Spinach Soup with Century Eggs

We’ve come to the end of our current exploration of Century Eggs – from making them from scratch, to mixing them with other ingredients and preparing dishes with them. This is recipe number ten of ten, and what a nice way to end a series it is. This is a soup – a homestyle recipe – that is enjoyed across China as well as in … Read more

Thai Pork with 1000-Year Eggs

This next to last recipe for 1000-Year Eggs might be my favorite way to prepare them. It is savory, spicy, and hot, and the Thai basil lends a wonderful lightness to both the pork and the eggs for a winning dish. This recipe also lightly fries half of the Thai basil for a delicious, crunchy herbal topping that one encounters in lots of dishes from … Read more

Fried Rice with Thousand-year Eggs

We are nearing the end of our exploration of Thousand-Year Eggs (for now). There was just something congruous (perhaps logarithmic?) about offering 10 recipes for 1000-Year Eggs that really floated my boat. This is number eight, and it is a really delicious way to cook pidan. It is so good that we had it for breakfast this morning along with some steamed spicy Chinese sausage. … Read more

Green Eggs and Ham Chinese Style

Dr. Seuss’ Sam-I-Am would smile at the sight of these green eggs. Century Eggs, or 1,000-Year Eggs, are classics in their own right, not a riff on a timeless children’s book. You won’t find them in Sam-I-Am’s house, box, car, tree or train, but these eggs appear in a rice porridge, or congee, that is enjoyed throughout Asia. The eggs in this congee are indeed … Read more

Stir-Fried Beef with Century Eggs

This interesting dish combines century eggs with sliced beef in a stir fry that is perfectly suitable as a main dish, or as one of many dishes in a multicourse Chinese meal. Most of the flavor in the dish comes from a brief marinade of the beef in mushroom-flavored soy sauce, sesame oil and Shaoxing – a type of rice wine. This is accented by … Read more

1000-Year Eggs with Bitter Melon

This recipe takes two strange-flavored foods and combines them in a chilled salad or light dish in a way that makes them better together.  For those of you not familiar with bitter melon, it is very well named and packs a wallop of natural bitterness.  It is so bitter as to make your mouth pucker and to wonder why humans began eating this food in … Read more

Eggs with Shrimp and Pidan

One of the agreeable and delicious ways to enjoy pidan is with eggs. Some recipes use pidan along with salted eggs or salted egg yolks with or without fresh chicken or duck eggs to make custards or other egg dishes. This recipe, however, couples pidan with regular chicken or duck eggs and a bit of shrimp and spring onions for a tasty and mild dish. … Read more

Cold Tofu with Pidan

One of my favorite ways to enjoy 1000-year eggs is as part of a cold-tofu salad. This presentation of pidan is enjoyed all over China this way as well as in Taiwan, Japan and Korea. It is served as an appetizer or as part of a meal with many dishes eaten at the same time. For western cooks, it is simple to make, exotic, nutritious … Read more

Cool as Cucumber Kimchi

Kimchi in the West is usually spicy and hot and made from Napa cabbage. That version is delicious, but it means many of us don’t know what we’re missing. Although the Napa cabbage version is delicious, this fascinating fermented Korean dish can be made from any vegetable, and its flavors can be savory, mild and slightly sweet. There are more than 100 kimchi varieties, another … Read more

Homemade 1000-Year Eggs Unveiled

We harvested the 1000-year eggs and are finally getting around to preparing and eating some of the crop. The color is right, and a few of them have the pine-patterning that their Chinese name suggests on their dark, amber-colored flesh. They taste good, but are MUCH milder than some of the Pidan I’ve had in China. They are also missing the strong ammonia-like scent that … Read more

Rhubarb’s Silk Road History

Lamb and Rhubarb Stew

The first rumblings of spring have reached the Central Atlantic. The green tips of daffodils and jonquils are pushing through the still firm soil, and in some sunny spots, snowdrops and crocus are already starting to bloom. This means that the early crops of rhubarb should be out by month’s end. Fluorescent pink stems topped with deep green, chard-like leaves will soon fill the market … Read more

Curry Through Foreign Eyes 5 – Japanese Curry

The next stop on our exploration of Indian Curry Through Foreign Eyes is Japan. Curry came to Japan by way of British sailors and merchants in the mid-19th Century. This happened sometime after Commodore Matthew Perry landed at Kurihama in 1853, and opened Japan to the world after centuries of isolation. The first recipe for curry in Japanese was published in 1872 by the renowned … Read more

Rice Omelets, Yōshoku, and A Little International Understanding

2014 began with our family hosting a Japanese college student for a brief homestay. A Facebook friend of mine had a daughter studying in the United States; she had some time on her hands over the Christmas break, and she decided to spend some of it with us. Despite the arctic cold front that hit the area and talk of, “polar vortexes,” moving through the … Read more

Making 1000 Year Eggs

So, as promised, I spent several hours yesterday making 1000 Year Eggs. That is, I coated a dozen and a half duck eggs with caustic mud, rolled and pressed them in rice chaff, and set them aside to dry. Later I placed them in a soil-lined ceramic crock and will let them sit for three to three-and-a-half months, before checking to see if I did … Read more

Culinary History Mystery 6 – Tomato Eggs

Tomato Eggs is a home-cooked Chinese dish that reminds students, travelers, and those living abroad of home. Just a whiff of this cooking and folks will tell tales of sitting in or near the kitchen as a kid as a parent made this dish – and how good it tasted! it is simple, elegant, and savory, and less than 10 – 15 minutes from wok … Read more

Communist Kimchi!

You may recall that in the Kimchi Chigae post I mentioned that I was developing a North Korean kimchi recipe. Well I worked the handwritten recipe with no ingredient amounts that you see here through three iterations – each less spicy than the last. And with some description and input from food and travel writer, Michael Y. Park, who brought the recipe out of North … Read more