A classic Chinese street food, dan dan noodles 擔擔面 are supremely satisfying and easy to assemble with make-ahead components. Named for the long pole used to balance a pot of noodles and a pot of sauce across a street vendor's shoulders, this Szechuan dish is typically topped with ground pork richly flavored with pickled mustard green stems. Due to canceled vacation travel and a challenge by my daughter, I had time at home to perfect a delicious vegetarian dan dan noodle that is also visually and texturally satisfying. 

Vegetarian Dan Dan noodles with vegan topping (recipe below), but using egg noodles

Pork dan dan noodles, traditional recipe from Land of Plenty.

Over the years, I have tried both of the recipes in Land of Plenty by Fuschia Dunlop, Cecilia Chang's recipe in The Seventh Daughter, and Diana Kuan's recipe from the Appetite for China website. I also tried Andrea Nyugen's vegetarian recipe, which uses my favorite dried noodles made by the Quon Yick Noodle company. I am intrigued by the Woks of Life recipe, which adds fresh Chinese greens, but have not yet had a chance to try it.

Pork dan dan noodle, recipe from the Appetite for China website.

At almost every family gathering, from ski weekends to Labor Day at the lake, my nieces and nephews have come to expect a delicious, cheesy beef macaroni casserole in a slightly tart-sweet chili tomato sauce. Part of my own childhood memories, the dish was lost for 30 years until a chance conversation with our children's nanny...

Tart, slightly sweet, tomato sauce with lots of cheese, complemented nicely with Sriracha for a bit of extra heat

Shortcut to the Love2Chow recipe.
In the late 1970's, my father was inspired by a short squat jar of "Old-Fashioned Chili Sauce" to create this mild, beef chili macaroni dish. It was a huge hit! My dad was so proud, amazing his friends when their kids, who were too picky to eat anything other than frozen chicken nuggets or hot dogs, eagerly consumed my dad's potluck dish. Before I went to college, I got the recipe from him and tried to make it. However, we could no longer find the right sweet-tangy old fashioned chili sauce, and the dish just was not the same.


Shortly before Christmas in 2004, I was reminiscing about this dish with our nanny from Utah. It turned out that she knew of a yummy chili sauce in a short squat jar that her dad used for sloppy joe sandwiches. She brought back a jar for me to try, and it was exactly the same shaped jar with the same type-face on the lid. Instead of "Old-Fashioned" it has been rebranded as "Homade Chili Sauce." As soon as I opened it, I knew it was the same sauce from my childhood. I made Chili Mac as a surprise for my sister, and she recognized it at once!
It turns out the sauce can be still be purchased in grocery stores in at least Utah and Indiana. I scoured the internet and found that I could also mail order it by the case. It was made by Ventura Foods in Cerritos, CA, and then later acquired by Allied Old English in NJ. 

In my own version, I have cut back the meat by half and added zucchini and/or yellow squash and/or carrots. It becomes a complete meal with all the food groups. At one gathering, my sister-in-laws thought that some of their kids would never eat anything with any vegetables in it and that I should leave out the zucchini. But I had been adding vegetables for years, and their kids had already been happily eating large quantities of it! Nevertheless, I started grating instead of chopping the zucchini.

Braised dishes with their luxuriously rich sauces are perfect for the winter months. Margaret Loo's Braised Tofu and Mushrooms from The Breath of a Wok by Grace Young is a wonderfully satisfying dish with golden slabs of tofu soaking up all the meaty essences. Serve it with crisp, layered scallion pancakes for an even richer experience. A riffed version filled with black sesame paste is great for dessert!

Margaret Loo's Braised Tofu and Mushrooms

Scallion pancakes 蔥油餅 cōng yóu bǐng

Flaky scallion pancake, top. Or filled with homemade black sesame paste for a sweet variation.

