Happy Birthday to Ariel and a happy Chinese New Year! With last year's cake being such a success, I made the same recipe again. Ariel came through with Mark Bittman's chocolate frosting as I was working on dinner. During dinner, Ariel said that 31 sounds old, but she feels young. I tried writing this on the cake, with some success, though I'm still working on my technique.
With Ariel's birthday falling on Chinese New Year, we decided to have a few friends over for a Chinese dinner. This featured a few different dishes that have appeared on No Free Lunch. We started with chive pancakes, made with Chinese garlic chives. I rolled them out ahead of time, and stored them in a gallon bag with parchment paper between them.
The main dinner consisted of four dishes, shown in the photo above. First, eggplant Sichuan style, which is one of Ariel's favorites, and one I don't make often enough. Second, stir-fried rice cakes ("tongue depressors"), a Shanghainese classic for Chinese New Year. I made them with Chinese black mushrooms instead of pork. Third, stir-fried Shanghai bok choy with garlic, one of my favorite Chinese vegetables. Finally, we had hongshao ("red cooked") pork belly. This is a braised pork belly dish which Ariel and I both love. This particular recipe, from the Woks of Life, was supposedly Chairman Mao's favorite. I have been experimenting with different pork belly recipes recently, and I think this was my best yet. This will be a work in progress, but will surely show up on the blog eventually.
It was quite an undertaking to bring this all together, but it was a big success. While I was preparing the meal, I couldn't help but think about all the wonderful Chinese lunches and dinners we had around this table while it sat in my grandparents' house. We even used a few of their serving pieces. I hope this will be the first of many.
I usually take the birthday special as an opportunity to review the last year. In terms of the blog, I didn't post very many recipes this year, but the ones I did really reflect the way I am cooking these days amid a busy schedule. There's something to be said about simple braises that don't require actively watching the pot. Of course, 2019 was a very big year for us, with the wedding in July and our honeymoon in San Diego. I have a few more posts planned on that, which should be out soon. This year, I hope to get back to more frequent blog posts. Last night's dinner has gotten me thinking about diving back into Peimei's recipes, and getting back to the Chinese roots of No Free Lunch. Cheers to a great 2020. Gan bei!
It was quite an undertaking to bring this all together, but it was a big success. While I was preparing the meal, I couldn't help but think about all the wonderful Chinese lunches and dinners we had around this table while it sat in my grandparents' house. We even used a few of their serving pieces. I hope this will be the first of many.
I usually take the birthday special as an opportunity to review the last year. In terms of the blog, I didn't post very many recipes this year, but the ones I did really reflect the way I am cooking these days amid a busy schedule. There's something to be said about simple braises that don't require actively watching the pot. Of course, 2019 was a very big year for us, with the wedding in July and our honeymoon in San Diego. I have a few more posts planned on that, which should be out soon. This year, I hope to get back to more frequent blog posts. Last night's dinner has gotten me thinking about diving back into Peimei's recipes, and getting back to the Chinese roots of No Free Lunch. Cheers to a great 2020. Gan bei!
