Growing up, my grandmother spent a lot of time making all sorts of steamed cakes and dumplings for us to enjoy. It was all made from scratch with fresh ingredients and plenty of love. Coming home from school we'd find turnip cakes or radish cakes, steamed dumplings or potstickers filled with chives, shrimp and pork, and just all kinds of handmade creations.

One of my absolute favorite things she made was a savory, chewy, sticky steamed mochi cake that I am going to share with you today. Honestly I loved all the things she made but this one is special to me because she developed this specifically to my tastes 😊

INGREDIENTS:

• 1/3 cup dried baby scallops, rehydrated
• 1/2 cup sweet pickled radish
• 1/3 cup chopped green scallions
• 1/4 cup chopped Chinese sausage
• 1/4 cup chopped Chinese cured pork belly
• 1/4 cup chopped mini dried shrimp
• 1/4 cup cubed ham
• 1/2 cup chopped dried shiitake mushrooms, rehydrated
• 16 oz. Glutinous Rice Flour
• 16 oz. Rice Flour
• approx. 1-2 cups of Water - add to flour until it reaches a thick muffin/cookie batter consistency
• 2 tsp salt
• 2 tsp sugar

DIRECTIONS:
1. ​Prepare all your meat and veggies by chopping them all up in to small pieces. I find the smaller the pieces, the less noticeable they are in texture and flavor, whereas slightly larger pieces give you a more discernable flavor of each. 

2. Stir fry the baby scallops, all the meat and mushrooms. Once the oil starts rendering out and it smells fragrant, remove and set to the side. 

3. Pour both 16 oz bags into a mixing bowl. Add water a little by little and mix until the batter resembles a thick muffin or cookie batter. If it is flowing like pancake batter, you've added too much water, so be careful how much to add. Once well mixed, oil a round cake steam pan, about 12-14 inches. Doing so will help the cake come out of the pan more cleanly. You can also put down cling wrap or parchment paper along the sides and bottom if you wish.

4. Pour a layer of the batter onto the bottom and add the meat filling. Keep layering and alternating until you've run out of batter and filling. Make sure to leave enough filling to cover the top of the cake. 

5. Heat a large wok with water (or prepare your steamer). Steam the mochi cake for 1 hour or until firm. Once it's done, remove from the steamer. At this point it will be very soft, (but still delicious), so you can either eat right away or let is cool and firm up a bit before cutting into the mochi cake. Enjoy!

You can always substitute filling choices with whatever you prefer if you're not one for Chinese cured meats, but these are flavors that I grew up eating with my grandmother. Whenever I smell Chinese pork belly or sausage (lap cheong), or pickled radish, or dried shiitake mushrooms (pretty much everything in this dish) it just makes me think of Grandma and her homecooking. There's always something in food the floods your brain with memories of home and for me, this is it! Hope you enjoy!

Let's talk PORK BELLY.
 
PORK.
BELLY.

Just these two words can get me all hot and bothered and make my mouth water...*ahem* 

This fatty, unctuous, lip smacking, rib sticking slab of meat has become so popular over the past decade in the foodie world that it can now be seen on many restaurant menus, hipster pubs, food truck menus and more, almost everywhere. I remember a time when American supermarkets didn't even offer pork belly, and we'd have to travel to an Asian market or to Chinatown in New York to get these deliciously fatty cuts of meat. Now, even our local Shoprite in suburban NJ offers it, along with a growing Asian and ethnic foods section. Without a doubt, it has taken the food world by storm and it is here to stay. Pork belly tacos, pork belly mac and cheese, pork belly bbq, pork belly this, pork belly that. If we see it on a menu, we (the WAI SIK team) will most likely order it.

Growing up in my family, pork belly dishes were usually enjoyed in Chinese restaurants for special dinners, usually as Dong Bo Yuk (Dong Bo Rou in Mandarin) 東坡肉 which originated from Hangzhou, China.

