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This month we were selected to partake in Foodbuzz’s 24,24,24 to host our unique Chinese New Year meal. As you may know, Chinese New Year was actually on Feb 14 but we decided to have a belated celebration today

Drinks by our lovely Barkeep Victoria!:

Sex on the Beach with Vodka, Peach Schnapps, Cranberry juice, Grapefruit juice

Arizona Sunrise with Tequila, Grenadine, Orange juice, Lime juice

Vodka Punch with Vodka, Peach Schnapps, Grapefruit juice, Lime juice, and Grenadine

Caribbean Dream with Rum, Orange juice, Peach Schnapps, Grenadine

Menu:

Pork and chive dumplings with Sriracha and soy-vinegar dipping sauce

Lu Niu Rou (Braised Beef Shank) and Peking Duck served with Steamed buns and hoisin sauce, julienned carrots, scallions, and cucumber

White-cut Chicken with garlic soy dipping sauce

Hui Guo Rou (Double-Cooked Pork) with leeks, peppers, and pork belly

Longevity noodles with Lu Niu Rou beef broth, cilantro, and scallion

Cantonese steamed Fish with  shiitake mushrooms, ginger, cilantro, and scallion

Home-made Green Tea Ice Cream by skrockadille (sabra)

Jing Dui (Fried Sesame Balls with Chocolate)

Here’s how the madness went down:

• The days before: made the Steamed Buns, Green Tea Ice Cream, White-cut Chicken, and Lu Niu Rou.
• Night before: bought the Peking Duck and anything we forgot!, soaked the shiitakes, cooked and sliced pork belly
• The morning of: Sliced the meats and veggies for the buns, formed the Jing Dui balls, made the whole Cantonese fish for display (no eating this one!)
• Appetizers: Steamed the buns, pan-fried the dumplings
• Entree: made the Hui Guo Rou, cooked the noodles, cooked the individual portions of Cantonese fish
• Desserts: fried the Jing Dui, served the Green Tea ice cream
• (we didn’t end up making the Buddha’s Delight or the Stir-fry Snow Pea greens but who eats veggies anyway )

We had a blast making all of these dishes and we thank everyone who supported us! Also thanks to Foodbuzz for sponsoring this fantastic meal!

Related posts:

1. Hui Guo Rou
2. Sichuan Pavilion
3. Steamed Buns

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This is the last of the recent recipe blitz. Amanda and I made these steamed buns as an alternative to the traditional peking duck wrappers. I had been to a couple Sichuan restaurants where they served the duck with the same garnishes as Peking duck, but offer a steamed bun instead. It’s a little easier to construct and eat and I like the doughy texture of the bun.  I wasn’t able to get my mom’s recipe and used this recipe from about.com instead
Ingredients:

• 1 package dried yeast
• 1 cup lukewarm water
• 4 1/2 cup flour
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 2 tbsp oil
• 1/2 cup boiling water

Directions:

1. Dissolve the yeast in the water and then add one cup of flour.
2. Mix thoroughly and cover the mixture with cloth.  Let sit for one hour.
3. Mix sugar and oil with 1/2 cup boiling water and let sit until lukewarm.
4. Add the oil and sugar mixture to the yeast mixture and then add the rest of the flour.
5. Knead the dough lightly on a floured surface and place in a large greased bowl.
6. Cover the dough with a damp cloth and let rise for two hours.
7. Divide the dough into two portions and knead each portion until you get a more firm ball of dough.
8. Roll each portion to a log about 12 inches long and 2 inches wide.
9. Cut each log into twelve sections

At this point, my mom actually stops and just steams the sections.  However, for our purposes, we went a bit further and followed the remaining instructions on the recipe.  Whichever method you choose, place the buns in a steamer and cover with a damp cloth and allow it to rise for thirty minutes.  Place the steamer over boiling water and steam for ten minutes.

