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!
Strips of pork, salty preserved vegetables, and crisp fresh bamboo is a light and quick dish that I’ve often used when I have to make a fast dinner. Aside from the slicing, the dish stir-fries up quickly, so make sure everything is ready before you heat the wok. You can buy pork already cut into strips at Chinese supermarkets or you can cut your own from pork loin (if you want it to be very lean) or pork shoulder (if you want it to be fattier). Both will work in this dish. I usually cut my own and freeze in 8oz portions because that’s how much my recipes usually call for.
posted by jessica at 09:28 PM Comments Off on Preserved Vegetable with Pork Strips and Winter Bamboo Two WaysComments Off on Preserved Vegetable with Pork Strips and Winter Bamboo Two Ways
This is an amazing cornbread recipe! It’s super moist and crumbly, absolutely delicious, and vegan!
I usually think of baking as something I have to do ahead of time but I can whip this one up last minute. It takes a few minutes to mix and just 25 minutes to bake. There’s no bringing butter to room temperature since it’s vegan. I also regularly do this one in my toaster oven which preheats in about 5 minutes which cuts down on the pre-planning and thinking too. Start to finish, this recipe takes less than 40 minutes.
Eat it plain, with butter (or vegan butter), with chili, with pulled pork, any barbeque…it’s endless. Pro-tip I learned from my 7 year old: it’s so good crumbled into chili!
Just a quick pandemic back story on this recipe: Years ago, Lon’s mom made a vegan cornbread and Lon really loved it so we got the recipe and used it for years. During the pandemic, I ran out of baking powder so I converted the recipe to baking soda. I didn’t have silken tofu (in the original recipe) and tried it with firm and actually like it way more. The recipe calls for plain soy milk but in a pinch (which is like every day of this pandemic), I used whatever I had whether it was vanilla soy milk, sweetened or unsweetened. All of it worked well. Everyone always gobbled up the cornbread. So try it and let me know if you find another great variation!
Amazing Super Fast Vegan Cornbread
Ingredients –
1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup cornmeal
1/3 cup sugar
1 tsp. fine sea salt or table salt
3/4 teaspoon baking soda (preferably sifted)
1 cup plain soy milk
1/3 cup oil (vegetable, grapeseed, or avocado)
2 oz piece of tofu (firm tofu is best but silken, soft, or firm all work)
1 1/2 teaspoon lemon juice or white vinegar
Directions –
Combine dry ingredients in a bowl: flour, cornmeal, sugar, salt, and baking soda. Set aside.
Place soy milk, oil, tofu, and lemon juice (or vinegar) into a blender and run until smooth.
Make a well in the center of dry ingredients and the pour the wet mixture in. Stir together until combined. Pour into a greased 9” pie pan or greased 8″ square pan.
Bake at 400 degrees F for 25 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.
posted by jessica at 05:59 PM Comments Off on Amazing Super Fast Vegan CornbreadComments Off on Amazing Super Fast Vegan Cornbread
Like everyone else during this pandemic, I’ve been baking bread. After months of it, I’m becoming pretty confident in my bread baking and that’s a plus I’ll always take away with me. I’ve been tweaking recipes a lot and thinking about them more which made me realize how robotic I was at times, pre-pandemic. Everything was rush rush rush…on autopilot. I had stopped blogging for a few years and stopped really connecting to the process. I didn’t see that before, but looking back, I do now.
Full-time blogging isn’t in the cards, but when there’s something really worth sharing, I’m going to try to slow down and take the time to share it. I’m happy to share this one. Everyone in this house thinks these pull-apart buns are amazing. I might even say it’s one of Lon’s favorite breads now. They are super soft and fluffy, making them perfect as a dinner roll or to make breakfast sandwiches. My absolute favorite use for this bun though is for a pulled pork slider. (Ironic, given it being a vegan recipe.)
This is also a relatively quick bread recipe. It’s not one where you need to be home all day, making this is a keeper. Eventually we’ll all start leaving the house regularly again, right?!?
Vegan Pull-Apart Buns
~makes 16 small buns
4 cups all-purpose flour, divided
2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon fine sea salt (table salt if you don’t have)
1 1/2 tablespoons rapid rise yeast
1 cup unsweetened almond milk
1/2 cup water
1/4 cup vegan butter + extra for topping
1/2 cup almond flour
Instructions-
Mix 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour with sugar, salt, and yeast in a large bowl. Set aside.
In a microwave safe bowl, combine almond milk, water, and vegan butter. Microwave until just warm (110-120 degrees F).
Whisk the almond milk mixture into the flour mixture and beat for 2 minutes. Scrape down sides if necessary.
Add 1/2 cup of flour and beat for another 2 minutes.
Mix the remaining flour and almond flour in with a wooden spoon. When all of the flour/almond flour has been incorporated, knead until it’s a smooth elastic dough, about 7-10 minutes. You can dust your hands and bowl with extra flour if it’s too sticky. Cover with a kitchen towel and rest for 10 minutes.