For Dong Bo Rou, the pork belly is usually first pan fried, then braised and stewed with wine and soy sauce and is known for its large square chunks and dark, glistening reddish brown color. The picture below is of Dong Bo Rou dishes my dad made as treats for my mom and his friends. (He only sent us pictures on WeChat to show off and make us jealous!). Ugh, it looks so damn good.

We also enjoy the Taiwanese Lu Rou Fan 滷肉飯, which is more like a braised pork belly meat sauce that is poured over rice. What we love about this dish is really the sauciness and the delicious flavor of pork fat that envelopes every rice grain after you mix the sauce in. Every mouthful includes the great chewy texture of rice that has soaked up that pork flavor, pork fat and bits of soft pork.

But while pork belly choices are available far and wide, a popular topic that comes up between myself and Wilson is, "Hmm....I still like the pork belly we make at home." Of course, not to discredit the creativity and hard work that other folks put into their pork belly recipes, I admit that we can be creatures of habit and will always crave and compare our own recipe to the samples we try elsewhere. (If you like to cook, you probably know what I mean.)

Over the years, I've developed my own version of the soy flavored pork belly that both Wilson and I enjoy. It is a happy medium between the chunky meatiness of Dong Bo Rou 東坡肉 and the saucy goodness that comes with Lu Rou Fan 滷肉饭. While Lu Rou Fan is great, there always seems to be...not enough meat. As meat was considered a luxury back in the day, families had to figure out a way to spread the love by chopping it up into tiny pieces, making it into a sauce and spreading it over rice to share with the whole family. Ingenious ? Yes. But be it as it may, now that we can afford pork belly (so thankful for that), we can make a more substantial serving that satiates our WAI SIK tummies.
My recipe involves a bit of preparation and patience, but the end result will be a succulent and soft piece of buttery pork that will melt in your mouth. It's probably not the "correct" way to make it in the traditional sense, but it looks great and tastes pretty darn close to the real thing.

INGREDIENTS:

• Pork belly (cubed into 1-1.5 inches), skin on and cleaned
• 2 shallots
• 1 knob ginger, about 3" long
• 5 cloves of garlic
• 4 stalks of scallions
• 1 cup Sweet soy sauce (I like to use Lee Kam Kee's or Yoshida's Gourmet Sauce)
• 1 tbsp coarse salt
• 1 tbsp ginger powder
• 1 tbsp white pepper powder
• 1/2 tbsp cinnamon powder
• Shaoxing Wine
• Mirin
• 1 star anise (optional)
• 2 bay leaves (optional)
• Rice

DIRECTIONS:
1. Cut the cleaned pork belly into 1-1.5 inch cubes. Place evenly into a glass container and marinade it with the salt, sugar, sweet soy, shaoxing wine, mirin, white pepper powder, and cinnamon powder. You can let it marinade for about 2 hours at least, or leave in the fridge overnight.

2. Next, slice the ginger into 1/4" slices. Chop up the shallots and smash the cloves of garlic. Slice the scallions into about 4" stalks and throw out the base and roots.

3. Once the pork belly is done marinading, prepare your steamer. Get a deep dish with about a 1-2" rim and place the sliced ginger, shallots, garlic and scallions into the bottom of the dish.

4. Remove the pork belly from the marinade and set on top of the ginger, shallots, garlic and scallions. Make sure it's relatively dry, otherwise if you steam it with the marinade you're essentially boiling it. That will leave you with stringy, dry meat rather than the tender and juicy pork belly we're looking for.

4. Steam the pork belly for about to 3 hours. Be sure to periodically add water to your steamer or pot to ensure it doesn't dry out. You'll probably want to check about every 20-30 minutes.

5. When you have about 10-15 minutes left, be sure to boil the sweet soy sauce marinade to kill any germs from the raw pork belly. Add in the star anise and bay leaf (optional).

6. Once it's done steaming, let it cool and then, submerge the pork belly in the same sweet soy sauce mixture and let the flavors soak in. Let it simmer in this pot for an additional 20 minutes. Add a little cornstarch to thicken the sauce.
​
7. While the pork belly is steaming cook your rice. For me it usually takes about 20-25 min to cook the rice including the time to wash the rice. I prefer Japanese sushi rice and the chew of it, while Wilson prefers Jasmine or basmati rice. Honestly just cook whatever rice you prefer in your household. If you want to upgrade the rice, stir fry the cooked rice with some garlic and sesame oil to really amp up the yumminess!

