These smashed potatoes are inspired by my favorite stir-fried mala potatoes I get from the Sichuan restaurant near my house. Their version is crinkle-cut, but the seasoning here is the same and the shape is just as playful. Mala refers to a blend of primarily Sichuan peppercorns and spicy chilis, and lends its name to that buzzing, almost tingly sensation you get from eating Sichuan food. This spice mix also includes cumin seeds and white pepper to round out the heat with a little earthiness, turning these smashed potatoes into tingly taters.
Detroit’s Breakfast House & Grill (now the Hudson Café) was where I first experienced the textural contrast of pillowy waffle and crunchy fried chicken skin, and the sweet-and-salty harmony of juicy dark meat chicken and a slick of maple syrup. The pairing was so satisfying that I fell into a ritual of having it delivered every Sunday morning after a late night out. It wasn’t until many years later that I thought to try this dish in my own style using Hong Kong egg waffles (aka eggettes) and karaage (small bites of Japanese fried chicken). The combination— enhanced with the use of Szechuan peppercorns in the maple syrup and splashes of chili oil—became so popular that I was constantly encouraged to enter local fried chicken and waffle competitions (I never could bring myself to; I don’t really enjoy competitive cooking). I particularly like tearing up the waffle into little individual pieces, then taking a fork and stabbing into one of those pieces, then stabbing a piece of chicken, then stabbing another piece of waffle. You now have a tiny and perfect fried chicken and waffle sandwich that you can eat plain or dunk into a ramekin of warm Szechuan-spiced maple syrup. The waffles are best made in a Hong Kong–style waffle/eggette maker, which they sell online in varying levels of quality. I understand it’s a very specialized thing and of course you’re free to use whatever waffle maker you already have, but the experience won’t be quite the same without one. I’ve heard you can try to sub vanilla pudding mix for custard powder, but I’ve never tried it myself.
Char siu, the strips of barbecued roast pork with their signature crimson exterior, is a treasured Cantonese meat, and the most popular siu mei dish. Siu mei is a term that refers to the roasted meats popular in Hong Kong, but also commonly found in Chinatown windows around the world. Most city-dwelling Cantonese kids grew up eating siu mei—during my carnivorous youth, as my mother arrived home from the store, I would sidle up with my best good-daughter-face and charm a few slices of warm, juicy char siu and crispy pork crackling before dinnertime. In this recipe, eggplant is marinated, char siu style, in a fragrant, fruity barbecue sauce. Eggplant, a renowned carrier of flavor, greedily absorbs the sauce before it is roasted at high heat, emerging sweet and silky, imbued with lots of dark, caramelized notes. A note for gluten intolerant cooks: make sure your hoisin sauce is gluten-free or use the homemade version on page 151. This marinade is incredibly versatile and can be used to marinate and roast firm tofu and other vegetables in the exact same way. This is best eaten with rice, of course, but it’s also good stuffed into a crusty roll with cilantro, mint and salad greens, or used to make eggplant char siu bao (there’s a bao recipe in To Asia, With Love).
This is one of the most popular recipes of all time on my blog. Normally, a restaurant chef would deep-fry the eggplant and then cook it with the sauce in a large wok over extremely high heat to keep it glossy and crispy. To avoid all that hassle, I’m sharing my favorite method for preparing eggplant without deep-frying while still making it crispy. The eggplant is then finished in a savory, sticky sauce—just enough to coat the eggplant so that it won’t turn soggy.
BILL: My mom was a generous woman, known for giving out $20 red envelopes on Chinese New Year (this was the 1970s, when you could buy a loaf of bread for 25 cents!). So when she hosted her friends for mah-jong on weekends, true to form, she went all out, cooking a dinner as extravagant as a Chinese New Year meal. There would always be a baak chit gai (Cantonese for “white cut chicken”), a dish that amplifies chicken to its purest form. A poached chicken may not sound like much, but it’s Cantonese home cooking at its best, featuring silky meat (described as waat, meaning “slippery” in Cantonese) that gets dipped into a ginger-scallion oil. The quality of the chicken matters here, so buy the best you can find. We buy fresh Buddhist style chickens at our local Chinese market, which still have the head and feet on. A whole chicken sym- symbolizes family unity and prosperity, and because none of the skin has been torn or removed, the meat is protected from drying out during cooking.
FOR THE SHORTCUT DAN DAN SAUCE (makes 2¼cups sauce, enough for 18 servings):
Mapo tofu has been on the menu since back when Mission Chinese Food first popped up in San Francisco. Over the years, we’ve tweaked the recipe approximately one hundred times, and this vegan version is the best yet, not to mention the easiest for the home cook. What used to take days to make is ready in less than an hour.
Note: This recipe calls for doubanjiang, a coarse reddish paste of fermented soybeans, broad beans, and chilies common in Sichuan cooking. Look for “Pixian” on the label, which means it hails from a town in Sichuan province known for making the product.
The easiest way to cook tofu is to quickly blanch it, then season with salt and sesame oil and fold in a handful of finely chopped scallions or fresh herbs. This preparation, called liangban, is minimal and yet divinely tasty. My favorite version of this dish is with toon (xiangchun), a savory, onion-garlicky leaf common in southern China, and after some tinkering, I found that the combination of basil and garlic has a similar aroma that’s just as intoxicatingly fragrant, flecking the creamy tofu cubes like a pesto. I probably make this three or four times a week, it’s that good.
Gai mei bao is my favorite baked bun. There, I said it. I love a good pineapple bun as much as the next person, but I’m in the minority that enjoys a buttery, coconut-heavy cocktail bun a little more. Cocktail buns originally were created as a way for bakers to salvage day-old buns. The stale buns were ground into crumbs, then mixed with sugar and shredded coconut as a filling for fresh dough (like a“cocktail” of bakery leftovers). Nowadays, bakers make the filling fresh.
Ingredients: