This refreshing peanut salad from Xinjiang, an autonomous region in northwest China, is adapted from Carolyn Phillips’ cookbook All Under Heaven. Known as huāshēngmĭ bàn xiāngcài, it pairs well with both grilled meats and fish. Use both the stems and leaves of the most delicate cilantro you can find.

Featured in “Eating on the Western Edge of China” by Fiona Reilly.

The post Chinese Cilantro and Peanut Salad appeared first on Saveur.

Peking Duck House on Mott Street in Manhattan is a local institution, and not just for its legendary food—for four wine professionals native to New York City, it’s a place of community in every sense of the word. 

“Growing up, the Chinese food spot on my block was the only restaurant that took food stamps,” says Kelvin Uffré, a wine and spirits specialist, educator, and advocate who was raised in the Bronx. “That made such an impact on me—I will never forget the respite that gave my mother from cooking and dealing with three children,” he adds, noting that Chinese restaurants are often integral in materially disadvantaged communities. As he got older, Uffré and his friends ventured into Lower Manhattan’s Chinatown, skipping class to explore the area and hit the comic book shops between bites of street wings and noodles. Peking Duck House—opened in 1978 by Shanghai-born chef Wun Yin Wu, who still operates the establishment with the help of his extended family—was one of the many neighborhood gems they discovered along the way, and Uffré has been going back ever since.

Fellow wine professionals Óscar García Moncada (wine and spirits director for 67 Wine and Spirits), Mozel Watson (owner of Wines by Mozel), and Marquis Williams (founder of Highly Recommended, a digital wine club and consulting company) each found their way to Peking differently, all quickly becoming loyal regulars. Williams, who has been dining at the restaurant for the past five or six years, estimates having visited well over 300 times to date. Together with Uffré, the tight-knit group have established a monthly lunch club inspired in part by Peking’s BYOB policy, pairing Champagnes from their own personal reserves with a feast of go-to house specialties like fried honey spare ribs, salt and pepper shrimp, and of course, the Peking duck.

Wine Migos, as they have come to be known, only ramped things up (as safely as possible) as Peking Duck House emerged from the COVID-19 shutdowns, which were especially devastating to bars and restaurants. “With all the anti-Asian hate crimes that happened here during the pandemic, it felt amazing to not only provide monetary support but to also stand in solidarity with our friends at Peking,” Uffré explains. “When I say ‘we take care of each other,’ I mean we see each other and the feeling of being seen in this industry is like coming up for air. Even though we all come from different intersections, our shared experiences make us New York fam.”

According to Peking Duck House assistant manager Steven Shi, Williams and friends (both within and outside of the Migos crew) have made quite an impact on the business through their visits and frequent word-of-mouth advertising. “We really do appreciate [their] efforts to bring us business, especially during this pandemic,” says Shi, who has worked at the restaurant for 11 years. The management’s BYOB policy wasn’t exactly a choice—Peking Duck House’s proximity to a local church hinders its ability to hold a liquor license, Shi tells SAVEUR—but it has fostered a unique environment for the Migos and other wine industry professionals to freely create and enjoy food and drink pairings they might not have otherwise discovered, especially given the restaurant’s decision to not charge a corkage fee. “We want [our] customers to be able to enjoy the wine while dining in and not worrying about the extra charges on the bill,” Shi explains.

In addition to camaraderie, the Migos find a bit of escapism from the usual buttoned-up (and, at times, elitist) wine scene in their regular lunches. The conversation sometimes turns to the industry’s exclusionary reputation and how the new generation of wine professionals is seeking to reset the tone. “For us, Peking is a way to get out of the formal, often white-dominated spaces where the sharing of beverage knowledge happens,” he says, adding that it’s also about “how we push for change with the currency we have.”

Typecasting is another symptom of systemic social issues that Wine Migos want to actively shift. “We are trying to break this assumption that only European cuisine can be paired with fine wines—the food [at Peking] offers an amazing form of intercultural exchange while having a feeling of freedom and expression very rarely found in many dining establishments in New York City,” says Moncada. “We use our experiences to show our friends and wine clients that Asian cuisine is an intricate part of our culture, no matter what your background might be.”