And there you have it. Pork belly over rice. This dish is so good, it gives me goosebumps. We hope you like it!

When I was a young lad in school, my mom would make this oxtail soup to pack for my lunch in a thermos mixed with rice. I was probably the only kid with a hot, homemade lunch, while most other kids ate sandwiches with PB&J. I was a lucky kid (despite most kids at school making fun of me for those lunches).

Whenever I think about this oxtail soup, I can only think of how yummy it is and that the only person who makes it just right is mom. (Jenny knows this too 😉) When we were young, we weren't rich and tried to save money where we could. Usually we didn't turn on the AC and depended on fans to stay cool. The soup itself takes several hours to make, and the boiling water would make the kitchen hot and humid, which was worse during the summer months—but mom would cook it for us anyway, simply because she knew we liked it a lot. There was a lot of love that went into this soup, and every time she makes it for us is a reminder of her love and care for us. When Jenny first had this soup, she said that it was "The perfect warm bowl of soup after a long, stressful day." 

This soup is stew like in that the ingredients are typical of what you might find in a stew. Carrots, onions, potatoes, tomatoes + beef (oxtail). The carrots and potatoes and beef give the soup a heartiness that warms and fills you up. Because we cook the soup for a long time, the oxtail is fall off the bone tender, soft and delicious. The onions provide depth and sweetness, while the tomatoes give a slight tang to the soup. Mom also puts in some chen pei 陳皮, or dried tangerine peel, which is popularly used as a seasoning in Chinese cooking, which adds an extra flavor to the soup that makes it really great. I can't pinpoint what it is, but without, the soup feels like it's missing something. Just that little something something.
​
For a long time, we never knew how to make this soup, but for the sake of the WAI SIK blog, we got my Mom to show us! See recipe below. In terms of amounts, there's really no set amount of each ingredient that you have to have. It's based on personal preference. If you want more oxtail, add more oxtail. If you want more potatoes, go ahead. 

This soup is stew like in that the ingredients are typical of what you might find in a stew. Carrots, onions, potatoes, tomatoes + beef (oxtail). The carrots and potatoes and beef give the soup a heartiness that warms and fills you up. Because we cook the soup for a long time, the oxtail is fall off the bone tender, soft and delicious. The onions provide depth and sweetness, while the tomatoes give a slight tang to the soup. Mom also puts in some chen pei 陳皮, or dried tangerine peel, which is popularly used as a seasoning in Chinese cooking, which adds an extra flavor to the soup that makes it really great. I can't pinpoint what it is, but without, the soup feels like it's missing something. Just that little something something.
​
For a long time, we never knew how to make this soup, but for the sake of the WAI SIK blog, we got my Mom to show us! See recipe below. In terms of amounts, there's really no set amount of each ingredient that you have to have. It's based on personal preference. If you want more oxtail, add more oxtail. If you want more potatoes, go ahead. 

INGREDIENTS:
• 2 packages oxtail
• 2 Carrots (chopped)
• 2 Onions (chopped)
• 3 Potatoes (chopped)
• 2 Tomatoes (chopped)
• 1 piece Dried Tangerine Peel 陳皮, chopped
• Salt
​
DIRECTIONS:
1. Prepare the oxtail by trimming off any excess fat. Bring a large stock pot to boil and boil the oxtail to remove fat and bloody flavor. You'll know it's ready when the oxtail is no longer raw and the blood has boiled off the oxtail. Throughout this stage of boiling the oxtail, you'll want to be skimming the broth of any brown froth that bubbles up. Once all the blood is gone, you can drain and rinse the oxtail, scrub off any excess blood/residue off the bone.

