I finally, finally saw Crazy Rich Asians this past weekend, and it was a wild and delicious ride.

I know this is a food blog, but I have so many thoughts about the movie, I have to share them! However, SPOILER ALERT – minor plot points and my very strong opinions follow, so if you don’t care to read those or haven’t seen the movie yet, just scroll to where it says “END.”

If you’ve been living under a rock, Crazy Rich Asians is a movie based on a book of the same name, written by Kevin Kwan. Directed by Jon M. Chu, it’s the first Hollywood studio production in 25 years to have an all-Asian cast, since The Joy Luck Club in 1993. Since its release, the movie has broken all sorts of records, dominating the U.S. box office and becoming most successful studio rom-com in nine years, since 2009’s The Proposal. Being Taiwanese American, I cannot overstate how happy this movie made me – to see people who looked like me on the biggest screen, recounting experiences that were my experiences. Overall, I loved it. As a rom-com, it was not my favorite – I thought Rachel Chu’s character was underdeveloped and mostly given awful dialogue until the final scene. Sometimes, it felt like Rachel’s supposedly successful career as an NYU economics professor was treated just as a convenient plot device instead of a real characterization of her identity. I mean, let’s be honest – Nick Young is basically an actual buffoon who has: 1) essentially lied by omission to his girlfriend for one whole year, and 2) contributes 50% to the decision to marry Rachel, yet seems to bear 0% of the responsibility, at least to his mother. Why exactly is Rachel moping around after him in Singapore when she probably has like five million deadlines waiting for her back in New York??

I realize that this is not the point of the movie, but to me, it feels like the movie sort of just glossed over the fact that “sacrifice” for East Asian families is often synonymous with “women sacrificing.” It’s often the Asian daughters that draw the shortest stick. Whatever Westernization relinquished in terms of family cohesion and loyalty, it at least partly gained in opportunity and independence for women. It’s not for me to say which is necessarily better or worse, but I think this intersection between Asianness, Asian Americanness, and feminism is a complex and tangled topic for a future story. Jon M. Chu did a phenomenal job, but I would love to see how this story would unfold in the hands of a female director.

Which brings me to a related point. Some criticisms of the movie have centered on its narrow focus on one specific, privileged section of Singapore society, and how it doesn’t include a wider Asian experience. While this is a legitimate point about representation, and also how our language often conflates “Asian” with “East Asian,” this is ultimately a fruitless argument, because no one movie can purport, or claim, to do all that. We just need more movies. More stories with more diverse perspectives. Over the years, we have seen Asians on screen as comedic relief, kung-fu warriors, sensual lovers, overachieving students, scrappy underdogs, immigrant women, immigrant families, now even zombie killers. But there are so many more voices to be heard. And I, for one, am loving the fact that this particular historic, groundbreaking movie is one that shows Asians as unabashedly and unapologetically bursting with wealth, privilege, and power. For all our collective obsession with the Kardashians, for all this year’s spectacle with Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, it is about darn time we got a close look at Singapore’s luxurious, resplendent, glittering (albeit fictional) one-percent.

*******************END OF STRONG OPINIONS*******************

Okay, this all still has to do with food, I promise! One of my favorite scenes in this movie (not a spoiler) is one where the main characters are eating in a loud, bustling open air night market. This scene is so iconic of life in many cities in East Asia, where night markets are places of socialization and entertainment, where people go to eat, drink, shop, and win stuffed animals at carnival games. They’re bustling, chaotic, frenetic places that take your breath away. One of the iconic things to eat in a Taiwanese night market is popcorn chicken. It’s lightly breaded chicken laced with white pepper, salt, and other fragrant spices. It can come in the form of a huge cutlet, but it’s more commonly found as nuggets, fried with basil leaves, and served in a paper sack with long wooden skewers for poking and munching. It is delicious, and something I have to eat whenever I go back to Taiwan.

I’ve had a recipe for popcorn chicken bookmarked for years to make at home, but never got around to it. It sounded fairly easy, but marinading and frying are always intimidating on a weeknight. And… the recipe lived up to its feared fussiness for a weeknight! It was crispy and delicious, but involved more time and cleanup than I’d like. Also, the one thing I would definitely do differently would be to fry the chicken in larger chunks. I cut the chicken into small bite-sized nuggets because I liked the look of them, but the breading and frying then took foreeeeevver. The next time, I would cut the thighs into long strips, at least, or maybe even just fry them whole. Other tips:

• Chinese five spice powder is a spice mix that is popular in Asian cooking for marinades and stir fries. Different variants exist, but it is usually a blend of cinnamon, cloves, fennel, star anise, and Szechwan peppercorns, plus possibly salt and MSG. It can be found in any Asian supermarket and some specialty spice shops and large American supermarkets. Read the ingredients before buying, though, as I’ve seen some cheap knockoffs will pass off a mix of just white pepper and salt as “five spice powder.” I’ve also seen some brands will dilute their spices with flour. So, read the ingredients before you buy.
• Make sure the chicken is at room temperature before you fry it – marinading it at room temperature will achieve this. Frying room temperature chicken will ensure a crispier crust.
• I made enough for leftovers, and they reconstituted magnificently the next night – that is the beauty of dark chicken meat. I just baked them at 375°F for about 10 minutes, and they were hot and crunchy, and only slightly less moist. However, if you’re not into leftovers and just want to make enough for 2, halve the ingredients and marinade.

