A while ago, I made the Shanghai scallion flatbread. The dough came together easily and was pretty easy to manipulate, as I recollect. I followed the timing as indicated for cooking and, as my photos suggest, the exterior got overdone and slightly charred in places so I’d monitor the temperature and browning and adjust as necessary depending on your stove. (I didn’t have any sesame seeds for the exterior when I made it, and I suppose it’s just as well, because they’d have gotten burnt.) Despite the overbrowning issue, I did like this well; it has a bit of chewiness similar to focaccia. I wanted more scallions in the end, so if I make it again I’ll try to cram more in.
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I’ve made this many times, tonight using thinly sliced mushrooms (unconsciously channeling you). My one complaint is that the base recipe produces very little sauce, and, as they themselves acknowledge, sauce is queen. 2tbsp of water and 1 1/2 tbsp of light soy produces precisely 3.5 tbsp of sauce (plus a bit from the oil, minus a bit from evaporation during cooking), plus very little attendant ginger, scallion, etc. They suggest doubling if you’re a saucy person. I say quintuple.
Other than that, just great.
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JAPCHAE
i found this recipe surprisingly under-seasoned to my palate. I had to triple the garlic and sesame oil and double the soy sauce.
I sautéed (and seasoned) each vegetable separately. I used fresh oyster and king oyster mushrooms, onion, and scallions. Forgot the carrots and snow pea leaves I had planned to use instead of spinach - maybe I’ll add them later, it’s a big batch of noodles.
Having eaten and made a lot of Japchae I wouldn’t recommend this recipe vs Maangchi or Koreatown, though it would be fine as a starter version.
(Oh - I finished the soy sauce in front and just reached for the bottle behind without thinking about it, and of course it was dark soy sauce, which is the the noodles are so dark!)
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RAINBOW NOODLE SALAD - blog
Every time I try to make a soba noodle salad, the noodles end up broken into small lengths after tossing the ingredients. This salad was no exception. The problem is that I have to use 100% buckwheat soba, and those noodles are just more fragile than those with some wheat blended in. The other thing about soba noodles is that I don’t really like them that much. But I seem to always have them around, so I made this salad to use them up and also use up some cabbage and cucumber from my CSA box.
My version was not very rainbow-y, because I had only green veg - green cukes, green pepper, green cabbage, and I was out of carrots. So I don’t have the color that the version on the blog has. I did add some tomato (not called for) to get at least a little non-green color going on. The dressing for this calls for a coconut water/mango/pineapple juice blend (a commercial product the bloggers were sent). I was certainly not going to try to hunt down such a thing, but I happened to have some coconut water on hand, and a tiny can of pineapple juice. So I used half and half of those for the dressing. Other dressing ingredients were soy sauce, sesame oil, rice vinegar, ginger (which I went heavy on) and red pepper flakes.
The flavor of this was good, soba aside. I would make it again, but use rice vermicelli, and would like it better that way (I said the exact same thing about the last soba salad I made, which was from Tenderheart). I garnished my salad with some tempeh bacon to make it more of a meal.
This recipe claims to serve 8 with 8 oz of dried noodles. Ummm… who are these people? I doubled the noodles to get 4 servings.
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STEAMED EGG (CUSTARD)
(aka chawanmushi aka gyeranjjim)
I first encountered this in its japanese form at a french restaurant (go figure) but fell in love with it the next time I ate it at a modern chinese restaurant that sadly no longer exists.
This is really the most foolproof technique for this dish I’ve come across.
Egg is beaten with liquid (water, stock), steamed, and that’s it. The result is supposed to be a silky, just-set egg, no bubbles, no liquid separation. Well, bubbles and liquid separation are often part of the situation because eggs are delicate and the liquid ratio is pretty high 
Where their method is genius is that you steam the eggs on direct heat for a short time, turn off the heat source, and let them continue cooking in the residual heat for much longer. Mostly avoids the bubble and separation issue if all goes well.
I used dashi and chicken stock for flavoring along with sesame oil. I was a bit impatient, so I started with my usual initial steam time of 7 mins instead of their 3-4 (they have a few versions of this recipe on the site), then turned off the gas, moved the steamer setup (my small PC) off the burner, and left it for another 5.
Pretty much perfect — I will be using their timing and off-heat technique from now on.
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This looks amazing!
Highly recommend!
Normally I’d throw some chilli crisp on top, but I was loaded up with spice in the kimchi fried rice I ate it with.
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I love chawanmushi and loved getting it in set meals at places like Ootoya in NYC. I thought I’d like Chinese steamed eggs the same, but I didn’t at all, as the flavor is a lot eggier than chawanmushi due to ratios.
Gyeranjjim I also love, but it’s pretty different from chawanmushi and Chinese steamed egg, as those two are creamy and custardy while gyeranjjim is more of a light and fluffy soufflé end result. As a fluffy egg lover (and typically creamy egg disliker), it’s my favorite .
As you said, totally depends on the ratio of liquid used, what liquid was used, and other flavorings employed. (I’ve used up to 3:1 but it takes longer, so if I don’t have patience I’ll go with 2/2.5:1 which is a faster set.)
My experience with chinese steamed egg and chawanmushi outside has been that they’re the same in texture, just different flavor additions and mix-ins. (More liquid is a trickier set - like quiche - so it’s possible that some places cut back liquid for a quicker and less risky outcome, which of course will have an eggier flavor.)