Self-expression is key in this movement, particularly as the wine world in America evolves from the antiquated standard of service in a stiffly-pressed suit. Each Wine Migos gathering is also a celebration of redefining the narrative through fashion. As our shoot for this story began, Uffré and Moncada both emerged from the restaurant’s lower level having changed into fresh looks by menswear designer Willy Chavarria, best known for his nods to Chicanx and Latinx cultures, while Williams wore a shirt of his own design paired with his signature bucket hat (Watson arrived already sporting a Chavarria ensemble). Collectively, the four opt for polished meets playful, with clean, voluminous lines, rich textures, and a bold accessory or two.

With everyone dressed for a party, the lunch kicks off. A server brings a handful of wine glasses, and Williams begins pouring. The energy and joy are palpable. Plates begin to arrive, and the table fills as quickly as each glass empties. Moncada’s affinity for the salt and pepper fried shrimp generally inspires his wine pick each month: “I look forward to eating this dish days before we meet—I absolutely love the salty, crispy, and crunchy flavors of the shrimp with the slight heat of the pepper.” For a “heavenly pairing,” his go-to champagne is a blanc de blancs, either a non-vintage Delamotte or Robert Moncuit’s Grand Cru “Les Grands.” “The notes of bright exotic lemon, orange skin, and chalky nuances are just perfect,” says Moncada.

Watson is a die-hard fan of the beef lo mein—a stir-fried combination of sliced steak, water chestnuts, bean sprouts, mushrooms, and egg noodles—and he often reaches for Ruinart Blanc de Blancs, its fine bubbles “act[ing] like tiny knives cutting right through the noodles.” Each of the ingredients accentuates the wine’s round creaminess and bright green apple notes. “It doesn’t matter what’s on your fork,” Watson says. “It’s a perfect match.”

For Williams, the fried honey spare ribs steal the show, and an equally standout bottle like Dom Pérignon’s 2003 rosé usually does the trick: “Lush berries and red fruits complement the sweetness of the ribs, yet [they] don’t overpower,” he says. The sharp acidity, according to Williams, cuts through the fat of the meat, washing over the palate and prepping it for the next rich bite. (Shi, who also counts the spare ribs among his menu favorites, shares the secret: “[they’re] marinated for two days.”) Moncada has paired the tangy flavors with two non-vintage rosé champagnes: Pierre Paillard “Les Terres Roses” Bouzy Grand Cru Extra Brut and Leclerc-Briant Rosé Brut, both of which offer a spicy red fruit element (thanks to the use of Pinot Noir in the blends), offsetting the ribs’ sticky sweetness.

And to accompany Peking Duck’s famed namesake dish—which, according to Shi, was served to Chinese emperors centuries ago and involves a strict and elaborate preparation—Uffré’s choice makes (almost) as much of a statement as each guest at the table: a Leclerc Briant Blanc de Meuniers Brut Zero. “The bracing, saliva-inducing quality of this champagne primes the mouth for the [duck’s] fatty sweetness,” Uffré shares, layering his house-made pancake with the fragrant oven-roasted meat and its accoutrements. The texture of the thin, crisp duck skin is quite unlike any other in the city, and the restaurant’s presentation is the stuff of Instagram legend. “It should be lathered,” Uffré advises, adding more hoisin sauce to demonstrate. “Like me at Orchard Beach with a bottle of Banana Boat,” he laughs, as he tops off each glass.

If you can’t visit Peking Duck House, try out your own pairings with these recipes.

Recipes

Honey Pork Spare Ribs

Get the recipe for Honey Pork Spare Ribs »

Peking-Style Lamb Chops

Get the recipe for Peking-Style Lamb Chops »

Beef Lo Mein

Get the recipe for Beef Lo Mein »

Salt and Pepper Shrimp

Get the recipe for Salt and Pepper Shrimp »

The post Meet Manhattan’s New Guard of Wine Pros appeared first on Saveur.

