It’s Chinese New Year! 新年快乐 to all my mainland Chineasys and 恭喜發財 to my Cantonese souljas. To everyone else: I wish your salt-and-pepper tofu to be extra crispy and your hand-pulled noodles especially toothsome.
As your friendly Chinese Takeout editor, I’ve assigned and written a number of stories about Chinese food on this site. I hope it’s not too much! For your convenience, I’ve compiled many of our favorite pieces below in one handy place.
Don’t miss the tip about achieving fluffy “Puffalump-like” eggs.
A lifetime’s worth of Chinese cooking knowledge can be found in these, my four favorite books.
Cantonese-style barbecue is different from the smoke-infused meats of American barbecue—but no less delicious, I think.
If you read about char siu in the barbecue story above, learn how to make a faithful version at home.
And after you make char siu, why not dip it in homemade ginger-scallion sauce? (My hack is to add a dash of fish sauce for extra umami.)
My attempt to replicate a childhood favorite dish.
Everything I know about eating xiao long bao, distilled into one post.
One of the more obscure dumplings of the dim sum canon: the mighty wu gok.
Two posts about ordering dim sum (with part three on the way!)
A profile I originally wrote for Lucky Peach about Martin Yan, the high priest of Chinese cooking.
Martin Yan makes one more appearance with an explainer of why Chinese takeout tastes the way it does (and how to replicate it at home).
The headline says it all. It was strange and delicious.