflying a chicken. You can, if you like, completely remove the backbone, but I’m a sucker for both the back and the tail, so I leave it in and just cut down one side of the spine.

Master this recipe – both the hot, hot oven and the spatchcocking – and you’ll soon be making variations on it in no time.

Crispy chicken roasted on lettuce 
Kǎo xiǎochújī 烤小雛雞 
Shandong

Serves 4 to 6 as an entree 

Fried green onions add flavor

½ cup Green Onion Oil, with some of the crispy green onions

1 whole fryer (about 3½ pounds)

Spray oil

1 small head or half a large head of romaine lettuce

8 thin slices fresh ginger, lightly mashed with the back of a cleaver

¼ cup Shaoxing rice wine

1 teaspoon ground toasted Sichuan peppercorns

¼ cup filtered water

¼ cup regular soy sauce

1. If you don’t have Green Onion Oil on hand, fry the onions in oil as directed in that recipe while you are working on the chicken. Place a rack in the lower third of your oven and heat it to 550°.

2. Rinse the chicken, pat it dry, and pull out any pinfeathers you see. Place the chicken on its breast and use a sharp cleaver to cut down one side of the spine to split it open. (If you want, you can cut out the spine and save it for stock.) Clean out the inside of the chicken and remove any extra fat. Turn the chicken over and tuck the wings underneath themselves.

Smashed ginger slices

3. Spray a 10- to 12-inch wide ovenproof dish with oil. Rinse the lettuce, shake the leaves dry, and lay them whole on the bottom of the dish, breaking a few as necessary so that the entire bottom of the dish is covered. Scatter the ginger over the lettuce. Place the chicken in the dish skin-side down and rub it with some of the rice wine and Sichuan peppercorns. Flip it over and lightly rub the rest of the rice wine and Sichuan peppercorns into the skin. Pour the water and  green onion oil into the dish from the side so that they don’t wash off the peppercorns. Then, pour the soy sauce all over the chicken, trying to hit as much of the skin as possible; the onions will turn black if left on top of the chicken (which is quite beautiful, so there is a trade off), so nudge them into crevasses, if possible. Place the dish on a baking sheet and place the chicken in the oven.

4. Lower the heat (without opening the door) to 425°F and continue to roast the bird for another 40 to 50 minutes, or until the skin is browned and crispy and the juices run clear when the thigh is pierced deeply with a knife. Remove the chicken from the oven and let it rest for about 10 minutes. Cut up the chicken as desired and serve it with the roasted lettuce and the juices. All that is needed is hot steamed rice or steamed buns. 

Crunchy breakfast rice rolls -- a Taipei memory

The sweet version of these rice rolls was without a doubt the first thing I ever bought to eat in Taipei, and the reason for this was that a nice middle-aged Taiwanese lady would plant herself in front of my language school every single weekday morning and sell them from her simple cart.

She was that lovely sort of woman who seemed to run Taipei’s underground economy: short, strong, with a smiling and ruddy face, her arms and neck were covered with gaily printed cotton to protect her from the sun, and she wore a wide conical hat made out of bamboo sheaths. Industrious and incredibly dependable, she’d make her usual rounds as she pushed her iron and wood cart through our neighborhood, calling out “Fantuan!” (rice rolls) as she walked, and providing a delicious hot breakfast for what must have been about a quarter.

Like Laura Palmer: wrapped in plastic

One thing that has struck me as strange, now that I think of it: although this is a morning staple that most likely originated in Nanjing (Zhejiang province), I never saw anyone but Taiwanese ladies selling them. And this is really unusual, because it was usually expats from the Mainland who sold their hometown specialties.

Anyway, that nice lady would ask me whether I wanted sweet or savory that day and then spread the rice out on a wrung-out towel, as the moisture would keep the rice from sticking to the cloth. The finished roll would be wrapped up in a piece of paper and tossed into a plastic bag so that I could slowly savor it between classes.

Today, street hawkers are a rare sight in Taipei; things like these rice rolls are found almost exclusively now in the breakfast shops that specialize in hot soybean milk and the fried crullers known as youtiao. Sometimes called “fried devils” in both English and Chinese (youzha gui 油炸鬼), this name most likely originated in Hong Kong and was a misinterpretation of yet another one of their names, “fried crullers” (youzha guozi 油炸果子).

Chinese crullers

Both the sweet and savory versions are delicious and unusual and highly addictive. They are perfect with a bowl of hot soybean milk, a combination that brings back immediate memories of my first hot, humid, wonderful mornings in Taipei.

