You can eat them for breakfast, lunch or midnight snack. The combination of oil infused with the fragrance of spring onion and the umami savouriness of soy sauce is irresistible no matter how humble and simple the ingredients sound.

Serves 3-4

 Spring  Onion Oil Dressing (yield about 8 tablespoons) 葱油汁

• 5 to 6                   spring onions, 香葱切段，葱白、葱叶分开
• 6 tablespoons    cooking oil
• 4 tablespoons    light soy sauce 生抽
• 2 tablespoons    dark soy sauce老抽
• 4 teaspoons       caster sugar白糖
• 1                          spring onion for garnish, minced 葱花

300g-400g      noodles (100g per person)

Method

1. on a cutting board, separate the white and green parts of the spring onions. You may smack slightly the white part with the flat side of your Chinese clever or a rolling pin to loosen their fibers. Then cut the white and green parts evenly into 6-7cm sections.
2. Heat the cooking oil over medium heat for 2 minutes. Turn it to LOW heat. Add the green part of the spring onions and fry for about 5 minutes. Drain and discard the caramelized spring onions. Then add the white part of the spring onions. Continue to fry over low heat for about 10 minutes. Add light soy sauce, dark soy sauce and sugar and fry over low heat for 1-2 minutes. Turn the heat off once you see the bubbles start emerging. The spring onion oil dressing is done. Pour it in a bowl.
   

   
3. Bring a large pot of water to a boil over HIGH heat and cook the noodles to your liking, then drain them well – depending on the types of your noodles, the process takes no more than 10 minutes. Cool the noodles off with running water if you’d like. Put the noodles in a serving bowl. Add the spring onion oil dressing and mix well with a pair of chopsticks. Garnish the serving bowl with minced spring onions. Think about adding two tablespoons of spring onion oil dressing for one serving (100g noodles.)
4. Ready to serve.

 Tips:

1. Make a large quantity of the spring onion oil and keep it in the fridge. Then you can have a bowlful of this gorgeous snack in 10 minutes – the time requires to boil water and cooking the noodles.
2. Make the spring onion oil dressing over LOW heat. Boil water and cook the noodles over HIGH heat.

Snow skin (Mochi) mooncake is a non-baked mooncake eaten during Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival. The mooncake skin texture is quite similar with mochi: soft, chewy and milky. While snow skin mooncake can be filled with variety of things, lotus seeds paste is my favorite. Lotus seeds are used extensively in Chinese cooking, especially in the form of paste. The paste can be made in advance and keep refrigerated or frozen. Snow skin mooncake should be kept refrigerated in airtight container and typically serve cold. You shall be able to find all the ingredients and the mooncake mould in Asian markets or Amazon.

Makes about 20 pieces (50g each piece)

Homemade lotus seeds paste filling 莲蓉馅 (yield 450g lotus seeds paste)

• 150g           dry lotus seeds 白莲子
• 800ml          water
• 110g           granulated sugar 白砂糖
• 15g            glutinous rice flour糯米粉
• 75g           cooking oil
• 3 tablespoons    water
• ¼ teaspoon      salt

Wrappers (yields about 640g snow skin/Mochi）

• 350g                 milk
• 35g                   cooking oil
• 100g                glutinous rice flour糯米粉
• 80g                  rice flour米粉
• 40g                  wheat starch 澄粉
• 80g                   powdered sugar糖粉
• 1 teaspoon       green tea/cocoa powder（optional）
• A few drops     food coloring (optional) or use natural coloring like pumkin juice and carrot juice

For Assembling

• 50g                    glutinous rice flour糯米粉 (cooked, instructions below) for dusting

Method

Step 1  make the lotus seeds paste

1. Wash and rinse 150g dried lotus seeds. Soak for a few hours or overnight in the refrigerator (depending on the dryness of the seeds). Soaking help lotus seeds to cook evenly and reduce cooking time.Split the seed in half and remove the bitter-tasting germ (green sprout).
2. Drain the add in 800ml water, bring to the boil, reduce to low heat and cook for 1 hour and half. Keep the pot partially open to prevent boiling over. Try to use a spatula to stir from the bottom every 20 minutes to keep it sticking to the bottom.
3. Puree until smooth using a blender. If your lotus seeds seem too dry, just add a few tablespoons of water. Sift the lotus seeds puree for smoother paste texture.
4. In a small bowl, mix 15g glutinous rice flour and 3 tablespoons of water. Add the mixture into the pot together with 100g sugar, ¼ teaspoon salt and 75g cooking oil. Stir well.
5. Cook over medium-low heat until smooth paste formed, stir constantly. It takes about 40 minutes, cooking time may vary slightly depending on your cooking temperature.
6. Cook until puree thicken, smooth and silky paste formed. Wrap with cling film and keep it in the fridge for a few hours. Paste will harden slightly when fully cooled.

 Step 2   make the wrappers （snow skin/Mochi）

7. Add in all snow skin ingredients, mix until smooth. Sieve the mixture into a bowl. 过筛
8. Cover the bowl with clingy film and steam over medium-high heat for 25 minutes.
9. Mix the cooked dough with chopsticks or spatula while still hot.   After the dough has slightly cooled down, wrap it with clingy film and keep refrigerated for 2 hours, or until fully cooled.

