Hong Kong has some of the best light desserts I’ve ever tasted. They also love to eat fruit –mangoes are very popular along with red bean and grass jelly. Here are two of the best dessert places we visited!
jQuery(“document”).ready(function(){jQuery(‘#ngg-gallery-54-423′).galleryView({panel_width:600,panel_height:400,frame_width:40,frame_height:40,transition_interval:0,overlay_color:‘#222′,overlay_text_color:‘white’,caption_text_color:‘#222′,background_color:‘transparent’,border:‘none’,nav_theme:‘dark’,easing:‘easeInOutQuad’});});So after a long hiatus (more like laziness),I finally got around to trying out another one of my mom’s dishes. This dish uses the leftover pork sparerib broth from our sweet and sour spare ribs recipe way back in September. So the following recipe is just for the meatballs in the soup. Veggies and other components are entirely up to you! We made this with some carrots and mushrooms we had lying in our fridge. Ingredients:0.5 lb lean ground pork 1 tsp salt 1.5 tsp soy sauce 1 tbsp minced ginger 4 diced scallions stalks (whites and greens separated) 1 large egg white 0.5 tbsp starch Pork stock 1/2 cup sliced white mushrooms 1/2 cup sliced carrots Directions:Mix first 7 ingredients minus the scallion whites in a large bowl and let sit. Add pork stock,scallion whites,mushrooms and carrots to a pot. Add water to taste if too salty. Cook the soup until the vegetables are tender. Shape the pork into small meatballs and add to soup. If the meat is too loose,add some more cornstarch. Simmer soup for 5-10 minutes on medium heat until meatballs are cooked through. And that’s it. My mom will usually drop the leftover egg yolk into the soup as well. Add it after you turn off the heat once the meatballs are done. This way,the yolk is still semi-soft when I serve the soup Last week I discovered this magazine Edible Queens on the counter in the visitor center in the Queens Botannical Garden. And lo and behold I see two of my favorite chefs on the cover,Eric Ripert and Anthony Bourdain! Rob and I are big fans of Bourdain’s “No Reservations”on television and Eric Ripert is,well,god of all things Seafood in Manhattan. Flushing is still a very daunting place to me (especially since I can’t speak Mandarin to save my life) but this article Feasting on Flushing was just the ticket. Walking down the stairs into the “shopping mall”was like entering a new world,full of little Asian-family kitchens. It was hot and steamy but the smells were unbelievable. Even the sounds of meat being cleaved,vegetables sizzling,fresh noodles being smacked and formed could bring tears to many an Asian’s eyes. We ordered as much as we could carry,which included the jia cai he zi (chive pies),chu jiao (pig’s feet),zi ran chao yang (lamb burger),and liang pi (cold skin noodles). The chive pies ($1.50) were exactly how Rob’s mother makes them –huge,bursting with chives,studded with dried shrimp and scrambled egg. The pig’s feet were delicious and a great deal ($5 for 2 orders). The lamb burger ($2.50) was a tasty surprise,as it tasted of mexican chili spices. The liang pi ($3.75) won this round:the sauce was fantastic and had a nice little kick to it. And even still,there are easily a hundred more dishes available in this place! So many dishes to try…so little time. But we will be back hungry for more =) jQuery(“document”).ready(function(){jQuery(‘#ngg-gallery-39-283′).galleryView({panel_width:600,panel_height:400,frame_width:40,frame_height:40,transition_interval:0,overlay_color:‘#222′,overlay_text_color:‘white’,caption_text_color:‘#222′,background_color:‘transparent’,border:‘none’,nav_theme:‘dark’,easing:‘easeInOutQuad’});});Or Tang Cu Pai Gu as I call them. Everything up until now has been relatively simple or straight forward so I was particularly happy with the way this turned out. It’s slightly more complicated so I’ll break it down into different parts. Spare Ribs Ingredients:2 lbs spare ribs 5 tbsp starch 1 tbsp flour Directions:Place the spare ribs in a large pot with water and bring to a boil. Strain the spare ribs and dump the water. This is mainly to get rid of all the blood. Put the spare ribs back into the pot and add enough water to cover the spare ribs. Add 1.5 tbsp salt. Cook for 30 minutes. While that’s cooking,prepare a mixture of the starch,the flour,and about 1/3 cup of water. When the spare ribs have finished cooking,strain them and set them aside. You can keep the stock left over from this. My mom usually stores it and uses it for a light soup. In a wok (or a frying pan works),heat some oil. If you’re using a wok,put in enough oil so that the spare ribs can be completely submerged. Dredge the spare ribs and quickly fry them for 3-4 minutes. If you’re using a frying pan or do not have enough oil to completely submerge,fry for two minutes on each side. Sweet and Sour sauce:Ingredients:4 tbsp sugar 4 tbsp vinegar 2 tbsp soy sauce 2 heaping tbsps of corn starch 6 tbsp of water No real directions,just mix it all up. Make sure there are no clumps of corn starch in the mixture. Putting it all together What’s nice about this recipe is that you can make the spare ribs in advance but wait until later to do this final step. Ingredients:0.5 tbsp minced ginger 1 clove minced garlic 2 chopped scallion stalks (diagonal cut) spare ribs sweet and sour sauce Directions:Heat up 2 tbsp of oil in a pan or wok. The leftover oil from before works fine,just pour out the excess oil. I usually put it in a small container and save it for later. When the oil is hot,add the ginger and the garlic. As soon as they get fragrant,add the spare ribs and cook for 1-2 minutes. This is just to warm up the spare ribs if they have been sitting for a while. Add the sweet and sour sauce. Add a little more water if the sauce starts to congeal too much. Add the scallion stalks when the spareribs are evenly coated. Cook for another 1-2 minutes. That’s “it”! This is easily my favorite dish. You can adjust the proportions of the sauce to fit your tastes. More sugar if you like things sweeter,more vinegar if you like things more sour. You can also add more starch if you’d like a more sticker sauce in the final dish. Enjoy!  |  | |
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