Blogs

Jujube: The Red Dates at the Heart of the Chinese Kitchen If you've followed any of our recipes, you'll have noticed the same ingredient appearing again and again. Jujubes, or Chinese red dates, turn up in congee, in soups, in hot pot bases, in broths and in teas. There's a reason for that ubiquity: they're one of the most useful ingredients in the Chinese store cupboard, doing a job no other ingredient quite does. Here's what they actually are, why they're in everything, and how to use them properly. They Aren't Dates Let's clear this up first, because the English...

Chrysanthemum Tea: How to Brew It Properly Chrysanthemum tea is one of the most widely drunk herbal infusions in China, and one of the easiest to make badly. Most people pour boiling water over a spoonful of flowers, leave it too long, and end up with something bitter and faintly stewed. Done properly it's delicate, floral and gently sweet, and it can be refilled several times from the same flowers. Here's how, plus what to look for when buying. What It Is Chrysanthemum tea is made from the dried flower heads of Chrysanthemum morifolium, known in Chinese as Ju Hua....

Turmeric in Chinese Cooking: Jiang Huang and How to Use It Almost everything written about turmeric places it in an Indian kitchen, and understandably so. But turmeric has a long history in China too, where it goes by the name Jiang Huang and occupies a rather different position: less an everyday base spice, more a specific ingredient used deliberately. This article looks at turmeric from that angle, plus the practical things worth knowing whichever tradition you're cooking in, including fresh versus dried, why fat and pepper turn up alongside it, and how to make a proper golden milk. Jiang Huang:...

Black Foods in Chinese Cooking: Sesame, Beans and the Autumn Kitchen Walk through a Chinese grocery in autumn and you'll notice something about what's stacked at the front: black sesame, black beans, black rice, black dates. It isn't a coincidence or a trend. Colour carries meaning in Chinese food culture, and black has a specific place in it, one tied to the colder half of the year. This article looks at what "black foods" means in the Chinese kitchen, and how to actually cook with the two most useful of them. Why Black? Chinese food thinking is organised around the...