Baked Pork Buns (Char Siu Bao)
adapted from The Chinese Kitchen by Eileen Yin-Fei Lo
Dough:
One 1/4-ounce envelope active dry yeast
1/3 cup sugar
1/2 cup warm water (110 F)
2 cups bread flour
1 large egg, beaten
3 TB lard or oil
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tbsp scallion-infused oil or plain oil (optional)
In a large mixing bowl, dissolve the yeast and sugar […]

Here’s the recipe Cynthia used for Chinese BBQ pork, with some modifications.  
Roast Pork (Char Siu)
adapted from The Key to Chinese Cooking, by Irene Kuo
Cantonese barbecue meat is characterized by its deep red color, sweet 
flavor, and charred edges. Thinly sliced pieces are perfect as a 
stand-alone appetizer. The meat can also be added to fried rice, lo 
mein […]

I’ve fallen prey to Anglophilia. It’s a recurring condition, and I can’t remember what the trigger was this time: the return (and conclusion) of “Life on Mars,” re-reading a Georgette Heyer novel, or booking my flight to India, with a 19-hour layover in London (St. John, here I come!).
PBS’ Austen-o-thon, featuring BBC miniseries of all […]

“No self-respecting Texan would be caught dead serving chili with all ground beef,” declares Eric Copage in his cookbook “Kwanzaa.” There’s got to be some cubed beef in there too, he says — like a stew. I’ve never been crazy about chili, but I did go through a phase where I loved beef stew. It […]

Persimmon lovers usually self-segregate into two camps: those who love the gooey “soft” kind, such as Hachiya, and those who love sinking their teeth into firmer varieties such as Fuyu. I have fond memories of sitting around with relatives in Korea, slicing up firm persimmons for an after-dinner treat; I have not-so-fond memories of biting […]

Last weekend in Southern California featured the kind of weather that makes you want to get into your pajamas (preferably flannel) as soon as possible, and not change back out of them. After driving home in the rain and the winter dark and getting honked at because I couldn’t even see the white lines demarcating […]

Rabanada, says Chow’s Aida Mollenkamp, is like Brazilian French toast. But load a couple of slices onto your plate for breakfast, and you’ve got a heart attack waiting to happen. Rabanada is basically deep-fried French toast, smothered in sugar and cinnamon, and anything more than a couple of skinny slices is likely to send your […]

You know how, after Thanksgiving, everyone says you should just use the carcass of the roast turkey to make soup? I tried that, several times, and it never came out right — it was always thin in body and flavor. Then I read a Cook’s Illustrated article about roast turkey stock and realized that my […]

In the weeks before we celebrated the holiday at my friend Jon’s house, I planned relentlessly. I gave orders, or tried to. I drew up a menu, a shopping list, a schedule. I plotted how to get my hands on obscure ingredients. In retrospect, the results would’ve been just as good without all the stressing.
I […]

For most of my life I misjudged anchovies, but I don’t think I’m alone. As a kid, I only ever heard of them as a bizarre pizza topping, a culinary shibboleth that divided the sane from the crazy people who would eat anything. Time passed, I grew up and devoured snails and rabbits and crickets, […]