These Chinese dumplings known as jiaozi, consisting of a thinly rolled piece of dough which contains either meat or a vegetable filling, are one of the most popular and most commonly eaten dishes in China and East Asia. They can be served either as an appetizer, a side dish, or […]
An ancient Chinese delicacy eaten during the Mid-August Festival or Moon Festival, known as mooncake, is a pie-like pastry made with a shortcrust base called yueh ping that is traditionally filled with black sesame seed or lotus seed paste, along with red beans, roasted pork, mung beans, dates, and salted duck egg […]
Known as a common snack food in Northern China, shaobing is a type of layered flatbread, typically topped with sesame seeds. It is made with multiple layers of dough brushed with sesame paste and resembles a flattened bread roll. Shaobing originated in the Shandong province, but today it can be […]
Although food historians can’t really agree on who made the first chow mein and when, this stir-fry dish whose name comes from the Mandarin chǎomiàn and Taishanese chāu-mèing (lit. fried noodles) had probably originated in Northern China. And even though there are as many varieties of chow mein in China […]
A staple of westernized Chinese cuisine and one of the favorite dishes of foreigners in China, kung pao chicken is a spicy stir-fry dish made with diced chicken, vegetables, peanuts, and Sichuan peppercorns. It was invented in the Sichuan Province and has a unique, interesting origin story. In the 19th […]
Youtiao is one of the most popular breakfast foods in China, consisting of Chinese breadsticks that are fried in pairs and connected in the middle. The result is a puffy snack that is crispy on the exterior and tender on the interior. Youtiao dates back to the Song Dynasty when […]
Sichuan in origin, mapo doufu consists of tofu cubes settled in a spicy sauce containing minced meat, traditionally beef or pork, and fermented black beans known as douchi. The dish is said to have been invented in a small restaurant called Chen Xingsheng in Chengdu back in 1862, while the […]
Shumai, literally translated as to cook and sell, is a staple of dim sum cuisine consisting of an open-topped dumpling filled with steamed ground pork, and sometimes finely chopped shrimp or Chinese black mushrooms. When it’s cooked, shumai is often garnished with a single pea, a fish egg, or a […]
Zhajiangmian is a Beijing specialty consisting of wheat noodles in soybean sauce and vegetables such as summer radish and sliced cucumbers. The sauce is usually made by cooking ground pork or beef in combination with fermented soybean paste. There is also a vegetarian version of the dish that substitutes the […]
Har gow is a Cantonese dumpling characterized by a delicate, translucent wrapper enveloped around a shrimp filling. The dish was created out of necessity when the owner of a small, family-style teahouse from Guangzhou came up with an idea to buy the shrimp from local fishermen and use it to […]
