Zao Fan: Breakfast of China | 
I borrowed ZAO FAN because I got a ton of ground pork for cheap, but most of my favourite pork recipes need ginger and I keep forgetting to buy some. Oops. I wanted to make SOMETHING, though, so I finally tried liangfen, or starch jelly noodles. They came together fast (aside from the many hours of chill time) and tasted great with Nagi Maehashi‘s spicy peanut sauce.
Still cooking my way through ZAO FAN. I made a batch of xiao jiaozi a few days back and have been searching for the ideal way to cook them. The book says boiling‘s the way to go, but I find it sucks all the flavour out of the meat and encourages the dumplings to pop apart. Today I tried steaming, with much better results. Some of them still came apart, which makes me think I messed up the meat paste a bit, but they stayed juicy and toothsome.
Today‘s ZAO FAN recipe is miancha, or millet porridge with sweet sesame. It‘s possibly the fattiest breakfast ever with 50g of sesame paste + 2tbsp of sesame oil, but it sure does taste good.
Please note, also, my fabulous new espresso cup by Lac Sul First Nation artist Storm Angeconeb. The foxes frolick all the way around.
ZAO FAN and I are back in business now I‘ve made re gan mian, or Wuhan hot dry noodles. I think I added too much wei shui (the spiced broth you blend with the sesame paste), but the flavour was still great, especially after I added the chili crisp I forgot to pop into the bowl before I took the picture. I used mustard tubers as toppings, too, and I‘m now in love with them. SO GOOD.
I made sheng jian bao today, and they‘re the first dish from ZAO FAN that I ain‘t wild about. The vinegar I dipped them in was the best part. The filling needed more salt and maybe some white pepper. Boo.
Also, I had to step away for a moment when it came time to pry them out of the pan, which may‘ve been less about the stick (it was fine! Totally fixable!) than about the Other Stuff I‘ve been trying not to focus on all day.
Todays recipe from ZAO FAN is hua juan, or flower buns. As I cut them, I realized I forgot to add the green onions on top of the meat paste before I rolled them up to go in the steamer, and I think that would‘ve added a good visual and textural component. Still, these are chewy and meaty and moreish. I‘m glad I‘ve got eight more to stick in the freezer for future breakfasts.
I visited the Chinese supermarket yesterday, and today I tried my first recipe from my new favourite cookbook! (It‘s FULL OF DELICIOUSNESS. I‘m obsessed.) This dan dan mian doesn‘t look inspiring, but it was so damned good. Strong sesame flavour mingled with chili and meaty tastiness. I‘m glad I‘ve got enough sauce left for tomorrow‘s breakfast, too.
I meant to return two library books and borrow zero, but they had this awesome Chinese breakfast cookbook on a display, and I remembered I wanted to check the poetry section for stuff that fits my personal Years challenge (THERE is my 2006 selection; THE MASK is just because it looked good), and THEN I couldn‘t resist a culinary cozy mystery. So here we are.