We served this with white rice, sauteed spinach, and roasted cauliflower. Total time to dinner, including sides: about 1 hour 30 minutes (I prepped the rice and vegetables while the chicken was marinading).

Print

Taiwanese Popcorn Chicken

Adapted from Kirbie's Cravings and Rasa Malaysia

Ingredients

• 1 pound chicken thighs, cut into bite-sized pieces, long strips, or left whole (the bigger the piece, the lower the fuss down the line)
• 1 cup fresh basil leaves (optional)
• 2 cups cornstarch
• Extra salt and white pepper, for dusting finished chicken
• Neutral oil for frying (canola, peanut, grapeseed)

For the marinade:

• 4 garlic cloves, crushed and roughly chopped
• 2 tablespoons chopped green onions
• 1 tablespoon minced ginger
• 2 teaspoons sugar
• 2 tablespoons soy sauce (a combination of regular and dark, or all regular)
• 1 teaspoon sesame oil
• 1/2 teaspoon five spice powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon ground white pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

Instructions

• In a medium bowl, combine the chicken with all of the marinade ingredients and mix together well. Marinade at room temperature for 30 minutes.
• Pour oil into a wok or cast iron skillet to the depth of at least one inch. Heat over medium-high heat until oil is about 350°F (you can also test the temperature by putting in a small cornstarch-coated chicken piece - it should sizzle vigorously). Put the cornstarch in a large bowl. Shake any excess marinade and seasonings off chicken pieces, and coat each chicken piece evenly with cornstarch. When the oil is hot, shake off excess cornstarch on chicken pieces, and place into oil.
• Fry chicken on both sides until it turns golden brown, about 1-2 minutes per side. Fry a few pieces of chicken at a time, but don't crowd the pan too much, or the chicken won't turn out as crispy. When chicken is done, remove and place on a plate lined with paper towels to drain excess oil. Sprinkle chicken immediately with extra salt and white pepper while still hot, if desired, and toss to coat evenly (you can taste test one piece to gauge the flavor level).
• After frying all the chicken, drop the basil leaves in the hot oil. The leaves cook quite fast, so you only need to fry them for a few seconds. Be careful as they will make a popping sound and may cause hot oil to sputter up. Sprinkle basil on top of chicken and serve immediately.
  

Introducing for your spicy, numbing food pleasure, Szechuan peppercorns!

I love spicy food, and I love Szechuan food in particular. Chili fish, chili green beans, spicy chili peanut noodles all get my mouth watering! Besides chili, an incredibly underrated staple spice that gives Szechuan food its distinctive, tongue-tingling, numbing flavor is the almighty Szechuan (also spelled Sichuan) peppercorn. Despite its name, the Szechuan peppercorn is not actually related to either black pepper or chili pepper at all. Instead, it is the pinkish-red dried outer husks of berries found on the prickly ash shrub, a squat shrub or small tree in the citrus family. Thus, the peppercorns have been described to have slight lemony overtones, although I’ve never noticed this. (Full disclosure – I’ve been eating these things all my life, and only now did I learn from Wikipedia that the Szechuan peppercorn is not a peppercorn. Mind. Blown. This blog teaches me so many things.)

You can find these peppercorns at any Asian supermarket or specialty spice store. They’re getting more popular, and I now see them in the spice aisle of large American supermarkets. Amazon also sells them, but I’ve never bought spices off Amazon, so I can’t vouch for their freshness. I’ve only seen them sold as whole peppercorns, although I’ve heard they can also be sold as a more finely ground powder – similar to ground black pepper. I buy them whole and crush them to coarse pieces in a mortar and pestle before using. James absolutely adores these peppercorns and will just throw them randomly on anything he cooks, from steaks to chow fun to roasted vegetables, so they can be very versatile!

Anyway, a very popular and common Szechuan dish is MaPo tofu, a stir-fry of cubes of soft tofu with ground pork, chili, and scallions, all laced with fragrant, numbing Szechuan peppercorns. The flavor and sensation that Szechuan peppercorns impart in your mouth is described in Chinese as “mala,” literally translating to “numbing spice,” or “numbing heat.” You’ll see the term “mala” a lot at Szechuan restaurants, as much of the food is served with a fiery red mala sauce composed of Szechuan peppercorns, chili peppers, garlic, ginger, star anise, and other spices.

