Hungry Bear and I love bamboo shoots, but we've never cooked with fresh ones until recently. During the winter time, we always see fresh bamboo shoots in our local Asian markets, but hesitated to buy them until a few months ago.

Neither one of us knew how to peel them, so we searched the Internets and discovered it was relatively easy to prep bamboo shoots. Here's an informative video that shows how they are found and prepared. The bamboo shoots in the video are boiled to remove their bitterness. We're not sure why it is necessary because the shoots we get are not bitter, so we simply peel them following these steps.

We've cooked with fresh bamboo shoots several times now and Hungry Bear created this easy sauté with ground pork. It's a simple dish that really highlights the freshness and crunchy texture of the bamboo shoots. Now that we're comfortable peeling fresh ones, it's going to be really hard to use canned bamboo shoots ever again.

Side Note: For a behind the scenes look at our kitchen, check out Jen Yu's kitchen tours: week 3 on Use Real Butter.

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Zha ziang mian, aka Chinese spaghetti, is one of Hungry Bear's favorite comfort dishes. It has everything she likes... sweet, salty, spicy and carbs! The rich meaty sauce is nicely contrasted by the cool refreshing vegetable garnish.

It's a popular item in Northern China and legend has it that Marco Polo got his inspiration for Italian spaghetti after spending time in China. Growing up, Hungry Bear often had this dish served with regular spaghetti noodles, but it's best served with Chinese noodles. We included a photo of the brand we like in the slideshow.

The ingredient list looks long, but it's actual quite easy to make. So the next time you want some spaghetti and meat sauce, give this Chinese version a try.

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We've been really bad about taking pictures of our Sunday nite dinners lately. Sometimes we just want to eat and not deal with the photography, especially when dinner is not at our place. It's a pain in the butt to lug around the DSLR and tripod to our friends place and figure out the lighting conditions. After accidentally dropping our point-and-shoot camera on the strip in Vegas (long story), we recently got an ultra-compact Canon SD1100IS, which is great for discrete restaurant shots.

This past Sunday, Hungry Bear and I went over to Jane's place for dinner. It was a perfect opportunity to test out our little camera. For dinner, Howie (who is a much better cook than he lets on) made mapo tofu and stir-fried green beans. Jane and Garry made angel food cake with a lemon glaze and creme brulee. We would have taken pictures of dessert, but Jane and Garry weren't happy with their results. We thought they tasted perfectly good.

The mapo tofu was warm and very satisfying. And Howie completely winged the recipe. He should really make dinner more often!  We couldn't leave you without a recipe, so here's a mapo tofu roundup...

• Mapo Doufu / Mapo Tofu via Appetite for China
• Mapo Tofu by Nook & Pantry
• Recipe: Ma Po Tofu via Rasa Malaysia
• Ma Po Tofu (Chinese Pockmarked Old Lady's Tofu) from Wandering Chopsticks
• Mapo Tofu, Take 2 via Pinoy Cook
• Mapo Tofu (Marpo Doufu) by [No Recipes]

BTW, our white cut chicken picture won the DMBLGIT July 2008 aesthetics category. Winner, winner, chicken dinner!

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Our friends, Jerry and Gabriel, are moving to Seattle in a few weeks. To give them a proper send off, we had them over for dinner last night. For SND, actually Monday night dinner, Hungry Bear and I made...

• Curry Cauliflower Soup with Honey
• Roasted Five-Spice Pork Tenderloin
• Cauliflower and Mushroom Sticky Rice Risotto
• Stir-Fried Water Spinach
• Chocolate Bouchons

Well, we didn't actually make the bouchons. We were up in Napa over the weekend and picked up some goodies from Bouchon Bakery. Sometimes it's just easier to pick up dessert than to make it yourself.

We made the roasted five-spice pork tenderloin by modifying a recipe from Susanna Foo. The main changes were adding an habanero pepper and increasing the quantity of Chinese five-spice. Not knowing how much heat Jerry and Gabriel could handle, I only used half an habanero without many seeds. It turns out my heat conservatism was unnecessary. They love really spicy food and added some of my habanero chili garlic sauce to the pork. If I had only known.

The tenderloin was moist and flavorful with the bold fragrance of five-spice. We all enjoyed dinner immensely and the next time Jerry and Gabriel are in town, I'll really crank up the heat for them!

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Vietnamese fresh spring rolls? Summer rolls? Salad rolls? What do you call these things? It's goi cuon in Vietnamese. The literally translation is salad (goi) roll (cuon). Whatever you call them, they are light, refreshing and delicious. Most restaurants serve salad rolls with nuoc cham, a fish sauce based dipping sauce, but did you know, it's ten times better with a spicy peanut Hoisin sauce.

A few weeks ago, Hungry Bear had a major craving for goi cuon after Nikki, a.k.a. Canary Girl, asked me to share my recipe. My version is a common shrimp and pork salad roll recipe that most Viet people make. As long as the ingredients are fresh, especially the lettuce and herbs, the salad rolls are going to be good.

