Matthew Kirkley of Belon, French fine-dining restaurant in Hong Kong, on why...
Why did you decide to be a chef? “It’s simple. When I was 15, my father told me to go out and get a job. I started at a restaurant in suburban Maryland, as a busboy, but in the US you need a minor’s...
View ArticleHow to make spiced lamb and cumin dumplings with a DIY dipping sauce for each...
Until I moved away from home, I didn’t realise dumpling-making was supposed to be a communal activity, with everyone lending a hand. When I was growing up in California, our family visited our paternal...
View ArticleFood writer and historian So Yan-kit took ‘good food’ for granted until she...
Hong Kong-British food writer and historian So Yan-kit, who died in 2001, would probably not have had very complimentary things to say about the hot dogs, fish fingers and burgers with fries listed on...
View ArticleHow to make an oyster omelette, also called an oyster pancake – hawker-style
Oyster omelette, also called oyster pancake, differs according to where you eat it, and from cook to cook, even within the same country.In Singapore and Taiwan, it tends to be sticky and stretchy due...
View ArticleChina vs Italy: forget pasta, which country ‘invented’ ice cream?
I was well aware of the dispute between China and Italy over which country “invented” pasta, but I didn’t know until reading Ices Italia (2007) that the argument extended to which of the two first came...
View ArticleItalian pastry chef Giovanni Pina on moving from medicine to baking and why...
Tell us about the history of your shop. “Our company was founded by my grandfather in 1920. His name was Giovanni, like mine, because it was the tradition for the firstborn son to take the name of the...
View ArticleHow to make stir-fried chilli chicken, a dish that can be on the table in...
Stir-fried chilli chicken is a dish that you can have cooked and on the table in 45 minutes or less. The meat needs to marinate just briefly – I use that time to prepare the other ingredients and start...
View ArticleAsia’s best breakfasts: from hoppers in Sri Lanka to Vietnam’s banh mi
Breakfast is considered by many to be the most important meal of the day. What you eat in the morning replenishes those sleep jaded energy reserves and fuels your mind and body for the day...
View ArticleSeasonal food from Andalusia, Spain - rabbit rice, asparagus with eggs, lamb...
The house in Spain owned by Samuel and Samantha Clark – the husband-and-wife team behind Moro, a Spanish and Muslim Mediterranean restaurant they opened in London in 1997 – is perfectly named. “The...
View ArticleHe wanted to be a motocross rider but ended up becoming a chef – and...
Did you know you wanted to be a chef growing up? “When I was a child I wanted to be a motocross rider, then later I switched to wanting to make pizzas. Then someone told me if I became a chef I could...
View ArticleHow to make steamed shrimp with roe and tobiko caviar – and yes, you can use...
The words “shrimp” and “prawn” are often used interchangeably, depending on where the person saying them comes from: Britons tend to refer to all types of these crustaceans as prawns, while in the...
View ArticleHow arrival of Indonesian domestic helpers enriched Hong Kong food choices
Immigrant groups the world over create localised demand for their own foodstuffs, and Hong Kong is no exception. Over time, certain communities expand – the French influx over the past decade has...
View ArticleAll it took was a bowl of pho in Vietnam for chef Mai Pham to begin feeling...
It took a steaming bowl of pho for food writer and cookbook author Mai Pham to come to terms with being back in Vietnam, the country of her birth, which she had left more than 25 years earlier, days...
View ArticleChinese chefs are like musicians who can’t compose, says Jayson Tang –‘we...
How do you envision improving Chinese cuisine? “Chinese cuisine doesn’t have a proper training system. We in the industry should have ideas of how to prepare young people. In Chinese kitchens it’s a...
View ArticleHow to make vegan glass noodles with tempeh and bean curd – a delicious...
The soybean is a wonderfully versatile legume that, when processed, takes many forms. They include soybean milk, soy sauce, miso, doenjang and fermented black beans, and ingredients that many...
View ArticleSourdough Panettone and Viennoiserie: how the history of bread in France is...
If you’re one of the many home cooks who got into bread baking last year, during the pandemic, and panicked when stores ran out of commercial yeast, knowing that you could let your breads rise with a...
View ArticleFrom making Las Vegas high rollers pasta at 4am to learning barbecue from...
What got you interested in cooking? “I was born and raised in Queens, New York, and my grandmother was an entertainer-cook – she loved to have gatherings. During family holidays in Virginia we ate a...
View ArticleHow to make scallops - or oysters - motoyaki, a simple Japanese grilled...
When I lived in San Francisco, in the United States, there was an izakaya I often visited that served a delicious dish that was listed on the menu simply as “grilled oysters”. Far from being the...
View ArticleRed Sands: food writer Caroline Eden’s journey through Central Asia,...
Red Sands (2020) is more of a travelogue with recipes than a conventional cookbook. This is not meant as a criticism – author Caroline Eden writes beautifully and evocatively – but as a warning to...
View Article‘Hong Kong is the best place to be a chef,’ says Fabiano Palombini, although...
Tell us some of your childhood memories of food. “I grew up by the sea near Rome. Since I was a child, I have always been inside the kitchen. My grandmother was always baking and my mother cooking....
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