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Ah yes, unabashed dumpling porn. But seriously folks, this dumpling (jiaozi 饺子) is nothing short of awesome – our instant addiction made clear why a friend dubbed it nothing less than “crack jiaozi.” Not only does this little nugget taste fantastic, the red-cabbage-stained purple wrapper makes it nearly as lovely to look at as to eat. Unlike other parts of China, Beijing dumplings are typified by an astounding variety of fillings beyond the common shrimp-pork-cabbage combo. Most restaurants serving dumplings will have dozens of fillings available, including tomato-and-egg, the Muslim-influenced lamb-and-cilantro, eggplant-and-egg, zucchini-and-egg, preserved vegetable-and-green beans, peanut-bacon-and-green pepper (another favorite), and so forth.… READ MORE | 2 Comments
Tags: Baoyuan, COOK, dumpling, guoba, red cabbage
Just when you thought I was done waxing poetic about the joyous versatility of a toaster oven, we embarked on a bagel adventure. Probably due to the sudden at-home bagel craze evident throughout the blogosphere, a number of our Beijing friends have recently been pumping out these boiled-then-baked-then-toasted brunch staples at home. We were inspired. We wanted to make our own, schmear on an ungodly amount of cream cheese, and stuff ourselves into an enjoyable Sunday carb coma. I was drawn in by the short baking time (10ish minutes) that seemed so very doable in our toaster ovens, and Christine was enraptured with the aesthetic possibilities of decoration (she was salivating over the visuals of pink Himalayan salt and black sesame). … READ MORE | 15 Comments
Tags: bagels, bread, COOK, toaster oven
The genius of this dish is undeniable. Let’s call it a salad. But a salad made mostly from shoestring fries, tossed with leeks, ginger, green onion, cilantro and chilies, laced with the unmistakable zing of Sichuan peppercorns. The best version of this spicy fried potato salad (xiang la tudousi 香辣土豆丝) we’ve had to date is at a grimy little chuan’r restaurant that sits on the corner on Jiu Gulou and a little hutong that leads to Bed Bar, one of the original Beijing hutong bars that now are casually replicated throughout our neighborhood. We’ve only hit it up after 3am and usually after indeterminate glasses of Jamesons or Mojitos. The obvious question then is, is this deep-fried tangle only tasty at ungodly hours after numerous whiskeys? Hell’s no. As you might suspect, fried potatoes spiked with the addictively numbing hua jiao (花椒) is delectable anytime.… READ MORE | 4 Comments
Tags: COOK, deep-fry, Fuschia Dunlop, potato, Sichuan
Sometimes, you just get the urge to shred something. Particularly as it (almost) feels like spring, and the markets around Beijing are finally filling back up with a loads of fresh vegetables, a sight for sore eyes after a winter of buying limp, overpriced turnips and making seemingly endless pots of stew. Inspired by the crack carrot salad at Yellow River noodles, when we spotted this orange toy set of mandolins and veggie carving tools, we had to have it. Easy choice, as this swanky set of plastic fun cost us a mere 7 kuai (1 buck).… READ MORE | 4 Comments
Tags: carrot, COOK, PREP, shredder, yellow river
Our love and near-obsession with the jianbing is well documented (for a total of six posts on this one simple street food). We’ve made the pilgrimage to Tianjin, birthplace of the jianbing, we’ve pestered numerous jianbing vendors around Beijing for tips, and of course, we’ve discussed amongst ourselves the ins and outs of how to make the magic happen in our tiny, crepe griddle-less kitchens.
We even contemplated the brilliant (we thought) idea of renting our Tsinghua jianbing vendor’s cart for the day to get some practice, learn a few tricks of the trade, and hopefully bag a few kuai in profits. However, seeing as she thinks we are one and the same person, we thought it might try her sanity to show up together with our odd little proposal – and one should never mess with the sanity of the woman who provides one’s daily breakfast.… READ MORE | 22 Comments
Tags: batter, beijing, COOK, crisp, egg crepe, jianbing, recipe, sauce
In Chen Kaige’s Forever Enthralled, the biopic on the dan performer Mei Lanfang, Mei’s children are welcomed after they escape from wartime Beijing with a ribbon-wrapped cake. His patron greets them with, “There may not be jianbing guozi in Shanghai, but there are cakes!” What an awful trade-off. But you know it’s bad when you start collecting references to jianbing.
This is just to say that one tries to avoid the difficult matter at hand, or the batter of the jianbing.… READ MORE | 7 Comments
Tags: batter, corn flour, crepe, jianbing, mung bean flour
When devouring a jianbing, the biggest question usually is – just what is that crispy thing in the middle? In Tianjin guozi (果子) is used – usually translated as a Chinese doughnut (youtiao 油条) – but the youtiao recipes were very intimidating. Plus you need a large vat of oil to properly fry the doughnut, leaving youtiao up to the professionals, methinks.
Lucky for us, we quizzed our favorite jianbing vendor at the east gate of Tsinghua University and discovered jianbing crisps are much easier. She proudly displays a little handwritten sign on the side of her cart: “Self-fried fritter (zizha baocui 自 炸薄脆).” How does one create a fritter? Her answer: she goes to a wonton wrapper vendor, who cuts extra-large wonton skins for her. She heats up super-hot oil then lightly drops the wrapper on the oil (“就烫一下”), whereupon it bursts into this lovely, airy confection.… READ MORE | 12 Comments
Tags: beijing, COOK, egg crepe, jianbing, recipe, street food, wonton
How many jianbing photos does a blog need, really?
We think it’s important that the unabated love affair with jianbing on Beijing Haochi continues with these photos from a vendor located off the corner of Jiaodaokou Dajie and Gulou Dajie. She makes her jianbing with exceptional loving care. There’s no slopping here, no hurry, no pressure because of customers lined up during rush hour, just the smooth and practiced caress of jianbing batter over the crepe pan; broad swathes of evenly painted sauces; the use of one.and.a.half crispy fried wonton skins, ending up in one of the best jianbing we have eaten in Beijing.… READ MORE | 19 Comments
Tags: beijing, chili, COOK, hoisin, recipe, sauces, street food
Tianjin is the birthplace of jianbing, but here in Beijing there is no shortage of this street food. In researching how to make our own version of this street snack, we are shamelessly eating jianbing as we see fit (which is often).
This stand outside the Wukesong Photographic Equipment Center appealed because 1) this Beijing variation was fragrant with toasted black sesame seeds sprinkled on top, and 2) they were enormous. For 2.3RMB (40 cents) we got this one-pounder, two-egg jianbing monster that pretty much served as breakfast, lunch, and at least half of dinner.
Here is the step-by-step birthing of a jianbing.
1. A crepe-like batter is spread over a… READ MORE | 13 Comments
Tags: beijing, crepe, egg, food, jianbing, PREP, street food, wukesong
The first step to making a good bowl of biangbiang mian, is, of course, making some good mian. At the Shaanxi restaurants we visited, the noodles were hand-pulled right before cooking, and the belt-strap wide chewy noodles of charmingly uneven thickness is a big part of what makes this dish so enjoyable. Therefore, we took a shot at making our own hand-pulled noodles. We pulled together a recipe from a number of sources (we are indebted to advice from eGullet; a recipe for Kazahk noodles by Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid from the book, Beyond the Great Wall, available online here; and this fantastic post from a Chinese blog).
Tags: biangbiang mian, COOK, hand-pulled, noodles, recipe, youpo chemian
