Braised pork feet with tofu and seaweed

Let me show you what I'd be eating these few months at the end of my pregnancy and during my postpartum period: Lots and lots of pork feet.

The beauty of pork feet for home cooks is their modesty. No frills. No fanfare. Pork feet are plentiful. They are a magic blend of mouth-boggling textures that only leave you wanting for more: silky tendon, chewy cartilage, gelatinous skin, and fall-off-the-bone tender meat. When braised with star anise, fennel seeds, coriander seeds, cloves, soy sauces, and rock cane sugar, the color of spices and the shades of flavors turn this nondescript cut of meat into a sublime taste, perfect with plain rice or noodles.

Described as a new superfood with its abundance in collagen and protein, braised pork feet is a nutritious and hearty dish for less budget and with little effort. For moms-to-be, as if making you look younger is not enticing enough to make this dish, believe it or not, pork feet promotes lactation. It's a natural galactagogue that is tasty and inviting.

Braised feet with tofu and seaweed

I call this my family recipe, developed as I picked up new skills and tastes during my past 10 years as a home cook. Hope you'd enjoy this! In case you may wonder, rock sugar is a type of unrefined cane sugar popular in making Chinese dessert soups or savory braises and stews. Unlike regular soy sauce, dark soy sauce is viscous and is prized for its color. Dried orange peel lends a unique citrus flavor to the broth but the pith needs to be remove for its bitterness. Last but not least, this dish makes a great left-over! (Some left-over pork feet are made into fixings for noodles in the picture below.) Store it overnight and you'll find the gelatin on the surface; don't throw them away! Reheat the dish and they'll be melted. Reserve the liquid as a sauce for your next stir-fried noodles or dishes.

Time: 2 hour

Yield: 3 - 4 servings

1 ½ - 2 pound pork feet, cut and split (good news: they're usually sold pre-cut/split!)

2 tablespoons oil

2 pieces 1" ginger

1 dried orange peel, soaked and pith removed

4 cloves garlic, coarsely chopped

1 tablespoons chopped green onion or shallot

¼ cup star anise

½ cup soy sauce

1/4 cup dark soy sauce

1 teaspoon of combined spices (best to be wrapped in a tea bag/coffee filter): fennel, coriander seeds, cloves 

2 tablespoons rice wine

1 ½ cup water (or broth)

¼ cup rock sugar

1 used teabag (optional)

1 piece seaweed, soaked, cut lengthwise into 2" x 5" and tied into knots

½ pack tofu, chopped into wedges

2 eggs

1. Soak pork feet in cold water for one minutes. Use knife to scrap away hair.

2. Bring to a boil a pot of water. Blanch pork feet for two minutes. Drain and run against cold running water. {Update: Cut tendons slightly away from bones for better texture.}
3. Heat a medium saucepan or a wide pan over medium high heat. Add two tablespoons oil. Add the soaked orange peel, garlic, and green onions and stir-fry until aromatic. 
4. Add star anise and pork feet and stir-fry for about 30 seconds. Pour in ½ cup soy sauce and  ¼ cup dark soy sauce and stir-fry until sauce is slightly boiled and pork feet is evenly coated, about 1 minute. Add spices and 2 tablespoons rice wine and keep stirring, about 30 seconds.
5. Add 1 ½ cups water (best to be hot water) into the mixture. Add 1/4 cup rock sugar and keep stirring, about 30 seconds. Bring to a boil.
6. If you use a saucepan, you can close the lid now and turn the heat to medium low. If you use a wide pan, you can transfer the mixture into a medium saucepan now. (Make sure all pork feet are covered in the liquid, if not, replenish  with some water, but not too much.) Simmer for about 1 ½ hours, until pork feet arrive at a texture to your liking. (I love them to be just done, not too tender to retain the chewing mouthfeel.)
7. About one hour into the the simmer, add a used teabag (optional), tofu wedges (be careful, they're soft!), two eggs (cracked slightly for juice absorption), and seaweed knots. 

