In the chaotic kitchen of a recipe developer, you get a food blog called FoodMayhem.
I'm Jessica, an Asian-American, born and raised in NYC, and that's Lon, my Jewish, white husband. While professionally trained as a French culinary- and pastry chef, many of FoodMayhem recipes are my attempt to preserve and share authentic Chinese and Taiwanese recipes learned from my mom. We don't eat Chinese food every day, so you'll get a little bit of anything we find delicious enough to share: from our Eastern European side; recipes and techniques learned from my restaurant days; restaurant reviews, food travel tips; and a few other juicy bits along the way. Welcome to FoodMayhem!
There are so many versions of fried rice. I’m not even going to try and guess how many there are. Yet, what makes it a fried rice? My mom once told me that the very basic Chinese version is just scallion, egg, and rice. That’s all you need for fried rice and any other additions are your choice.
When I was in Taiwan (a long long time ago), I’d start speaking to a vendor, and they’d immediately say, “ABC”, nod, and go on with their answer to whatever my question was. It was a little odd that everyone wanted to clearly acknowledge and label me as an American Born Chinese. It was obvious from my accent, or long hair (school girls are not allowed to have hair past shoulder length), or being XXL by their standards (which is a size 2 in the US).
One of my fantasies is to become a master dim sum chef. One day, I will move to Hong Kong and do a traditional 8 year apprenticeship, learning every type of dough, every way to fold a dumpling, and become of master of teas as well. One day…right after I become a master sushi chef.
When I saw Luo Bo Gao (Daikon Radish Cakes), a dim sum classic, on Asian Dumpling Tips ( a wonderful site by cookbook author Andrea Nguyen), I was happily surprised by how easy the recipe looked. It seemed like the perfect starter dish to learning dim sum.
