Griot is considered a national dish of Haiti and all it takes is a taste to understand why. Adored by José Andrés, this dish is a wonderful mix of cooking techniques; marinated pork shoulder is slowly braised and then fried, leaving the meat tender and flavorful.
"What we didn't expect was the response - customers were coming by, messaging us, and sharing stories about what the restaurant meant to them. It made us realize this wasn't just a place to eat - it had become part of people's routines and memories."
Nan Xiang Soup Dumplings is known for its handmade soup dumplings, made in an open kitchen where diners can observe the preparation process. The menu features traditional dim sum and noodle dishes, including Shanghai Siu Mai and pan-fried crispy noodles.
I have always believed that what unites two cultures most, however different they may be, is their own cuisine, and therefore, I don't know of anything that unites different societies as much as a plate of spaghetti, ramen, or gyozas.
Characterized by bold and balanced notes of heat and sourness, southwestern Chinese cooking has been influenced by the many ethnic groups that call the region home, including the Miao, Dong, and Buyi peoples. Hengry's dishes come straight from Guiyang, the capital of Guizhou Province, where Au's family owned a restaurant in the early '90s.
It is a side dish that has main-character energy. Think about it. You put bacon in ice-cream and it is the bacon that sings. You use candied bacon as a cocktail garnish, and suddenly that is all anyone's talking about. But, while all bacon is great, some bacon is just greater than others. If you disagree, try some Chinese-style bacon called Lap Yuk or La Rou.
Christmas is lovely, but my kids think Chinese new year is by far the best holiday. I might be biased, but, unusually, I am inclined to agree with them. As my eldest puts it, New clothes, cash, booze and food what's not to love? There's the added bonus that cash is absolutely more than acceptable in fact, it's de rigueur, so there's no shopping for mundane socks and smelly candles. Chinese new year is full of rituals and, just as at Christmas, every family has its own, but they are all variations on a theme. Symbolism looms large in Chinese culture, and at new year it centres around messages of prosperity, luck and family.
A true one-pot meal, this Indian-spiced rice is made with store-bought spicy simmer sauce, paired with tofu and cauliflower. It's hearty, filling and you can load it up with a range of herbs or crunchy nuts as toppings. We are staying in a little loft in San Francisco right now, trying to find our next place to live. The kitchen is tiny: two electric burners, a microwave, roughly 2 feet of counter space.
Stir-frying is all about wok hei, or wok's air' in English, which you can think of as the height of fire', or the level of heat. It's said that Chinese cooks have good wok hei if they have a true understanding of the heat of their wok and how to handle it in all situations, and a stir-fry's success is based on the quality of the cook's wok hei.
Soaked and blended, cashews become a stand-in for heavy cream, keeping stuffed shells, soups, pasta sauces, and desserts luxuriously dairy-free. Toasted and roughly chopped, they add crunch to salads, curries, stir-fries, and more. There are so many reasons to love cooking with these seeds-that's right, "cashew nut" is technically a misnomer, since they grow outside the fruit rather than inside a hard shell like true nuts.
If you aren't familiar, a ham hock is a cut of pork that comes from the pig's leg, where the shank meets the foot. It's not a very meaty cut, but that's not the point. Ham hocks are heavy on skin, bone, and fatty connective tissue, which are all rich in collagen, which is basically an all-purpose soup enhancer. It affects both texture and the taste of soups, thickening them and adding body,
Tanya Holland, especially among Bay Area foodies, needs no introduction. She's the award-winning celebrity chef behind Oakland's Brown Sugar Kitchen, B-Side BBQ and Town Fare, and the author of multiple cookbooks. She competed on Top Chef, hosted Tanya's Kitchen Table on the Oprah Winfrey Network and today serves on the James Beard Foundation's Awards Committee. For the Super Bowl this year, she'll be at a cousin's 80th birthday party.
Clear counter or table space for everyone to cook together, and be sure to get enough ingredients for each person to eat at least a dozen dumplings. Then, set up your assembly line in a circle: Place a bowl of filling in the middle of every three to five cooks, along with wrappers and a floured sheet tray or plate. (Cooks can chat more easily if they face one another when wrapping dumplings.)
Because fried rice already contains scrambled eggs, vegetables, and usually meat, you can customize your dinner-inspired dish with all the breakfast staples you enjoy most. For example, use the residual grease from frying up bacon or sausage as the base fat in which to fry your vegetables and cooked rice. Add a portion of butter or olive oil to the mix as needed.
When it comes to traybakes, chicken is the undisputed hero, because it's endlessly adaptable and perfect for carrying bold, global flavours. First up, some eastern Mediterranean chicken meatballs, flecked with feta and black olives for a sharp, savoury punch. Then a Persian-style saffron chicken and rice; the rice cooks with the chicken, absorbing all the flavours of the sunshine-yellow saffron and crisping up at the edges.