Related posts:

1. Margherita and Sausage Pizzas
2. Pesto Chicken Calzones
3. Home Made Biscuits

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This is another one of those recipes that I haven’t had in quite a while.  This dish, like the White Cut Chicken, is also a cold dish and can be served with a dipping sauce.  The beef shank in contrast is pretty flavorful and can be served by itself.

Ingredients:

• 3lb of beef shank (in this case about five pieces from the Chinatown meat market)
• 1 cup dark soy sauce
• 2 cups water
• 3 tsp Sichuan peppercorn
• 8 star anises
• 4 tsp cooking wine
• 3 tbsp sugar
• 8 slices of ginger

Directions:

1. Bring a large pot of water to a boil.
2. Add the beef shanks and cook for five minutes.
3. Remove the beef shank and run under cold water.  Discard the flash boiling water.
4. In the same pot, add all the remaning ingredients.
5. Bring the mixture to a boil and add the beef shanks.
6. Cook at high heat for about five minutes and reduce the heat to a simmer.
7. Simmer the shanks for three hours, turning every half hour.
8. Remove the shanks and allow to cool.  I usually put them in the refrigerator for at least a night.
9. Slice the beef into very thin slices.

And that’s it!  I find that the meat is salty enough that it doesn’t require any additional dipping sauce.  If desired though, you can serve with always fitting soy sauce/vinegar mixture.

Related posts:

1. White Cut Chicken
2. Hui Guo Rou
3. Yang Rou Tang (Lamb Soup)

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I had actually forgotten about this chicken recipe because I haven’t had it in so long.  The chicken is poached in water with a bit of salt and ginger for flavoring.  The resulting meat by itself would be considered under seasoned so it is often served with a very flavorful dipping sauce on the side.

This recipe doesn’t really require anything extravagant in terms of ingredients.  Amanda and I picked up a 4-5lb boiler chicken from Costco and the rest of the ingredients we had lying around the house already.

Ingredients:

• 4-5lb boiler chicken
• 2 tsp of salt
• 4 cloves of garlic
• 5 pieces of ginger
• 4 quarts of water

Directions:

1. Rub the chicken with some salt and then rinse with cold water.  Set the chicken aside to dry.
2. In a large pot, put the water, salt, ginger, and garlic.  The ginger should be cut into about 1″ pieces.  Bring the water to a boil over high heat.
3. Add the chicken and return to a boil.  If the chicken isn’t completely submerged, add more water.
4. Once the water is boiling, turn off the heat and cover the pot with a lid for twenty minutes.
5. Return the water to a boil and cook until the chicken is fully cooked (170°F).
6. Remove the chicken from the pot and cool in fridge overnight.
7. Cut the chicken and serve!

The dipping sauce can be to your liking.  I’ve had some a sauce at a restaurant that was some sort of mixture of oil, salt, and onions but my preference is a sauce that my mom serves with the chicken.  It is mainly soy sauce and vinegar with a generous amount of diced garlic.  The sauce provides a saltiness and also a spicy kick from the garlic and goes very well with the chicken.

Related posts:

1. Lu Niu Rou (Braised Beef Shank)
2. Yang Rou Tang (Lamb Soup)
3. Chinese Chicken and Cabbage Soup

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Jacques Torres

We saw this on Foodnetwork’s “The Best Thing I Ever Ate: Wake Up Call,” and all I can remember was a really-really-ridiculously-good-looking hot chocolate. That was Jacques Torres’ Wicked Hot Chocolate: rich, chocolatey, unctuous, and warmingly spicy. Their cookies are also not to be messed with and only $2.50 each! Rob also splurged on a huge box of assorted chocolates: truffles, dark chocolate nut bark, pistachio chocolate bars, chocolate Cheerios and pretzels, and hot chocolate. With any luck this will last us until next week…hah.

