Seared Turnips with Leftover Vegetable Stir-Fry

There is a dish in Cantonese cuisine called turnip cake. Then there is a dish with turnip cake, chopped into cubes, and stir-fried with bean sprouts, scallions, some other veggies and often peanuts. I’m quite certain this latter dish was a leftover invention. The very best turnip cake (which is actually made from radish but I’ll get to that later) in my opinion is seared to a beautiful crisped surface, and is soft and mushy on the inside, like glutinous … Read More

“Peasant” Turnip Soup

This was the challenge I faced growing up with learning to cook anything too rustic and simple: Time and again, I’d be taken aback by something that my mom had just thrown together. Wow, this is really good, I would say, tasting an eggdrop soup with crunchy scallion bits floating about. Or a stir-fry of julienned potatoes with a dash of white pepper, the starch suspending the sticks in a light, opaque sauce. Or, most recently, this clear soup with … Read More

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