According to The Museum of Food and Drink in Brooklyn, New York, there are nearly 50,000 Chinese-American restaurants in the U.S. While the menu of course varies from restaurant to restaurant—the vast majority of these establishments are independently owned businesses, after all—there’s one dish you can almost always expect to find: General Tso’s chicken.

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The dish as most Americans know it today was invented by a Hunanese chef named Peng Chang-kuei in the 1950s. Fuchsia Dunlop, the English-language authority on Chinese cuisine, chronicled the chef’s story in her excellent Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook. Peng worked as an official chef for the Nationalist government, and after the Chinese Civil War ended in 1949, defected with his employers to Taiwan. It was there that he created the original version of the now-famous chicken dish and named it after a Hunanese general, Tso Tsung-t’ang (or Zuo Zongtang), who was best-known for putting down a rebellion in the western desert region of Xinjiang in the 19th century.

This early iteration of General Tso’s chicken was very much true to Hunan cuisine. Peng described its flavors in Dunlop’s book as “typically Hunanese—heavy, sour, hot, and salty.” The dish had none of its current characteristic sweetness until the 1970s, when Peng began serving a Westernized version at his eponymous restaurant Peng’s in New York City. “The original General Tso’s chicken was Hunanese in taste and made without sugar,” Peng explained, “but when I began cooking for non-Hunanese people in the United States, I altered the recipe.”

The chile-laced sweet-and-sour sauce that resulted helped put General Tso’s chicken on the map. In her review of Peng’s for the New York Times, restaurant critic Mimi Sheraton lauded the dish as “a stir-fried masterpiece, sizzling hot both in flavor and temperature.” General Tso’s chicken soon became a trend at fancy Chinese restaurants before evolving into an everyday staple on Chinese takeout menus across the country. The dish not only planted a flag in the American culinary landscape, but it also had an enormous impact on the Chinese diaspora in the U.S. As Andrea Cherng, the chief marketing officer for Panda Express, told NBC , Americanized Chinese recipes like General Tso’s “are the reasons why Chinese immigrant families in the U.S. were able to provide for their families.” The final twist in General Tso’s journey is that the Westernized version of the dish has even traveled back to its home country in recent years, popping up on menus at upscale restaurants like Hong Kong’s Mott 32.

Curious to better understand the dish, we decided to skip delivery and make it from scratch. Here’s what to keep in mind when cooking this classic comfort food at home.

Start with a Flavorful Marinade

A thin cornstarch-and-egg mixture seasoned with soy sauce serves as both a quick marinade and a batter. Let the chicken (I prefer boneless, skinless dark meat) soak at room temperature until all the pieces are infused with flavor, about 15 minutes.

Lightly Batter Your Chicken

Using wooden chopsticks, lift the chicken from the bowl of marinade, shaking gently to remove any excess. The thin coating that remains will allow the chicken to fry up nice and crispy. Too much batter gives the meat an unappealing doughy and dense texture when it’s returned to the sauce.

Stir-Fry Your Aromatics

Frying ginger and garlic softens their flavors and infuses your cooking oil with their fragrance—but they don’t need long. The natural sugars in garlic in particular burn quickly, so do not walk away from the stove; 15 to 30 seconds should do the trick.

Use Dried Chiles

Mott 32 uses dried facing-heaven chiles, which are popular in both Sichuan and Hunan cooking, to give its General Tso’s chicken a spicy kick. The Chinese peppers have a powerful heat and a musky-nutty-tannic flavor that is enhanced by toasting.

They can be tricky to find here in the U.S.—check your local Asian markets or order them online. Tianjin chiles have a similar heat level and are easier to source. If you can’t track down either, don’t be discouraged; readily-available dried cayenne chiles are a near substitute.

If you are sensitive to heat but don’t want to skimp on the chile flavor, tone down the spice level by snipping the stems off the chiles, and shaking out and discarding the seeds before using. Either way, toast the chiles gently with the aromatics and take care not to burn them—they should be no darker than a rich, reddish tobacco brown.

