Cooking with Alison

Posts Tagged ‘Chinese Food’

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Jien Duy (Chinese Deep Fried Sesame Balls with Red Bean Paste)

In Asian Desserts on January 27, 2012 at pm

Jien duy are deep fried, sesame seed coated, glutinous rice balls with a sweet red bean paste filling.  These homemade jien duy are the best that I have ever had and I’ve even tried the jien duy in China.  These are crispy on the outside, light and airy on the inside, and they have a perfectly thin layer of sticky and chewy glutinous rice flour.  These are best when served warm and the day that they were made.  They’re surprisingly easy to make, but getting the oil to the right temperature can be a bit tricky.

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Baked Nian Gao (Chinese New Year Cake Variation)

In Asian Desserts on January 22, 2012 at am

Happy Chinese New Year!  “Nian gao” or “leen go” (translation: year cake) is a cake that is traditionally eaten at Chinese New Year.  It has a soft, dense, sticky and chewy texture and is not meant to be very sweet.  Traditionally, it is vegan and steamed.  See the traditional recipe here.  However, the non-traditional, non-vegan baked variation tastes even better (in my opinion).  This baked version combines a Western cake-like crust with the traditional sticky and chewy middle.  Traditional nian gao / leen go is usually made in 9″ or 10″ pie plates, but for the baked version, I prefer to make small individual sized cakes, because the crispy edges are the best part.  These make cute gifts for Chinese new year and are great for introducing people to Chinese new year cake, because nian gao could be considered an acquired taste.  Baked nian gao tastes best when served hot.

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Cooking with Alison’s Two Year Anniversary!

In Random on January 15, 2012 at am

Cooking with Alison was created two years ago, today!  A lot has happened in the past two years, including adopting my dog, Blue, and moving back to Toronto, ON (this very weekend actually).  To the surprise of everyone (myself included), I’ve maintained the momentum of recipe testing and writing.  I’d like to thank everyone for making my efforts worthwhile.  (See the one year anniversary stats and shout outs here.)  Hopefully I can keep up with the cooking and baking for a third year of Cooking with Alison!

The Statistics:

Total number of views:  300, 366

Number of views on the busiest day (January 14, 2012):  991

Total number of posts:  327

The most popular posts to date are:

Four Different Sauces for Mushroom Ravioli

Asian Bread Making Technique (Soft Chinese / Japanese Bread)

Braised Beef Brisket, Tendons and Daikon Radish (Chinese Restaurant Style)

Number of email* subscribers:  96 (plus 27 wordpress.com followers)

*Unfortunately, I don’t currently have a way of knowing how many RSS subscribers there are.


Most Importantly, The Thank Yous:

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How to Make Shrimp Chips From Scratch

In Appetizers, Hors D'oeuvres, Snacks, How To, Other Asian Foods on January 11, 2012 at am

Shrimp chips (also known as prawn crackers) are light, puffed up, crunchy snacks that are very popular all around the world.  In some North American Chinese restaurants, multi coloured (with food colouring) “shrimp chips” are served atop a deep fried whole chicken, but those shrimp chips almost never have any real shrimp in them.  They taste like styrofoam and don’t resemble the real thing in flavour or in texture.  The best shrimp chips in the world, in our opinion, are made in Brunei.  It’s been many years since any of us were in Brunei, and I thought that I might never taste their shrimp chips again, until I discovered how easy they are to make at home.

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Stir Fried Snow Peas with Seafood (Chinese Restaurant Style)

In Seafood on November 4, 2011 at am

I made this for my family recently and they thought that it tasted even better than the restaurant’s dish.  My mom kept raving about how good it was and how even she can’t replicate that Chinese restaurant “flavour” (known as “wok hay”).  My brother even suspected that I had used MSG!  :)   Just to be clear, I never use monosodium glutamate (MSG), because it is a neurotoxin and, clearly, you don’t need it to make great tasting food.

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Duck Tongues Recipe

In Other Asian Foods on October 30, 2011 at am

I love love love eating duck tongues, and I have no problem consuming an entire box in one sitting, despite the fact that they are pricey and high in calories.  I also happen to be in love with this sauce.  Duck tongues can be deep fried, braised, or stir fried.  My favourite way to cook duck tongues is to stir fry them.

