General Tso's Cauliflower: Veganizing an American Favorite

July 04, 2020

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Malaysian-Style Turmeric Salmon with Crispy Skin: Restaurant Cooking at Home

June 20, 2020

Nearly three years ago, I went on a culinary pilgrimage to see Grace Young demo one of her recipes in Brooklyn. We met up at Aux Epices, an amazing Malaysian-French bistro run by Chef Mei Chau. Among the highlights was this delectable salmon perched on a plinth of rice surrounded by a rich deep yellow sauce. Now, Mei Chau has graciously shared the recipe for this signature dish in a fantastic Zoom cooking lession, co-hosted by Grace Young and the Museum of Chinese in America (MOCA).

Malaysian-Style Turmeric Salmon at Aux Epices restaurant in the NY Chinatown

A few years ago, I discovered Malaysian food at a tiny slip of a restaurant, full of happy sounds as diners enjoyed each other’s company in the presence of rich, complex and tantalizing flavors. Aux Epices, the name of the restaurant, literally means "of the spices." Chef Mei Chau is Chinese-Malaysian in heritage, and she originally moved to America to pursue art training. Together with her photographer husband Marc Kaczmarek, she created a warm and inviting Malaysian-French bistro, where she works a rich palette of color, smells and taste inspired by the fresh ingredients from Chinatown markets outside her door.

My husband, a friend and I were on a pilgrimage to learn more about Chinese cooking. As part of the Facebook group Wok Wednesdays, we were learning how to cook using the most versatile, yet humbly inexpensive, cookware invented over the past 2000 years. Guided by the stir-fry guru and wok evangelist, Grace Young, we were learning how to make countless, delicious, better-than-restaurant-quality dishes at home. To justify the long drive to New York City, we would attend a special exhibit at the Museum of Chinese in America (MOCA) entitled Sour, Sweet, Bitter, Spicy: Stories of Chinese Food and Identity in America in addition to the Museum of Food and Drink (MOFAD) exhibits in Brooklyn on Chinese restaurants and the Wok in America. MOFAD was sponsoring a stir-fry demo for Chinese Trinidadian Shrimp with Rum, and we could not pass up the chance to meet Grace in person!

Chef Mei had contributed several Malaysian seafood dishes to Grace's most recent book, Stir-frying to the Sky's Edge. So we decided to meet up with Wok Wednesday friends for lunch at Aux Epices. Where else can you get delicious Asian food plus French tarts for dessert?

Other dishes we enjoyed at Aux Epices. Chinese Broccoli stir-fried with fresh garlic and soy sauce drizzle; Rendang Lamb with roasted coconut, blue ginger, curry spices; Kuala Lumpur-style Seafood Laksa with shrimp, mussels, salmon, calamari, tofu, eggplant, bean sprouts and Udon noodles in a yellow coconut curry broth; French Pear Tart. Not shown: Green Mango Jicama salad, Malacca Laksa in red curry sauce, French apple tart.

Eating Malaysian is like having all of your favorite Asian cuisines rolled up into one. Whether it is Indian curries, Chinese vegetables or noodles, or hot Indonesian sambals that you desire, you can have all that and more with additional influences from the Middle East and several European countries including Portugal (source of the egg custard tarts enjoyed in Hong Kong).

Like all businesses in Manhattan's Chinatown, Aux Epices has been struggling since January 2020 due to coronavirus fears. MOCA, which has itself not yet recovered from a devastating fire affecting archived materials that collectively tell the story of more than 150 years of Chinese immigration in the US, is hosting a variety of digital exhibits and Zoom based activities. As part of the new MOCA Cooks series, Chef Mei graciously shared her signature Turmeric Salmon recipe. This engaging session touched upon Malaysian methods for preserving foods, a cook-along with lots of practical tips, Mei's work feeding elderly residents and essential workers, and Grace's mini-documentary interviews that comprise the Coronavirus Chinatown Stories project.