Make a Well-Balanced Sauce

Two ingredients are key to this umami-rich, chicken stock-based General Tso’s sauce: tomato paste and Shaoxing wine. The addition of tomato paste may not be authentic, but it lends depth, acidity, and sweetness. It also tints the sauce that familiar red hue without relying on artificial coloring. Just don’t go overboard; the concentrated paste packs a lot of tomato-y flavor and can easily overpower the other ingredients.

Dark and complex, Shaoxing wine is made from rice in China’s Zhejiang province, where it is both consumed as a beverage and used as a cooking wine. It’s easy to find in Asian markets or online, but in a pinch, you can approximate its savory-astringent notes with an equal amount of manzanilla sherry.

Thicken the Sauce

A couple spoonfuls of apricot jam, while by no means traditional, serve as the sweetener in this General Tso’s sauce. It also adds a welcome dose of acidity, while the pectin, the natural fruit compound that causes jams and jellies to set, acts as a gentle thickener, boosting the body of the sauce. This allows you to go easy on the cornstarch, which tends to get gloopy when used in excess.

Add a Finishing Touch

A drizzle of toasted sesame oil enhances the nuttiness of the wine in the sauce and balances the acidity of the tomato paste and apricot jam. Sprinkle with sliced scallions for color and freshness, then serve with bowls of steamed white rice.

The post How To Make General Tso’s Chicken appeared first on Saveur.

Tender pieces of lamb are marinated in earthy cumin, sweet oyster sauce, and and fiery hot chile flakes before grilling in this classic dish from China’s Xinjiang province. This recipe first appeared in our June/July 2013 issue with Lillian Chou’s article Fire in the Belly.

SERVES 2-4

INGREDIENTS

¼ cup crushed red chile flakes
¼ cup ground cumin
3 tbsp. peanut oil
2 tbsp. oyster sauce
¼ tsp. ground Sichuan peppercorns
¼ tsp. white pepper
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
½ small white onion, finely chopped
Kosher salt, to taste
½ lb. lamb shoulder, trimmed and cut into ¾” pieces
4 (6-inch) skewers, soaked in water for 30 minutes

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Whisk 1 tbsp. chile flakes, 1 tbsp. cumin, the oil, oyster sauce, Sichuan peppercorns, white pepper, garlic, onions and salt in a bowl. Add lamb; toss to coat. Cover and refrigerate at least 4 hours or up to overnight.

2. Heat a charcoal grill or set a gas grill to high; bank coals or turn burner off on one side (see “Grilling 101”). Remove lamb from marinade and thread onto skewers. Sprinkle lamb with remaining chile flakes and cumin, plus salt. Grill lamb on hottest part of grill, turning as needed, until slightly charred and cooked through, 10-12 minutes. If the outside starts to burn before the lamb is cooked, move to the cooler side of the grill until done.

The post Xinjiang Lamb Skewers appeared first on Saveur.

Fire up the woks. We’re here to make stir-frying exciting again. After all, when you need to make a quick, flavorful meal, whether that’s for weeknight dinner or cooking family-style for a crowd, you can always fall back on stir-frying as a go-to technique. Sure, you can’t go wrong with classics like beef and broccoli (we’ve got a fantastic recipe for it that uses a dark, intense sauce made with soy sauce, ginger, and rice wine), but if you want to switch things up, we’ve got you covered.

Traditional Chinese cuisine often feature a variety of vegetable stir-fries. Eggplant is particularly delicious, as are Asian greens like bok choy and Chinese broccoli. For something less common in the U.S., track down loofah, a slender, green gourd with tender flesh. Try it cooked with a little garlic or edamame and chicken stock. Stir-frying isn’t just a Chinese technique, however: it’s used throughout Indian cuisine as well, offering quick and easy vegetarian options. Bhindi masala is a north Indian okra stir-fry flavored with tomato, onion, chiles, and tons of garlic. In the southern state of Kerala you’ll find a stir-fry made of papaya and coconut and spiced with cumin, turmeric, and black mustard seeds.

