• chawkins on October 05, 2015

  Pg 146 - Fried pork chop noodle soup (pai gu mian) I only made the pork chop, halved the recipe to serve two. Instead of making the pork stock, I used canned chicken broth, also used egg noodle instead of wheat or rice noodle, I also added loofa (silk gourd) from my garden to the soup. I don't know how authentic this is because I've never been to Taiwan, but it sure was tasty. Actually my husband told me that the pork chop was better than the one in the pork chop noodle soup we got in this restaurant in Philadelphia Chinatown that supposedly serve Taiwanese food.

Notes about Recipes in this book

• Spicy marinated cucumbers (Suan la xiao huang gua)

  • Stephenn31 on January 05, 2025

    I really enjoyed this. Good balance of flavours. Do let it marinade for a while

• Crushed peanut powder (Hua sheng fen)

  • Frogcake on May 10, 2017

    This is the magical ingredient for pan-fried fish with peanut and cilantro. So simple and so tasty. Will be using this as a condiment to enrich the taste of other dishes.

• Peppery pork buns (Hu jiao bing)

  • helskitchenvt on September 12, 2016

    I made these using pepper as specified and my mouth was numb for a while, but it was happy. Don't skip the Sichuan peppercorns - there is no substitution here, you'd have a different dish.

  • chawkins on May 17, 2023

    Very tasty buns, however the dough was so wet I had to add quite a bit more flour and when shaping the dough got stickier and stickier, the first few buns turned out perfect, but last few were giving me a lot of problem resulting in leakage while baking. Unlike most other bun recipes, there is no second rise, the buns were baked right after shaping. Unlike other buns, these did not have a soft crumb, just a crust, just liked the picture shown in the book.

• Pan-fried leek buns with dried shrimp (Jiu cai shui jian bao)

  • helskitchenvt on July 04, 2016

    These may be tedious to make at first, but it gets much faster with just a little practice and is completely worth it. Also, a very easy recipe to do variations on, this technique works with a whole range of fillings (I've even used sausage and mashed potatoes with mustard sauce).

• Meatball mochi (Ba-wan / Rou yuan)

  • helskitchenvt on July 04, 2016

    The recipe calls for rice flour. . . I think they must mean glutinous rice flour which is quite different (well, they're both flours made with white rice so I guess not THAT different. . . but the glutinous kind will hold together in this recipe, the other stuff made a big mess when I tried it).

• Tomato salad with ginger-soy dip (Liang ban fan qie)

  • kitchen_chick on August 23, 2022

    I made this with garden fresh tomatoes. Delicious! It won’t be nearly as good with bland grocery store tomatoes. And definitely grate the ginger. Minced ginger won’t blend with the soy sauce as well. (I had to use tamari for GF reasons.)

• Steamed eggplant with garlic and chilies (Suan rong qie zi)

  • hoi_duyk9p on March 16, 2026

    best with Asian eggplants and high quality Taiwanese soy sauce

• Braised cabbage with dried shrimp and shiitake mushrooms (Lu bai cai)

  • Stephenn31 on January 05, 2025

    Another great cabbage recipe from this book. I added a bit extra heat at the end

• Braised eggplant with garlic and basil (Jiu ceng ta qie zi)

  • TrishaCP on September 03, 2021

    This was easy and pretty delicious, although I think it needs more Thai basil to get the “herby” flavor that is promised.

• Dry tofu with edamame (Dou gan chao mao dou ren)

  • elizabeth_qnjo8t on April 05, 2026

    Loved this - simple and satisfying!

• Pan-fried tofu with date sauce (Gan mei dou fu)

  • Frogcake on March 06, 2017

    The sauce is quite tasty, subtly sweet from the dates and soy sauce and sour from the rice vinegar. Best to purchase good quality firm tofu To get an even crispness and it's important to season the slices. I've made the date sauce separately and served it as a condiment for BBQ pork chops and other meats. It's really worth making the date sauce from scratch rather than purchasing although probably you could use date molasses as a sub with different proportions of the other ingredients.

• Taiwanese beef noodle soup (Niu rou mian)

  • hoi_duyk9p on March 16, 2026

    Incredibly salty as is, so I end up using it like a soup concentrate and adding about 20% water when I’m prepping individual bowls.

• Danzai noodle soup (Dan zai mian)

  • SGnolek on January 20, 2026

    I included more shrimp per serving.

• Pan-fried egg noodles with seafood (Hai xian chao mian)

  • Stephenn31 on May 02, 2024

    This was better than I had expected! The local grocery store was out of anything but shrimp, so I stir fried half and boiled half (then added in some fish sauce for salt/umami/seafood flavour). I will make this again with other seafood, and more basil.

• Noodles with minced pork and fermented bean sauce (Zha jiang mian)

  • Stephenn31 on November 21, 2022

    Sweet without the added sugar so the fresh veg and black vinegar helped to balance this out

• Sesame-scented thin noodles (Ma you mian xian)

  • Frogcake on May 10, 2017

    A really nice lightly flavoured gingery noodle dish, which comes together quickly. I served this with pan fried fish dusted with peanut powder (recipe in same book). Instead of making the crispy shallots, I purchased ready made shallots -saved some time and was quite tasty. Will be making this again.

• Three cup chicken (San bei ji)

  • Frogcake on January 04, 2017

    We really enjoyed this recipe. I made this with chicken thighs, skin-on -followed the recipe through as written except used about two tsp of crushed red pepper in place of chilies.

  • Rinshin on November 05, 2020

    This was ok but not something I would repeat. Used chicken wings and also added Japanese negi onion. I am hoping leftovers improve in taste.

  • chawkins on October 16, 2023

    This was okay but I did make some alterations. I only had toasted sesame oil which lost its fragrance when heated, so I just browned the chickens in vegetable oil and a lot less than specified. I added the toasted sesame oil at the end of cooking.

• Pork meat sauce over rice (Lu rou fan / Loh bah bun)

  • Stephenn31 on January 05, 2025

    Simple but worked well. The five spice was nice. I hand minced the pork which gave it some body. I used low sodium soy sauce and it was very salty - use half as much soy sauce next time

• Shredded pork and napa cabbage stew (Xi lu rou)

  • jacqie on January 19, 2021

    It doesn't look like this should have as much flavor as it does when you read the recipe. I used chicken broth for stock.

  • Stephenn31 on January 03, 2025

    Warming and tasty for a simple assembly of ingredients. I served over rice. Would make again

• Pan-fried fish with peanuts and cilantro (Xiang jian yu pai)

  • Frogcake on May 07, 2017

    This is crazy easy and awfully delicious! The secret ingredients-classic Taiwanese garnishes of cilantro and peanut powder (a mixture of sugar and crushed peanuts) elevate the flavour of the fish to new and amazing levels. Big hit in my family who are fans of anything peanuty. I will be making this one again.

  • SGnolek on January 13, 2026

    Very flavorful. Made a peanut sauce using peanut butter because we didn't have actual peanuts but I bet it would be even better with ground peanuts on top.