Orange Beef
Hsiao-Ching Chou
This dish is a popular one in Chinese restaurants. It's often deep fried and drenched in a goopy sauce. It doesn't have to be. I use fresh orange peel instead, which results in a brighter flavor.
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Filtering by Tag: Chinese New Year
Recipes for Chinese New Year
Hsiao-Ching Chou
Chinese New Year Eve takes place on Feb. 7 this year. That's when I'll be gathered with my extended family around the dinner table for a feast
Read MoreHumble Can Be Spectacular
Hsiao-Ching Chou
Meatballs resonate for many cultures. For the Chinese, "lion's head meatballs" are giant pork meatballs braised with large leaves of Chinese cabbage. They're as giant as lion's heads and the cabbage represent the mane.
Read MoreAnticipating Chinese New Year
Hsiao-Ching Chou
Chinese New Year is my favorite holiday. Even though it doesn't take place until February 8, 2016, I'm thinking about it now because I'm trying to create a Chinese New Year class or event for Hot Stove Society.
Read MorePotsticker Class at Hot Stove Society
Hsiao-Ching Chou
UPDATE, FEB. 20, 2015: The class sold out in 24 hours! We hope to schedule another session, so stay tuned.
My mother and I will be teaching a potsticker class at Hot Stove Society on May 2. You can read about the class here. Making potstickers has always been a family affair. We hope you'll join us!
During her career as a food writer at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Hsiao-Ching shared many stories about learning how to make dumplings (boiled, steamed, potstickers) at her mother, Ellen’s, apron strings. Ellen would roll the wrappers and Hsiao-Ching would fill and pinch the dumplings. Over the years, they’ve made thousands of dumplings and even taken the show on the road, having taught together at food festivals and even on board a Holland America cruise. The family recipes have also been featured in the PBS documentary and companion cookbook 'The Meaning of Food.'
I love this photo from Chinese New Year 2014 of me, my mother and my daughter, Meilee, making dumplings.
A New Year's Life Journey
Hsiao-Ching Chou
The beginnings of lion's head meatball stew.
Back in 2010, I contributed an essay to Edible Portland about the meaning of Chinese New Year to me. I dug this up recently to share with a friend and wanted to post it here, too. I feel that it was the definitive piece about this particular aspect of my life journey. The eve of the Year of the Sheep (or Ram or Goat) is Feb. 19, 2015, so I offer this piece as a wish for a new year filled with good fortune.
Over the past decade of Chinese New Year celebrations, I've realized that the holiday has served as a milestone marker, a veritable growth chart of my evolution from a career girl to wife to a working mother of two. If hosting a feast was at first a way to gain friendship and stature, the wisdom of age focuses the lens on what has always been: Chinese New Year is a ultimately a time for family communion and reconciliation.
Hot pot
Chinese New Year Story on KPLU
Hsiao-Ching Chou
It was so fun to be interviewed by Ed Ronco and Martha Kang for this KPLU story about some of our family traditions for Chinese New Year. You can hear the sounds of cooking in my kitchen. I especially love the sounds of the wok.
You can listen to the audio below and read the accompanying post here.