From Chinese classics to Filipino noodles and Korean pork belly, here are our best stir-fry recipes to try today.

Stir-Fried Beef with Broccoli

Stir-Fried Breakfast Noodles

Bitter Melon and Tofu Stir-Fry with Pork Belly and Eggs (Goya Champuru)

Philippine Noodle Stir-Fry (Pancit Bihon)

Wok-Fried Brussels Sprouts and Bacon with Crispy Chestnuts

Bacon and Shrimp Fried Rice

Wok-Fried Shrimp with Garlic

Keralan-Style Stir-Fried Green Papaya (Papaya Thoran)

Spicy Yuba Stir-Fry with Edamame

Everyday Fried Noodles (Tian Tian Chao Mian)

Jirou Chao Qincai (Stir-Fried Chicken with Celery)

Shanghai Stir-Fried Rice Cakes (Chao Nian Gao)

Cong Bao Rou Si (Stir-Fried Pork with Leeks)

Xiachao Niugan Jun

Ma Yi Shang Shu (“Ants Climbing a Tree”)

Stir-Fried Celtuce Tops with Wild Mushrooms

Chinese Spicy Garlic Eggplant (Yu Xiang Qie Zi)

​Kung Pao Chicken

Stir-Fried Breakfast Noodles

Asian Greens with Garlic Sauce

Stir-Fried Mushrooms and Bok Choy (Donggu Pei Shucai)

Sichuan Tea-Smoked Duck

Red-Cooked Eggplant (Hongshao Qiezi)

Stir-fried Chicken with Cashew Nuts

The post Our 27 Best Stir-Fry Recipes to Break Your Beef and Broccoli Routine appeared first on Saveur.

For the last installment of our 2017 in Review series, we take a look at some of the best stories published right here on this site.

This year, we sent our editors and contributors to all corners of the globe, from white-clothed dining rooms and hole-in-the-wall charmers of our New York City home base to the tea-soaked mountains of Yunnan, China and the earthquake-ravaged towns of Oaxaca, Mexico. True to our #eattheworld philosophy, we aimed to share stories of food as a conduit of tradition and a bridge between cultures. We told the stories of the people who make food—in privileged spaces or otherwise—and what it means to them. We captured places and moments worth preserving for posterity. We had some booze along the way.

Now, we’re not just patting ourselves on the back. We’re constantly reading and learning from our peers, reflecting on what we can do better, and listening to what our readers have to say. But after a year like 2017, it’s worth stopping to raise a glass to the small victories.

Here’s to our favorite SAVEUR stories of 2017, and to the ones we’ll tell in 2018.

The Sacred Journey of Four Million Indian Women to Cook for Their Goddess , Leslie Pariseau

Staffers Leslie Pariseau and Michelle Heimerman traveled to Kerala, India to observe the annual festival where millions of women travel from all over India to make an offering to a goddess. The sense of community is so apparent in the story, and the two of them worked together to really bring the festival to life. — Alex Testere, associate editor

Kyoto’s Buddhist cuisine, called shojin ryori, is Japan’s oldest codified cuisines but is seldom encountered outside temples, religious festivals, and funerals. In this beautiful feature shot by William Hereford, writer Alex Halberstadt dives into the practice of cooking as a spiritual art—one of simplicity that stands in stark contrast to what he calls the “hedonistic, novelty-added world of food journalism” and juxtaposes even the “often exquisite trappings” that surround it—and introduces us to the monks and nuns making it all happen. — Dan Q. Dao, deputy digital editor

This well-reported piece shows how strongly Hurricane Harvey affected the Cambodian community in Houston, and the difficulty this community had in getting back on its feet. — Katherine Whittaker, associate digital editor

The Pu-Erh Brokers of Yunnan Province , Max Falkowitz

Max’s story begins with a perilous motorcycle ride straight up a mountain in Yunnan, and by the end of it, you’ve learned something extraordinary about a highly valued and respected craft that you never even knew existed. — Alex Testere, associate editor