{Garden} My mom-in-law's rooftop vegetable garden

My mom grew up farming—even when she was pregnant with me—before she moved to Hong Kong from China. The idea of keeping a vegetable garden at home didn't interest her very much. On the other hand, my mom-in-law grew up in an urban city in China where farming wasn't necessarily her daily chore. Now, she keeps a wonderful rooftop garden with lots of vegetables. Last summer, I was in Hong Kong for three months and was excited by the fact that most of our food on the dining table came from "upstairs."

The ultimate definition of upcycle: used washing machine part as a planter.

Dragon fruit

Beautiful peppers

Growing corn in the city. What a sight!

Planting starts!

My favorite vegetable, water spinach, from farm to table.

Mango tapioca

This is better than frozen yogurt. Biting into these chewy pearl-like darlings, which are nicely immersed in fresh ripe mango juices, gives you a fulfilling sensation of cooling off on a hot and humid summer day. Last year, I wrote about my love for mangoes with a recipe of mango pudding. Here is an even easier treat with lots of room for your improvisation. (Hint: adding ice-cream, yum!)

Cooking tapioca requires the same patience and care as cooking risotto. Keep stirring and in about 30 minutes, you should witness the magical moment of every single white speck disappearing into translucent pearls. Tapioca is a starch extracted from cassava. Little did I know that the word tapioca comes from not any Asian languages, but Portuguese or originally, the Tupi language from Brazil as typióca, with ty = juice + pyá = heart + oca = to remove. What a distance tapioca has traveled!

Mango Tapioca

Choose ripe kidney-shaped yellow mangoes, such as Ataulfo, for this recipe instead of their green/red counterparts, which are more fibrous and tart.

Time: 40 minutes

Yield: 4 servings

Mango puree: (makes about 3 cups puree)

2 mangoes, about 1.5 pounds, peeled, chopped

1 - 1 ½ cup water

Tapioca:

½ cup tapioca

2 cups water, replenish with more water if necessary

Sugar Syrup: (Optional)

¼ cup sugar

½ cup water

Evaporated milk, to serve

1. In a medium saucepan, BRING to a boil 2 cups water.
2. Meanwhile, in a small saucepan, BRING to a boil ¼ cup sugar and ½ cup water. Let chill in the fridge.
3. CHOP mangoes into small pieces.
4. COMBINE chopped mangoes and 1 - 1 ½ cup water in a blender; process until smooth.
5. STIR in tapioca into the boiling water. Simmer in medium low heat and keep stirring until all white specks have disappeared, about 30-40 minutes.
6. REMOVE from heat. Pour the tapioca through a colander or a fine sieve. RINSE translucent tapioca against cold running water until chilled and less sticky. Set aside.
7. POUR mango puree into serving cups (I used ramekin cups). If the mango puree doesn't taste sweet enough, add in some sugar syrup. Stir in rinsed tapioca (adjust the amounts to your liking). Dress with evaporated milk.

Tomato and egg stir-fry

Home-cooking is about being authentic. Not the kind that dictates what sauce goes with what dish or what cheese goes with what wine; it's about creating a taste that's true to yourself and a scene where formality meets freedom in the comfort of food, be it soy sauce spaghetti or chow mein.

Tomato and egg stir-fry is my ultimate comfort food. Velvety scrambled eggs drenched in the plump and luscious red of tomatoes. What a fiesta! It's ridiculously simple and rustic; from my parents farm in rural China to the fast-paced restless Hong Kong, this duo provides the same comfort one gets from their grandmother cooking for them in childhood.

This effortless tomato and egg stir-fry also appears on Mark Bittman's list of"101 simple meals ready in 10 minutes or less." Although my recipe differs from his (quoted below), it truly takes less than 10 minutes:

"Chinese tomato and eggs: Cook minced garlic in peanut oil until blond; add chopped tomatoes then, a minute later, beaten eggs, along with salt and pepper. Scramble with a little soy sauce."

If I were to dress it up with more formality, I would skin the tomatoes, julienne some gingers and woodears or jazz it up with some pickled flavors—back home in my family's Hakka kitchen, a dish of tomato and egg would not be complete without pickled mustard greens. Or if I'm feeling lazy, I'll add more water, turn the dish into a broth, add in spam (yes, spam!) and serve with rice vermicelli. That makes me happy.