2. Boil the tomato until the skin comes off easily with a knife. Remove the skin and chop up the tomato and set aside.

3. Now, you're ready to begin cooking the soup. In large pot, boil the cleaned oxtail for 1/2 hour.

4. After 30 minutes, add cut carrots.and boil for 15 minutes.

5. Add onion and boil 15 minutes, then add potato. Boil another 15 minutes, add tomato. 

6. Bring to high boil, then reduce heat to medium boil for 1 hour.

7. Season with salt to taste and serve as is, or with bread or rice.

Skim off any excess oil on the top, or refrigerate overnight and skim off the fat the next morning. It tastes light and warm! This soup has been in our family since I was a kid, and the work that goes into it is the epitome of love. We hope you enjoy it as much as I have growing up!

According to my grandmother who hails from Taishan, China, Dong Zhi, or the Winter Solstice Festival, is one of the biggest holidays in China, similar to how westerners celebrate Christmas or Thanksgiving. It's not the same exact date every year, but always falls around the same time according to the Lunar solar calendar.

"Dong Zhi is bigger than the New Year" she says. Why? Because after Dong Zhi, the days are longer with more sunlight, and the flow of positive energy returns after the short, dark days of winter--Dong Zhi is also a time of year where the family gathers together and eats a very specific dish, Tong Yuan, glutinous rice balls, which symbolizes the idea of "reunion." The characters for Tong Yuan in Chinese also sounds like the phrase Tuen Yuen 團圓, which means "reunion."

​My grandmother never measures her ingredients, but here is an approximation of her recipe 😊

INGREDIENTS
• Glutinous rice flour (1/2 bag) + cold water
• Pork rib meat (or chicken thigh meat)
• Cabbage (1/2 head)
• Daikon (1/2 head)
• Dried Shrimp (1/4 cup)
• Dried Shiitake Mushroom (15 pieces) - rehydrated
• Dried baby scallops (1/2 cup)
• 2 Chinese sausages (cut into 1/2 pieces)
• Chicken bouillon powder (or salt) to taste
• 5 cups water

DOUGH:
To create the tong yuan dough, add cold water a little by little and knead until the dough forms and is no longer sticky. Then, pull out a small amount of dough and roll into small balls, about 1/2 inch in size. They'll grow to be about 1-1.5 inches round when boiled in the soup.

SOUP:
1. First, boil a pot of water and blanch the meat for about 10 seconds. Then, rinse the chicken or pork meat under cold water and drain the blanch water. Start a new pot of water and start cooking the meat, shiitake mushrooms, dried shrimp, dried scallops and cabbage in the boiling water. Skim and remove foam and debris from the top of the soup as it cooks. Add the daikon radish last before adding the glutinous rice dumplings and cook until transparent.
​
2. As the soup is cooking, roll out the dumpling balls and place into the soup to cook. Once the balls become a little translucent and begin to float, it's ready to eat!

Some other renditions of tong yuan can be sweet and filled with sweet sesame or peanut paste, or the tong yuan can be filled with ground meat and shrimp. This is up to the traditions of each family, but we usually have it savory in our house.

Now that my grandmother has shared her recipe, I look forward to making it and passing this part of my culture and tradition down through my own family in the future too 😊 May you enjoy a warm family reunion for the Winter Solstice!

​Mmmmmm lobster. *drools* I thought I'd share a recipe that is near and dear to my heart, Cantonese Lobster Salad! Now, it's really not quite...a true "salad" per se...as it's really not healthy for you whatsoever given the ingredients. Well except for the fruit. That makes me feel a little less guilty after eating a few bowls of it.

Did you know? Lobster used to be served as prison food in the early colonies and it wasn't until the early 1900s that it became popular. I'm so glad that humanity found a way to cook it and turn it into something delicious! To learn more about the history and how lobster turned into a delicacy, read this article by Matt Hershberger at Eat Sip Trip.

While I don't remember exactly when or how I first experienced eating lobster, I do remember it always being a special treat associated with my parents. My father would sometimes buy lobster and crab at the local market and steam it for us at home to eat. We'd dip it in butter as per the ol' American way, or my mom would make this delicious, garlic and vinegar soy sauce to dip lobster (or crab) in. Other times, the parents would bring back takeout from the city after work, typically a Cantonese style stir fried lobster with ginger and scallion, and we'd snack on the tasty morsels together at night.