The Laws of Return , Taffy Brodesser-Akner

It’s a story about Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s obsession with a specific bowl of soup from her days as a student at a university in Ramat Gan, Israel. But, of course, it’s about much more than that. It’s about memory and nostalgia. It’s about how profoundly the moment can affect how much you love a dish. And it’s about simplicity and age and rose-colored glasses and many other things. — Michelle Heimerman, photo editor

The World’s Last Great Undiscovered Cuisine , Anya von Bremzen

Anya von Bremzen on the people and food of Baku has everything: the excesses of Iron Curtain oil wealth; tales of a proud culture with a rich, palimpsestuous heritage; and a badass doyenne de cuisine screaming Azeri incantations at her stew to summon forth the full flavors of walnuts and pomegranate. — Max Falkowitz, executive digital editor

Can Pizza Night Save the Midwest’s Small Farms? , Kat Craddock

Test kitchen associate Kat Control heads to the Midwest to report on how rural Wisconsin entrepreneurs are using “pizza farms” to take a stand against Big Ag and other competition. There’s also a great list of pizzerias to add to your list if you find yourself in Wisco. — Dan Q. Dao, deputy digital editor

Dining with James Baldwin , Jessica B. Harris

Jessica B. Harris recalls the summer of 1973, which she spent in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, as the great James Baldwin’s houseguest. Full of the region’s lusty, signature cuisine—lamb, soupe au pistou, plenty of Bandol—Harris’s essay is at once a flashback to the sunny holiday of her own youth and a glimpse into the life of one of the most important American voices of the last century. — Kat Craddock, test kitchen associate

The Romantic, Tragic, and Profoundly Gross Evolutionary Tale of the Fig Tree , Alex Testere

“It starts with sex and ends with violence” sums up the strange relationship between fruits and fruit wasps. Associate editor Alex Testere’s take on the weirdness of nature—accompanied by his original illustrations—brings food and science together in an unexpected and fascinating way. — Dan Q. Dao, deputy digital editor

Max Falkowitz wrote this piece after a trip to Oaxaca, where he stocked up on a lot of envy-inducing pottery and kitchen tools. This roundup covers everything from beautiful glassware to my absolute favorite clay jug, and has me wanting to redo my kitchen right now. — Katherine Whittaker, associate digital editor

Why is the soap at fancy restaurants more expensive than the food? Alex Ronan’s thinkpiece—with an assist from senior editor Chris Cohen—dives into the back story of Aēsop’s ubiquity in high-end establishments. — Dan Q. Dao, deputy digital editor

Saveur’s resident Scandiphile eats and drinks his way through Copenhagen in search of cultural transformation

Andrew Richdale wrote a nice piece about the urge to choose another nationality while traveling in Copenhagen—a pretty relatable impulse in 2017. — Chris Cohen, senior editor

After reading this story, I really want to meet the “queen of the comal,” Vicenta Guzman Gutierrez. Following the September 7 and then the September 23 earthquakes, Auntie Vicenta kept her restaurant open, serving melelas, shrimp, fish, and totopos de crema to a community hit hard by natural disaster. “Everyone has to find a way to live, a way to fight,” she says, “so you stick to traditions.” — Katherine Whittaker, associate digital editor

Jamaica’s National Dish is an Immigrant to its Own Shores , Bee Quammie

I loved this personal essay by contributor Bee Quammie that reconsiders the globe-trotting journey of Jamaica’s ackee and saltfish, and what its improbable invention reveals about the Jamaican soul. For anyone who grew up between cultures, especially ones with tumultuous colonial histories, this is a close-to-home exploration of what our favorite dishes tell us about ourselves and where we come from. — Dan Q. Dao, deputy digital editor

The post The Best SAVEUR Stories of 2017 appeared first on Saveur.

