I ate hot and sour pork tripe plenty of times as a kid, but it was only today that I found out it’s actually a Henan dish. True or not, as someone from Henan it felt pretty much mandatory to learn how to make one of the “Henan dishes.”

The wife bought them, couldn’t cook them, so she dumped them on me… I can’t cook them either, so I had no choice but to give it a shot.

Crucian carp and tofu soup is a pretty simple and quite nutritious… dish? Or soup? Whatever you call it, it goes down well with rice. The method isn’t complicated either, and the ingredient list is short: Crucian carp (the small kind is fine, don’t get a big one; one small or two small depending on how many people are eating) Tofu (however much you want, usually one small block is enough) Cilantro (a small bunch) White pepper Salt Scallion (one stalk) Oil Ginger

This time I made fragrant roasted chicken legs — the kind that can hold their own against what you buy on the street. Not much work to it. The main thing is the marinade: scallion sections and ginger, light and dark soy sauce, a little salt and chili powder, two chicken legs, and let them sit. Overnight is what I’d recommend.

The chef I admire most, Kiritani Hana, once said: “Good food is improved through constant practice.” So every time I cook, I try to make it a little better than last time, and add a bit of my own recipe while I’m at it. Soy sauce fried rice is already pretty good, I think. But recently I got my hands on a bottle of “salted duck egg yolk mayo” — hardcore stuff — and I figured I’d throw it into the fried rice. Tried it today and it went great. Here’s the rundown.

I’ve been cooking every day lately, breakfast especially. Breakfast has to taste good, and it has to be fast and convenient. Best of all if nothing goes to waste — this time the house was sitting on way too much mantou, so I stir-fried it.

A supremely unglamorous dish. As the name says, you chop up a flatbread or scallion pancake and stir-fry it. First, chop the pancake into bits, then chop some lettuce too. If you don’t have lettuce, skip it… or swap in cabbage. Beat two eggs, heat the wok, add a tiny bit of oil, toss in a little chili to bloom the aroma, then pour in the beaten egg and the chopped pancake bits and just start stir-frying. Finally add the chopped lettuce, give it a quick toss, and you’re ready to season. Add black pepper, add a bowl of warm water with salt stirred in, keep stir-frying — this makes sure the pancake softens up and improves the texture. Then add a splash of light soy sauce, and it’s ready to come out of the wok. ![DqjODaoXcAEQ9Ej.jpg:large.jpeg][1]

Egg fried rice made from leftover rice, with diced beef tossed in. The method is a total ripoff of Kuan You Wang’s video. The key is frying the egg whites and yolks separately. Except I didn’t have fresh shiitake mushrooms, and no cured meat either. I used beef paste, the kind with lots of diced beef in it. For the mushrooms I subbed in diced carrot.

You’re not a cute anime girl, and you can’t hug one like a bottle of cola, but you can still make yourself the same baked sweet potato she’d eat.

Honestly this dish isn’t that hard, but after making it myself once, I gotta say it turned out way better than what I’ve had at other people’s places.