MaPo tofu is super easy to make, and is meant to be ladled on top of a mound of steaming hot rice, soaking up all the juices, that will have you slurping up every silky bite. Disclaimer: my version is probably not that “authentic,” although for a dish as simple and omnipresent as MaPo tofu, it’s hard to specify what authentic really means. My version contains my shortcuts and my memories. I also cheat by buying these lovely sauces from Lee Kum Kee – they are a Hong Kong-based food company whose sauces have fully permeated the American market. The black bean sauce adds a flavorful, salty punch to the tofu, and if you like the tofu spicier, you can add chili oil as well (I suspect that to be more authentic, the chili oil should actually be mandatory, not optional, and I should probably make it from scratch with dried red chilis, but… this is the beauty of Chinese food – the continent and the diaspora is so vast, that the food easily morphs and adapts as the country’s immigrants move to new places, get commutes, and have to get dinner on the table in 30 minutes. Shrug!). The dish should be made with soft tofu, although you can use silken tofu as well – it will just crumble a bit more. For Szechuan peppercorn novices, I suggest you start with about 1 teaspoon and see how you like the flavor; you can always add more at the very end. For Szechuan peppercorn aficionados, I go all the way up to about 1 1/2 tablespoons of peppercorns. Try to crush them if you can, or find the preground powder. In laziness, I’ve definitely tossed Szechuan peppercorns into dishes whole before. It’s alright – whole, they don’t really impart their flavor to the rest of the dish, and you’ll just get little zingers of VERY INTENSE NUMBING PEPPERCORNNESS when you luck into a bite containing a peppercorn. Like I said, just alright.

We served this with some sautéed spinach and white rice. Total time to dinner, including sides: about 45 minutes (rice takes about an hour to cook in the rice cooker, but that’s not really active time).

Print

MaPo Tofu

Ingredients

Marinade:

• 1 tablespoon regular soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon dark soy sauce (can substitute regular)
• 1 tablespoon sesame oil
• 1 tablespoon corn starch
• 1 teaspoon Szechuan peppercorns, crushed, or more to taste (start with 1/4 - 1/2 teaspoon if your Szechuan peppercorns are preground into a very fine powder)

For the rest of the dish:

• 1/2 pound ground pork
• 2 packages soft tofu (16 ounces each)
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 tablespoon minced ginger
• 1 bunch scallions, roughly chopped
• 1 tablespoon regular soy sauce, or more to taste
• 1-2 tablespoons chili black bean sauce
• Optional: chili oil

Instructions

• Combine the pork with all of the marinade ingredients, and let sit for at least 15 minutes. Drain the soft tofu, and cut into large squares, about 1 - 1.5 inches across.
• Heat 1 tablespoon of canola oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. When the oil is hot, add the garlic and ginger and about half the scallions and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add the pork with all of the marinade sauce and cook, stirring, until the pork is cooked through and no trace of pink remains, about 5 minutes. Scoop pork with a slotted spoon into a separate bowl and set aside, leaving behind the sauce and juices in the pan.
• Add the tofu cubes into the skillet, along with the rest of the scallions and the regular soy sauce. Add the chili black bean sauce and the chili oil, if using. Cook until the tofu is slightly crumbling at the edges, about 3 minutes. Tofu is perfectly fine to eat right out of the package, so you're just heating it up here.
• Add the pork back into the pot and stir to combine. Taste and add more sauce, chili oil, or Szechuan peppercorns, if desired.

I present to you, the humble but delicious taro!

Or, the humble malanga! Folks, I must be honest – I don’t actually know what this thing is called. I’ve always been told growing up that it was taro. However, I’ve since seen it labeled as both taro and malanga in supermarkets, and what I’ve found on the internet is hardly conclusive. Either way, it hardly matters – they are close cousins, sharing the same family. I’m actually now convinced that anything labeled taro can really be one of many cousins, and it’s more important to just go by appearance when grocery shopping. I’m going to call this thing taro throughout the rest of the post. Let me know your opinions, but unless I get definitive evidence otherwise, taro it shall be.

The taro I love, the taro I’ve always eaten in this recipe growing up, is a large, ovoid tuber, about 2-3 pounds in size, with light brown, bumpy, scaly skin. I don’t usually buy it in its completely unprocessed form, however; in the Chinese supermarkets I’ve shopped at, it’s usually peeled, cut into pieces, and vacuum-sealed, as in the picture above. The flesh is a milky, slippery white, with flecks of purple interspersed throughout. Growing up, my mom always told me that the less purple flecks you can see, the more tender the tuber, but that seems like an old wives’ tale, so take from that what you will.

