East Asian

The flavors of the salmon, cucumber, and green tea salt are really fresh. The green tea salt will keep for months and is also terrific sprinkled on popcorn.

The Japanese man I buy my fish from gave me this recipe. One day I noticed that he was making hand rolls for lunch from the trimmings of a No. 1 grade A tuna loin. He let me have a roll since I’m such a good customer, and I have to say it was the best spicy tuna roll I’d ever had. You’ll get the hang of rolling these in no time—practice makes perfect.

Hong Kong is a truly eye-popping place for a food lover. The dai pai dong (food stalls) around Stanley Street on Hong Kong Island are full of noodle shops, fishmongers, live chickens, and a dazzling display of the strangest produce I have ever seen. The whole place smells like ginger and fresh coriander—I had a blast. When I got back to New York I was playing around with some of the flavors that I had experienced and came up with these crab cakes. Although crab cakes are not exactly Chinese, the flavors are pure Hong Kong. These crab cakes can easily be prepared ahead of time. Serve with Perfect Steamed Jasmine Rice (page 240).

If you make this ahead of time, keep it refrigerated but bring it to room temperature before serving.

I stepped up on a cinder block to enter the open kitchen and realized then just how short the cook was; he flicked on the burner and the flame shot up as high as his chin. His broom closet-size kitchen swelled with heat and even with my average height, I towered over him awkwardly as he wielded the wok with beef and soy sauce. "You must play basketball!" he suggested. On his kitchen wall and out of reach of the blazing flame, plastic bags of spices hung from low-set rusty hooks, and his windowsill nearby lay scattered with tangerine peels set out to dry in the sun. Cooks in China are in the habit of keeping the peels of the tangerines they eat and spreading them out to dry in the sun for later use. Then they just rehydrate a few pieces whenever they want to add a nutty, slightly bitter note to a stir-fry or stew. Tangerine Beef is a Sichuan specialty and tall on flavor.

You can buy premade Chinese dumpling wrappers from any Asian grocery store, and in most cases they work as well and taste as good as homemade wrappers. However, Shanghai Soup Dumplings should be made with homemade wrappers or they will not hold their soup when steaming. If you are making wrappers for Shanghai Soup Dumplings, try to keep the center of the wrappers thicker than the edges when rolling the dough disks.

It is no coincidence that in Chinese, the word for "family" (jia) is the same as the word for "home"; home is a central part of family life in China. Parents, children, mothers-in-law, grandparents, and other family members often all live together for generations, taking care of one another. Jiaozi, or classic Chinese dumplings, is a dish that celebrates this supportive community. Often made at holidays, these labor-intensive dumplings are prepared in an assembly line, with the greatest to the least in the family all having a hand in their production. The process starts when wheat dough is kneaded, rolled flat into teacup-size circles, and stacked as dumpling wrappers. The next person in the line spoons a pork or vegetable filling (depending on the recipe) in the center of each wrap before passing them on to the "crimper." My first experience making jiaozi was at the house of one of my professors, Mr. Zhang. Having been invited to dinner, I was surprised when Mr. Zhang put me to work in the kitchen. I was the "crimper," charged with folding and crimping the edge of the dumpling wrappers to form plump, sealed pockets of goodness ready to be thrown into a boiling pot. That night, in the room full of brothers, sisters, cousins, and grandparents who were not my own, all of us working together to make jiaozi, I felt more like family than simply a guest in the Zhang home. Invite your friends and family over and put them to work. We like to make more dumplings than we can eat and freeze the extra for later. If you throw all the freshly made dumplings into a plastic bag, they will freeze stuck together into one giant block of dumplings. To avoid this, first spread out the uncooked dumplings on a lightly greased baking sheet, taking care that they do not touch each other. Place the sheet in the freezer for about 30 minutes. Then throw all the dumplings into a large resealable plastic bag and store in the freezer. When you are ready to eat them, do not defrost the dumplings, but cook them frozen exactly like you would fresh dumplings—just add 3 minutes to the cooking time.

This dish might not be to everyone's (westernized) taste on a hungover morning, and it's also a breakfast with many components—rice, grilled fish, miso soup, pickles and a Japanese-style omelette—and some relatively obscure ingredients. Having said that, this is as clean, wholesome and nutritious as breakfast gets, so if anything is going to make you feel better it may well be this. However, I advise you to steer clear of tofu with a hangover (vegetarians: you may shoot me now); I've used cubes of potato instead.

This moist and fluffy steamed green tea confection has a texture similar to that of chiffon cake. My favorite version includes sweet-simmered black beans randomly scattered throughout the batter. A dried fruit-studded kinako (toasted soy flour) version (see below) is also popular.
As with many Japanese confections that were adapted from European cuisines, the traditional recipe calls for eggs and cow's milk. I offer a vegan version using soy milk. The richer the soy milk is (higher percentage of soy solids), the better the texture will be.

Many of the items served to celebrate New Year's in Japan have symbolic meaning, expressed as wordplay. Sweet black beans are a good example: the word kuro means "black," but the meaning shifts to "hard work" when the calligraphy changes and the final vowel is extended. Similarly, the word mamé means "bean," but written with different caligraphy, mamé becomes "sincere" or "earnest." Eating black beans in syrup on New Year's ensure that those who work in earnest will have a sweet new year.
The traditional method of preparing kuro mamé is a long (3 days from start to finish) and rather tedious procedure, though one that results in utterly delicious plump, glossy, tender beans in a light sugar syrup that can be kept for months. Over the years, observing many Japanese home and professional cooks and experimenting in my own kitchen, I have developed a modified version of the classic technique that I am sharing here.
The key to preparing luscious, wrinkle-free sweet black soybeans is patience: the beans must be completely tender before sweetening them (adding the sugar too early will cause the beans to sieze and toughen), and the pot must be frequently watched, adding more water as needed to keep the beans barely submerged through the lengthy cooking process so they don't wrinkle.

Look for shichimi togarashi, a Japanese seasoning mix, at Japanese markets and savoryspiceshop.com.

Inspired by a recipe from chef Kaori Endo of Nanashi in Paris, this smart, easy dessert shows how well matcha plays with creamy yogurt and fruit.

The great thing about making chef Chang's fiery cuisine at home is that you control the heat with the chili oil and Sichuan peppercorns. They give this dish its distinctive color, flavor, and heat.

Also known as Korean-style or cross-cut short ribs. We fell in love with this bone-in cut at Korean BBQ joints and are therefore partial to its Korean name (and flavor possibilities). Buy 2 pounds of cross-cut short ribs, each sliced lengthwise about 1/3" thick.

We love this marinade on Kalbi . Try it for an Asian twist.

Tofu is a surprisingly rich source of calcium, which may discourage your body from storing fat, especially in the tummy region. Break out the bikini!

Impress dinner guests with this chic dish featuring top round, which has less than 1 gram of fat per ounce.

Japanese eggplants have thin skins and few seeds, just meaty, flavorful flesh that transforms into tender, creamy textured, fragrant, smoky goodness when grilled. The classic way to enjoy this dish is with just soy sauce or Ponzu and a mound of katsuobushi, dried shaved bonito flakes (a type of tuna). The dressing below is more contemporary but also fantastic. Either way, get your hands on these eggplants and grill them.

Grilled squid—yaki ina—is a fixture of street fairs, shrine festivals, and pushcart vendors. Its phenomenal soy sauce fragrance makes it almost impossible to pass by without wanting one.