In these delightfully rich dumplings, homemade or store-bought chile oil is balanced by freshness from scallions and ginger and sweetness from oyster sauce. To maximize the crispy surface area, stretch and arc the shape of the raw dumpling slightly. This recipe is adapted from The Dumpling Galaxy Cookbook.

Uncooked dumplings can be frozen on a parchment-lined baking sheet for 4 hours until completely solid, and then stored in sealable plastic bags.

Featured in “The Complete Guide to Mastering Chinese Dumplings at Home” by Max Falkowitz and Helen You.

The post Pan-Fried Spicy Beef Dumplings appeared first on Saveur.

General Tso’s Chicken may go down in history as one of the definitive dishes of the 20th century, both for defining what Chinese food means to people all over the world while at the same time confusing them to no end. Today, the Taiwan News reports that the dish’s creator, Peng Chang-kuei, has died of pneumonia.

The party line goes that everyone in the world knows about General Tso’s Chicken, except people in China. But the dish’s origins are certainly Chinese: dredged-and-fried meats cooked with hot and sour glazes are common Chinese techniques, especially in refined wealthy kitchens that privilege rich flavors and complex sauces. News reporter Keoni Everington details Peng’s debut of the dish at a banquet for American admirals in the 1950s, which follows an all-too-familiar necessity-is-the-mother-of-invention story:

Peng, who studied cooking under the famous Hunan chef Cao Jing-chen, named the dish after a real Hunan hero: Tso (full name Zuo Zongtang) was a revered man of the Qing dynasty respected for his achievements on and off the battlefield, including suppressing the Taiping rebellion as well as contributing to matters of state, agriculture, and industrialization.

Following the revolution, Peng fled to Taiwan, where he established a Hunan-style restaurant called Peng’s Garden Hunan Restaurant that’s grown into a robust chain that still flourishes to this day. After Nixon’s tension-settling visit to China in 1972, Peng opened a restaurant in New York the following year, where among other Hunan and assorted Chinese fine-dining dishes he brought General Tso’s Chicken.

But he wasn’t the only one to do so. As Ed Schoenfeld, longstanding New York restaurateur and folk historian of Chinese-American cuisine relates, two New York restaurant operators—David Keh and Michael Tong—were also bringing Hunan-style high-end cooking to America. Within the same few months of Peng’s opening, Keh opened Uncle Tai’s Hunan Yuan and Tong unveiled the first of his Shun Lee restaurants. Both men brought over Hunan-trained Chinese chefs who fled to Taiwan in 1949, and both restaurants served takes on General Tso’s chicken. Peng wound up out-competed and refocused his efforts on Taiwan while Keh and Tong laid the groundwork for a whole new era of Chinese cooking in America.

The rest is history, but we all owe a debt to Peng’s masterpiece.

The post The Inventor of General Tso’s Chicken Dies at 98 appeared first on Saveur.

China’s far west region of Xinjiang is a place of expansive natural beauty, full of snow-peaked mountains and stony deserts. Located at the threshold of central Asia where the ‘stans converge—Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan—it is home to the Turkic-speaking Islamic Uyghur people. For centuries, oasis towns on the ancient Silk Roads provided safe harbor and much-needed sustenance on the passage from the Middle East to the Chinese Empire.

Flavors associated with the Middle East predominate—cumin, chile, garlic, and saffron, cooked with peppers, tomatoes, and eggplants. Mutton features heavily, either slow-braised, cooked with rice in polo (a mutton pilaf), or smoke-grilled, and camel is eaten occasionally. Flatbreads called nang, similar to Indian naan, are essential at every meal, along with fragrant black tea scented with saffron and rose petals. It’s a far cry from the soy sauce, pork, and rice wine flavors permeating Han Chinese cuisine that most Westerners associate so closely with the country.

In a far-off time, here, beyond the last outpost of the Great Wall of China, prisoners of the Emperor were expelled into the desert on the assumption they would surely perish. Now this area is seductively alive with color, flavor, spices, and trade. A banishment to Xinjiang would be a dream for any food lover, feasting each day on roast mutton with tart, vinegary carrot and radish salad; or plump bready dumplings and sweet walnut pastries. Occasionally, eating adventures lend to cultural misunderstandings.