Sometimes, you’ll see smaller tubers also being labeled taro (I know – it is a confusing world out there). These tubers will be much smaller, maybe slightly smaller than the size of your fist, with dark brown skin covered with shaggy brown hair. All I can say is that these are another cousin, and have a distinctly different texture and slightly different flavor, and I don’t use them for this recipe.

Anyway! Nomenclature aside, taro is absolutely delicious. It’s got the texture of a potato, but a stronger nutty, umami flavor – like cassava or yam. It can be treated exactly like a potato, and be boiled, mashed, fried, or chipped. However, even though it’s very starchy, it’s still more nutritious than a potato, and contains lots of fiber, potassium, iron, vitamin C, and vitamin A. My favorite way to prepare it is to simmer it, then mix it with heavily seasoned, salty pork and lots of garlic and scallions, until the taro edges break down and the whole thing turns into a warm, comforting, flavorful mash, with intact hunks of taro and spicy meat. It’s not pretty food. But trust me – it is the epitome of ugly delicious.

I’ve always eaten this with rice – this makes quite a salty, strongly flavored dish, and pairs wonderfully with fluffy rice and some garlicky green vegetables. Yes, it’s carb on carb, but I’m the girl who used to eat potato salad sandwiches as a child. Besides, taro is healthy – see above! – and it’s delicious with rice.

Served with rice and sauteed Chinese broccoli. Total time to dinner, including sides: about 1 hour, but maybe 20 minutes of that is waiting for the rice to cook in the rice cooker.

Print

Taro with Minced Pork and Scallions

Ingredients

Marinade for the pork:

• 2 tablespoons regular soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon sesame oil
• 1 tablespoon oyster sauce
• 1 tablespoon corn starch
• Optional: Szechuan peppercorns, white pepper

For the rest of the dish:

• 1 pound ground pork
• 1 1/2 - 2 pounds taro
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 bunch scallions, roughly chopped
• 1 tablespoon regular soy sauce
• Canola or neutral oil
• Salt and pepper

Instructions

• Combine the pork with all of the marinade ingredients. Mix gently to combine, and let sit for at least 15 minutes while you prepare the taro and rest of the ingredients.
• If you have a whole taro, cut it in half and cut away the brown skin with a knife. Rinse bits of skin and other debris away. Cut the taro into large chunks, about 1.5-by-1.5 inches.
• Heat 1-2 tablespoons of canola oil in a large pot over medium-high heat. Add the minced garlic and half of the scallions and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add the pork together with all of the marinade. Cook, stirring, until the pork is cooked through, about 5 minutes. Remove the pork from the pot with a slotted spoon, leaving behind the sauce, and set aside.
• Add the cubed taro to the pot. Add the soy sauce, some dashes of salt and pepper, and about 3/4 cup of water to the pot, and stir to combine over medium-high heat. When the liquid in the pot comes to a boil, cover and simmer at medium-low heat for about 15-20 minutes, stirring periodically. The taro is ready when it starts crumbling at the edges and a fork moves cleanly and easily through it. You can also taste a piece - it should be starchy and soft throughout, like a boiled potato, with no hard or crunchy bits. If the pot starts looking dry before the taro is ready, add more water, 1/4 cup at a time. If the taro is ready and the pot still looks very soupy, uncover and turn the heat up to evaporate the extra liquid.
• When the taro is ready, add the rest of the scallions and the pork back into the pot, and stir gently to combine and heat everything through. I like to break apart the outer edges of the taro so that it forms a mash, but there will still be distinct bits of taro within the mash. It's sort of like the consistency of a warm potato salad!

My dad’s family is originally from Northern China, where wheat is the staple crop and reigns supreme. The food there is dominated by wheat-flour products such as noodles, dumplings, and steamed buns stuffed with salty pork and cabbage or sweet red bean paste. My mom’s family is from the south of China, in Guandong, where rice production is much more prevalent. When I was growing up, my family liked to tease me that I could never decide between noodles or rice, wanting and loving them both, due to my diverse family tree. This is as true now as it was then – there will always, always be carbohydrates in my future.

However, possibly my favorite dish in the world – one that I always request at Chinese restaurants – is beef chow fun, a staple Cantonese dish that combines the best of both worlds: rice flour is made into thick, chewy noodles that are pan-fried with dark, salty soy sauce and tossed with aromatic beef, crisp bean sprouts, and bright scallions. I have always loved this dish – it’s so simple, but so flavorful, a Chinese comfort food that’s greater than the sum of its parts and distinct in its flavor. You’ve probably had beef chow fun before – it’s quite popular, and usually on the menu of any restaurant that serves Cantonese food. But it’s also incredibly easy to make if you can source good rice noodles! There are only a handful of other ingredients, it takes about 30 minutes, and the seasoning is straightforward, relying on soy sauce, sesame oil, and, if you have it, Shaoxing wine. It’s so easy, in fact, that this time, as I was busy gabbing away on the phone to my girlfriends, James made this entire dish himself, following the recipe he found on The Woks of Life! That’s right – these pictures all represent his cooking and his alone – what a good little Asian chef!