However the gyeranjjim I’ve received at kbbq places is the bubbled over / liquid completely separated kind which gives me scrambled eggs gone wrong vibes. But I’ve seen home recipes that have exactly the silky chinese and japanese texture, so that version too.
15-MINUTE COCONUT CURRY NOODLE SOUP https://thewoksoflife.com/15-minute-coconut-curry-noodle-soup/
I found this thanks to @Saregama recommending it. It truly is quick to make, and I loved it. I added sliced mushrooms and baby spinach to make it a full meal. Easy to make, delicious, and easy to clean up after. Unfortunately I don’t think the others were big fans. This is weird, given that LLD’s favorite soup is a coconut curry soup with chicken, but maybe it was that this didn’t live up to that for him. Oh well, I would definitely make this again for myself. Saute garlic, ginger, and bottled Thai red curry paste. Add bite sized chicken pieces (I think shrimp or tofu would be great substitutes here) and cook a bit more. Add broth, water, fish sauce, and coconut milk (and for me, the vegetables) and cook until done. Cook some rice vermicelli, add it to bowls, and top with the soup. I served with lime juice, cilantro, and scallions.
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SPICY COLD TOFU (LINKED ABOVE)
I tried the Spicy Cold Tofu recipe (sans eggs) for lunch today - unfortunately I had not bought the silken tofu I intended yesteday, so I made it with firm tofu, which I also heated (I think thats important for the firm tofu). I found the sauce combo, made with the Pixian broad bean paste in my frig and some newly opened Kimlan I-jen soy) rather one dimensional, much too salty, maybe the fault of my ingredients (the doubanjiang actually had big salt crystals in it, which I picked out as I ate the dish). I have some leftovers and may fiddle with the remaining sauce,
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Glad you liked it – I was thinking of you when I mentioned it, and also how we had discussed needing to increase all the seasonings in the Epi version, but this one didn’t have that issue because of the use of curry paste vs curry powder. Maybe that was an overload for LLD?
I go back & forth between simple Tom Kha Gai without spices, just aromatics, the Epi-type curry powder version, and this one, and like them all; this one is closest to what the Viet restaurants around here serve as curry noodle soup, but it’s definitely “heavier” than the others.
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daughter ate the leftover and mopped up the remaining sauce with a pita, so I guess it wasnt so bad
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VEGETARIAN SINGAPORE NOODLES - blog
Click through to recipe for ingredients and technique. I made modest changes: sliced button mushrooms instead of shiitake, no bell pepper and a little heavier on the cabbage, scallions and sliced onion instead of leeks.
This recipe was perfectly fine, but I’ve liked other versions I have made better. Grace Young’s, for example. There is no liquid in this except for a tablespoon of shaoxing wine, which of course evaporated in a nanosecond. This made it a little difficult to get the seasonings evenly distributed in the noodles, and the noodles were a tad dry. I checked the Grace Young version, and it includes some stock, which would have helped with the spice distribution, the dryiness, and also added some umami, which was lacking in this dish. Finally, as much as I like broccoli, I didn’t love it in this dish. It just didn’t taste right. I would prefer to go ahead and put some tofu in here, or use a meat sub (Daring chicken would work well).
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I think he’s being a fuddyduddy. Also, he complained the week before about a soup with long noodles in it being hard to eat. I suggested he take a little more time. He doesn’t like things that require work, like chicken on the bone (eye roll). I usually try to make things that pander to this, but sometimes you need bone-in chicken, and sometimes you need long noodles. But yeah, it could also be that it is heavier.
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I’ve met quite a few men who don’t want to “work” for food, like picking crab out of the shell.
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I usually find dishes to be too salty, but didn’t notice it for this one. Like you, I use a Pixian doubanjiang - this one:
It is salty and just a really robust flavor. Is that the brand you used? Maybe other brands are less salty? I’ve only ever tried one other (it came in a can, not sure of the brand).
If you’re interested in a different take of the same dish, for comparison, I also like the one on the China Sichuan Food website. Dish has the same name, but totally different flavors imo - it uses sesame seeds and Chinkiang vinegar, and doesn’t have doubanjiang. I like her (Elaine’s) website really just as much as I like Woks of Life, too, maybe a little bit more even.
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that jar is the one I used. I was really taken aback by the big salt crystals. I did like the big flavor of the bean sauce, though
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KUNG PAO CHICKEN, page 150
I finally got to the top of the list for this book at the library. I am a sucker for kung pao chicken so went to this first.
This was good, but it is much less fiery than the Fuchsia Dunlop version which is my ”go to”. It uses half the amount of Szechuan peppercorns and only 2 to 4 dried red chilies (Dunlop’s version uses 10). I wanted more heat. It probably didn’t help that my peppercorns and chillies were purchased in 2021 and have probably lost some of their potency.
The technique is also slightly different. You roast the peanuts in the wok (I skipped this step as I had roasted rather than raw peanuts). You cook the chicken over high heat and then remove it once it turns opaque. You then lower the heat and cook the aromatics. You then add the chicken back in, raise the heat back to high, cook a minute, and add the sauce.
I liked this, but it was too mild for me and not as complex as the Dunlop version. The ingredients are very similar with a few exceptions (e.g., rice vinegar rather than Chinkiang vinegar).
The recipe is on the website:
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