Zabar’s

(Ok so not chocolate-centric, but we had to assuage our chocolate-rush with something salty.) Enter Zabar’s: a bakery slash cheese shop slash deli counter that always packed with old Jewish people. We went straight for the barrels of olives on the left, got some Spanish (martini) olives stuffed with pimento and assorted Greek olives, some Camembert and a crusty baguette, and feasted. Next time, I think we’ll try the Australian Cheddar…

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Neo Sushi

This place is two blocks from Zabar’s and takes restaurant.com coupons, but even with the coupon this place is expensive. $4.50 per piece of Spicy Salmon or Tuna, $5.50 per Eel, and rolls (8 pieces) range from $19-25. Everything was tasty and pretty but I still prefer my mondo Salmon Skin hand rolls from Yuka.

Levain Bakery

Back to the chocolate! After we had our sushi, we stopped into this place after reading rave reviews on Yelp about their Double Chocolate Chip cookie. So we got two of them, $4 each. They’re huge, have a wonderful crunchy exterior yet soft brownie inside chock full of rich chocolate chunks. Tall glass of milk is necessary. Can’t wait to come back here to try the Double Chocolate Chip Walnut!

The next day…

Gimme! Coffee

We’ve known about Gimme! since our days at Cornell, when they were in a humble silver trailer on the Ag Quad, and everyone who works here lives and breathes coffee. They’ve printed a freakin Barista Manual for training their Baristas! Try everything here once but I’m a fan of the Mocha (pictured above) Ya know it’s a good Mocha if you don’t need no stinkin’ sugar

Colicchio & Sons

For our grand finale, we headed to Tom Colicchio’s new restaurant Colicchio & Sons, previously Craftsteak. Ate at the Tap Room which has slightly cheaper entrees than the Dining Room and reservations aren’t necessary. We had the Ricotta with Root Vegetables and Truffle honey dish – creamy ricotta with delicately glazed root veggies like these little white gems called tokyo turnips that explode in your mouth. Rob’s Skirt Steak with Chimichurri was a perfectly cooked hunk of beefy goodness. My Baked Rigatoni with Duck was hot n’ tasty but the duck was slightly mushy. The Banana-Pecan Upside-down Cake had salty-sweet rum caramel, warm cake, and cold Banana sorbet and Malted Milk ice cream. The Coconut cream doughnuts were completely sugar-dusted (not a bad thing) and the limequat marmalade was nice and tart.

Newsflash! You’re looking at February’s hottest new Foodbuzz 24,24,24 Participant   What happens is every month Foodbuzz Featured Publisher bloggers have a chance to win $250 to create a unique blog-worthy meal. They only select 24 of these proposals a month, so we are really grateful that we were chosen. So come back on February 28 to witness our proposal: Chinese New Year Feast. You don’t wanna miss it!

Related posts:

1. Ricotta Cheesecake

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If I’m at a Sichuan restaurant, I always have to get their hui guo rou, or double cooked pork.  This is another dish that I picked up from my parents while I was home for break.  The main star of this dish is pork belly, which is first boiled in water until cooked, and then cut into slices and refried with vegetables, hence the “double cooked”.  The pork belly is usually accompanied with peppers and leeks.  Another must have is Lao Gan Ma hot sauce.  I’ve started using this in all my spicy dishes and it definitely adds more flavor and more heat than the typical chili sauce that I use.

Ingredients:

• One slab of pork belly (about 1.5lbs)
• One leek stalk
• Three peppers
• Four cloves of garlic
• Ginger
• Salt
• Lao Gan Ma hot sauce

The first part of this recipe is preparing the pork belly.  I essentially follow the same initial steps for the Yang Rou Tang.

1. Bring a pot of water to a boil, enough to entirely submerge the meat.
2. When the water is boiling, put the meat inside and wait until the water starts to boil again.
3. This time, when the water comes to a boil, add a tbsp of salt and a generous amount of ginger (I usually put in five 1/4″ slices in the water)
4. Simmer the pork belly for an hour.
5. Remove the pork belly from the water and let it cool to a point where it’s easy to handle.  The stock from this process can be saved for soups.
6. Remove the meat from the bone and slice into matchbox size slivers.
7. Heat two tbsp of oil in a wok and add the pork.
8. Stir fry until the meat is nice and browned.

