hello hi everyone! Wesley here. Today we’re diving back into our series dedicated to Chinese breakfast foods with a shot at a very simple but also deceptively difficult breakfast snack known as a “shao bing.” For those not familiar, a Chinese “shao bing” (roughly translating to Chinese “biscuit”) is a popular flakey and yeasted snack item that can be served in many different forms. Often times, you will come across it stuffed with sesame paste, green onions, eggs, Chinese pork floss, or even just served simply on its own. Today we’ll be doing our version with a few of my favorite additions, which is a simple wok fried egg, green onions, and some black and white sesame seeds for a colorful finish. While at the surface this one may seem like a fairly simple one to take on, the most challenging task today will be about achieving those flakey layers to our biscuits, without the inclusion of butter, which you would more commonly come across in European baking. I’ve got some user friendly solutions for this, as well as some more challenging tricks that take a bit more elbow grease and effort that we’ll dive into as well. Hope you try it.

It will be out on Friday November 12, 2021, so bookmark the recipe here, and be sure to subscribe and hit the bell on YouTube to get notified when it’s out!

Woo Can Cook is a series where we reproduce fun foods and recipes from my childhood. Some of them are authentically Chinese and/or pan-Asian, but a lot of them are odd Americanized versions that I inherited from my parents and grandparents while growing up in the Bay Area/California.

We're live streaming every Tues/Thurs at 6:30PM PST, with new recipes out every Friday!

Hello hi everyone! Wesley here. Today we’re adding to our series on foods inspired by TV and film with some shumai, inspired by the dumpling scene from New Girl. I thought I’d use this as an opportunity to explore a dumpling that MANYYY folks have been requesting (basically since I started this series), which is a shumai. For those not familiar, shumai is classic dim sum dumpling most typically made of ground pork, shrimp, and veggies, then placed inside of a thin wonton wrapper and gently steamed in a bamboo basket. Its signature open face makes it one of the easiest dumplings to make since there are no intricate pleats or fold involved at all, and it’s basically just a ball of filling pressed into a wrapper. 

I also thought this would be a great opportunity to explore the uses of MSG a bit more, which is my favorite part about this New Girl scene, cause that stuff is in literally all chinese food, even if a restaurant says they don’t cook with MSG, causeee they’re lying. Hope you try it. 

It will be out on Friday August 20, 2021, so bookmark the recipe here, and be sure to subscribe and hit the bell on YouTube to get notified when it’s out!

Woo Can Cook is a series where we reproduce fun foods and recipes from my childhood. Some of them are authentically Chinese and/or pan-Asian, but a lot of them are odd Americanized versions that I inherited from my parents and grandparents while growing up in the Bay Area/California.

We're live streaming every Tues/Thurs at 6:30PM PST, with new recipes out every Friday!

hello hi everyone! Wesley here. Today we’re adding to our series dedicated to Chinese breakfast foods with a shot at a dim sum dish that I’ve been eating for pretty much my whole life, but never once considered trying to make, mostly because I always assumed they were a lot harder to make than they actually are. The Chinese minced pork meat pie, or Xian Bing is made up of a pretty simple flour and water based dough, then filled with a minced meat filling, flattened, and finally pan seared and steamed. 

For those keeping track, the concept of a meat pie is certainly not unique to Chinese food. You’ll come across the similarly assembled “minced pie” in England, the “empanada” in Latin America, the Jamaician Patty in Jamaica, the variations are truly endless. What has always stood out to me about the xian bing, however, is the pleated pattern that appears on the top of the pie as a result of the way that it is assembled, which you’ll notice looks a lot like a baozi or xiao lom bao, because they are all folded in the same method. So, we’re gonna take a look at all of that today, as well as a few of my favorite additions to a xian bing, including some celery heart and a bit of white pepper and chinese five spice for their aromatic qualities. Hope you try it.

It will be out on Friday September 3, 2021, so bookmark the recipe here, and be sure to subscribe and hit the bell on YouTube to get notified when it’s out!

