上海鲜肉粽子 Zong Zi – Shanghai Style

上海鲜肉粽子 (Shang Hai Xian Rou Zong Zi) translates to Shanghai pork zong zi. What is this strange pyramid shaped thing? It’s a gift. It’s breakfast. It’s comfort food to be devoured in celebration for 端午节 (Duan Wu Jie), or Dragonboat Festival. This year, it falls on June 20th, this upcoming Saturday. Visit any Chinese supermarket and you’ll find vacuum packed zongzi. Or, you can make it simply at home.I call Zongzi a gift because it’s always been one to me. I used to think it was the coolest food in the world – that you are presented with a neat fragrant package, smoke still curling up from the zongzi, completely with two bows to untie. Despite scalding fingers, I’d always quickly undo the bows with one quick tug and then gently unfold the sticky rice from the bamboo leaves. When you unfold it, it literally tumbles out onto your plate. My mom always sent me with a bag of these to give to cousins, my best friend’s family, my boyfriend (now husband)’s family – anyone who would care for some zongzi. Very quickly, they became famous. They were my mom’s thing. Actually, along with the shaomai she would always freeze and send along with me to college, these zongzi also made their way from California to St Louis, and I had such pleasure not only eating them, a mouthful of comfort and memories away from home, but also introducing this uncommon treat to my friends. If you’re in the Boston area, let me know and I’ll send you away with a bag of these as well :). 

Duck-Fat 葱油拌面 Scallion Oil Noodle

葱油拌面 (Cong You Ban Mian) is a classic, Shanghai comfort food. The signature taste comes from frying scallions until they are unrecognizable brown bits and pouring it over drained noodles. I gave it a twist: instead of frying it in vegetable oil, I fried it in duck fat, used ramen noodles, and topped it with medium-rare duck breast with crispy skin. That’s my kind of meal

Duck fat makes everything better. It just does. Similarly to how bacon grease makes everything taste better. However, duck is a special meat for me. It’s the fancy meat that I will enjoy, anywhere. I’ve gone to get whole duck meals when I spent a summer in Shanghai, probably once a week. They cook the duck for you and you eat it in mushu pancakes, then they serve a wonderful broth made from the duck bones afterwards. I salivate while I anticipate my father-in-law making his famous Nan Jing Salt Water Duck (yes, I WILL be doing a post on this later). I drag my parents to my favorite restaurant in the bay area for their roasted half-duck buns. I make an effort to reserve, a month prior, the famed whole rotisserie duck at Momofuku Ssam (which is amazing). I of course ate duck as my main entree during my first night in Paris. When it’s restaurant week, I always look for the restaurant that serves duck as part of that menu. I’ve had duck blood soup (which sounds horrible and disgusting, but is actually quite delicious). Do I have to go on?

Are you a noodle person? Because I am. And because I am, I’m going to share some AWESOME noodle recipes:

• THESE. Xi An Famous Hand Smashed Noodles by Mandy
• Lucky New Year Dumpling Noodles, because we can always use more luck!
• Hipster Lo Mein.
  
• My favorite dish turned to noodles 

红烧肉 Mom’s Shanghai Style Red-Braised Pork Belly

This dish is a legend in the Liu family. It’s one of those dishes that you know is probably unhealthy and bad for you (just look at that fatty layer!), but you still have to eat because that part is unfortunately what makes this dish so good. You could probably substitute pork butt or pork shoulder, but I’m going to be honest with you – you’re not going to get the signature texture of the dish.

I’ve served this at dinner parties with great success. I always find that this is a great dish to introduce Chinese cuisine (more specifically, home-style Shanghai) to those who’ve only eaten Chinese takeout. This recipe actually has a cute little story. One of our friends was going over to his female friend’s place so they could cook together on Valentine’s day. I gave him this recipe. He trekked through a blizzard to locate pork belly and star anise. Two single people, bonding over great cooking skills (her desserts are killer). And now they’re a couple!!! He dropped a note to me about how this is one dish he’ll never forget. Isn’t that so sweet?!!! I’m not really sure if their getting together actually had anything to do with this dish – let’s be honest, probably not – but let me romanticize this okay?

上海烧卖 – Shanghai ShaoMai, step by step

上海烧卖 is Shanghainese shaomai, or more commonly known as pork shumai, is a very common breakfast street food you can find in Shanghai, China. It’s different from the ubiquitous dimsum shumai, which is made with pork and shrimp. Shanghai shaomai is filled with sticky rice and pork and very specific to its region (Jiang Su area). I learned this from my mother, who was born in Shanghai, and I grew up munching on these.

You can also omit the wrapping and just eat the filling. In fact, I do this quite often. My recipe for this nostalgic dish is up on Food52 today. There’s a whole story of how this came to be (from my lovely beautiful mother), and you can read that on Food52! I’ve included step by step photos for the wrapping process, because I find that sometimes, photos can speak more than words. My words, in any case. I’ve also included a gif, because gifs are cool and I love seeing a shaomai being wrapped, like a little action movie.

warning: very very photo heavy!! Be prepared for tons of step by step photos. I sort of went nuts.