Now to put everything together!

1. Heat a tbsp of oil in a wok on high heat
2. Add the ginger and the garlic and stir fry until fragrant.
3. Add the pepper and a tbsp of salt and stir fry for a minute
4. Add the pork belly to the pot and stir fry for a minute.
5. Add the leeks to the pot and give a quick stir to incorporate it with the rest of the ingredients.
6. Add two tbsp of Lao Gan Ma hot sauce (or more if you like things more spicy )
7. Stir fry for another five minutes and you’re good to go!

For people who are slightly more health conscious, you can use a less fatty cut of pork.  When my parents made it, they actually used lean pork butt and it taste fine too.

Related posts:

1. Mapo Tofu
2. Foodbuzz 24, 24, 24: Chinese New Year
3. Yang Rou Tang (Lamb Soup)

One of the perks of being part of the online foodie community is getting to try new food products for free! A while back we won a Butter Bell Crock from the Foodie Blogroll, which I have yet to load up with butter and begin using. This crock stores butter at room temperature and if you replace the water every 3 days, you’ve got spreadable butter that keeps fresh for days.

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If I was on the ball, I would’ve loaded this baby up long before I made this ridiculously good chocolate chip banana nut bread, saving me the time of waiting for my butter to soften.

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And now as part of the Foodbuzz Tastemaker Program, we received a box of Special K Low Fat Granola and a box of Special K Strawberry Fruit Crisps. We’re pondering what to create with these goodies, although the Fruit Crisps are kinda like diet pop-tarts so we’ll just eat those straight up. For the granola, maybe a fruit & yogurt parfait with layers of granola? Perhaps chocolate granola raisin crumble? If you’ve got any ideas, drop us a comment!

Related posts:

1. Chocolate Candy Apples

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When I went home for the holidays, I made sure to grab as many family recipes as possible.  This is a recipe for stewed lamb that actually originated with my grandpa.  What I like most about this recipe is the versatility.  The starting procedure will get you a delicious stewed lamb and from there you can make four different dishes simply by altering what you put into it.  I’ll try to break this recipe into sections so it’s a little easier to follow.

Ingredients:

• 2lb of lamb meat, preferably lean
• Ginger
• Salt

Directions:

1. If you got the lamb in a big hunk, cut it down into smaller chunks so it’ll cook through faster.
2. Bring a large pot of water to a boil over high heat.
3. Place the lamb meat in the pot and cook until the water starts boiling again.
4. Remove the lamb meat and water from the pot.  You could save the broth from this procedure if you’d like, but you’ll probably need to strain or scrape off some the blood particles.
5. Rinse the lamb meat to remove any blood on the meat.
6. Return the lamb to the pot and cover with just enough water to cover the meat.
7. Add six or seven slices of ginger.
8. Turn the heat to high and wait for the water to reach a boil.
9. Add a tablespoon of salt and reduce the heat to a simmer.
10. Cook until the meat is tender, about an hour.
11. Remove the meat from the pot and cut into bite sized pieces.
12. Save the broth!  This will be used as a base for the remainder of the recipes.

What you do from here just depends on what you’re in the mood for!  If the picture at the beginning of the entry caught your eye, here’s what you do:

(note, there are tomatoes in the picture but I left them out because the original recipes does not call for them)

Ingredients:

• Half an onion cut into strips
• Half a carrot, sliced
• Parsley
• 2-3 cloves of garlic
• Scallion, rough cut

Directions:

1. Add the onion, garlic, and scallions to a stock pot with about half a tablespoon of oil and cook over high heat until fragrant
2. Add carrots and cook for two minutes
3. Add the lamb meat that you’ve already cooked
4. Add about a tablespoon of soy sauce
5. Add the stock from the previous section until the contents of the pot are mostly covered.
6. Cook with lid for five minutes.
7. Garnish the soup with parsley, serve, and enjoy!