The flavors, colors and textures in this dish are truly amazing. After a rocky audiovisual start, Chef Mei shared her tips for making this dish so clearly that my husband (who bakes, but does not normally cook), was able to create a truly wonderful birthday dinner for me!

Malaysian-Style Turmeric Salmon with Crispy Skin.

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BBQ

Char siu 叉燒 Chinese Barbecue Pork: One Pork Shoulder, Many Meals

June 06, 2020

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Cookbooks

Celebrating African-American Cookbook Authors

June 03, 2020

It has been stated that America is not so much as a melting pot of cultures, but rather a stew pot, where ingredients meld together to create a greater whole, but individual characteristics remain. From the very earliest days of our nation, our culinary traditions have been enriched by the melding of African and Caribbean influences with European and Native American cooking. Southern cuisine was not the only beneficiary of this rich African-American heritage, but also the pepper pot stew popular in Philadelphia, rumored to have sustained the Revolutionary Army at Valley Forge. This wonderful cultural exchange continues to this day, and some of my favorite stir-fries from the Chinese diaspora feature African-Caribbean spices and flavors. Yet the invaluable contribution made by African-American cooks to our culture and enjoyment of life has remained in the background, often invisible, instead of receiving the widespread recognition and honor that it deserves.

African-American Cookbooks to Explore

A recent Eat Your Books post features six gorgeous contemporary cookbooks written by African-American authors. Among these are Jubilee: Recipes from Two Centuries of African American Cooking by Toni Tipton-Martin, which won the 2020 James Beard award for Best American Cookbook.

In her previous book, The Jemima Code, Toni Tipton-Martin highlighted numerous historical books by African-American authors, as reviewed in this post. Among them is a self-published cookbook by Malinda Russell, which is the earliest known African-American cookbook to be published. This historical book is available digitally for free, as part of the Janice Bluestein Longone Culinary Archive at the University of Michigan.

Malinda Russell's book starts off with an introduction to her history (her grandmother was a freed slave), and why she is writing a cookbook in Paw Paw, Michigan -- far from her home in Tennessee. These few pages along are well worth reading, even if you have no desire to recreate old recipes. As a testament to her strength, you can see how many careers she has pursued, raising her handicapped son on her own after her husband died young. She has had all her savings robbed at least twice, picking herself up each time with indomitable strength.

In 1864, Russell left her boarding house and pastry shop businesses in Cold Springs TN to seek safety during the Civil War. "Hearing that Michigan was the Garden of the West, I resolved to make that my home...until peace is restored," writing the cookbook in hopes of raising enough money to get back to Tennessee. "I have made Cooking my employment for the last twenty years, in the first families of Tennessee, Virginia, North Carolina and Kentucky. I know my Receipts to be good, as they have always given satisfaction... and as I am now advanced in years, with no other means of support than my own labor; I have put out this book with the intention of benefiting the public as well as myself."

As might be expected from a pastry chef, her cookbook starts off with all manner of cakes. There are also fascinating glimpses into pickled peaches, and multiple preparations of meat and milk that allow them to be stored well, presumably at room temperature. The book ends with recipes for personal care items that might have been used in place of toothpaste, shampoo and hair dye.

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BBQ

Easy, Gourmet Stuffed Burgers: Beef and Vegetarian

May 31, 2020

As the weather warms up, there is nothing more satisfying than grilling burgers to be served with a variety of grilled, pickled or fresh vegetables. Years ago, I started making a cheese and bacon stuffed burger, which became the only burger my kids liked to eat. Efforts to create vegetarian burgers typically resulted in tasty, but fragile patties that squished out from between the buns. Inspired by Green Burgers by Martin Nordin and the minimalistbaker.com website, yet lacking ingredients due to the pandemic lockdown, I created a delicious bbq veggie burger -- hardy enough to grill alongside my traditional stuffed hamburgers.