Crunchy breakfast rice rolls 
Zīfàntuán 栥飯團 
Zhejiang

1 rice roll (can be multiplied infinitely)

Sweet:

½ fried Chinese cruller (youtiao), see Tips

1 cup hot, cooked sweet rice (aka glutinous rice)

2 tablespoons chopped Toasted Peanuts

2 tablespoons Toasted Sesame Seeds

2 tablespoons sugar, or to taste

Pickled greens & radish

Savory:

½ fried Chinese cruller (youtiao), see Tips

A drizzle of peanut or vegetable oil

1 to 2 tablespoons salted dried radish (caipu)

1 to 2 tablespoons sour pickled mustard greens (suancai)

1 cup hot, cooked sweet rice

¼ cup (or more) fried pork fluff (rousong), see Tips

¼ of a finely chopped Pickled Red Chili, optional

1. Split the cruller down the middle into two long strips, cut each strip into 2 equal pieces (giving you 4 pieces per cruller), and then heat as many of them as you want them in a 300°F oven until very crispy. (You can bake them until they are very hard, if you prefer, at 275°F for a longer time.) If you are making the savory rice rolls, heat half of the oil in a wok over medium-high until it smokes and fry the radish for a few seconds to even out the flavors; scrape this out onto a small plate. Repeat this step with the other half of the oil and fry the pickled mustard greens. 

Pork fluff

2. If the rice is super-hot, lay a clean washcloth on your counter, cover it with a large, clean resealable plastic bag, and then top this with a foot-wide piece of cling wrap. (The washcloth will protect your hands, the plastic bag will give you a nice slippery surface, and the cling wrap will keep the sticky rice manageable.) If the rice is cool enough to handle, you can omit the washcloth.

3. Scoop a cup of the hot rice onto the middle of the cling wrap and use a rubber spatula to spread it out into a more or less 8-inch square. Sprinkle either the sweet or the savory condiments along the middle section and lay a piece of the toasted cruller on top. Use all three layers of the wrapping to roll up the rice and condiments around the cruller, patting the ends in to seal in everything. Lightly squeeze the rice roll in your hands to compact everything around the cruller and keep it from falling apart. Rearrange the cling wrap, if necessary, around the rice roll and serve it wrapped up. The diner then peels back the cling wrap as bites are taken.

Layer on the fillings

Tips

Use fresh, hot rice for this; reheated rice doesn’t have the same amount of stickiness or flavor. 

Be sure and used sweet (glutinous) rice, as other varieties won’t be able to hold the grains together in a nice layer unless you mash them into a pulp.

Fried crullers are now a common item in the freezer section of Chinese grocers; these packages usually contain 3 or 4, so just remove as many as you’d like and reclose the package in a freezer bag. If left in the fridge, the crullers will mold within a week, so freeze them for longer storage.

A toaster oven is perfect for heating up the crullers.

Nuts & sugar

Fry the salted radish and pickled mustard greens before you use them, as they otherwise will have an unpleasant packaged flavor. 

If you don’t care for salty things, they can be rinsed in a sieve and patted dry before being fried.

Pork fluff is meat that has been shredded, deep-fried, and then cooked with seasonings like soy sauce and sugar until it is fine and, well, fluffy. Taiwan has some good brands, with the best being (IMHO)  Hsin Tung Yang. Keep the pork fluff in a tightly closed jar, use it up within a month or so, and dry it out in the oven on low if it looses its oomph.

Kindred spirits: U.S. soul food & Chaozhou cuisine

Now on Zester Daily, a look at Chaozhou's mesmerizing foods and how they echo soul food:

It’s a delicious mystery, the way that certain food aesthetics seem to bridge space and time, uniting cultures that would seem to be light years apart. There are no reasonable explanations for this, no instances of immigration one way or the other, no record of any foreign-style restaurant setting up shop in a small country town and changing the course of comfort food for all time. But it happens.

One such instance is the way in which the most delicious foods of Chaozhou, on the north coast of Guangdong province, resonate with the soul food of Black America. The three-course menu below highlights that commonality of flavor.

Tangy ribs are as popular throughout China as they are from Kansas City to North Carolina, and each region has its own take on the master recipe, but this Chaozhou version has to be up there in the ranks of the very best. Its secret? Sour plums.

These salty, dry, and most definitely sour little rocks are turned from mouth-puckering tea snacks into mouth-watering jammy sauces here, the tartness hovering inside the sweetness and the fruitiness of the plums providing the necessary balance. But to transform these breakfasty flavors into something divine, garlic and ginger wake up the palate and make you start wondering whether there are any immediate direct flights to Chaozhou...