Alternatively, you can add noodles and turn the dish into a noodle soup.  The alternative that my mom does, which makes a much lighter soup, is to just add cooked noodles to the lamb broth from the lamb meat preparation.  You can add garnishes like parsley and little bits of lamb and season with some pepper and a little bit of soy sauce to taste.

Another alternative to the recipe uses almost identical steps to the soup recipe listed above.  In this variation, my mom adds two tablespoons of dark soy sauce and only one soup ladle full of soup.  This makes a dish that’s less soupy and more of a dish that can be served as a main course.

Still looking for more?  Well, if you have extra broth, here’s a super simple soup that you can whip up.  Add vinegar and hot sauce (to taste) in a bowl with the lamb broth.  Garnish with scallions and you’ve got an ultra simple and ultra clean soup.

Related posts:

1. Pork Meatball Soup
2. Mung Bean Soup
3. Chinese Chicken and Cabbage Soup

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In a departure from our usual NYC venue reviews, this review is for a restaurant from our hometown in Rockville, Maryland. For those of you familiar with the area, this restaurant is located in the Rockville Town Center close to Bob’s Noodle 66, one of our favorite Chinese restaurants. Sichuan Pavilion specializes in Sichuan cuisine (obviously) which is a style of chinese cooking involving lots of garlic, peppercorns, and chili peppers. And here’s a disclaimer: my dad and I love melt-your-face-off spicyness so when I say its spicy I mean really spicy.

The restaurant had a nice ambiance. A little small, as it gets crowded in the waiting area during the dinner rush. One side has enough tables to host large parties while the other is lined with a few booths and intimate two person tables. The booth side also has a counter for take out orders – definitely a nice option if you’re in a rush.

The first dish that we got, 夫妻肺片 (pinyin: fū qī fèi piàn), is a staple dish at Sichuan restaurants and is my family’s favorite starter dish. On the menu, it’s called “Beef Tendon & Tripe w/ Spicy Sauce”: chilled thinly sliced beef tendon and tripe served in a bowl of fiery, mouth-numbing sauce. Thankfully it’s served cold; it would be pure agony to eat it served hot.

Another classic Sichuan dish that we got is 回锅肉(pinyin: húi gūo ròu). The dish is on the menu as “Double Cooked Pork w/ Crispy Bread”: pork belly that is first cooked in boiling water then stir-fried with peppers and scallions, hence double cooked, served with crispy tortilla-like pancakes. The dish has very bold flavors and may be too salty for some. Unfortunately, the version served here was a bit too oily and fatty.

The 樟茶鸭( pinyin: zhāng chá yā), or “Smoked Duck” is a must-have if you’re a fan of Peking Duck or any duck dish. The smoked duck is sliced thin Peking Duck style then lightly battered and deep fried (excessively delicious). It’s served with steamed buns instead of the wraps but most of the garnishes are the same. The bun was cloyingly sweet and detracted from the tasty duck but otherwise this was a very nice dish.

The final dish we had was 涼粉豆瓣鱼 (pinyin: liáng fěn dòu bàn yú) or “Whole Fish and Bean Jelly in Hot Sichuan Sauce”: whole tilapia cooked in a very thick and savory soy based sauce. I wasn’t impressed with the bean jelly cubes which had a weird creamy and sticky texture and lacked taste. The fish itself was slightly over cooked so it was a little tough and rubbery.

Overall, I was pleased with my experience at Sichuan Pavilion and felt that it delivered a good sampling of Sichuan cuisine. The quality of some dishes was a little lacking and now I know which dishes to avoid next time around. I’ve had better Sichuan food in the area but Sichuan Pavilion is closer and more convenient. Still if you’re in the Rockville area and have a craving for the spicy stuff, Sichuan Pavilion should be one of your top choices.

Related posts:

1. Hui Guo Rou
2. Foodbuzz 24, 24, 24: Chinese New Year
3. Bob’s 66

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