Duck, Duck, Bao
When my brother got married in Singapore more than two decades ago, the wedding banquet included a braised wild duck dish. As a city state Singapore does not produce much of its food, never mind finding wild ducks. So the banquet chef at the restaurant provisioned imported wild ducks from Germany. In order to show evidence that the ducks were in fact wild, I remembered the chef showing us bullets left in the duck before butchering and cooking them. That was my first encounter with wild fowl.


Chinese takeout lunches as a rule are fast, convenient, filling and economical. We in America know them as a Styrofoam container loaded with heaps of white rice, and topped with a gooey sticky stir-fry. Sometimes accompanied by a grease soaked fried spring roll. Although the quality of these lunches is not always consistent they are mostly tasty and satisfying. I’m not ashamed to say that I occasionally enjoy them as well. But are there homemade alternatives that can be more fulfilling than these quintessential takeout lunches? One answer is red cooked pork over rice.
I was encouraged, actually prodded, to start blogging about my cooking slightly over a year ago after Kim at
Red wine and Chinese food are often thought to be incompatible. Many feel that full-bodied red wines either compete aggressively with spicy Chinese dishes or simply overwhelm them. If my dinners are any indication, this is very much the case. So when I planned the long distance wine pairing with Kirstin of Vin de la Table I decided to see if I could finally find a red wine to match spicy Chinese food.
Yes, you can make red cooked beef. But the recipe is slightly modified from