One of my favorite Taiwanese confections are 杏仁餅 (almond chess cookies; or, as I like to call it, almond-flavored crack), a sort of marzipan-flavored candy with a crumbly, sandy, shortbread texture. They’re slightly sweet, buttery, with a salty backnote, and pair perfectly with a nice cup of hot tea. However, it’s hard to find these [...]
Taiwanese breakfasts have always fascinated me. As a Taiwanese-American born and raised in the US, I grew up eating stuff that most of my other classmates probably ate for breakfast: sugary cereals, poptarts, toast with peanut butter or jelly and the like. Once in a while though, my parents would take my sister and me [...]
Note: This is a “cooking-by-the-seat-of-my-pants” post. Recipe and instructions are approximate and to the best of my shoddy memory. This year, I wanted to try my hand at making pineapple tarts, a traditional Chinese New Year treat. As I didn’t have any pineapple on hand, I substituted some frozen persimmon pulp, cooking it down with [...]
The last time I was in Taiwan, my mom and I attended a family reunion dinner at Tainan Danzi Mein (台南擔仔麵), located in downtown Taichung. This restaurant is quite famous; it seems as though there is always some kind of wedding party or company banquet held everytime we are there. The building is well equipped [...]