Beef burger stuffed with bacon and white cheddar

Veggie walnut-brown rice-pea burger, topped with mushroom crisps, greens and flowering chives

Jump to the Stuffed Beef Burger Recipe.

Jump to the Walnut-Rice-Pea Burger Recipe.
Jump to gallery of Favorite Restaurant Burgers
Jump to Exploring Vegetarian Burgers

Easy Burgers for Home or Camping

What can be more classic than a burger with lettuce, tomato and onion? Yet, hamburgers were not a major part of my childhood. Even on the rare trips to McDonald's, my parents favored Filet-O-Fish® sandwiches paired with the iconic thin-cut tallow french fries that, sadly, no longer exist. It was not until a beach camping trip on Hammocks Beach State Park with friends that I learned how to make my first burger. The ground beef was simply seasoned with a pack of Lipton's Onion Soup and Dip mix, and placed on the grill with cheddar cheese melted on top. Sublime... with the ocean breeze, white sandy dunes and soothing rhythm of the waves.

Bacon-Cheese Stuffed Beef Burgers

Years later, when my son was 10 and my daughter was 5, I started making a cheese and bacon stuffed burger, which became the only burger my kids liked to eat. I got the general idea from a Williams-Sonoma recipe card for Burgers Stuffed with Blue Cheese and Bacon, which involved fussy onion caramelization, excess salt and proprietary seasonings, all of which I omitted.

The procedure involves forming balls out of the meat. Like making a clay pinch-pot, push into the ball with your thumbs and pinch out the sides to make a cavity large enough to hold the bacon and cheese. Pull the edges together and pinch closed around the filling.

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Cookbooks

Pork Slivers and Vegetables in Black Bean Sauce over Double-Gold Chow Mein Noodle Cakes: One Pork Shoulder, Many Meals

May 05, 2020

In the early days of the COVID-19 lockdown, I was lucky enough to get a 10-pound pork shoulder, cut in half, from a local farm that normally supplies several sustainable area restaurants. The inaugural meal from this shoulder, delectably tender strips of pork stir-fried with zucchini and purple carrot, crowned my family recipe for crispy-on-the-outside, tender-in-the-middle Suzhou-style chow mein noodle cakes.

Shortcut to the Love2Chow recipe.

Shortcut to the gallery of dishes: "One Pork Shoulder, Many Meals",

The stay-at-home lockdown orders has certainly changed the way I cook. First, I was lucky enough to be able to stock up on fresh chicken, pork and even a bit of bacon from Goodness Grows Farm, along with lots of fresh or salted/fermented/dried vegetables, noodles and rice from the Chinese market. Secondly, my daughter challenged us to two weeks of vegetarian cooking. Had to start over a few times after realizing that just because it's tofu doesn't mean it's vegetarian (fish sauce, oyster sauce, Worchestershire sauce). Thirdly, online MasterClass with Gordon Ramsay. While I have always loved mushrooms, I did not ever expect that I could cook them in a way that makes them taste like bacon. And the ones that are starting to dry out in the paper bag in the fridge have a head start. Plus, the way he uses every scrap of food ("I see it as another portion", "all the flavor's in the peel") and raves about the cooking liquids most people would discard ("you simply cannot buy this kind of flavor"). That and becoming Instagram friends with the @foodwastefeast sisters (after meeting Irene at Boston's MeiMei on our trip to cart my daughter home from college) has completely legitimized my tendency for saving all sorts of scraps and cooking juices for reuse in other dishes.

Before I knew it, 6 weeks had gone by and I had not even touched the $60 worth of meat that I bought when the lockdown began. This past weekend, I thawed one of the pork shoulder halves, cutting off 14 ounces to use in a stir-fry while the rest of the shoulder was still mostly frozen. It's easier to slice meat when it is partially frozen, and once sliced, it thaws very quickly in marinade.

The front piece of this 5 pound half-shoulder yielded 14 oz after trimming off the thicker areas of fat.