One night, while researching local food traditions with my Uyghur guide in the small town of Tashkurgan, I caused a serious brawl revolving around a yard-long charred mutton kebab, crusty with cumin and chile. I’d arrived on the day of a country fair, the town’s field a circus of flags and horses, blue-ribbon yaks, and prizewinning cross-stitch. Fragrant smoke from charcoal grills hung thick in the air, and I struggled to choose between buttery polo, and hand-pulled noodles, laghman.

With silent, ravenous attention I watched a cook grill three mutton kebabs (known as kawap in these parts) over a waist-high charcoal brazier, sprinkling them with a blend of chile, zīrán or cumin, white pepper, and salt, and sending showers of orange sparks into the air. The juicy morsels of fat in the center of each kawap dripped and spat into the coals, sharpening my hunger. My choice was made. When they were ready, the cook took a round of charred nang, big as a wall clock, and folded it in half around the three long spiked skewers. Then he waved me into a nearby yurt to eat.

At the doorway I removed my shoes and focused on finding a place to sit. Tajik men sat on the yurt’s patterned carpet floor, eating and drinking tea, alongside Kyrgyz men in pointed white felt hats, and my lone Uyghur guide in his embroidered green and white doppa prayer cap. The other men glanced up just as my socked feet blundered over the food cloth on the floor, textured and heavy with gold fringes. I’d committed a grievance equivalent to putting my dirty feet up on a dinner party table set with crystal and cutlery. I apologized. Too late. I’d unforgivably offended a Tajik with a handlebar mustache. It being dishonorable to insult me, both a foreigner and a woman, the man—emboldened with clandestine liquor—stood and insulted my guide behind his back. No sooner had the words left his mouth than every man in the yurt was on his feet, fists at the ready or hands on the hilts of knives.

Following the inevitable fistfight, during which the police hauled the drunk Tajik away, I found a quiet spot to savor the charred smoky meat. My guide sat beside me.

“There’s a Uyghur saying,” he began. “Gep yüzde yahshi, kawap ziğda yahshi.” He tore a tender piece of mutton from the stick with his teeth before continuing.

“Words are better spoken face to face; kebabs are better eaten straight from the skewer.” Wise words to live—and eat—by.

Get Carolyn Phillips’ Western Chinese Recipes

Recipes adapted from All Under Heaven by Carolyn Phillips (Ten Speed Press), which will be released in August.

Uyghur Flatbread (Nángbĭng)

Chile and Cumin Lamb Kebabs (Yángròu chuàn)

Grilled Fish with Cumin and Jalapeños (Xīnjiāng kăoyú)

The post Eating on the Western Edge of China appeared first on Saveur.

The staple meats of Western China, lamb and mutton can be found folded into everything from pilafs to buns to noodles. Of course, they’re also the focal point of the region’s iconic skewers. Seasoned with freshly ground cumin (zira in Farsi and zīrán in Chinese), which was probably introduced to Xinjiang from Persia, the meat get an extra kick from minced garlic cloves and ground chile powder.

Recipe adapted from All Under Heaven.

Featured in: Eating on the Western Edge of China

The post Yang Rou Chuan (Cumin Lamb Skewers) appeared first on Saveur.

During Western China’s desert summers, freshwater fish from the Tarim River are barbecued, butterflied, and splayed across long, thin salt-cedar branches. The skewers are then stuck, stake-like, into the ground around a burning fire, which roasts them slowly and evenly. In this version, a hot oven or a traditional western grill will work similarly, roasting the cumin-, garlic-, and pepper-rubbed fish to a fragrant burnish. While carp and perch are more common in western China, bass and branzino are fine substitutes.

Recipe adapted from All Under Heaven.

Featured in: Eating on the Western Edge of China

The post Chinese Grilled Fish With Cumin and Jalapeños (Xīnjiāng Kăoyú) appeared first on Saveur.