hello hi everyone! Wesley here. Today we’re getting back into our series dedicated to foods from the wonderful restaurant scene here in the Bay Area with a shot at a really interesting mapo tofu found at Spices 3, in Oakland, CA. More specifically today, we’re going to be taking a shot at at their stinky mapo tofu, which is (as the name implies) a pretty typical Sichuan mapo tofu (or spicy ground pork and tofu stir fry), with the added twist that the tofu included is not your more typical soft tofu, but a Chinese fermented “chou doufu,” or more colloquially, “stinky tofu.” 

For those unfamiliar, chou doufu is is a Hong Kong street food classic featuring firm tofu that has been aged in a fermented bean curd, which gives it a uniquely pungent and “stinky” quality. More typically in Chinese cuisine, you might see this deep fried and served as a small plate with a light sauce on the side. For our version today however, we’ll be skipping that deep fry, and instead dropping our chou doufu straight into our wok fry for an interestingly complex quality to our tofu that you generally would not otherwise come across in a more standard mapo tofu. Finally to round this all out, it seemed appropriate to take a shot at our own chili oil today as well (since we are paying homage to Spices 3), so, we’ll be taking a look at how that stuff is made (and more importantly), if it’s worth the effort, since you can absolutely just buy that stuff in a jar. Hope you try it. 

It will be out on Friday November 26, 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! Welcome back to Wesley here. Today we’re diving back into our series dedicated to the wonderful weird world of Asian fusion foods with a request from the r/gifrecipes subreddit for a wok fried garlic noodle. For those not familiar, the concept of “garlic noodles” appears throughout MANY different food cultures, including but not limited to Chinese cuisine (it is, after all, not a very complicated concept). This of course gives us an endless amount of leeway for creative interpretation, so, for our version today, I’ll be drawing some inspiration from the Italian pasta dish “Pasta Aglio e Olio,” or more colloquially, pasta with garlic and olive oil (you may also recognize this as the pantry pasta dish from the movie “Chef”). 

This dish is most iconically done with spaghetti, red chili flake, parsley, and a whooole bunch of garlic that has been cooked on low heat in olive oil for an aromatic finish. For our version today, we’ll be borrowing this low and slow technique for our garlic, but then swapping in a few classic elements that you’ll likely recognize from more traditional Chinese wok cooking, which are some dry toasted Tian Jin peppers and Sichuan peppercorn (in lieu of our red chili flake), some thinly sliced green onions (in lieu of our parsley), some toasted sesame oil (in lieu of our olive oil) and finally, some super thin fresh noodles that we’re gonna wok fry for a wonderfully crispy quality that you’ll likely recognize from a lot of classic Chinese take out. Hope you try it.

It will be out on Friday November 19, 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 diving back into our series dedicated to the wonderful, weird world of Asian fusion cuisine with a shot at a miso glazed fish taco. For those following along, we have now done a few very fun and creative dishes in this series, including a Chinese lap cheong sausage carbonara, and of course our fried rice burrito earlier last month. 
More specifically, today we’ll be making use of my absolute favorite cut of fish for pan searing, which is some skin-on salmon fillets. This is gonna pair nicely with the shallow fry method that we’ll be using, which works particularly well in our round bottomed wok that i’ll be using, which we’ll dive into as well.  The thin skin of the salmon here is gonna crisp up nicely in our wok fry, for a super crispy, but also still super tender piece of salmon. We’ll be pairing that with a rich miso based glaze, some fresh avocado, lime juice, and finally, a quick slaw done with some Taiwanese cabbage, shallots, and my personal favorite, some Chinese red vinegar. Hope you try it.

It will be out on Friday November 5, 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 diving back into our series dedicated to the wonderful, weird world of asian fusion with a shot at the very popular “Crispy Kimchi Bacon Fried Rice” found at the Woo Can Cook pop ups all around the California Bay Area. For those unfamiliar, earlier this summer, we launched a fried rice pop up here in Oakland, serving many of the fried rices and dishes from this series. The kimchi fried rice that we’ll be taking a shot at today is a staple of the Woo Can Cook menu, and features crispy bacon bits, fermented korean “kimchi,” a sweet and savory gochujang and hoisin sauce, and finally, a 2 minute wok sear for a wonderfully crispy finish to the rice. 

We’ll also use this as an opportunity to take a look at how we cook this at the pop up when we’re cooking on 200,000 BTUs of wok burner heat, and then take a look at how to adjust this approach to accommodate for the more moderate BTUs of home burners like the ones you all probably have. Hope you try it.

It will be out on Friday October 22, 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 diving back into our series on fusion foods with a shot at a dish that many of the Bay Area locals have been asking for, which is the crispy bacon fried rice found at the Woo Can Cook fried rice pop up. For those not familiar, we have been doing a fun fried rice pop up at a few locations around the Bay Area this summer serving a number of the fried rices created in this series. Our Crispy Bacon Fried Rice is, as the name implies, a chicken and bacon fried rice tossed with a gochujang and hoisin sauce, and finished with a 2 minute sear for a nice crispy texture. 

Then finally (as promised), I thought I'd also use this as an opportunity to dive into one of our newest menu additions, which is our fried rice burrito, where we top our fried rice with some quick pickled shallots, cilantro crema, and wrap it up in a flour tortilla for the burrito that you didn't know you needed in your life basically until you just saw this thumbnail. Hope you try it.

It will be out on Friday September 17, 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!