Mapo tofu here tonight as well! I serve it over steamed broccoli for fewer carbs. We also love lots of ground meat in this dish so I use about one pound of meat per pound of tofu. DH doesn’t care for Sichuan peppercorns so I add them to my serving only.
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Looks like a feast!
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Bought frozen gua bao buns from Chinese supermarket one time but they were a bit sweet, why? I decided to make my own.
Stuffed with braised pork belly. Crushed macadamia nuts with some chilli flakes in place of peanuts.
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Oh yum! I know the way you feel about making your own wrappers @Presunto - was the effort worth the lack of convenience? They look beautiful!
5 spice braised pork knuckles
First time I made this recipe, I like it better than the spicy recipe that I made often.
(4 Servings)
Pork feet 2 kg
30g garlic (about 5 cloves)
1 star anise
20g sliced ginger
2 scallions (it’s better to fish after cutting a large piece of marinade, but you can cut into small pieces if you don’t want to fish)
4 tablespoons brown sugar powder (or 100g rock sugar, granulated sugar is also fine)
5 spice powder 4g (about 1 tsp)
2g white pepper powder (about 1/2 tsp)
Rice wine 50ml
Soy sauce 50-100 ml
To clean the pig’s trotters, boil them for 5 minutes in hot water. Discard the water.
Place 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil and 4 tablespoons of brown sugar in a cast iron pot or wok. Set it over medium heat. When the sugar melt completely, add 200ml of water slowly to avoid projection.
Add five-spice powder, white pepper, rice wine, soy sauce and stir. Put the pig’s trotter, shallots, and garlic in the pan. Add enough water to cover the pork, bring the soup to a low heat, cover the pot and cook for 1.5-2 hours. Reduce the cooking liquid in half and serve.
Source: Coya Chang
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Crispy sesame chicken
Flavour is more subtle and delicate than most Chinese dishes with heavy sauce, chicken was moist and tender with the steaming, with crispy skin even I didn’t deep fried as indicated in the recipe. Delicious and will make again. Getting rid of the liquid from the steamed chicken is important, as the crispiness of chicken depends on this.
Ingredients
1 chicken
Marinade
2 tbsp Shaoxing wine
2tbsp salt
1 tbsp chicken powder
1 tbsp five spice powder
Basting sauce
1 eggwhite
3 tbsp sesame
Dipping sauce
Japanese sesame oil
Direction
Rub wine over the skin, mix the marinade and rub all over. Rest for at least 30 minutes in the fridge.
Steam the whole chicken for 40 minutes, breast facing up. Rinse the skin with cold water, hang the chicken to drip the liquid.
Brush egg white on skin, sprinkle the seasme, hang to air dry. (I put it on a grill)
Heat up oil to deep fry the chicken until crispy. (I grill it 10 minutes in oven). Chop the chicken and serve with the sesame oil.
Source: Philip Chen - Authentic Flavours of Barbecue Meat (Hong Kong)
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Thought of making this, but no peanuts at home! 
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Late to this thread 
Some of my recent Chinese focused meals or dishes:
生炒糯米飯 or stir fried glutinous rice
Chinese style roast pork belly!
湯圓 or Cantonese style tang yuan in soup
Cheating a bit on this last one since this was in late December. In Hong Kong, tang yuan in soup is eaten in celebration of the winter solstice. But it’s winter in spirit!
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Lovely! What’s your recipe?
I made a lightened-up version of Fuchsia Dunlop’s chili-garlic (“fish fragrant”) eggplant with cauli-jasmine rice and her sesame smacked cucumber salad with pickled mustard greens. I steamed the eggplant in the microwave before broiling in the oven, and reduced the oil in the sauce. I overdid the hot bean paste and chili-garlic sauce (my sub for pickled chilis), which seemed more intense with less oil smoothing out the sauce. The cucumbers were nice and cooling.
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I keep it quite simple, and I never measure. 
. Classic Chinese home cook.
For the skin, I will dry out overnight in the fridge with a mix of kosher salt and baking soda (1:1). I have always pricked the top layer of skin too (making sure not to puncture the meat, but usually the skin is too thick, so don’t worry too much).
For the meat, I mix equal parts 5 spice powder and salt. This is my first time putting in some white pepper too. The belly was about 1.5 pounds. Generally, it will be 1.5 Tbs each of salt and 5 spice powder, but a few times I’ve run out, and I just mix more as I go. I coat the meat well, making sure not to get it on the skin (and definitely no baking soda on the meat). Put it in the fridge overnight, uncovered for 1-2 days.
When you’re ready to roast, I gently wipe off excess salt and baking soda from the skin. Place belly on a rack and roast at 350-375F. I start at 375F, and keep that for about 30mins and then usually turn that down to 350 for the last 45mins to an hour. I use a small amount of rice wine vinegar to brush on the skin too. This helps promote the bubbling crackly skin! I will brush the vinegar on the skin every 20 mins or so.
Usually takes a good 1 to 1.5 hrs to get the skin really nice and bubbly… If there are concerns that the meat might dry out, you can make a little box around it too. I’ve seen some do a final broil to crisp up the top, but I avoid that (please see the thread/post about my almost setting the kitchen on fire, if you want to know why…). I usually partly wing it each time I go, so sorry if this is not a precise recipe. It’s always turned out well, but your kitchen will absolutely smell like roast pork for hours afterwards, so be warned.
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Thanks a lot!
Accidentally did that bubbling skin once, with high temperature barbecue grill burning some logs.
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I tried this recipe with a big European eggplant.
Didn’t make the chili oil (1 tbsp of chili oil is called for). I used the browned szechuan pepper from the first step of the eggplant dish, around a tbsp of the oil that browned them, and a couple tsp of 5 spice powder instead.
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I plan to make these ribs on Sunday.
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Made Dongpo pork - braised pork belly a few days ago. The pork was first cooked with ginger, star anise, spring onion (I used leek) for an hour. In a second pot, mixed Shaoxing wine, old ginger, star anise, sweet vinegar (I used Zhejiang vinegar), spring onion and water, after cooking liquid was reduced to half, added the pork and cooked for 30 minutes. I found it lack of equilibrium and leaned on the acid side. While it was fine to eat, meat was melting soft and juicy, but I wanted to improve it. Therefore with the remaining pork, I made a version 2.
To correct the taste, I made the cooking liquid again, this time more as suggested in the recipe of wok of life, I used Shaoxing wine, rock sugar, leek, ginger, light and dark soy and water, reduced the liquid in half and cooked the pork belly with this sauce. The pork has been cooked in the vinegar sauce gave acidity to this second sauce. The result was much more pleasant than my first try. There was much more nuances in terms of flavours. Can’t say I am exactly getting this thing right, this is normally a banquet dish, I will make again.
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“Manitas” (ma ni tas ) in Spanish and a highly traditional dish in the small villages and towns …
Looks very good …
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