 

Tomato and egg Stir-fry

I have two tricks for making this dish shine: to achieve fluffy eggs, beat egg whites and egg yolks separately; for reducing tomato mess on your chopping board, cut tomatoes using roll cutting technique, so that seeds stay intact instead of flowing out and the tomato pieces stay uniform in size.

Time: 15 minutes 
Yield: 2 servings 
  
Ingredients: 

3 roma tomatoes, about ½ pound, cut to 1" cubes or chunks
2 stalks of green onions, chopped, about 2 tablespoons
2 eggs
1 teaspoon oil
a pinch of salt 
2 tablespoons oil (for cooking)
2 tablespoons water, or broth
 
Slurry (optional):
½ teaspoon cornstarch 
1 teaspoon water  

1. Cut tomatoes into 1" chunks and chop up green onions.
2. Beat egg whites first, then add 1 teaspoon oil and a pinch of salt. Beat in egg yolks. Set aside.
    
   
3. Heat 2 tablespoons oil in a pan over medium heat. When oil is hot, pour in eggs. Keep scrambling the eggs, pushing cooked parts towards one end of the pan, leaving uncooked parts flowing along the edges. When it's about 80% done, remove from pan and set it on the serving plate.
   
   
4. Add 1 tablespoon green onions to the remaining oil (if there's not enough oil, feel free to add a little bit). Add tomato chunks and stir-fry for 1 minute.
5. Stir in some water, or better yet, flavored broth like chicken broth or veggie broth, about 2 tablespoons. Keep stir-frying. Add a pinch of salt and the remaining green onions.
6. Cover to steam until tomatoes are tender and the mixture turns thick, about 30 seconds. POUR the slurry into the stir-fry and quickly stir to thicken. (If the slurry is not thick enough, feel free to add some more; otherwise, add more water if it's too thick.) Cover again.
   
   
   
7. Remove from heat and pour the tomatoes onto the eggs. Stir the mixture (so as to heat the eggs to complete doneness.) Serve with rice!

{Dining Out} Dim Sum at Red Ginger, Shoreview, Minnesota

I have a soft spot for dim sum. Even though dim sum served here in Minnesota cannot compare to those served in Hong Kong, I'd still go for dim sum once in a while to cure my habitual weekend craving. Flavors are often lost in translation; once food is served out of their regular locales with integrity, good enough becomes good.

At Red Ginger, there are dozens of selections served on carts. I was delighted when I could simply use my mother tongue, Cantonese, to order. But you don't need to; simply watch the carts come and go and then point and pick. To help you get started, order Po Lei tea (just because it’s brewed with tea leaves, not tea bags). Among the must-haves: congee with pork and thousand-year-old egg, chicken feet steamed in black bean suace; shrimp dumplings, chicken sticky rice wrapped in lotus leaves, barbecued pork buns, pineapple buns or lau sha bao, steamed bun with a glorious runny duck egg yolk, which both my friends and I agree that it's done better than a lot of restaurants in Hong Kong!

Last but not least, dim sum is a communal dining experience. Have a craving? Call you friends.

Asparagus and Beef in Shacha Sauce

The fragrance, the sizzle, the chop, and the heat, they are what make chow, or stir-frying, a beautiful action. Unlike stir-fries in most American Chinese restaurants—mostly vegetable and meat concoction dressed in heavy gravy—or as prepackaged frozen meals in supermarkets, I like my stir-fry to be minimalist, clean with only a few but distinct ingredients. Pair and cut two ingredients diverse in colors and textures into various shapes—big or small, long or short, plump or slender—and in a matter of minutes, you'd be singing about the joy of turning raw ingredients into aromatic bites of contrasting yet complementing textures, as in this dish, crunchy asparagus and velvety beef, held together by shacha sauce, a pungent, savory and slightly spicy sauce popular in southern China and Taiwan.

