One of my husband’s cousin took this picture from a local pastry shop in Taipei. They are almost too cute to eat, and at NTW$35, it’s cheap too! Unless of course you add on the plane ticket!

If you know of any great Chinese pastry shops, please let us know. We at My Panda Paws loves food, especially the sweet kind!

壽 – longevity – shòu

Chopsticks turns 6 today, I can’t believe he is 6 already.  I want to keep him in a time capsule, so he will never grow old.  I remember writing the words of the week Happy Birthday for Dumpling’s birthday, so just to be fair, I should do one for Chopsticks too.

It is considered most fortunate to live a long life, so the symbol 壽 is often found in many decorations throughout a typical Chinese household.  Longevity noodles are usually served at dinners on birthday celebrations, or during Chinese New Year.  Traditionally, longevity noodles are made with a single lump of dough. The dough is stretched, then folded and stretched again until each fold creates thin threads of noodles. The process will not be finished until there are a thousand strands of noodles.

When you get a chance to enjoy it, try not to break off the noodle you are picking up, since it is believed that the longer the noodle is, the longer it suggests your life will be.

I will not be making longevity noodles for my 6 year old birthday boy tonight.  He wants to go out for sushi!  Oh well, I will make him spaghetti for lunch instead then.

Okay, as promised, here’s the Beef Chow Fun recipe.  I am not the best recipe writer, as my eyes are what I use to measure.

Beef Chow Fun has become the kids’ favorite dinner.  They ask for it all the time, so I ended up making it almost every week.  My husband is a huge fan, and he would eat this everyday.

Chow fun refers to this think sheets of rice noodle you get from the grocery store.  This is not the dried thin noodles, and they usually put this together with the open refrigerator along with the tofu section.  I often have to put them in the fridge after the purchase, and you can probably store it for 2-3 days or so.  When you are ready to use it, heat it back up with the microwave.  The goal is to make the noodle soft again.  However, be careful not to overheat it, otherwise it will cook the noodle and turn it into paste.  When it is nice and soft, then cut them into width wise about 1″ thick.  Very IMPORTANT, separate the noodles!!!!  This is one of the most crucial steps.  Separate the noodles so that they don’t stick to each other.  And yes, it’s oily and your hands will be greasy, but this is a step you MUST not skip.

Ingredients: (serves 4)

• Chow fun – 2 packages
• Flank Steaks – thinly sliced, about 1/2 lb
• Medium size onion – sliced about 1″ thick
• Bean Sprout – about 1/2 lb
• 3 Scallion – coarsely chopped (optional)
• Oyster Sauce
• Soy Sauce
• Canola oil or vegetable oil

Seasoning for the beef:

• 1 – 1.5 tablespoon soy sauce
• Corn starch about 1 teaspoon
• Water 2 teaspoon
• Sesame oil 1 teaspoon
• Baking powder 1/4 teaspoon

Direction:

1. Season the flank steak with the seasoning.  15-20 minutes of seasoning is enough, but I always season them a few hours ahead to give it that extra flavor as it soak up all the soy sauce.
2. Prep the noodle as per above instruction.
3. Heat the wok, and heat up about 2 teaspoons of oil.  Put in the beef, and taking care of not to OVER CROWD it.  Half a pound of beef will probably takes 2 times to pan fried.  It is very tempting to keep stirring.  DON’T touch it.  Let it sit for 30 seconds or so, and let it seared.  Flip it when one side is seared and immediately take the beef out of the work and put in a bowl.  Repeat until all the beef is seared.
4. While the flame is still on, and the wok is hot, put in 2 teaspoons of oil and heat up the oil.  Put in the onion and scallion (if using).  Lower the flame to medium and stir fry the onion until tender.  I usually put a little bit of water in with the onion and scallion to help from over browning.
5. When the onions are tender, stir in the bean sprouts for about 1 minute.
6. Put the noodles in and mix well.  Put in some soy sauce and some oyster sauce.  Take care of not too much oyster sauce as it can be very salty.  This type of noodle should be pretty dry, without too much sauce.  This is also the time to taste it, and decide to add more soy sauce and/or oyster sauce.  Add the sauce a little bit at a time to avoid “over saucing”.
7. When everything is heated and taste good, stir in the flank steak.  Give it a good stir and mix it well for about 30 seconds.  Turn off the heat and serve immediately.

That is it.  It sounds complicated, but it actually is pretty easy.  It is a great party food, and a crowd pleaser.  Even though it is very flavorful, I often like mine with a bit of hot spicy oil.  It just gives it that extra kick.  Enjoy!

For those of you who remember, I mentioned that I would like to start a Family Recipe blog for everyone in the family to contribute recipes so that we can duplicate the familiar delicious food.  It took a few months, but I finally created a blog.  Right now it’s for family only, because I’ve only written an intro, without any recipe yet!  I believe my first entry will have to be Beef Chow Fun.  It’s a favorite of the boys and my husband.  After making this dish about 50 million times, I think I finally got it right.  I will definitely share my recipe with all of you when I write it down.  The tough thing about writing recipe for me is that I don’t ever measure anything.

It’s funny that as I get older, I miss the food that I grew up with more and more.  I guess that’s why they call it comfort food.  This weekend, my sisters threw me an early birthday party.  The theme was comfort food.  It was all the food that I love and grew up with.  Some of them are very much “street food”, for the lack of a better term.  I had such a great time, and came home with a very full stomach!  I think it’s a great idea though.  Throwing a party and making food that you grow up with!  Or better yet, have everyone bring a dish of one of your favorite childhood food!  That would be a fun party!

Pollen – 花粉 – huā fěn

Loving this weather, we hit 80 today here in the Northeast.  Everything is waking up, including the all the pollen in the air.  My two poor kids have been on medications on 2 weeks now.  Little Dumpling got his first asthma attack of this season, felt so bad for him.

Chinese words are always so funny.  Some can be so poetic and descriptive, yet some can just be so straight forward.  Pollen, for example, is pretty straight forward.  The word 花 means flower, and 粉 means powder.  Yup, that’s it, Flower Powder!  Where as you have words like 花都, Huā dū, literal translation is Flower city.  It actually describes a city full of beautiful things, just like flowers.  How pretty is that!!!

Easter is this Sunday.  This year I’ve been pretty lazy about decorating the house, until this week.  Finally, the boys and I decorated about one and a half dozen eggs.  It was so fun.

All the egg painting activities reminded me of Cloisonne Eggs that my parents had in our house for decorations growing up.  They are not for Easter though, just for everyday decorations.  They look very similar to the Russian enamel eggs, but mostly with traditional Chinese designs such as flowers, birds, etc.

Chinese Cloisonne is one of the oldest kind of artwork made of red copper roughcast and decorated colorful glaze. It was well known in the time of Jingtai of Ming Dynasty (1450–1456) for the most exquisite production.  Chinese Cloisonne is also called “Enamel with copper roughcast and inlayed copper wire” abbreviated for Enamel and usually called cloisonne.  The ancient “Cloisonne Technique” is a unique procedure of hand painted and applied brass wire and enamel. This technique is associated most often with Chinese beads and with Fabrege eggs.

Anyhow, these eggs are beautiful.  I would love to find them from my parent’s house, why not give a little Chinese twist to Easter.  You can also find these mini ornaments from Smithsonian Stores as well!