Quick and easy tea-smoked duck breasts: elegant enough for entertaining
Duck breasts are ideal for making a quick but elegant meal. The breasts from birds fattened for foie gras are large and quite expensive (they are usually labelled magret de canard), but there is little...
View ArticleAn underwater winery? Champagne house hits the spot with ocean-aged wine
Submerging bottles of wine in the ocean to age them may seem unusualbut, given that it has proved to be an effective technique, one might wonder why it isn’t used more often. Away from the shore and...
View ArticleGeorgian cuisine: cookbook will make you fall in love with country’s food and...
Georgia – the country, not the American state – has become a popular foodie destination in recent years. One of the draws is its wines, especially the famous “orange” wine (contrary to what many people...
View ArticleHow to make double cheese and potato deep-dish pie – it is easier than it...
Potatoes cooked with cream and cheese can take many forms, ranging from simple gratins to the super-rich aligot, mashed potato containing so much cheese that it can be stretched. This recipe is for an...
View ArticleThree Italian whites wines that are not pinot grigio, which actually...
Pinot grigio, a grape that originated in Burgundy, France, may be the basis of the most popular white wine in Italy these days, but the country has a deep repository of indigenous white varieties,...
View ArticleCooking for Deng Xiaoping and Li Ka-shing: a Shantou chef recalls good times,...
How did you become interested in cooking? “My father and grandfather were chefs. They told me not to go into the industry because it’s physically draining, so I wasn’t interested. But when I graduated...
View ArticleSimple Italian food any home cook can whip up, courtesy of British chef Theo...
I am always a bit wary of chefs who release cookbooks about “simple” food – their idea of simplicity does not always tally with mine. Theo Randall’s My Simple Italian (2015), however, is one book that...
View ArticleCatalonian chef Rafael Peña on his time at El Bulli and how the French are...
Where does your love of cooking come from? “When I started studying mathematics in university, I had to work during the weekends and the easiest option was to become a cook. I started working for a...
View ArticleChina’s domestic wine market benefits from foreign know-how, yields promising...
Buying wine from almost anywhere in the world is easy – it’s just a click away, of course. But many of us in Hong Kong forget that wines are being made on our doorstep: while China is fast becoming the...
View ArticleHome-made crispy Cantonese fried fish with corn sauce, an easy to make and...
Fried fish with corn sauce is a common dish in Cantonese restaurants. At the inexpensive places, you’ll get fried frozen fillets with a cloying, too-thick creamed corn sauce straight out of the can....
View ArticleFrom Mexican hot dogs to tonkotsu ramen: chef Dan Hong’s cookbook is fun and...
From its quirky cover and boastful subtitle – A Glimpse Into the Mind of the Brillant Chef behind Mr Wong, El Loco and Ms G’s – it is evident that Mr Hong (2014) is going to be an unusual cookbook. The...
View ArticleSicilian winery Donnafugata shows you can judge wine by its label, with...
A recent news story claims that “the secret weapon in the $63 billion wine market is often an eye-catching label”, adding that in a saturated marketplace, producers need to grab any opportunity to...
View ArticleHow a Japanese chef uses colour, or lack thereof, to highlight the flavours...
Is this your first trip to Hong Kong? “This is my second time here – the first time was 20 years ago so I don’t remember much. This time I have been eating a lot of local food, like congee and wonton...
View ArticleHomely Middle Eastern recipes from the couple behind one of London’s best...
As you can probably tell by the title of this book, the recipes are ones that Sarit Packer and Itamar Srulovich, chef-owners of the London restaurant Honey & Co, might cook when they are at home....
View ArticleGrandmother’s recipe for pork dumplings, noodles not necessary
When my Ah Ma (paternal grandmother) cooked, she did so lavishly. With the help of my father and me – once I had grown tall enough to reach the counters – she prepared meals for 20 or more of our...
View ArticleMichelin-star Hong Kong chef’s secrets: be flexible and make the most of what...
In 2011, 25-year-old Vicky Cheng arrived in Hong Kong with no job and no plans. With the excuse of renewing his Hong Kong ID card, the young chef – who grew up in Canada and had trained at Toronto’s...
View ArticleTaiwanese mother’s recipes for her children living in the US: comfort food...
This is a very personal book – Ruth Wu Lieu wrote it for her children, so that they would know how to make the dishes they had enjoyed at home while growing up in the United States. Mama Lieu’s Kitchen...
View ArticleHow to pick a winning wine, every time: four simple rules the experts follow,...
It takes a great deal of work to make a bottle of wine. Those involved include not just the winemaker and vigneron (who cultivates the grapes), but also the workers in the fields and cellar. When a...
View ArticleHow to make Shanghainese red bean pancakes, a sweet and chewy treat
Red bean pancakes are a popular dessert, served primarily at restaurants specialising in Shanghainese cuisine. The pancake is like a thin crêpe, but it is made with glutinous rice flour (and a little...
View ArticleModern Greek recipes from the couple behind Mazi in Notting Hill, one of...
Most foodies should be able to name at least a few Greek dishes. Spanakopita, taramasalata, moussaka and souvlaki are all well known. But avgolemono? That might be stretching their knowledge a little....
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