Pork

My mom used to make these 'fresh' Taiwanese spring rolls (albeit only once in a blue moon) when we were kids and they really are da bomb. They're not the typical fried spring rolls that most folks are familiar with, but rather an almost burrito-like rendition that uses fresh and delicately thin dough wrappers filled with a mixture of pork, pickled radish, assorted veggies (bean sprouts, cabbage, carrots, bamboo shoots, shiitake mushrooms, etc.), sliced hard tofu bean cakes, c

Wontons are not hard to make but are slightly labor intensive because they are on the small side and you have to make so many of them (2 lbs. of filling will yield 50-60 wontons, which is about the number of wrappers you'll get in a typical package of wonton wrappers). If you have an hour or more to spare though, it's totally worth the effort. Come to think of it, that's probably why my mom decided to have kids. I have 'fond' memories of my sis and I back in the day having oo

This is my take on a recipe made famous and ubiquitous by the PF Chang restaurant chain. I prefer to use ground pork rather than ground chicken in this preparation and the sauce is a tad less salty than the PFC version. The fresh lettuce leaves are perfect wraps for the flavorful meat filling.

A favorite snack/appetizer that both my mom and grandmother excelled at, Pearl Balls are basically meat balls made from ground pork, soy sauce, rice wine, sesame oil, ginger, with a bit of chopped scallions and water chestnuts, coated with glutinous rice and steamed for about 30 minutes. Not all recipes call for this, but I also like to add some chopped shiitake mushrooms to the meatball mixture. The pearly white sheen from the glutinous rice coating is what gives this dish i

This dish is redolent of the flavors of a hot and sour soup and probably something that my grandpa (Ah-Kung) would have enjoyed because of the addition of vinegar, a commonly used ingredient in the cuisine of his native Fujian province. I adapted this recipe from Chinese Cooking: Favorite Home Dishes , a Weichuan cookbook by Chen Hsueh Hsia published in 1993. Very easy to make, super flavorful and great on its own or over steamed white rice.