Arcane Cuisine

April 17, 2017

I can’t get enough of  Chinese Imperial Cuisines and Eating Secrets , which chronicles a cuisine that is almost unimaginably luxurious. The book not only tells you about the vast range of exotic ingredients consumed by the emperors of yore, it also tells you how to cook them.  Should you be seeking suggestions for ways to use your rhinoceros meat, this cookbook has you covered. Or perhaps you need a recipe for those camel paws you found in the supermarket the other day? This recipe calls for four.

Here’s something relatively simple; it’s one of my favorite Chinese dishes, but I had no idea its roots were so regal.

“Streaky pork” must refer to pork belly. And “potherb mustard” is also called mizuna. Many recipes insist on using preserved greens instead of fresh ones. (If you can’t find preserved mizuna, I’d venture that any kind of pickled mustard would work well; try to get the kind that includes the leaves along with the root.)

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