Woo Can Cook is a series where we reproduce fun foods and recipes from my childhood. Some of them are authentically Chinese and/or pan-Asian, but a lot of them are odd Americanized versions that I inherited from my parents and grandparents while growing up in the Bay Area/California.

We're live streaming every Tues/Thurs at 6:30PM PST, with new recipes out every Friday!

hello hi everyone! Wesley here. Today we’re taking a crack at one of my favorite Chinese breakfasts from my childhood, which is a Tomato Scrambled Egg Stir Fry, or fan qie chao dan. For those not familiar, a Chinese tomato egg stir fry is (as the name implies) composed of scrambled eggs, fried in a wok that is then combined with a saucy tomato wedge stir fry, and served over rice. We’re gonna be using a couple of these gorgeous vine ripened tomatoes today since we are right in the heart of tomato season here in California, but while they are out of season though, whole canned tomatoes work wonderfully here as well. Hope you try it.

It will be out on Friday August 20, 2021, so bookmark the recipe here, and be sure to subscribe and hit the bell on YouTube to get notified when it’s out!

Woo Can Cook is a series where we reproduce fun foods and recipes from my childhood. Some of them are authentically Chinese and/or pan-Asian, but a lot of them are odd Americanized versions that I inherited from my parents and grandparents while growing up in the Bay Area/California.

We're live streaming every Tues/Thurs at 6:30PM PST, with new recipes out every Friday!

Hello hi everyone! Wesley here. Today we’re adding to our series on foods inspired by the Bay Area restaurant scene with a shot at a Taiwanese sticky pork and rice roll or “cifantuan,” inspired by the one found at Five Happiness in San Francisco, CA. For those not familiar, a cifantuan or “fantuan,” as it is colloquially referred to, is made up of glutinous sticky rice, wrapped around a Chinese fried donut or “youtiao,” and folded together with a savory dried pork floss, or “rousong.” Here in the states, you’ll commonly come across these in Taiwanese pastry shops and dim sum restaurants like Five Happiness, but you may also find these in Taiwan from street food vendors as well because they are so compact and easy to eat on the go. Hope you try it.

It will be out on Friday July 23rd, 2021, so bookmark the recipe here, and be sure to subscribe and hit the bell on YouTube to get notified when it’s out!

Woo Can Cook is a series where we reproduce fun foods and recipes from my childhood. Some of them are authentically Chinese and/or pan-Asian, but a lot of them are odd Americanized versions that I inherited from my parents and grandparents while growing up in the Bay Area/California.

We're live streaming every Mon/Tues/Thurs at 6:30PM PST, with new recipes out every Friday!

hello hi everyone! Wesley here. This is a recipe adding to our series on breakfast foods with one of my favorite Chinese egg dishes of all time, which is a savory steamed egg custard, or “zheng ji dan geng.”A Chinese steamed egg custard is a loose, whisked egg combined with stock that’s gently steamed, and topped with a savory sauce. It can be made with any number of things inside (including shrimp, chicken, veggies, or anything else you can imagine), but my personal favorite is a classic minimalist egg custard, which is what we’re going for today.

While the Chinese Steamed Egg may sound deceptively simple to make, you will find that achieving the perfectly smooth, glass-like texture of a classic steamed egg requires quite a bit of practice to perfect, otherwise the surface of the custard will either buckle, split, wither, or all of the above. This one also has all kinds of nostalgia vibes for me too, cause this was one of those dishes that my mom used to make for me whenever I lost a tooth, since it doesn’t really require any chewing. If you’re looking for new ideas to do for your next Sunday breakfast, I definitely recommend this one. Hope you try it.

It will be out on Friday April 23, 2021, so bookmark the recipe here, and be sure to subscribe and hit the bell on YouTube to get notified when it’s out!

Woo Can Cook is a series where we reproduce fun foods and recipes from my childhood. Some of them are authentically Chinese and/or pan-Asian, but a lot of them are odd Americanized versions that I inherited from my parents and grandparents while growing up in the Bay Area/California.

We're live streaming every Mon/Tues/Thurs at 6:30PM PST, with new recipes out every Friday!