I planned to use this stir-fry to serve on top of Suzhou-style double gold panfried noodle cakes. Ever since I posted my family recipe for this, my sister has been going through boxes of Quon Yick noodles, which she kindly shipped to me from California. She had been pairing it with all sorts of delectable creations of her own -- tomatoes, mushrooms, ground lamb or shredded pork with snow peas and bamboo -- and posting the photos on Facebook.

My dad always served this with a pork, cabbage, bean sprouts stirfry, as the soft centers of the noodle cakes soak up the sauce even as the golden outer crusts remain crisp and crunchy. This give rise to a delectable eating experience: something that neither deep fried ultra thin egg noodles nor oil-tossed lo mein noodles can do. I, however, had pretty slim pickings for vegetables -- I had used up all the broccoli, cauliflower, leafy green beet tops, the rest of the cabbage, all of the mushrooms, baby bok choy, spinach. So inspired by the photo of Helen Chen's pork and cucumber stir-fry in Breath of a Wok by Grace Young, I figured I could at least make the zucchini look like cucumber slices.

Marinating pork, sliced zucchini, purple carrot and garlic, rinsed and smashed Chinese fermented black beans.

I cooked the noodle cakes first. While my Dad always cooked one huge noodle cake, flipping the entire stainless steel pan up in the air, I found that individual sized noodle cakes could easily be flipped with a regular spatula, once the bottom had crisped up. The trick is to not peek too early, which causes the fragile early crispy layers to flake off the noodle and stay stuck to the pan.

I was completely floored by how delicious the stir-fry came out. The pork was unbelievably tender -- I've made lots of pork stir-fries over the years but the flavor and texture was truly superior even in just an ad hoc stir-fry using ingredients at hand. I now get what Michael Pollan said, that once you have tasted "better-raised" meats, it actually makes you want to eat meat less often. When the pandemic is over, I will no longer be buying grocery store meats raised in factory farms. Not sure why it took me so long, given that my kids had long been able to recognize when the chicken that I cooked came from the local farm instead of the supermarket...

After dinner, the shoulder was thawed enough to be broken down. The majority of the meat was cut into 1 inch thick strips and marinated overnight to make Chinese barbecue pork - another Grace Young recipe, this time from Stir-frying to the Sky's Edge. I was not too concerned with getting everything off the bone, as that would be frozen to make future homemade ramen. The fat trimmed from the meat was rendered slowly with the assistance of some water to make tasty cracklings, which we immediately ate before I could take any photos, and lard, frozen for future pastries.

Click here to view the gallery of dishes: "One Pork Shoulder, Many Meals", which will be updated as the rest of this shoulder is used.

Love2Chow Pork Slivers & Vegetables in Black Bean Sauce

12-14 oz pork (butt, country ribs, chops), cut into ¼-inch matchsticks

½ Tbs. Shaoxing rice wine or dry sherry

½ tsp. coarse salt

½ tsp. toasted Asian sesame oil

½ tsp. soy sauce

2 tsp. cornstarch or potato starch

1 Tbs. neutral oil (safflower, sunflower, canola, corn, peanut)

3 cloves garlic, thinly sliced

1 Tbs. fermented Chinese black (soy)beans, rinsed, drained and smashed with a spoon

Optional: 1 square of baked five-spice dry tofu 五香豆腐乾, sliced thinly OR 3-4 dried shiitake caps, rehydrated, sliced into ¼ inch strips

1.5-2 cups of sliced vegetables

For example:

¼ head of cabbage, shredded

OR ½ medium zucchini (sliced lengthwise and then into angled ¼-inch slices) or one carrot sliced into angled 1/8-1/4 inch slices

OR 1 red or orange bell pepper cut into ¼ inch wide strips

OR bean sprouts and scallions/Chinese chives 韭菜

3 Tbs. water

¼ tsp. sugar

1. Marinate pork slices in rice wine, salt, sesame oil, soy sauce and starch.

2. Heat a 14-inch wok or a 12 inch frying pan over medium high heat until a drop of water evaporates in about 1 second. Add 1 Tbs oil and tip pan to distribute. Arrange pork and garlic in a single layer and allow to brown undisturbed for 1 minute.