When buying rice noodles, fresh noodles are best and tastiest, although dried noodles will also work. Fresh rice noodles can be found at most Asian supermarkets, in the refrigerated section with the fresh wheat noodles and probably next to tofu and bean sprouts. They’ll be labeled as rice noodles, but could also be labeled as “he fen,” “hor fun,” “sha ho fon,” or some variant there of. Sometimes it can be sold as whole sheets instead of noodles – this is the same thing, you’ll just have to cut the sheets yourself into approximately 1/2- to 3/4-inch strips. Chow fun is traditionally made with wide rice noodles, but it’s versatile so feel free to substitute whatever you can find (if you substitute wheat noodles, you’re not really making chow fun anymore, but I do believe it will still taste good, and the name hardly matters!). For dried rice noodles, you might find them at any large supermarket (A Taste of Thai is a brand I see in American markets), but they’ll be in Asian supermarkets as well, with the other dried noodles.

Some other notes:

• Like with many other stir-fried Chinese dishes that are traditionally made with a wok, less is more. As in, less ingredients in the pan at once. Often times these dishes are only made 1 or 2 servings at a time, so as to not crowd the wok and impede free movement of food and good sear. However, if you’ve been following me, you’ll know that one of the largest culinary faux-pas I make is to crowd the pan against everyone’s warning, because I am lazy and want to make as much food as I can with the least amount of time and effort possible. This results in a softer, saucier, wetter dish, as opposed to the drier, charred, chewier noodles you find at restaurants. The weight of all the food in the pan also can cause the noodles to break up into smaller pieces, as you see in the pictures. The flavors, however, will still be delicious, and, for a weeknight meal, this is perfectly ok! If, however, you would like a drier, more seared noodle dish, halve the recipe, or cook it in two batches.
• High heat is important! It will appropriately sear the beef and the noodles, and bring out all of the flavors. If you fear that the noodles are burning, you’re doing it right!
• Consistently tossing the noodles once you’ve added them will keep them from sticking to each other and distribute all the flavors and sauce.
• Shaoxing wine will give the dish a more authentic, complex flavor, but we actually didn’t have any when James made it this time, and it was still delicious.
• This dish is very versatile. The ingredient quantities are all quite flexible – if you want the dish to be meatier, add more meat; if you love noodles as I do, add more noodles, etc.!

We served this with some sauteed pea shoots. Total time to dinner, including sides: about 40 minutes. Easy peasy!

Print

Beef Chow Fun

Adapted (by James!) from The Woks of Life

Ingredients

Marinade:

• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 tablespooon corn starch
• 1 tablespoon regular soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon Shaoxing wine (or dry sherry)
• 1 tablespoon canola or other neutral oil

For the chow fun:

• 1 pound beef skirt, flank, sirloin, or tenderloin
• 2 pounds fresh wide rice noodles, or 1 pound dried wide rice noodles
• 4 tablespoons peanut, vegetable, or canola oil
• 5-7 thin slices ginger
• 1 bunch scallions, split in half vertically and sliced into 3-inch pieces
• 1/4 cup Shaoxing wine (or dry sherry or water)
• 1 teaspoon sesame oil
• 2 tablespoons dark soy sauce (can substitute regular soy sauce here, the final color of the dish will just be a lighter brown)
• 1/4 cup regular soy sauce
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1 pound fresh bean sprouts
• Salt and white pepper, to taste

Instructions

• Slice beef against the grain into 1/4-inch strips. Combine the beef strips and all of the marinade ingredients in a small bowl and mix gently, until all of the beef is coated. Let sit for at least 15 minutes while you prepare the rest of the ingredients.
• If using fresh rice noodles, take them out from the fridge and allow them to come to room temperature. You'll add fresh noodles directly to the pan with the oil, ginger, and scallions without any pre-cooking.