Slivers of pork stir-fried with two kinds of dried mushrooms, cabbage and a mix of green and gold strands, wrapped in paper thin pancakes with a glossy, rich sweet and savory sauce... One of our favorite Chinese dishes mu shu, moo shu or moo shoo pork 木須肉 is made simple in Grace Young's The Breath of a Wok, down to the translucent pancakes of Peking duck fame, which are surprisingly easy to make using only two ingredients!


Each month, the 3000+ members of the Wok Wednesdays Facebook group cook two new dishes from the award-winning cookbook The Breath of a Wok. We share our photos, thoughts and suggestions for great camaraderie and a chance to win some fabulous cooking prizes. Without this group, I would never have discovered that I actually like tofu, nor would I have sought out a hand-hammered pow wok to recreate a favorite childhood dish using traditional cookware. I would have never had the confidence to make har gow 蝦餃, those beautiful and delicious shrimp dumplings wrapped in translucent rice flour, that grace the carts pushed around Cantonese dim sum 點心 restaurants. These little bites really do "dot or touch the heart," although "order as your heart desires" may be a more accurate translation for these small, à la carte dishes.

Beef and broccoli is a classic Chinese restaurant dish that is so much better when made at home! The secrets to a great beef and broccoli dish is both a perfectly balanced sauce and techniques to make sure the broccoli is sufficiently cooked without overcooking the slices of beef. Inspired by the wok evangelist Grace Young's delicious recipe, I sought an even simpler, greener method to achieve the outstanding flavors and textures of this dish. 

Beef and Broccoli modified from Stir-frying to the Sky's Edge.

Dry-fried Szechuan green beans has become my go-to vegetable side for dinner parties, potlucks and family gatherings. The flavor and texture of the beans are amazing, and the dish gets even better after resting at room temperature! It is so frequently requested that I developed shortcuts to achieve the same great results, doubling or tripling the recipe as the finished beans have a way of disappearing each time my teenager walks past! 

Szechuan dry-fried green beans - meatless

Wild rice stuffing or dressing is one of my favorite sides to complement roasted poultry, whether it's the Thanksgiving turkey or a Christmas goose. This version with its mix of nutty brown rice, black slivers of wild rice, crispy prosciutto cubes, dry and fresh mushrooms, green peas and roasted hazelnuts really delivers on the rich drippings flavor with satisfying contrasts in color, texture and flavor.
The dressing that I love to serve with roasted poultry is basically a fried rice, using a blend of wild rice and brown rice, with hot turkey drippings stirred in. My mother used diced Virginia country ham -- the real dry-smoked kind that could be safely stored at room temperature -- to add a rich, smoky flavor to her rice stuffing. I have found that small cubes of prosciutto works well and is easier to handle. These are the same prosciutto cubes I use in Silken Tofu and Spinach soup. Thin slices of rehydrated dried Chinese winter mushrooms 冬菇 (Dōnggū, also known as black mushrooms or dried shiitakes), green peas and the triad of garlic, ginger and scallions round out the flavors. 
This year, I added some sliced fresh mushrooms and toasted hazelnuts which elevated the dressing to another level. Several people told me the wild rice dressing was their favorite Thanksgiving dish this year!

If you love the flavors of dan-dan noodles, Szechuan dry-fried green beans or mapo tofu, there is a secret ingredient that adds a distinctive flavor to these dishes and more. It can be cooked into a master mix with any type of ground meat, or even used on its own for vegan adaptations of Chinese dishes that use a sprinkling of meat as a condiment.

Dan Dan Noodles - recipe in Land of Plenty by Fuchsia Dunlop

Szechuan Dry-Fried String Beans - recipe in The Breath of a Wok by Grace Young

There are many different types of pickled vegetables used in China, each with its own distinctive regional (and probably even familial) variations. I first learned about ya cai 芽菜, a type of picked mustard green sprout/stem, from Fuchsia Dunlop's Land of Plenty. I was fortunate that our local Chinese grocery store stocked the Suimiyacai brand, made in Yibin, China.  Once I tasted ground pork browned with a tablespoon or two of this wonderfully aromatic, lightly salted condiment, I was hooked. 

