crispy Tag

CRUSTY RADISH DUMPLINGS FOR MY DUMPLING

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MY DUMPLING COMES WITH AN EXTRA DISK OF SALTY, CRACKLING, DRAMATIC BUT ALSO DELICATE PERSONALITY.  IT MIGHT NOT BE FOR EVERYONE WHO LIKE SMOOTH RIDES, BUT IT’S MY DUMPLING AND I LIKE IT EXACTLY THE WAY IT IS.

 

I’ve always liked western funerals.

Or to be more specific, I’ve always liked the meal that takes place afterwards.  The kind of… you’re-dead-let’s-eat attitude, the striving positivity in what I would like to call, “party-grieving”.  Call this meal a “repast” or whatever, but as far as I’m concerned, when a large group of friends gathers and gets drunk plus smothered in casseroles, even if it was after an eternal farewell and no lady’s mascara was fully intact, hey, it’s a party.  So yeah.  I think it’s nice.  I think it’s dignifying.  When I have my funeral, I’m going to make everyone listen to Gaga’s “(now you really) can’t read my, can’t read my poker face”, and like it or not, eat sardine casseroles.  So a few weeks ago, when the reality of what was going to happen started to settle in, I pressed the soft paws of my fur-son Dumpling against my wet face and said… hey, don’t you worry, mommy’s gonna throw you the best party ever.

Except that… ironically, Dumpling hated parties.  If he had known about this mass “trespassing” taking place under his roof, he would’ve taken out his shotguns and barked everyone off of his lawn.  Don’t take it personally.  That was just Dumpling, my sociopathic dog who was really more of a human that hated dogs, and would love nothing more than to remove a harmless chunk of meat from your annoying ankles, no hard feelings.  Chances are, if you knew him, you wouldn’t have liked him much.  In fact, more than being anti-social, he was also a self-absorbed, snobbish, toy-despising and politically incorrect racist…  Basically, an asshole.

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THIN AND CHEWY DATES AND RUM COOKIES

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DENSE AND CHEWY AND BORDERLINE STICKY

Sometimes, I feel, if a recipe could talk… it wouldn’t be thanking me for lovingly bringing it into this world, nor telling me how it did at school today over a cup of hot cocoa, nor about its hopes and dreams as we laugh and cry together in the kitchen at the end of a sun-drenched afternoon…  Sometimes, I feel, if a recipe could talk, first and foremost, it would probably just gently lean into my ears, and the three little words it whispers with steady breath would sound something like…  Just.  Shut up.

See, it’s not that my recipes are mean, because I assure you that I raised them all with decent manners.  But sometimes I have to admit that they’ve got a point.  Let’s take this instance as an example, shall we?  Cookies.  Very fast, very easy, zero electronic machinery needed.  Tinted with ground allspice and cardamon, and filled with minced rum-soaked dates.  If you like crispy-on-the-bottom-and-edges, but dense-and-chewy-and-borderline-sticky kind of cookies, I don’t know what else the recipe would want me to say except… make it now.

So.  Make it now.

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corn and seaweed tempura popper

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Before talking corny, you know how sometimes when parents, despite their best intentions no doubt, can suffocate us with all their unnecessary concerns followed by… uh… understandably agitating gestures?  God don’t you just hate that? So freaking un-cool is what it is!  And just to make it perfectly clear before I confess anything, I am still with you.  You know, “Team Kids”.  But yesterday… I think I may have done exactly that… ok and then some.

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Loser double fennel potstickers

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Being competitive has never been part of my persona.  It isn’t one of the virtues of being a quitter, which I like to use as the reason I was never good at sports and why until this very day, I still cannot technically swim (but I float professionally).   It’s not that I’m not into winning but just that I don’t like to be proven losing.  I’m a walking cliche.  But recently I have been braving the turbulent water for the love of my new favorite website and the recipe contest they throw every two weeks.

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Salty Crispy Poppers

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Once upon a time in a land far far away, there lived a young girl.

Everyday after school, she took the same road home, wearing her same brown shoes, humming the same little song.  One afternoon just like the day before, she passed by the usual food stall on the way, but felt unusually hungry.  She realized that she forgot to eat lunch because she was probably too busy chasing boys during lunch break.  Remembering what her mother had always warned her about the forbidden street snack, she reached for the changes in her pocket and hesitated.  An old, wrinkly lady behind a huge wok of boiling grease smiled at her and said, “Hi there, little one.  Would you like to have some Salty-crispy chicken?  Oh they are awfully delicious.”

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