East Asian

Shanghainese enjoy rice balls in both sweet and savory preparations. I love both, so I included them here. All Shanghainese buns and pastries have simple identifiers for telling the difference between sweet and savory. Sweet versions are always round and smooth, while savory ones will have a tail hinting at the filling inside.

Some people might be afraid of cooking chicken hearts, but they’re not that much different from any cut of dark chicken meat. These morsels of muscle are perfect for grilling: lean, flavorful, with a perfect bouncy bite.

The crunchiness and juiciness of flowering chives combined with tender, lightly seasoned pork is an unbeatable combination—and this dish is super quick to make.

We took roasted peanuts and coated them with sweet-spicy kochujang, Korean chile flakes, and garlic salt as a topper for the kale and cabbage salad at Tin Roof.

Serving whole fish during Chinese New Year symbolizes the wish for prosperity throughout the year and many happy returns. When you serve whole fish, it's traditional to point the head toward the most distinguished guest.

This mixed vegetable dish takes its inspiration from Buddhist vegetarian cooking and can include any combination of ingredients that represent good luck, prosperity, happiness, family wholeness, and longevity. 

Rice cakes are available sliced, marble-shaped, and in batons. There are dried versions, but the refrigerated version is widely available and easier to work with. You can use any combination of vegetables and seasonings here, so feel free to experiment with flavors.

One great thing about dumplings is that you can use practically anything in the filling—and you can pan-fry them, or boil them, or deep-fry them.

This recipe for salted salmon is excerpted from Maori Murota’s Tokyo Cult Recipes. The method, called shioyaki, can be adapted to fish collars as well.

Packed with greens, these boiled dumplings easily go vegetarian by switching out the ground pork for crumbled tofu.

Named for the famous 8th century Tang dynasty consort, Yang Guifei, this dish of juicy dark-meat chicken and peppers is sweet, sour, and just a little spicy.

The goal of longevity noodles is to create one long, slick, uniform strand, gently pulled over and over again until you get the right thickness.

These pan-fried dumplings are among the best selling items at Nom Wah Tea Parlor in New York City. The chicken gives the dumplings body, while the cabbage gives them volume.

The slightly sweet but mostly textural wrapper of the rice roll is the canvas for the sweetness of the shrimp.

Want showstopping presentation? Make homemade dumpling wrappers to stuff with a filling of spinach, hearty tofu, vermicelli, and fruity Sichuan peppercorns.