  If using dried rice noodles, prepare according to package instructions. Different brands may have slightly different instructions, and some may ask you to soak the noodles, boil them, or both. Cook the rice noodles according to package instructions until cooked through, but still a bit chewy inside - the noodles will cook further as you stir fry them with the beef. Rinse rice noodles with cold water and drain. If you're not ready to use them yet, add about 1 tablespoon of sesame oil to the drained noodles and gently toss to combine noodles with a thin coat of oil. This will prevent the noodles from sticking to each other as you stir fry them.
• Heat a wok or large skillet over medium-high heat until hot, and add 2 tablespoons oil to coat the pan. Add the beef and cook, stirring occasionally, until browned on the outside and slightly pink on the inside, about 3-5 minutes. Remove the beef from the pan and set aside.
• Add the remaining 2 tablespoons of oil to the pan over medium-high heat. Add the ginger and scallions and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add the rice noodles evenly in the pan, and toss immediately with tongs or a large spatula to mix with the oil and aromatics, about 15 seconds. Add the Shaoxing wine, sherry, or water, and toss again to combine.
• Add the beef mixture to the pan, along with the sesame oil, soy sauces, and sugar. Immediately toss again, flipping and turning the noodles to make sure that noodles are evenly coated with the beef and sauce mixture.
• Add the bean sprouts and cook, tossing, until sprouts are just tender. Taste, and add more salt and pepper, if desired. Give everything a final toss, and serve!

I went to the Chinese supermarket last weekend, so fair warning – what follows is going to be an absolute slew of Chinese recipes. Whhheeeee!!!

I love Chinese food. Being Chinese myself, this is hardly surprising, but I can’t go probably more than two weeks without eating a bowl of rice. When I was 18, my family and I went on a cruise to Alaska. I was absolutely bedazzled by the immense supply and quantity of food on board the boat, but, cruise cuisine probably not being that international back in 2001, I remember eating a lot of meat, potatoes, and cake. Don’t get me wrong – I loved every minute of it, especially the endless dessert platters (a bit of foreshadowing of my college life as well…), but as the ship put-put-putted back to port in Vancouver, I had the most intense craving for soy-sauce licked meats, soft, fluffy mounds of short-grain rice, and crisp, sweet, crunchy pea shoots laced with garlic.

If you’ve never had pea shoots before, please please please try some. They are light and sweet, what happens when the springy flavor of peas marries the crunch of romaine lettuce – a “more interesting spinach,” as James says! Sadly, I’m a little late to the game, as pea shoot season is coming to an end. You might still be able to find some, though, and restaurants will probably still have it on their menu.

Not surprisingly, pea shoots are the very young, tender vines of the pea plant. Each shoot is about a few inches long, and consists of a stem, leaves branching from that stem, and little tendrils curling from the leaves. As I mentioned, they’re fairly seasonal, and are freshest and most abundant in the spring or early summer, when the pea plants are just starting to mature. When they’re available, they’re omnipresent in Chinese restaurants and Asian supermarkets. That’s where I buy them, although farmers markets are a good bet too.

You’ll want to look for pea shoots that are fresh, bright, green, and free from bruised or wilted leaves. They could also be labeled as pea tendrils, pea greens, or pea tips. The central stem should look crisp and tender. Older shoots will have a thicker stem, which tends to start look a bit leathery – avoid these if possible, as the shoots will be tougher and chewier to eat. Pea shoots are a rather delicate vegetable, and should be used within a few days of purchase. If you see the leaves wilting or the shoots turning mushy or discolored, you’ll want to use them immediately!

Pea shoots are very versatile, but I like them best sautéed with lots and lots of fresh garlic. Here’s a picture of them with beef chow fun for a surprisingly easy and delicious dinner!

Print

Sautéed Pea Shoots with Garlic

Ingredients

• Pea shoots, about 1 pound for four side servings
• Canola, vegetable, grapeseed, or other neutral oil
• 4 (or more) cloves garlic, minced
• Salt

Instructions

• Wash the pea shoots in cold, running water. I usually just swish the pea shoots around in a large bowl of water, rubbing the leaves periodically to loosen any dirt. Drain the water (the easiest way is to dump the pea shoots into a colander), and repeat a couple of times. Don't bother drying off the pea shoots after the final rinse.
• You can trim off any particularly tough or thick stems, if you desire. I don't usually do this, but if you do, you'll ensure that the greens will be as tender as possible. 
• Heat 1-2 tablespoons of oil in a large skillet or wok over medium-high heat. When the oil is hot, add the garlic and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds. 
• Add the pea shoots and season with a few dashes of salt. Cook, stirring frequently, until the pea shoots are tender and softened, and have darkened in color to a deep green, about 3-5 minutes. 

  Some Notes:

  If your pot is too small, like mine, I cover it after adding the pea shoots to ensure a more even cooking process. Just stir occasionally if you cover the pot.

  Also if your pot is too small, just add as many pea shoots as you can at first. Once the pea shoots have cooked down a bit, add the remaining shoots and keep stirring to cook and combine.

  If the pot looks dry, add a splash of water to help steam-sauté the shoots.
  

Fried rice is my comfort food, my heritage. I grew up eating egg fried rice for breakfast, which my mom would make frying up leftover white rice with heavily seasoned scrambled eggs and a handful of bright green scallions. I still remember waking up for school, hearing the sizzle of rice meeting hot oil, smelling the fragrant odors wafting from the kitchen, and eating the piping hot bowl at the kitchen table while watching my mom prepare my lunch.