I made goi cuon this past Sunday night as part of our Vietnamese/Chinese New Year celebration dinner with our SND friends. Every time I make a batch of salad rolls, I have more respect for my mom's ability to crank these things out. They are easy to make, but time consuming to prep and roll. My mom can probably roll 2 or 3 batches in the time I can make one. Next time, I'm just going to do the prep work and we'll have a salad roll rolling party.

Now to the best part, my Dad's spicy peanut Hoisin sauce. This peanut sauce completely rocks! And it's super easy to make, taking only five minutes. The sauce relegates the goi cuon to just a delivery device to get the peanut sauce into my mouth. It's a great combination of spicy, sweet, salty and creamy. The next time you make Vietnamese salad rolls, dip it in this spicy peanut Hoisin sauce and you won't ever go back to nuoc cham!

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I'd been asking Hungry Bear to make her braised tofu, pork and shiitakes the last several weeks. First off, it's one of my favorite dishes and I had a hankering for it. Secondly, I wanted to take better pictures of it, because the first set of pictures doesn't convey the deliciousness of the dish. It was only our second post on SND, and we were complete newbies at food photography.

Whenever we need Asian ingredients, we walk a couple of blocks to the Richmond New May Wah Supermarket. It's one of the best Asian markets in San Francisco. The prices are super cheap, or as the bay area kids like to say... HELLA cheap! For only $10.52, we picked up the ground pork, shiitake mushrooms, tofu, cilantro and a very large bag of pea shoots at New May Wah. What a deal!

The downside of the market can be the long checkout lines and the crazy Chinese grandmothers, who will box you out while reaching for produce. Hungry Bear has no issues sticking her elbows out to protect her space, whereas, I'm afraid of these aggressive, elderly women. I try to avoid the craziness by going during non-peak times, which means weekday mornings.

Back to the braised pork and tofu, I made Hungry Bear measure out all the ingredients while she was cooking, so we could document the recipe. I threw off her timing a bit, because she's used to just dumping in the ingredients by taste and feel. Still, the dish turned out fantastic as usual.

It's a simple dish with great flavors from the shiitakes, pork, soy and oyster sauce. We always have it over rice with a side of stir-fried vegetables. This time around, we had pea shoots with garlic.

Over time, the amount of pork has increased from 1 pound to 1.5 pounds. What can I say, I'm a meat eater. I love my veggies too, but I won't skimp out on the meat. No matter how much pork is used, it's a great dish and has become comfort food for me!

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A few weeks ago, I had a major craving for pulled pork after seeing this pulled pork sandwich from Simply Recipes. I love any big hunk of meat that is slow-cooked or braised. But after looking at the ingredients in the recipe, I was hesitant to make it because it seemed too vinegary.

I have a low tart tolerance and generally dislike anything with a lot of vinegar. And I have major issues with BBQ sauce, Tabasco and other vinegar sauces that dare call themselves hot sauces, but that's a sore subject for another time. When I have barbecued meat, I make sure the BBQ sauce is on the side. I want to taste the meat first and the sauce second!

Instead of making pulled pork with a traditional vinegar or tomato based sauce, I decided to create a Vietnamese pulled pork with my favorite Vietnamese ingredients. I used the flavors from my mom's braised chicken in caramel sauce with lemongrass and chili peppers (ga kho xa ot) as the inspiration for my pulled pork. My mom's ga kho xa ot is my favorite Vietnamese dish and it's the first thing I eat when I visit my parents.

I decided to make the pulled pork in the oven, since I don't have a reliable outdoor grill. My first attempt at making pulled pork turned out well and the SNDsters enjoyed it. I was pleased with the flavors from the dry rub, caramel sauce, lemongrass, chili peppers and fish sauce. However, I used bad cooking directions from a Food Network chef, who shall remain nameless. But let's just say, the results were far from "ultimate."

After searching for better roasting directions, I found a great article on pork butt selection and preparation. I learned the ideal cooking temperature was 225 to 250 degrees F and the target internal pork temperature was 190 to 205 degrees F.

Using these directions, my second attempt at pulled pork was a bigger success. I was extremely pleased with the texture of the pork and how easily it pulled apart. I oven-roasted a 7.5 lb pork butt at 250 degrees F to an internal temp of 195 degrees F and it took 9 1/2 hours. Yes it's a long time, but it's easy work and definitely worth the wait.

During the roasting process, the fragrance of Chinese five spice, which was used in the dry rub, filled my entire place. The pork developed a nice bark, primarily from the brown sugar in the rub. The pulled pork had a great five spice flavor on its own, but it was even more delicious after the lemongrass caramel sauce was mixed in.

I was extremely happy with the flavors of my pulled pork. There was a nice combination of sweetness and heat from the caramel sauce and fresh chili peppers. The saltiness of the pork comes from the kosher salt in the dry rub and fish sauce. The flavors are rounded out by the citrus of the lemongrass.

The pulled pork was served as a sandwich with a side of Vietnamese slaw (goi bap cai). Dinner was completed with an amazing sticky date pudding from Bakesale Betty. The slaw and date pudding will be written up in future posts, so I'll hold off describing them for now.

I created Vietnamese pulled pork to satisfy my desire for pulled pork without a heavy, vinegar based BBQ sauce. "Let the pork shine" was my philosophy. Give it a try and tell me what you think.