On a lightly floured cutting board, divide the dough into 16 pieces. Roll each into a ball and place in a 9×13 baking pan. Cover with plastic wrap and rest in a warm place until doubled in size, about 30 – 45 minutes
Meanwhile, preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
When ready, brush some melted vegan butter on the tops and bake until golden and fluffy, about 18 – 20 minutes. (Please excuse the annoying news in the background of the video.)
posted by jessica at 04:50 PM Comments Off on Vegan Pull-Apart BunsComments Off on Vegan Pull-Apart Buns
At the risk of making this sound like a joke, Chinese people will “red cook” anything. The thing is I’m serious. Whether it’s pork, beef, squid, tofu, or eggs, we can red cook it. On a basic level, that means cooking in a mix of soy sauce and a sweetener (sugar, rock candy, or honey). The recipes vary a little depending on what you are cooking. Sometimes you add ginger, garlic, scallions, orange peel, cilantro, chilies, or a combination of those things. While the ingredient list is so similar, many of these Red Cooked dishes come out tasting very different. (Try Red Cooked Pork Belly and Cuttlefish or Red Cooked Tee Pong.) Right now, let’s talk Red Cooked Fish. It is a classic you’ll find in the home of most Chinese families. It’s also commonly sold at “real” Chinese restaurants. It’s a must know recipe!
Ramps are in season and though they are not traditionally found in Chinese food, they make perfect sense in Chinese food. I think of ramps as sweeter, fatter, less pungent Chinese chives. I would bet you could successfully substitute ramps for any recipe that called for Chinese chives. Next, I want to do some dumplings with ramps!
Last week, I was in a rush to make dinner. I knew I had some fresh squid and ramps in the fridge and wanted to make something with Chinese flavors because Chinese food is definitely Caya’s favorite and she has really missed it while we were in Martha’s Vineyard. This is the dish that somehow made it to the table after two minutes of thought, Squid with Ramps in Black Bean Sauce. Caya and Lon loved it so much that a few days later, I made it again. Caya devoured it and so I made it again…
For the last few months, my brain cells were being lost to lack-of-sleep so needless to say, having a newborn around is not one’s most creative time. Luckily, we have thousands of recipes to fall back on. I also look for new recipes to try, ones that take less time to make! Since Remi was born (he’s four-and-a-half months already!), this is the best recipe I’ve tried: Vietnamese Fish Sauce Wings! Holy cow, are these delicious. Not surprisingly, it’s from the owner of the famous Thai restaurant, Pok Pok, in Portland. I adapted the recipe to suit my tastes and stuck with his super easy three ingredient marinade, just fish sauce, sugar, and garlic. It’s so simple, yet unbelievably good. It’s pure genius!
There’s this pretty well-known Taiwanese dish called Three Cup Chicken. The flavorful dish of dark meat chicken is flavored with sugar, soy sauce, and sesame oil with a strong dose of Chinese/Thai Basil. My mom came up with a vegetarian version, Three Cup Tofu with the same flavor profile and it’s even easier to make. I was planning on posting Three Cup Chicken first, since it’s the original dish. That would have made more sense but alas, my body was just not willing to work with me on this…
For as long as I’ve been baking, or cooking at all, I’ve been baking chocolate chip cookies. Isn’t it one of the first things kids learn to do in the kitchen? Warm chocolate chip cookies just minutes out of the oven have always been a favorite treat of mine. Even the simple original Nestle recipe on the back of a bag of chocolate chips hits the spot. That recipe got a lot of use in my college days and even when I moved on to using better chocolate and dark chocolate, I still used that basic recipe for years. Then I started trying tons of different chocolate chip cookie recipes, some fancy, some not, with and without nuts. I enjoyed them all, truly. Yet, I think I’ve found my favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe, as hard as that is to admit.
As a blogger, I’m often asked to explain, “Why do I blog?” Frequently people assume the goal is to get a cookbook deal. That’s not why I blog and I’m not working towards a cookbook deal nor have I pitched one to a publisher. However, I have said that should one ever fall in my lap, I would certainly take it. I have said that to so many people over the years and I can still hear my voice saying that. It’s always been more of a joke and I was sure that would never happen.
Here I am in total shock. Last week, I was offered a cookbook deal! By a really lovely editor!! And… I didn’t take it!!!
Happy Lunar New Year! I hope you are having lots of dumplings (representing silver & gold ingots) during the next two weeks! We wish all of you an amazing Year of the Black Water Snake.
If you haven’t had enough celebrating, you’re in luck. Lantern Festival (a.k.a. Yuanxiao Festival) occurs on the 15th day of the lunar calendar, which is just around the corner. This year, it will be on February 24, 2013. Here’s a great tutorial I found for making paper lanterns! During the festival, you post riddles on your lanterns. When someone gets the answer right, you award them with a small prize. Make sure to get your ingredients for Tangyuan Soup, a warm dessert soup traditionally eaten during this festival. Here’s two very easy preparations that only take a few minutes to make.