Nowadays, my fried rice recipe has evolved a bit, but not much. It’s still easy to throw together, uses up any leftover vegetables you might have, and extremely forgiving. The marinade is all James, and adds a delightful, complex flavor to the meat and the rice. Secretly, I think James makes this fried rice better than me.

Now, let’s talk ingredients. If you scroll down to the recipe, you’ll see that I tell you to include a generic “2 cups of vegetables.” Is that exasperating? Please hear me out. The truth is, when I first sat down to write this recipe, it was hard! We never measure the vegetables, and we often end up using whatever looks fresh at the market or whatever’s left in the fridge. So I thought about what ingredients we both liked the most, and most frequently include. The original recipe, instead of the 2 cups of vegetables, consisted of a 1/2 pound of snow peas or sugar snap peas (or 1 cup fresh or frozen peas), 1 (8-ounce) can of bamboo shoots, and 1 (8-ounce) can of water chestnuts. However, I sat on this recipe for a long time because it didn’t feel truthful. These might be the most common vegetables we put in, but they appear in this exact combination maybe 20% of the time. The other 80% of the time, we forget water chestnuts at the store, we forget the bamboo even though they’re right there on the counter, and we have bell peppers and baby carrots that have been hanging around in the fridge foreeeeever… and so you get what you see in the pictures. Honestly, James and I make this fried rice differently almost every single time.

So then I realized – and this is a revelation I had on the bus coming home from work – why hide the exciting and empowering possibility of an eminently modifiable recipe? And who am I to dampen your creativity and your own preferences? Thus the “2 cups of vegetables,” and I think that the way it’s written now feels a lot more honest, a lot more truthful to my process. By now, James and I have made fried rice every which way – with the peas, bamboo shoots, and water chestnuts described above, with the diced bell peppers and carrots shown in the photos, or in combination with many, many other things – diced zucchini, chopped broccoli, corn, green onions. And it’s come out delicious every single time. (The onion – I kept in. Because onions are magical)

So don’t be afraid to experiment! You can also try it with beef instead of chicken. You can substitute tofu for a vegetarian option – still marinade it the same way, but leave out the fish sauce (Don’t forget to press and drain the tofu first to get rid of excess moisture!). If you’re using vegetables of different hardiness and cook times (for example carrots and bell peppers), add the hardier vegetable such as the carrot first, cook for two minutes or so, then add the other vegetable. Quantities are also not set in stone – don’t worry if you’re a bit low on vegetables, or have too much chicken. It will all come together in the end, as fried rice invariably, inevitably, uniquely does. And then let me know what you did in the comments!

A note about Shaoxing wine: it is a rice wine with a translucent amber color, made from fermented rice. It contains anywhere from 15-20% alcohol, and has a complex flavor that’s slightly sweet, spicy, and nutty. It can be drunk as a beverage – try some! Mostly, though, I use it to flavor the protein in everything Chinese I make (and probably some non-Chinese dishes too) – most often in marinades, or if I get lazy, I just add a splash of it when I’m sautéing chicken or beef. Like using red or white wine in cooking, Shaoxing wine adds a wonderful depth of flavor to the resulting dish. You can buy Shaoxing wine in any Asian supermarket, and I really hope you’ll seek some out! It’s not expensive, will last many months, and really does make a difference in Chinese cooking. There are lots of varieties, most of which are probably fairly similar. However, DO NOT buy Shaoxing “cooking wine” (like how you shouldn’t buy any other “cooking wines” to cook with either) or any Shaoxing wine that contains salt – these will be inferior, low-grade versions that taste terrible. If you can’t find Shaoxing wine, dry sherry makes the closest substitute.

As a final note, this makes an incredible amount of fried rice. We eat it with a side vegetable – some sautéed Napa cabbage or spinach, and the rice will last at least six meals. If that’s too much for you, just halve the recipe. If you do find yourself a bit short on chicken (or whatever your chosen protein is), still use all of the quantities specified in the marinade, as all that sauce will help season the final dish.

We served this with a side of sauteed Napa cabbage, and it was warm enough to eat dinner outside on the patio! A win for my sunshine-starved self AND for getting one photo in the last rays of natural light!

