Gaeng Hung Lay- Northern Thai Pork Curry

Gaeng Hung Lay is a northern Thai pork curry with Burmese roots. It reflects the long connections between northern Thailand and neighboring Burma, now Myanmar.

Burmese, Shan and northern Thai communities traded, migrated and shared cooking traditions across the region. The name carries that history: gaeng means curry in Thai, while hung lay comes from the Burmese hin le, a curry name that traveled with the dish.

Tender pork, ginger and warm spices come together in a rich sauce balanced with tamarind and a little palm sugar. There’s no coconut milk, so the spices and pork really shine.

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Taiwanese 3 Cup Chicken Recipe- San Bei Ji

I’ve made a lot of Chinese food in my life, but I’d never made 3 Cup Chicken-San Bei Ji, which is kind of a Taiwanese classic. I was really missing out. This is one of the best things I’ve ever made and super easy. Absolutely stunning. This is the Taiwanese version with basil.

The name “three-cup chicken” traditionally refers to the three principal seasonings: rice wine, soy sauce and sesame oil. The “cups” describe the balance among those ingredients rather than requiring modern home cooks to use a literal cup of each.

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Guizhou Spicy Chicken-(Guìzhōu Làzǐ Jī)

Guizhou Spicy Chicken-贵州辣子鸡, is very different from the dry, crisp laziji associated with Chongqing and Sichuan. The defining ingredient is cíbā làjiāo—a coarse paste of softened dried chilies, ginger and garlic fried in oil—which is cooked with the chicken until the meat becomes deeply infused with chile and coated in a rich, glossy red mixture.

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Twice-Cooked Pork: From Joyce Chen’s 1961 Kitchen to Today’s Sichuan Pantry

As I’ve mentioned before, I have a large collection of modern, vintage, and antique cookbooks. One of the things I enjoy most is comparing how recipes have evolved over the decades and seeing how cooks adapted authentic dishes to the ingredients available at the time.

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