Eastfist

The Truth About Sriracha
By Chongchen Saelee

If you’ve grown up in America in even the most semi of Asian culture, you might be familiar with Huy Fong Foods brand of sriracha, otherwise now synonymously known as “Sriracha” with a capital S in ‘murica. Much like how Americans only fell in love with Chinese wire-fu with Ang Lee’s “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”, there seems to be a late to the train game going on. But mostly, this chili sauce is catching on because it has become known as the hipster ketchup. And ketchup has a stigma for being cheap and junk food (sugar, vinegar, and red dye, no tomatoes whatsoever). These modern hipsters are putting it on EVERYTHING. But real Asians were just using it in pho. (more…)

By Chongchen Saelee

As a supplement to my previous post Chinese-style onion pancakes, here’s some quick recipes for dipping sauces to go along with your onion pancakes: (more…)

Every greedy bastard in America loves Christmas, and no doubt will be indulging in customary, yet cliche foods of the holidays. My take of the cake. (more…)

Out of sheer boredom, I decided to make some onion “pancakes” today. Practice makes perfect. You start out with some all-purpose flour, about two handfuls. You add hot water to it and knead it until it becomes soft and elastic. I’ve found using a rolling pin helpful, but this kind of food calls for TLC. Make it right and it’ll taste right (see how I’m BS-ing?).

After letting the dough sit, roll it out like a pizza crust (tsk-tsk, Marco Polo). Rub some oil into the dough (I used sesame seed oil, but you can use what tastes best for you). Then chop up some green onions and sprinkle it on the outstretched dough. Roll that thing back up and roll it out thin (the thinner the better, but we’re not making wafers). That distributes the green onions evenly.

Heat up a frying pan with some oil in it. Put the stretched dough on there and sear it nice like a tortilla. Flip it over and sear the other side. When it’s done, it should be crispy on the outside, but chewy in the middle. This is the same dough used to make pot stickers, also known as wonton wraps.

Don’t forget to salt it unless you like it plain. Otherwise, you can make a salty sauce. I usually concoct a sauce consisting of “chicken fun zew” (you know, the red chili sauce with the rooster on it), fish sauce, and lime juice. However, today we didn’t have that so I made a similar sauce with soy sauce, sesame oil and lime juice.




The first one I messed up. It was too crispy and became a cracker. The second one I made better because I added more water. It was flakey, aromatic, and satisfying. That must have taken at least 3 hours, which was mainly kneading. As they say, gotta eat!