Chinese cuisine

If plain stir-fry is the least known stir-fry variation in America, then moist stir-fry is the best known. The gooey, tasteless sauces in “Chop Suey” and Moo Goo Gai Pan found in so many Chinese-American restaurants all rely on this technique. Whoever created these recipes obviously had a special affinity for this common technique and used it ad nauseum. Just as the name implies moist stir-fry creates a dish with a sauce, which is the key to its flavor. Matching complementary sauce ingredients with the main ingredient is important to a successful dish. I cannot tell you how many Chinese sauces have been abused ... Read Full Story

Photography by Ron Boszko My neighbor, Kim , has been stir-frying, ever since I convinced her to move her wok from cold storage to stovetop. (She inherited a great wok, completely seasoned and beautifully charred black, from a friend years ago and once used it as a planter!) Now she regularly stops on her way to the market to consult with me about what ingredients to buy for that night’s stir-fry. With so many ingredients to choose from, it can seem daunting. I used to have the same problem matching ingredients until I started writing down and analyzing classic combinations. There is a logical ... Read Full Story

We take for granted that stir-frying is just combining a bunch of ingredients, frying them in a wok, and seasoning them appropriately; that is partially accurate. What is rarely understood is that there are variations in stir-frying technique. Broadly classified the variations are 1) plain stir-fry (清炒 or QingChao), 2) moist stir-fry (滑炒 or HuaChao) and 3) dry wok stir-fry (煸炒 or BianChao). In this third part of Stir-fry Fortnight series post let me show you how simple it is to make plain vegetable stir-fry. Continue to read how simple plain stir-frying is… Read Full Story

Photography by Ron Boszko We did it! We had a blast on Saturday night. I managed to serve the full ten-course dinner without any mishap. We even photographed each course of the meal. My friend Ron , who is a great photographer, helped me with the photography. We set up a small “studio” area in our bedroom. Each course was carefully transferred to the “studio” prior to serving. And what great guests we had, they were so patient with the entire process. I love my neighbors! So, I am now ready to share the dinner with all of you! We started off with a ... Read Full Story

It's a struggle to summarise exactly what happens in the first half hour of Tian Zhuangzhuang's THE WARRIOR AND THE WOLF as it largely resembles a cobbled together mass of random sequences and unrelated footage from a frenzied shoot in the Mongolian wilderness, haphazardly lap dissolved back and forth into each other in a struggle to form a coherent narrative. Read Full Story