Shortcut to Love2Chow recipes for Szechuan Master Meat Mix or Vegan Szechuan Master Mix.

Suimiyacai made by Sichuan Yibin Suimi Yacai Co.

I immediately stopped bothering with the more famous pickled mustard green stems called zha cai 榨菜 (Sichuan preserved vegetable), a half-fist-sized preserve that had to be diced into small pieces before being added to the ground meat. Although zha cai does adds a great, slightly sour flavor to pork stir-fries and soups. With its brown sugar, chili, cinnamon and other spices, suimiyacai not only added a richer, more complex flavor, but also the tiny, dark brown fragments enhanced the appearance of the ground meat. 

As meat is often used more as a condiment to flavor many Chinese dishes, rather than dominating the plate, many of the recipes I was happily cooking with suimiyacai used only 4 ounces of meat here, and 6 ounces there. I found this to be irritating as I would then have to figure out what to do with the rest of the ground meat.

Back when I was single and just starting to cook, I used to sauté up a master meat mix that I would subsequently transform in multicultural directions. This consisted of ground beef browned with minced garlic, mushrooms and a splash of soy sauce. I would use it as a starting point for spaghetti and meat sauce one day, a Chinese stirfry with frozen mixed vegetables another day, or tacos and microwave nachos until it was gone. 

Drawing upon this concept, I created a Szechuan Master Meat Mix (SM³) that works great with ground pork, ground beef or ground turkey.  

Some uses for the Love2Chow Szechuan Master Meat Mix (SM³) appear below: 

Charky's Basil Eggplant 

Although this dish did not originally have meat in it (aside from a bit of fish sauce), adding some leftover SM³ really elevated the eggplant to a whole new level (and it was already popular with friends and family)! The secret here is to use the long, skinny Chinese eggplants. They are tender and can be used right after cutting as they have no bitterness to draw out by salting, in contrast to western eggplants. The basil leaves are left whole and used as a vegetable rather than a garnish. Click here for the recipe. 

Charky's Basil Eggplant, a Love3Chow recipe

With the support of fellow wok aficionados, I tried two new recipes from Grace Young's The Breath of a Wok, adding new favorites to my cooking repertoire!

Pan-fried noodle cakes with a scrumptious Pork Shang Palace topping.

Cousin Judy's Tofu with Black Bean Sauce.

Tofu is not just for vegetarians. Infinitely versatile with a wide variety of textures, tofu absorbs and delivers fantastic sauce flavors along with a protein punch. Chances are there's a dish out there that will bring you back for more... Here are the entry level dishes that got my family eating tofu, from cookbook authors Fuchsia Dunlop, Grace Young and Cameron Stauch.

Tofu in fresh tomato sauce (from Vegetarian Viet Nam, p. 67)

Spinach soup with silken tofu and pork (from Land of Fish and Rice, p. 228)

I grew up enjoying a unique version of chow mein 炒麵 noodles, consisting of tender, sauce-absorbing noodles sandwiched between two crisp golden layers. Recently, I learned that this dish, 两面黄 (liǎngmiàn huáng), is one of the regional Chinese specialties that was lost from Suzhou following the Chinese Civil War, but preserved by the Jiangsu/Shanghai diaspora.

Summer corn - slathered, stir-fried or roasted; A glimpse of two great cookbooks: The Breath of a Wok (2004) and Double Awesome Chinese Food (2019); A potluck worthy riff on an Asian noodle salad with roasted summer vegetables and roast chicken.
Who doesn't love the hot crisp, sweet bite of corn on the cob? There are so many ways to cook it, boiled, grilled and, my personal favorite for ease, speed and guaranteed tenderness -- microwaved in wax paper with salt, pepper and butter.
Shortcut to the recipe for Love2Chow Summery Soy-ginger Noodle Salad
Some years ago, Mexican street corn, or elote, started appearing on upscale taco restaurants. The smoky blend of ancho chiles, salty cotija cheese and mayonnaise pops with the fresh greenness from the lime and cilantro, all in counterpoint to sweet, crisp corn kernels. A friend introduced me to Kenji Lopez-Alt's Serious Eats recipe for elote; she prepared the topping in advance and served it with freshly cooked corn cobs at one of our annual gourmet canoe/kayak camping weekends. The topping is so easy and delicious! We made it as a dip to go with corn, veggies and chips at a family event, and it was finger-licking good.