For those of you who have never tried a duck tongue, most of the tongue is edible.  A thin piece of soft bone (I love eating the soft bone) runs up the middle of the tongue and connects to an inedible bone in the middle of the back end of the tongue.  The flesh surrounding the bone is neither meaty nor tough like cow’s tongue.  Rather, it is soft and slightly chewy, and rich and fatty without being greasy or oily.  It’s the texture that makes these so popular.  They are relatively neutral in taste, so flavourful sauces are often used.

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Cooking with Alison has a New Domain!

In Random on October 15, 2011 at pm

I am pleased to announce that the new domain for Cooking with Alison is:

http://cookingwithalison.com

This food blog was started on January 15, 2010.  (It was called Cooking with Ali, then.  A few months later, the name was changed to Cooking with Alison, but the domain remained http://cookingwithali.wordpress.com.)  I had been an admirer of other peoples’ food blogs for years and decided to start my own so that I would have my recipes documented and stored in a safe and easily searchable place.  I didn’t think that anyone would ever follow it.  In the beginning, I called or emailed Ed every time my food blog had a hit, to share my excitement and disbelief and to make sure that it wasn’t him.  :)   I have now had this food blog for 1 year and 9 months, and I have surprised even myself with how dedicated I’ve been to maintaining it.  I have already shared 313 posts and I plan to continue with this momentum.  So I thought that it was time that Cooking with Alison had its own domain.  Thank you to everyone for visiting Cooking with Alison.  Hopefully the shorter domain will make my food blog easier to remember and share with others.

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Steamed Tofu with Shrimp Recipe

In Other Asian Foods on October 11, 2011 at am

Steamed tofu stuffed/topped with shrimp is a healthy dish that is very easy to make.  Alternatively, you could top your tofu with marinated minced pork (with mushrooms and/or red chili peppers, etc.).  If you are using pork for this dish, you can follow the method in the recipe below or you can steam the tofu and cook the pork separately in a pan.  Then simply top your hot tofu with the cooked pork mixture and serve.

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Chinese Mango Pudding Recipe (Mango Bo Deen)

In Asian Desserts on September 26, 2011 at am

Unlike custardy or bread puddings, Chinese mango pudding (mango bo deen) is more like a fruity and creamy jello.  It is a popular dim sum (tea time) dessert that is best served cold with evaporated milk.  I believe it originated in Hong Kong.  It is one of my favourite Chinese desserts.  It is very easy to make and it is the perfect light and cool finish to a heavy or spicy meal.  I especially love having it in the summer time.  I was inspired to make it when my sister and I were served a very disappointing mango bo deen at an expensive and high class Chinese restaurant.  My sister, who doesn’t like mango puddings, said that my mango bo deen was good… for a mango bo deen.  ;)

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Deep Fried Salt and Pepper Squid Tentacles (Chinese Restaurant Style)

In Seafood on September 21, 2011 at am

When eating in Chinese restaurants, my family often orders deep fried squid or deep fried octopus tentacles.  We love the simplicity of the salty, peppery, and spicy coating.  The tentacles (squid or octopus) are my favourite part, because they tend to be the crispiest and I love the chewy, almost crunchy, texture.  You can easily make this at home.  In fact, you can easily make it better than the restaurants.  A few days after I made this dish for my sister, she ordered it from one of our favourite restaurants and she thought that my dish was better and crispier.  If you feel intimidated by the tentacles or by working with fresh squid, you could use calamari rings instead.

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Stir Fried Snow Pea Shoots with Garlic

In Other Asian Foods on September 12, 2011 at am

Living in an apartment that faces north prevented me from growing my own vegetables until now.  This summer, I rented a community garden plot and tried gardening for the first time.  I wasn’t as successful as I had hoped, because I was (too often) too lazy to make the trip to the plot and water it.  I was the most excited when a single Japanese eggplant started to grow.  I proudly inspected it for a couple of weeks while researching recipes that would be worthy of this adorable, surely to be delicious, eggplant.  But before it was fully grown, a rabbit ate it.  I was really disappointed.  Luckily, I was able to enjoy a bunch of young and tender snow pea shoots.

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Momofuku Chicken Wings with Vinaigrette Recipe

In Appetizers, Hors D'oeuvres, Snacks, Meat and Eggs on September 1, 2011 at am

This is a very easy and delicious recipe that comes from the famous momofuku restaurant’s cookbook by David Chang.  I made this for Krystal and Ed as a late night snack the last time they visited,  and they were still talking about these wings a few days after they had gone home.  I usually prefer deep fried chicken wings over oven-baked wings, but this vinaigrette was so good, that I didn’t miss the deep fried at all.

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