My favorite finds from the internet this week seem to have a predominantly Asian-centric theme.

• Just Bento’s archive–I don’t know what it is about bento boxes that appeal to me, but they’re fantastic.  I have one of my own; I’ll probably make a post about it soon.  I love planning out my lunches!  It’s fun and delicious.
• Korean BBQ tacos by Inuyaki.  Korean.  BBQ.  Tacos.  Those three words, when separated, are full of win.  Put them together?  Korean BBQ Tacos.  Well if that’s not just the winningest thing I’ve heard today!
• Char Siu, or Cantonese Roast Pork, a fantastic Recipe…and then you can use the leftovers to make BBQ pork buns!
• Japanese Sponge Cake from Just Hungry.  A dessert so dangerous that if you cook it wrong, it will kill you.  Wait, no, that’s blowfish.  This looks tasty, if complicated.
• Fresh spring rolls and dipping sauce.  I heart rolls of all kinds—eggrolls, summer rolls, spring rolls.  But given the time of year, I think these ones are just perfect to make on a warm, sunny evening.
• and finally, 10 Weird Japanese Foods.  Don’t read while eating.  And no, it doesn’t disappoint.

Happy Friday!

nice buns you got there

Oh bother.

Since I was on my own tonight while Josh was out at a super exciting computer society meeting, I figured I’d make myself a very easy one pot Asian-inspired dish that Josh actually loves but never wants: peanut chicken stirfry.

Consider this less of a recipe, more of a guideline.  Actually, consider everything I write a guideline.  In fact, consider everything I don’t write a guideline too.  Just in case.

Anyway, I love this dish because it’s fast and delicious and only really requires one pot.  And you can swap all sorts of things in and out.  Basically what it is is a pasta dish with vegetables and meat and a creamy peanut butter sauce.  Let me tell you, it might sound odd, but if there’s one way to get your kids (and yourself) to eat vegetables, it’s to smother them in peanut butter.  Trust me. Continue reading →

So I’ve come across a few recipes for cha siu bao in the past few months and thought, this is fascinating.  Sure the closest I’ve ever gotten to actually seeing one in my own life was while watching Hayao Miyazaki films.  That doesn’t matter.  I could make these.

The pound-plus of barbecue pulled pork meat I had leftover from slowcooking on Saturday lent itself pretty well to my plan today to make these buns.  I also maybe cheated just a tiny bit by buying a fresh ball of pizza dough from the store instead of making my own.  I won’t apologize for that, though; it speeded up the process AND you know how much I hate to knead dough. But either way, they were pretty easy to make!  And quite tasty.  The great thing is that you make quite a few with a recipe and you can very easily make and freeze them for later.  They steamed up in 15 minutes and were fabulous dunked into some extra barbecue sauce.  Josh thinks they’ll be ever better baked, and with some cheese added.  So basically what Josh wants is an empanada.   But he enjoyed them anyway.

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I like to think that, if in some alternative fictional universe, dear well-meaning Charlotte was not so successful in her humanitarian efforts and Wilbur, instead of meeting horde of little gray spider babies, met a slightly more gruesome fate, that at the very least Fern could rest easy with the knowledge that “some pigs” can also make delicious, delicious hoisin pork.

Okay, maybe that’s a little morbid.  But still.  Hoisin sauce is that good.

If you’ve never had hoisin sauce, it’s a Chinese dipping sauce, kind of like a barbecue sauce, made with vinegar, soybeans, sugar, water, red pepper and a few other things.   It’s got a gorgeous dark color and a deep, velvety taste.  Very delicious. Continue reading →

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I’m pretty sure I stumbled upon this book while going through the recommendations section of Amazon.  It sounded interesting so I added it to my “books to read” notebook page that I keep in Evernote.  A few weeks later, I picked it up from the library.  It’s one girl’s tale of how she went back to her parents’ native China, attended a cooking course there and worked both as a cook in several extremely varied environments and as a food critic.  It also explores the current culinary culture in China and provides recipes for many of the dishes she talks about (!).

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