SNDsters: Eric, Tracy, Mark, Jane, Hungry Bear, Chuck

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This past weekend my buddy, Chad, drove up from LA with his wife, Kristie, and their two young kids, Chelsea and Brooke, ages 2 years and 4 months, respectively. Chad was coming up for our annual Penn State Football weekend in San Francisco. It's just a get together with my two West Coast Penn State friends, Chad and Chuck, to hang out and watch a PSU game. I think we've held this event since 1998. Unfortunately, Chuck from Seattle couldn't make it this time.

After a weekend filled with Korean BBQ, Hawaiian, Chinese and Burmese food, I was wondering what to make for Sunday night dinner. Thankfully, Jane texted me Sunday morning stating that dinner was at her place. Her brother, Garry, was planning on making a slow-roasted pork shoulder and his wife, Karen, was making a strawberry cream cake. We were definitely looking forward to dinner.

Chad and I went on a 50 mile bike ride to Tiburon and afterwards, we were famished. I told Chad that we should snack on something before heading over for dinner, otherwise, everyone would think we were complete pigs if we devoured all the food ourselves. My reputation as a glutton has already been established, but I wanted to protect Chad's image.

Dinner started with a pasta dish that Garry threw together with hot Italian sausages, mushrooms, peas, onions and tomato sauce. As a side dish, we sautéed some Kale with garlic, olive oil, sea salt and a touch of butter. To make the kale more tender, we blanched it first. The pasta was excellent with spicy sausage and sweet peas. The kale was tender and tasty.

Next up was Karen's strawberry cream cake. Karen is a trained pastry chef, so we are always looking forward to eating her beautiful desserts. This time, she was trying out a strawberry cream cake recipe from America's Test Kitchen. The recipe is from the current season of America's Test Kitchen TV show, and it's free if you register for the site. The cake is like strawberry shortcake and consists of white cake, strawberry filling, whipped cream with cream cheese and fresh strawberries. The cake was amazing! It was surprisingly light and not too sweet.

While the strawberry cream cake was great, it was only a palate cleanser for the slow-roasted pork shoulder. Actually, Garry and Karen were tied up and couldn't get the pork in the oven early enough. Since it takes a few hours to roast, the pork wasn't ready until after dessert. And none of us were leaving without trying the pork!

Garry based the pork roast off of this slow-roasted pork shoulder with melted apples recipe. He omitted the apples and onions and cut the cooking time. Without the apples and onions, there was less braising and more roasting. Garry thought the pork shoulder was too dry, but everyone at dinner thoroughly enjoyed it. The pork had a crispy, caramelized crust and the meat was full of flavor. The two big carnivores of the group, Jane and I, couldn't stop grabbing more pieces of pork shoulder. I definitely want to make this dish again with the melted apples.

Dinner was very fun and scrumptious. It was also great sharing Sunday night dinner with Chad and his family. As we were all leaving with full bellies, two year old, Chelsea, yelled, "tanks for da cake!" 

SNDsters: Chad, Kristie, Chelsea, Brooke, Garry, Karen, Mark, Jane, Hungry Bear, Chuck

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Braised pork, tofu and mushrooms is my favorite dish prepared by Hungry Bear. I love this dish because of the ground pork and shiitake mushrooms. We usually eat it with stir fried water spinach/hollow greens and jasmine rice.

The recipe is based on one found in the cookbook, The Breath of a Wok: Unlocking the Spirit of Chinese Wok Cooking Through Recipes and Lore. Hungry Bear followed the recipe the first time she prepared it but has since altered it to our tastes. The primary seasonings in the recipe are soy sauce and oyster sauce. We have enhanced the dish by adding Vietnamese chili garlic sauce for a spicy kick. Additionally, shiitake mushrooms with its great flavor and texture has replaced the plain button mushrooms.

I really like the flavor combinations of the pork, soy, oyster and chili sauce. The dish also has a nice complement of textures from the ground pork, pan-fried tofu and shiitake mushrooms. The dish is wonderful on a bed of rice and a side of stir-fried water spinach.

Water spinach has many names such as hollow greens (due to its hollow stem), rau muong (Vietnamese), on choy (Cantonese) and kongxincài (Mandarin), which literally translates to "hollow heart vegetable." Hollow greens is one of our favorite vegetables and we simply stir fry it in a little oil with garlic and salt.

If you click through the pictures, you'll see a bowl of rice with chili sauce mixed together. I call this "red rice." I like adding the chili sauce to flavor my rice. It's not for the heat, because I'm immune to its spiciness. For heat, I'll eat a fresh chili pepper, usually a Thai red chili, with each meal.

I love braised pork, tofu and mushrooms so much that I'm having a major craving for it as I write this post. It's a really simple home cooked dish and is considered a comfort food by Hungry Bear.

I could eat this meal once a week but I'm limited to having it once a month. Hungry Bear doesn't want me to grow accustomed to eating it so I will think of it as a special meal when she prepares it. I think I have to wait an agonizing three more weeks until I can have it again.

Update 03.04.2008: Better pictures and the recipe can be found at Braised Pork, Tofu and Shiitakes.

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