Elote dip from Serious Eats

While I love the browned, caramelized edges that grilled corn attains, it is too easy to cross the line into drying out the kernels. A recipe in Grace Young's The Breath of a Wok (2004), showcased with a two-page photo spread by Alan Richardson, opened my eyes to a whole new world of possibilities. Liang Nian Xiu's Moon Hill Corn and Beans involves cutting the raw kernels off the corn and stir-frying them with green beans and a tomato, fragrant with the triumvirate of minced garlic, ginger and mild fresh chilies. Absolutely delicious and fresh and simple! The heat of the wok lends perfectly to caramelizing the edges of the corn kernels without risk of drying out the little golden nuggets.

Liang Nian Xiu's Moon Hill Corn and Beans

Among the great things about Grace's recipes is that they almost always work out perfectly the first time you try them, they come with free troubleshooting and advice from the entire Wok Wednesdays Facebook community including the author herself, and they serve as great starting points for variation. What I like to call "clean-out-the-fridge" cooking. Today, I was caught without garlic or tomato, but with two cobs of corn that had been sitting in the fridge all week. The husks were all dried out, but the kernels were still plump. There were also two handfuls of past-their-prime green beans (it had been a busy week), a carrot stump, and a half of a jalapeño pepper. So I adapted Liang Nian's recipe to what I had on hand, sprinkling with brown sugar and omitting the water at the end to augment that rich, browned Maillard flavor.

Add caption

Corn cut off the cob also served as the starting point for my riff on a delicious Chinese-American noodle salad from the Li siblings' Double Awesome Chinese Food (2019). I was lucky enough to win this wonderful cookbook through an Eat Your Books giveaway. This is a fun, inventive cookbook less concerned about tradition than with showcasing new combinations that elevate Asian-inspired flavors to a new level. When I tried the Summer Noodle Salad with Ginger Garlic Dressing, I knew this recipe had to be the starting point for our contribution to this year's river camping trip.

I substituted roasted zucchini for spiralized and added roast chicken

There were three of us responsible for feeding 18 hungry people. To accommodate extra prep time for the chosen dessert, Lemon Lust Bars from Joanne Chang's Flour (2010)-the subject of a future post, we decided we needed to adapt this delicious summer recipe into a one-dish meal. Thus, we needed to add sufficient protein to satisfy a group of hungry kayakers.  We quadrupled the dressing recipe, oven-roasting 6-8 pounds of chicken thighs, seasoned generously with Penzey's Galena Street Rib & Chicken Rub, while we were at it roasting the tomatoes and corn. For the vegetarians in the group, we provided Trader Joe's Organic Baked Tofu (teriyaki and sriracha flavors). We cooked the noodles in advance, tossed in olive oil to prevent sticking, and mixed everything on site, cutting up the avocados fresh. While the spaghetti held up perfectly cooked al dente, I recommend soaking the gluten-free rice noodles on site for improved texture -- the flavors were fantastic!

Sheet pans of roasted tomatoes and corn cut off the cob

Oven roasted chicken thighs with Penzey's Galena Street Rub

Summery Soy-Ginger Noodle Salad with Roast Chicken & Vegetables

While canned and frozen corn often work out just fine, I have taken to adding fresh corn cut off the cob to all sorts of dishes, from salads and pizzas to quiches and stews. I've even started tossing cut cobs into the freezer along with frozen bones, onion ends and mushroom stalks. I hear that the cobs add another level of flavor to homemade stocks and soups...


Love2Chow Summery Soy-Ginger Noodle Salad with Roast Chicken & Vegetables