The Chinese classic, Dong Po Pork, is named after the Chinese poet Su Dongpo, who, apparently, loved pork belly prepared this way. The dish is an example of the Chinese technique of ‘red-cooking’ (紅燒), meaning that the main ingredients are braised in a soy sauce rich cooking medium. Here, as in the classic Dongpo Pork […]
Eggplant with Basil and Eggs is very Thai in spirit but doesn’t actually belong to any specific cuisine. It calls for the long, slender types of eggplant common to Japanese, or south-east Asian kitchens rather than the fatter, deep purple eggplants more familiar in the west. It could easily be served as a side dish […]
The Scallop, in culinary terms, generally refers to the adductor muscle of several, similar species of shellfish. Some recipes will use more than the muscle, and include the pinkish-orange gonads (seen surrounding the white, pillar of the adductor in the above picture), but most dishes include only the muscle itself. When properly prepared, the meat, […]
This Madras Curry Paste Recipe builds upon a very traditional Indian masala to make a tangy, versatile, and easy to use Madras Curry base. For those unfamiliar, Indian ‘masalas are spice blends which can be ‘dry’ powders, or ‘wet’ pastes. Typically, pastes are made by combining dry powdered spices with a liquid (vinegar especially) and […]
This Home-made Branston Pickle Recipe was prompted by my memories of the Branston Pickle that was so popular when I was growing up in the UK. It is fairly commonly available here in Eastern Canada, these days, but it still isn’t that widely known, and I can recall long periods when it was nowhere to […]
These Pork and Radish Dumplings are boiled Jiaozi-style dumplings filled with a mixture of seasoned pork, and the greens and finely diced flesh of the giant white radish called ‘Lo Bok’ in Cantonese, but more commonly known in the west by the Japanese name ‘Daikon’. The Pork and Radish Dumplings dumplings shown above are in […]
I have previously published an introduction to a Pickled Mustard product widely used in Chinese cuisine, and known as Suān Jiècài (酸芥菜). The product seen in the above picture is Zha Cai, or Sichuan Preserved Vegetable (四川榨菜), and it also a type of pickled mustard, but differs in a few respects from the more common […]
This Madras Beef Curry recipe reproduces to a style of dish that used to be almost ubiquitous on the menus at Indian Restaurant in the West. There must have been thousands of variations on the basic theme over the years, many based on lamb rather than beef, but all share a similar profile. This particular […]
This Brined Pork Roast Recipe uses a basic technique that can be adapted to virtually any cut of meat where you wish to draw the full flavor of seasonings and aromatics into the flesh. That being said, it works particularly well with very lean cuts of Pork, like the one seen above. The action of […]
A Chinese Pork Stock made with raw pork bones, skin, and meat is sometimes called a ‘White Stock’, or even a ‘Milk Stock’, in Chinese cookery, because, unlike a thin, clear Chinese Chicken Stock, for example, it is quite opaque and somewhat ‘milky’ in appearance. Accordingly, this sort of stock doesn’t have quite the same […]
Fish Maw, or 魚肚, is one of those Asian culinary ingredients that are not very familiar to most westerners In the picture above, you can see what appear to be three very different things. In fact, they are just different forms of a product used in Chinese and South-East Asian cookery, and commonly referred to […]
This Homemade Madras Curry Powder recipe is easy to follow and the resulting aroma and taste will be familiar to almost everyone. In years past, a ‘Madras Curry’ was a standard item on Indian restaurants in the West, and the typical blend of spices used in these dishes combine to produce what many people think […]
Dried Scallops (乾貝) , also known as ‘Conpoy’, are a much prized ingredient in Chinese cuisine. As with many dried products, the drying process really intensifies the flavors and the normal, savory sweetness of fresh Scallops is super-magnified in the dried variety, making them genuine umami bombs. They require a little preparation before use (unless […]