From left to right: Shacha sauce, marinated beef, asparagus, aromatics (ginger and garlic)

Before you read on, here are my tips to basic stir-fry:

1. Size matters: cut ingredients into uniform size to ensure even cooking.
2. Marinade: This is not optional. It's a stir-fry, which means quick cooking; a marinade not only tenderizes the meat but also brings out the flavor in little time.
3. Heat: Start your wok/pan in medium or high heat. Make sure oil is hot before adding ingredients.
4. Aromatics: Everything get a lift in flavor; the wok/pan, the oil and of course, the ultimate dish.
5. Keep the rhythm: Be patient with quick cooking by adding ingredients one by one. Listen to the sizzle.  Don't crowd the wok/pan. 
6. Finishing touches: Cover to steam. A slurry helps seal in the juices and thicken the dish to a nice body.

Here's a quick stir-frying 101 introduction by Grace Young, James Beard award-winning author of the book, Stir Frying to the Sky's Edge.

Asparagus Beef Stir-fry in Sacha Sauce
Time: 20 minutes 
Yield: 1-2 servings 
  
Ingredients: 

4-6 oz beef, sliced, cut against the grain (click on the link to see a guideline for cutting and choosing the right cut for beef for stir-fry)
1 cup asparagus, cut to 1” inch length diagonally
1 clove garlic, minced
3 slices of ginger (optional)
1 tablespoon of cooking oil
1 tablespoon of shacha sauce 

Marinade for beef:
1 tablespoon water
½ teaspoon soy sauce 
½ teaspoon cooking rice wine 
a pinch of sugar and salt
½ tablespoon cornstarch
½ tablespoon oil

Slurry (optional):
½ teaspoon cornstarch 
1 teaspoon water  

1. CUT the beef into thin slices against the grain. The meat is easier to cut half-frozen.
2. By hand, MIX the beef with 1 tablespoon water until all water is absorbed. STIR in the remaining marinade and mix well.
3. CUT the asparagus into 1-inch length diagonally. MINCE 1 clove of garlic and cut ginger into thin slices.
4. HEAT 1 tablespoon oil in a pan over medium heat.
5. BROWN the beef slices until 70% done, about 2 minutes. Remove from pan.
6. ADD garlic, ginger, and 1 tablespoon barbecue sauce to the remaining oil and stir-fry until aroma is released, about 30 seconds.
7. STIR in asparagus and stir-fry for 1 minute.
8. STIR in beef. Add a pinch of salt. Stir-fry for 30 seconds.
9. COVER to steam until beef is done and asparagus is tender, approximately 1 minute. (While waiting, you can prepare the slurry, which is optional. POUR the slurry into the pan and quickly stir to thicken. Cover again.)
10. REMOVE from heat and let sit for 30 seconds. Serve with rice!

{Event} Pizza-tossing with author/chef Zoë François

How often do you bake with a cookbook author? It turns out as a food blogger in Minnesota, you're in a culinary bliss surrounded by a community of food-caring and - loving individuals, collectively known as MNFoodBloogers, a group led by Stephanie Meyer. I spent my Monday evening with these like-minded food lovers enjoying pizza demonstration and even tossing pizzas! We learned how quick and easy (thus, no excuse!) it is to make home-made pizza from the charming and intelligent chef Zoë François, who has impressed the world with Artisan Bread in Five Minutes A Day with co-author Jeff Hertzberg. In the event, Zoë once again impressed us with demonstrations from her latest book, "Artisan Pizza and Flatbread in Five Minutes a Day," which we were generously given a copy. The book even covers Chinese scallion cakes!

Here are the highlights of the night (don't miss the video at the end):

Zoë has a knack for deconstructing complex ideas with lucidity. She has such a lovable style that makes you feel you can do it too...at least to me, who has never made a pizza before!

Homemade pizza = infinite toppings. Mine has anchovies (ooh, my love), sausages, roasted peppers, olives, and what's more fun, quail eggs!

Kitchen in the Market is where the fun took place! It's a commercial kitchen for caterers, producers, manufacturers, mobile food trucks, and anyone who needs licensed space for food preparation.

Now, get ready for some pizza-tossing fun!