Read the rest here on Zester Daily, where you'll find recipes for Fried Ribs with Ginger & Plum Sauce, Soupy Greens (aka The Dish that Secured the Country), and Steamed Taro Pudding with Ginkgo Nuts.

Hainan chicken & rice

This recipe is basically the same as the previous one for White Cut Chicken, as the bird is slowly poached into a perfect state of juiciness. Then, the resulting stock is used to cook the rice, which adds a wonderful savory balance to this one-dish meal. All that is needed are some vegetables to round out the plate, and you’re done.

If you’ve ever been to Southeast Asia, you’ve probably seen – and even tasted – Hainan Chicken and Rice. This is probably the most famous thing to ever have emerged out of China’s second largest island, and was most likely brought to more tropical parts of Asia by immigrants who knew a good thing when they tasted it. 

What you might not know is that this actually developed out of another Hainan specialty, Wenchang chicken, a dish that is locally considered one of the island’s four greatest culinary creations.

Perfume for the rice

Hainan Chicken and Rice is a no-brainer meal because almost all of the work is done by the refrigerator and the stove. Little is required of the cook, except for keeping an eye on the clock. As with White Cut Chicken, the secret is all in the timing, so that the bird cooks all the way through without even beginning to dry out. 

If you are like me and tend to avoid chicken breast because it has more or less the texture of newspaper, this recipe should rock your world. Plump, ever-so-gently pink, and dripping with juices, you can really appreciate how the folks in this region understand what white meat is supposed to be.

Hainan chicken and rice 
Hǎinán jīfàn  海南雞飯
Hainan

Serves 4 as a main dish

Chicken:

1 fryer (about 2½ pounds)

1½ teaspoons sea salt

1 tablespoon Cantonese white liquor or other white liquor or vodka

Boiling filtered water

Chinese pilaf in the wok

Toasted sesame oil

Rice:

2 cups long grain white rice (basmati is great here), although short grain rice is great, too

2 tablespoons peanut or vegetable oil

3 bay leaves

5 slices ginger

2 green onions, trimmed and cut into 2-inch lengths

3 cups stock from the chicken (including the fat, as well)

½ teaspoon sea salt (or to taste)

Dipping sauces (any or all):

A            2 tablespoons minced fresh ginger

4 cloves garlic, finely minced

2 tablespoons fresh peanut or vegetable oil

1 tablespoon dark soy sauce

B           2 tablespoons sugar

1 tablespoon apple cider or rice vinegar

1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar

2 tablespoons minced fresh ginger

4 cloves garlic, finely minced

C           3 red jalapeno peppers, finely diced

1 tablespoon fish sauce

1 tablespoon lemon juice or apple cider or rice vinegar

2 teaspoons toasted sesame oil

Prepping one of the sauces

Sugar to taste

D          Fresh limes

             Cilantro sprigs

1. Prepare the chicken as in White Cut Chicken up to step 3, but don’t cut it up yet, and reserve the poaching liquid as stock for the rice.

2. Rinse the rice and drain it well. Heat the oil in a wok on high until it starts to shimmer, and then add the bay leaves, ginger, green onions, and salt. Stir them around in the oil until you can smell their fragrance, and then dump in the raw rice. Stir-fry the rice until it begins to turn opaque and white. Stir in the stock, bring the wok to a boil, cover, and reduce the heat to very low. Slowly cook the rice for about 17 minutes, or until the stock has been completely absorbed and the rice is fluffy. Turn off the heat and let the rice steam by itself while you prepare the rest of the meal. Just before serving, use chopsticks to pluck off and discard the bay leaves, ginger, and green onions.

3. Make sauces A, B, and C by cooking them lightly and quickly over high heat. You just want to take off the raw edge of the aromatics and seasonings, so as soon as they barely come to a boil, pour each sauce into a separate small bowl; taste and adjust seasonings. Slice the limes and coarsely chop the cilantro.

A full, easy, perfect meal

4. If you want to serve the chicken chopped up, now is the time to do it, but that’s not how I like it. If you are like me and prefer to shred the meat, heat up the stock to a simmer, turn off the heat, and then plop the chicken back into the stock for a minute or two to warm up. Remove and drain the chicken, place it on a rimmed plate, and then pull off all of the meat. (Return the bones to the stock for further simmering, by the way.) Cut up the skin into thin shreds, too.

5. Prepare 4 dinner plates and one rice bowl. To serve, scoop a quarter of the rice into the bowl, smooth off the top, and then turn it upside-down on a dinner plate. Repeat with the rest of the rice and plates. Arrange the chicken alongside and on top of the rice, and decorate the plate with the limes and cilantro. Serve while still hot, and pass around the various dipping sauces.