3. Add the black beans and stir. Add the optional dry tofu or mushrooms. Stir-fry until pork is about ¾ browned, with pink areas still visible. Transfer back to its marinating bowl.

4. Add another Tbs oil to the hot wok. Stir-fry the vegetables, starting with the carrot or other firm vegetables that require longer cooking. Cook until vegetables are done to your taste (take a few out and taste them).

5. Stir in pork, water and sugar for 1-2 minutes until pork is done. Serve immediately with brown rice or ladled over double-brown noodle cakes.

May 4, 2020

Note added 28 Dec 2022: Just made this again upon my daughter's request using pork, red-stem swiss chard, mushrooms, yellow pepper, and shredded cabbage-carrot mix. Absolutely delicious! See Instagram Post for more photos.

Tips:

🐾 Bring water to boil while preparing the mise en place for the stirfry. Turn it down to simmer until ready. Return to boil and cook noodles using the recipe for Double-Gold Chow Mein Noodle Cake两面黄炒麵: https://www.love2chow.com/2019/08/suzhou-double-gold-chow-mein-preserving_20.html. If you choose to make several small noodle cakes, they can easily be flipped using a regular spatula.

🐾 If serving with rice, start brown rice in the Instant Pot before beginning to prep ingredients or start white rice in a regular pot. Both will be done within the half hour needed to prepare the stir-fry.

DID YOU TRY THIS RECIPE?

Tag @love2chowblog and hashtag it #love2chow

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Search This Blog

General Tso's Cauliflower: Veganizing an American Favorite

Malaysian-Style Turmeric Salmon with Crispy Skin: Restaurant Cooking at Home

Char siu 叉燒 Chinese Barbecue Pork: One Pork Shoulder, Many Meals

Celebrating African-American Cookbook Authors

African-American Cookbooks to Explore

Easy, Gourmet Stuffed Burgers: Beef and Vegetarian

Jump to the Stuffed Beef Burger Recipe.

Jump to the Walnut-Rice-Pea Burger Recipe.
Jump to gallery of Favorite Restaurant Burgers
Jump to Exploring Vegetarian Burgers

Easy Burgers for Home or Camping

Bacon-Cheese Stuffed Beef Burgers

Pork Slivers and Vegetables in Black Bean Sauce over Double-Gold Chow Mein Noodle Cakes: One Pork Shoulder, Many Meals

Love2Chow Pork Slivers & Vegetables in Black Bean Sauce

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Search This Blog

General Tso's Cauliflower: Veganizing an American Favorite

Malaysian-Style Turmeric Salmon with Crispy Skin: Restaurant Cooking at Home

Char siu 叉燒 Chinese Barbecue Pork: One Pork Shoulder, Many Meals

Celebrating African-American Cookbook Authors

African-American Cookbooks to Explore

Easy, Gourmet Stuffed Burgers: Beef and Vegetarian

Jump to the Stuffed Beef Burger Recipe. Jump to the Walnut-Rice-Pea Burger Recipe.Jump to gallery of Favorite Restaurant BurgersJump to Exploring Vegetarian Burgers

Easy Burgers for Home or Camping

Bacon-Cheese Stuffed Beef Burgers

Pork Slivers and Vegetables in Black Bean Sauce over Double-Gold Chow Mein Noodle Cakes: One Pork Shoulder, Many Meals

Love2Chow Pork Slivers & Vegetables in Black Bean Sauce

About Me

Follow Me

Translate

Popular Posts

Blog Archive

Categories

Jump to the Stuffed Beef Burger Recipe.

Jump to the Walnut-Rice-Pea Burger Recipe.
Jump to gallery of Favorite Restaurant Burgers
Jump to Exploring Vegetarian Burgers