June 7, 2016 In All recipes, Condiments, Dairy, Seafood

THE EGG YOU DIDN’T KNOW YOU NEED – PART II, SALTED YOLK TARTAR SAUCE AND SPICY FISH STICKS

[ezcol_1half] This is Idea No 2 for incorporating what I call the red diamond of foods, salted duck yolk, into your everyday cooking regimen (check the previous post for a new age of carbonara!), and that is, it makes an over-the-top, creamy and decadent base in mayonnaise or aioli which goes on to become thousand different sauces with limitless possibilities. In this case, an incredibly rich tartar sauce which is worlds away from those pale-assed, loose-fitted watery blah that we've gotten too used to to question its legitimacy.  This tartar sauce, using cooked then pureed salted duck yolks, has a creamier and velvety mouthfeel with a hidden depth of richness that whispers its secret through its beautiful orange-yellow hue.  Yes, this tartar sauce uses 2 extra salted yolks for the amount that's made (the yolk-to-oil ratio), and you may be inclined to suspect that the difference may simply just be a result of the extra yolks, regardless whether it's salted or fresh.  But I can't sss this loud enough - salted duck yolks do not taste like plain egg yolks!  They just don't, ok?  Does fresh pork belly taste like bacon?  Huh?  Does milk taste like cheese?  Huh?  We y'all female homo-sapiens but do I look like Giiiiiisele?

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March 15, 2016 In All recipes, Condiments, Meat

THE PUNCH-IT BURGER AND HOUSTON, WE’RE READY TO TAKE OFF

[ezcol_1half] I’ve waited six years… wow, six… to say this son-of-a-bitch line. I’ve imagined saying it while beating its saggy ass with a whip rubbed with the most homicidal Mexican chilis as it wriggles in pain.  I’ve imagined saying it while twisting its balls with electrically charged clamps as it howls in my upmost amusement.  I’ve imagined saying it while watching, ever so pleasurably, as its ugliest face twisted angrily into an even uglier version of itself if that’s even grammatically possible. I’ve imagined, for six years… wow, six… to say this line with a fuck-you. And now, when the time has finally come, I can only feel it exhaling through the gaps of the keyboard, in a long heavy breath of bittersweet… We’re leaving Beijing. Can… can I say that again? We are.  Leaving.  Beijing. Yes, leave, move away, to Hong Kong if that’s important to mention, but more importantly the point is, out of Beijing.  I mentioned last week that I have “eeeewge news” to break it to you, but truth is, this is more than news.  It is a long-awaited, mental or physical, release.  Why is it such a big deal?  Well, I know, I know that the context of my predicament hasn’t been thoroughly

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March 25, 2015 In All recipes, Condiments, Meat, Snacks

JERKED SRIRACHA ROAST PORK TACOS W KIWI SALSA VERDE

[ezcol_2third][/ezcol_2third] [ezcol_1third_end]  WHY CAN'T WE ALL JUST BEHAVE LIKE TACOS? I don't know, if there was any other single food-item in this world that, in the best sense possible, welcomes manipulations as much as say, tacos. I mean think about it.  In this world where the not-so-secret food-police who enforces the law of authenticity, still patrols much of the way we perceive and evaluate what and how we eat, this iconic Mexican establishment seems to be freely, and deliciously if I might add, looming well outside of its strict jurisdiction.  They have applaudedly gone over and beyond their traditional origins, shown more adaptability and dare I say, humour, that's unbound by the narrowness of ethnicity without muss or fuss.  How does it do it?  This means, to me at least, more than eating.  If you just take a look at this mad house we're all living under now - where you can't cook a pot of bolognese sauce without turning some Italian nonna in her graves, or enjoy any other blurred out version of mapo tofu without stepping on some bitches' toes (who me?), or fucking crack a joke without hate - it would appear that, fingers crossed, the modern tacos are practically a beacon for social miracles.

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January 10, 2015 In All recipes, Condiments, Vegatables

MASHED POTATO BUTTER AIOLI W/ FRIED CAPERS

[ezcol_1third] IS IT MASHED POTATO, OR IS IT A SAUCE?  IT'S THE BEST OF TWO WORLDS. [/ezcol_1third] [ezcol_2third_end] In the past few days, I don't know if you can tell, but my year-long travel-ban situation (recap: sick soupy Dumpling has been losing his juice) has advanced to some sorta voluntary house-arrest, and besides spending all my time migrating him in between the bed and the bathroom, I'm also doing everything I can to not make it too obvious, that I'm trying to live out of a single potato. And now I'm doing it again.  Guess I gave up. But really though, am I the only one fascinated?  I mean, what's the one thing most feared, about an aioli or butter sauce?  No, not that it'll grow you an extra thigh, which it will and that's that.  But it's actually, with radical willingness, that both itself and your heart, it'll sadly break (so true, Yoda.  so true).  Which is what makes this recipe, a hybrid between mashed potato and butter aioli, so superbly amateur-friendly.  We all know how the line between a "side-dish" and a "condiment" goes increasingly blurry for the most creamy and buttery "mashed potato" of its kind.  So why not smudge the line even further?  A smooth and silky butter aioli

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November 20, 2014 In All recipes, Condiments, Noodle/Pasta/Rice, Snacks, Vegatables

CAULIFLOWER RICE CAKE + POOR MAN’S X.O. SAUCE

[ezcol_1half] YOUR DESIGNATED DIM-SUM PLACE CAN'T TOUCH THIS Have you had Chinese turnip cake with X.O. sauce? Well, the thing is, you probably have without knowing.  Over the dizzying array of small dishes on a dim-sum table, your friend passed you a plate of square white cakes with browned and crispy exteriors, served with a small oily dollop of brownish condiment.  You ate it, mmmmmmm

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April 29, 2014 In All recipes, Condiments, Vegatables

SICHUAN DRESSING & BOUQUET OF FIRE

[ezcol_1third] THIS IS WHAT I CALL, STUFFED ARTICHOKE" [/ezcol_1third][ezcol_2third_end] I've never understood salad. And by "salad", I mean it in the most traditional sense of plant-based lifeforms being tossed in vinegar-based dressings.  I've never understood the idea of it, or the taste of it.  It seems that all salads are ever "dressed" with, are the nonstop BS campaign and PR efforts, the pretence of hippie-wholeness and "feel-good" sentiments designed to talk us into laying down our appetites and picking up that cucumber.  Excluding vegetarianism which is a whole other subject, the only peace I find in salad, is if we could all just admit to the blunt and clear motives of why anybody eats it. We only eat salad because we have to.  Period. We eat salad because we don't want to be fat.  We eat salad because we don't want to die prematurely.  We eat salad because what, you think you have a choice?   Underneath whatever self-hypnosis, there's only strictly medical purposes.  And I think that if everyone could just quit dancing around it and just say that.  People would actually eat more salad, because truth, is the most powerful persuasion. However, after moving back to Asia, that view is slightly, or at least in the progress of, changing. [/ezcol_2third_end][ezcol_1third] [/ezcol_1third][ezcol_1third] [/ezcol_1third][ezcol_1third_end] [/ezcol_1third_end] [ezcol_1third] During my trips to Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia and

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