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Sunday night supper
Sichuanese black garlic “Hmm, this black garlic is delicious.” “Actually it’s made from the single-cloved garlic of Sichuan.” “Is that like the wild elephant garlic of Iran?” Such is the conversation...
View ArticleBooks interview
The Browser have just published an interview with me about five books on Chinese food.
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Chinese vegetables in Oxfordshire
A glorious morning yesterday at the Worton Organic Garden and Farm near my parents’ house in Oxford. I brought back purple sprouting broccoli, basil, multicoloured tomatoes of many different shapes,...
View ArticleA Shanghainese dream
An August Saturday night in a flat in Wapping, East London… and I was privileged to share the best Chinese meal I’ve ever had outside China. A Shanghainese friend emailed me some time ago to say that...
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Fast food, Yunnan style
This is the signboard for a little restaurant/takeaway in the backstreets of Jianshui, in southern Yunnan Province. It says ‘The sisters’ fast food shop’. You might imagine that they’d be selling fried...
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Gastronomic tour of China!
I’m very happy to report that I’ll be leading a gastronomic tour of China from October 13-24 this year, in conjunction with WildChina, a specialist travel company based in Beijing. We’ll be eating our...
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Gastronomic tour of China 吃货团！
Beijing Chengdu I’m currently in Shanghai, after the end of my first gastronomic tour with WildChina! I spent ten days or so introducing a small group (ten guests) to the amazing diversity of Chinese...
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Lucky Peach Chinatown issue!
Very happy to be in the Chinatown issue of Lucky Peach, which is out now! It’s a fantastic issue, packed with interesting stuff. Londoners can find it in Foyles in Charing Cross Road.
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In praise of simplicity
The picture on the left is of my lunch yesterday, at home: pao fan 泡饭 (‘soaked’ or soupy rice) made from leftovers of brown rice with broccoli, with added green pak choy, and some spicy fermented tofu....
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The pleasures of texture
This is a video of a magnificent dried sea cucumber after two days of soaking and slow-cooking. As you can see, it has a lazy, springy, sticky texture. When I brought it home, dry and rock-hard like a...
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Eating your national emblem
You can read my piece about the Australian hang-up about eating kangaroo meat here, on the BBC website. And if you like, listen to a different version on From Our Own Correspondent here – it’s the last...
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Chinese vegetables grown in Kent
You can read my piece about Farmer Mau Chiping in today’s Financial Times magazine. For years I’ve been torn between my desires to buy as much local produce as possible and to cook as much Chinese food...
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The MSG controversy
This article ‘Breaking Bland’, by John Mahoney, is the most lucid, informative and interesting I’ve read on the whole MSG controversy. It goes into great detail about what exactly MSG is, how it is...
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Anyone for chop suey at the Chinese Delmonico?
Thanks to Cool Culinaria for sending me samples from their new collection of vintage Chinese restaurant menu prints, which date from the late nineteenth century to the 1970s! The originals come from...
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The Long March of Chinese regional cooking in Britain
Dinner in Changsha, Hunan You can read my article on the new Chinese regional restaurants in the Guardian here. I thought I’d use my blog to offer a bit more information. So here are a few of the most...
View ArticleThe real spring roll…
…or at least the most ancient kind. You can read my piece about fresh, unfried spring rolls in today’s Financial Times Weekend magazine – it includes recipes based on those from Every Grain of Rice....
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My latest WildChina food tour
In October, I took another group of adventurers on a gastronomic tour of China, from Beijing, through Xi’an, Chengdu and Hangzhou, to Shanghai. It’s always a delight, for me, to see everyone expanding...
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Land of Plenty reprint now on sale!
I’m very happy to announce that the reprint of Land of Plenty (the US edition of Sichuan Cookery, my Sichuan cookbook) is now on sale. To all the people who have been asking me about it: thanks for...
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Land of Fish and Rice: UK edition now out!
Today is the official publication day of my latest book, Land of Fish and Rice: Recipes from the Culinary Heart of China! It’s a collection of recipes and stories from the Lower Yangtze Region,...
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