Total time for dinner: 1 hour 20 minutes

Print

Chicken and Shrimp Fried Rice

Ingredients

Fried Rice:

• 1 pound chicken breast or boneless, skinless chicken thighs
• 3/4 pound shrimp, rinsed, peeled, and deveined
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 tbsp minced or finely chopped ginger
• 1 onion, chopped
• About 2 cups vegetables of your choice, cleaned, trimmed, and diced or cut into bite-sized pieces
• 6-7 eggs, scrambled
• 5 cups cooked white rice
• Vegetable or canola oil
• Salt and black pepper

Marinade:

• 2 tablespoons soy sauce
• 2 tablespoons Shaoxing wine or dry sherry
• 1 tablespoon sesame oil
• 1 tablespoon hoisin sauce
• 1 teaspoon fish sauce
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• Black pepper
• Pinch of crushed red pepper flakes

Instructions

• Marinade the chicken: Cut the chicken against the grain into flat, thin strips and mix with all of the marinade ingredients. Let sit while you prep the vegetables and scramble the eggs, or at least 15 minutes.
• Put 1-2 tbsp vegetable or canola oil into a large frying pan, skillet, or wok (make sure it is at least 4 quarts to fit all the ingredients! You can even use a Dutch oven) and heat over medium-high heat. When oil is hot, add the garlic and ginger. Cook for about 30 seconds until the garlic and ginger are fragrant. Add the chicken to the pan with all of the marinade sauce. Cook, stirring, until chicken is cooked through, about 7 minutes.
• Remove the chicken and all the juices from the pan and set aside. Tip: keep the chicken in a large bowl, so that you can add the other cooked ingredients to this bowl later. 
• Heat 1-2 tbsp of oil over medium heat in the pan. Add the shrimp and season with salt and pepper. Cook, stirring, until the shrimp is just pink and cooked, about 2-4 minutes, depending on shrimp size. Transfer to the chicken bowl.
• Add 1-2 tbsp more oil to the pan. Don’t worry if there’s chicken or shrimp bits stuck onto the pan. The moisture from the onions and vegetables will deglaze the pan. Add the onion, some salt and pepper, and cook over medium-high heat until translucent, about 5 minutes. Add the vegetables, staggering them in 1-2 minute intervals if some are hardier than others. Cook until vegetables are tender, then scoop up vegetables and set aside. You can place them in the same bowl as the chicken and shrimp. I do this, and then try to toss the shrimp up so that they’re not cooking under the hot vegetables. It seems to work okay, and doesn’t result in overcooked shrimp. If you’re worried, use a separate bowl for the vegetables or the shrimp.
• Cook the eggs. If the pan you’re working with isn’t non-stick, I would use a separate nonstick pan to cook the eggs. You’ll have an additional pan to wash up, but it’s just easier and less fuss. Heat 1-2 tbsp of oil in the pan over medium-high heat, then add the eggs. Season with salt and pepper. Scramble until the eggs are cooked, then transfer to the bowl with the chicken and vegetable mixture. 
• In the original pan, heat 1-2 tbsp of oil over medium heat, and add the rice. Season with a few dashes of soy sauce – just swirl it loosely over the rice like you would drizzle chocolate sauce on ice cream. Toss so that all the rice is seasoned. The rice might sizzle and stick to the bottom of the pan – don’t worry! Just continue to toss and fry with the soy sauce, so that the rice itself acquires some seasoning. You’ll add the other ingredients soon enough, and the chicken and vegetable juices will magically mix with the rice to make an amazingly flavorful combination.
• Add the chicken, shrimp, vegetables, and egg into the pan with the rice, and turn heat down to medium-low. Toss well to combine. Taste and add more salt, pepper, or soy sauce if needed. I like to finish my fried rice with lots of dashes of white pepper and a drizzle of fish sauce and sesame oil (again, a light drizzle, like topping ice cream), but this is optional. The sesame oil will give it a nice earthy, umami taste. The fish sauce – although it smells terribly fishy – actually adds a nice tang and saltiness to the resulting dish. White pepper is my absolute all time favorite pepper. Feel free to scoop out a small bit of rice and experiment with seasonings!

Notes:

I tend to prefer short grain rice in my fried rice, because I like my fried rice on the dense and chewy side, but if you want a fluffier, lighter rice dish, you can easily substitute basmati.

About salting and oil: yes, the instructions are correct! A lot of salt and a lot of oil are what make restaurant fried rice so darn good. Be sure to salt all of the ingredients as you cook them. It’ll draw out the flavors of the individual ingredients, and make the finished product that much tastier. Same with the oil – yes, it’ll feel like you’re using a lot of oil, but remember that this makes an enormous amount of fried rice. The finished product won’t be too oily, I promise. The more oil you add, the more decadent and “fried” your resulting dish will taste.

About cooking the ingredients separately: Yes, it’s a pain, but doesn’t really take that much additional time, and doesn’t add too much to the dirty dish count, as you can spoon up all your cooked ingredients into one large bowl. If you’re feeling lazy, you can cook the chicken and shrimp together (add the shrimp after the chicken has been cooking for about five minutes), although this always runs the risk of overcooking the shrimp.