Some of my favorite lobster memories though, involved Cantonese lobster salad. The lobster salad would come out on a large platter, on top of a bed of lettuce or sliced orange garnish. Cantonese style lobster salad is a mayo based salad with assorted fruit and lobster. It's a simple dish but incredibly nostalgic, yummy and refreshing as it's served cold. We typically enjoyed it as one of the starter dishes to a Chinese banquet--usually a special occasion like a wedding or family reunion of some sort, so always a happy memory for me. 

Sometimes we add potato or boiled egg to add more substance to the "salad", but it's just fine without as well, and is more "light." Some people like to use a mixture of sour cream and mayo, but since we're "trying" to be healthy, I've subbed greek yogurt instead. It really tastes very similar, and if anything, it makes everything so much more creamy and yummy.

Dumplings are one of my absolute favorite foods—EVER. That along with noodles of course. Dumplings hold a special place in my heart and are rooted in my memories, mainly with family. To me, dumplings symbolize little pockets of fond memories, pockets of happiness. They are tiny wrapped bundles of joy gifted from maker to taster. Growing up, my grandmother would make a variety of dumplings and buns from scratch and I would always watch in awe as she kneaded flour into dough, dough into skins, and then wrapping those skins around tasty fillings of meats and vegetables.

I love any kind of dumpling, but I'll be sharing with you today a healthier option that you can make with your family! Made with vegetable dumpling skins, sole fillets, ginger and scallion, the flavors are light and reminiscent of ginger/scallion steamed fish dishes I grew up with that my family made and that we also enjoyed in Chinese restaurants. It'll be hard to stop eating them, and you won't need to feel guilty about it either because they're so healthy! Plus the dumplings are green because of the veggie wrappers, so it's practically like eating a salad with fish! Hahaha...yeah didn't sound as funny as I hoped it would...Anyhow...

INGREDIENTS:
1.5 pounds gray sole fillets (flounder, swai, basa fillets also work)
1 pack green vegetable dumpling wrappers
3/4 cup sweet corn kernels (cooked)
3 tbsp water
2.5 tbsp corn starch
3 tsp light soy sauce
1.5 tsp white pepper powder
1 egg
1/2 tbsp sesame oil
2 tsp ground ginger powder
3 scallion stalks (minced finely)

DIPPING SAUCE:
2 scallion stalks (minced finely)
2 tbsp ginger (grated finely)
3 tsp cooking oil
2 tsp soy sauce
2 tsp sugar

DIRECTIONS:
1. Dice up your fish fillets into small pieces, and chop scallions finely. In a large bowl, add fish, scallions, egg, soy sauce, white pepper powder, and corn starch and sesame oil. Slowly add water, and mix until well incorporated.

​​2. Once the filling is done, get your dumpling wrappers out. Lightly wet the edge of your wrapper with water and place 1 tbsp of fish filling in the center of your wrapper. Then, you'll want to fold the wrapper in half to enclose the filling. Press the edge with your fingers so that it's sealed tightly. Click here to see how you can fold dumplings in 5 different ways!​

​3. Cook the dumplings by boiling them or steaming them, about 7 minutes. You'll know it's cooked if it's floating in the water at the top and completely opaque (not translucent). The white meat of the fish will also be opaque and easy to fork apart.

4. While the dumplings are cooking, make your dipping sauce! Cook the cooking oil until it's hot and then add the grated ginger and scallion. If you like spicy, add in some sliced red chili peppers as well for that extra kick. Once fragrant, put the mixture into a bowl and add soy sauce and sugar, mix. You can also ladle hot seafood broth, chicken soup, or dashi soup over the dumplings before serving. Here, I used store bought dashi soup base. And that's it!

I hope you enjoy this recipe as much as we do! Because I like spicy food, I tend to add the red chili pepper and red chili oil into my dipping sauce too 😁 Enjoy as is, or add it to a meal of noodles, which also represent longevity in Chinese culture!