Step 3   Assemble

10. Prepare the dusting flour by cooking the flour. Place a small amount of glutinous rice flour (50g) evenly in a dry pan and cook for about 10-15 minutes over lowest heat. Stir from time to time. It is done when the flour slightly turns yellow.
11. Lightly dust the inside of the mooncake mould with cooked dust rice flour.
12. Divide the dough and filling into small equal portions (dough/wrapper 30g each; filling 20g each). Lightly coat your two hands with dusting flour. Flatten the dough piece with palms, top with filling, then fully wrap the filling with dough.
13. Shape the filled dough into ball, then put into the mooncake mould to create pattern on it. Chill the mooncakes for 1 hour before serving for a better texture.

 Tips：

1. You can make bigger or even smaller mooncakes. Just remember to keep the ratio of filings and wrappers 2:3. I’ve used 20g filling and 30g wrapper to make one 50g mooncake.

One of my favorite tofu recipes.  The crispy golden exterior of the battered tofu wonderfully contrasts with its soft and silken interior. The dish can be literally translated into Pot Collapse Tofu (Guo Ta Dou Fu). Guo Ta is a Chinese cooking method in which the food is slowly cooked until it gets dry and sticks to the bottom of the wok (hence the name ‘Guo Ta’). The recipe of the dish was originated from the province of Shangdong, but late has become one of the landmark dishes in Northern China.

Serves 3-4

• 2 blocks (about 500g- 600g in total)   firm Tofu老豆腐
• ½ – 1 teaspoon                                       salt
• 1/3        teaspoon                                    white pepper powder (optional)白胡椒粉
• 4 tablespoons                                        corn flour for dredging 淀粉
• 2 eggs                                                     beaten
• 4-5 tablespoons                                    cooking oil
• 2 tablespoons                                       spring onions, minced香葱末
• 1 tablespoon                                         fresh ginger, minced姜末

 Seasoning sauce:

• 250ml                 chicken stock 鸡汤
• 1 tablespoon     light soy sauce 生抽
• 1 teaspoon        caster sugar 白糖
• 1 teaspoon        corn flour淀粉

 Method

1. For best result, remove as much moisture from the tofu before frying. Unwrap the Tofu packet. Pat dry the Tofu with paper towel. Cut the tofu into equal square pieces of 4-5 cm long and 1cm thick. Season the pieces with salt and white pepper powder.
2. In a small bowl mix the seasoning sauce ingredients.
3. Get organized for frying: having at the ready separate bowls or plates filled with corn flour and beaten eggs. Heat a nonstick frying pan over medium heat. Add 2 tablespoons of cooking oil at a time. Dredge the tofu slices in corn flour, then dip into the beaten egg, coating them completely. Slip the tofu into the hot frying pan. Fry for about 2 minutes until golden brown, then flip over and fry the other side. Place paper towel in a plate and remove the tofu to the plate. Repeat the process for the remaining Tofu pieces.
   

   
4. To the same hot pan add the minced ginger and half of the spring onions. Fry until fragrant. Return all the fried Tofu pieces to the pan. Add the seasoning sauce and bring to a simmer. Turn heat to low and cook until the liquid is reduced to a thick sauce. To ensure all Tofu pieces are evenly coated with sauce, you can choose either carefully flipping the tofu once or using a spoon to scoop some sauce onto top of the Tofu pieces. This takes about 4-5 minutes.
5. Plate, garnish with the remaining spring onions.
6. Serve.

A very easy and healthy way to enjoy the moist, tender and mildly sweet flavor of the red snapper, a deep-sea fish high in energy and low in calorie. Hope you don’t mind a head on your fish. If yes, just use filleted fish. 

Serves 3-4,  

• 1                         Whole red snapper (or seabass), about 600g红鲷鱼或者海鲈鱼
• 1                         Lemon, thinly sliced柠檬切片
• 1 tablespoon     fish sauce鱼露
• 2                          spring onions, cut it into  long slices in 5cm
• 1 sprig               fresh coriander, roughly chopped香菜

For sauce

• 2 tablespoons               cooking oil
• 1to 2 tablespoons        soy sauce生抽
• 2 teaspoons                   caster sugar白砂糖

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 200C°.
2. Scale the fish, discard the guts and clean well (hopefully you can get the cleaned one from your grocery store.) Pat dry with kitchen paper towel. Slice the lemon. Slash the fish to allow your seasoning to penetrate evenly later.
3. Place aluminum foil in a baking tray, arrange half of the sliced lemon in the middle of the tray, add on the cleaned fish. Tug 1 piece of lemon inside of the fish then spread evenly the rest of the lemon pieces on top of the fish. Sprinkle the fish with the fish sauce. Cover the fish with another piece of aluminum foil (this helps lock the moisture of the fish resulting in a juicy and tender meat. ) Place the tray in the middle rack of the oven. Bake for 30 minutes.
4. Remove the tray from oven. Arrange the fish in a serving plate and spread evenly the spring onions and coriander on top of the fish. In the meantime, let’s cook sauce. Heat the cooking oil in a sauce pan over medium heat for about 2 minutes, then add soy sauce and sugar, mix well. Once you see bubbles, turn the heat off. The sauce is done now. Pour the sauce onto the fish in the serving plate.
5. Serve.