The Life-Changing Magic of XO Sauce

(Update 4/19/19 - Red Hot Kitchen’s XO sauce recipe has been featured in The New York Times Magazine! Sam Sifton also urges you to make it in the Times’ What to Cook This Week, on Facebook, and Twitter. What are you waiting for? :) If you like heat and umami, give it a try!)

Red Hot Kitchen has had quite the journey in the last few weeks! Since its February release, I’ve been fortunate to have participated in radio shows and podcasts, spoken at bookstore events and lectures, and been featured on a number of food and design sites. The IRL and virtual book tour continues...I have upcoming events at Omnivore Books and Book Passage the first weekend in April, and an event at the Museum of Chinese in America in late April. Not to mention the usual schedule of cooking classes! (Come say hi at an event or class!)

Since the book launch, I’ve noticed that all nine of the hot sauces featured in Red Hot Kitchen have their own fans, but one chili sauce in particular has drawn a group of new, very excited converts: XO sauce. There were many people who hadn’t really heard of XO sauce before. After all, it’s not THE gateway Asian hot sauce that everyone knows and loves (Sriracha), nor one of the increasingly popular condiments that’s getting more and more attention in the U.S. (gochujang, sambal oelek, Sichuan chili oil). Often, even if someone had heard of XO sauce before, or tried it in a Chinese restaurant, they didn’t really know what ingredients are in it.

But hopefully word is getting out about this underrated chili paste! Since the launch, Salon TV did a segment with me on making XO sauce, Edible Brooklyn showcased my Vegan XO Sauce, and PureWow featured my Stir-Fried Rice Cakes with XO Sauce. I also fielded many questions about it on WNYC’s All of It with Alison, Heritage Radio Network’s Eat Your Words, my launch event at Books are Magic (also recorded for TASTE’s podcast), the Asian Chili Sauce Lecture and Tasting at Brooklyn Brainery, and Masters of Social Gastronomy: Burnin’ Down the Mouth. A few people even went home from my Books are Magic event and immediately made regular and vegan versions of the XO sauce (the highest compliment ever!)

Now, I’m probably not supposed to choose a favorite of the nine hot sauces (it’s like choosing a favorite from your nine children, right?!?) but I will go on the record right now and say that XO sauce would be my desert island hot sauce. Why? Many people think of advancing their hot sauce knowledge through training their lungs and esophagi to adapt to increasingly spicier sauces. I prefer to skip the capsaicin one-upmanship. Instead, the more spicy food I eat, the more I find myself craving more complex and deeper flavors to go with the heat. There are many instances when Sriracha, sambal oelek, or sweet chili sauce would be the perfect addition to a dish. But when you want a hot sauce that has insanely rich umami flavors while also packing heat, XO sauce is the one to reach for.

So what exactly is XO sauce? Well, it’s the youngest hot sauce of the nine featured in Red Hot Kitchen, developed in Hong Kong in the late 80s and 90s by restaurant chefs. “XO” is Hong Kong slang for extra-old brandy and gives off the idea of something luxurious. Pretty much every restaurant or XO sauce maker in Hong Kong has their own recipe, but most of them include dried scallops, dried shrimp, and Jinhua ham. Dried scallops are prized in Cantonese cooking and are used in many soups and braises, especially at banquet dinners. Jinhua ham is also a delicacy, with a flavor similar to jamon serrano or prosciutto (you can’t find it in the US, so I use smoked bacon as a substitute). Dried shrimp isn’t as pricy as the previous two, but it’s still prized for the briny flavor. Small (6 to 8 ounce) jars of XO sauce in Hong Kong can run you between $25 and $70 USD.

(Vegans/Vegetarians: I got you covered. My vegan XO sauce made with some key umami-rich ingredients was a hit at recent tastings!)

Of course, cooking at home is always better quality- and cost-wise, and you can make an quart-size jar of XO sauce at home at a fraction of the price. (I use small scallops or shredded scallops, which are very affordable, instead of the crazy pricey large whole ones that people mainly give for wedding gifts.) Even though it takes a bit longer to put together (about an hour), the absolute best part about making XO sauce is that once you have it, you will need very few other ingredients to enjoy a fabulous meal. It’s so flavor-packed that you really need just a few fresh ingredients to mix with the XO sauce.

Now, what do you do with it? SO MANY THINGS. In Red Hot Kitchen, I have recipes for noodles, chicken stir-fries, steamed fish, veggies, a flatbread pizza, and more. But honestly, you can use it for anything your umami-loving heart desires. Examples:

• Throw it on plain steamed rice

• Scramble eggs with it

• Dress up cashew chicken, beef with broccoli, sesame shrimp, or another favorite stir-fry

• Stuff it in dumplings or spring rolls

• Add it to your late-night ramen

• Stir it with into a turkey or vegetable chile

• Roast your favorite vegetable with it

• Bake nachos with it

What you can do with XO sauce is limited only by your imagination, and I know Appetite for China readers don’t have limited imaginations!

You can get the full recipes from Red Hot Kitchen for XO sauce via Salon (XO sauce recipe is after the Rice Cakes recipe), and for Vegan XO Sauce via Edible Brooklyn. Now that I’ve hopefully piqued your curiosity, what are some dishes you would love to try XO sauce with?

Red Hot Kitchen Book Events!

Red Hot Kitchen comes out tomorrow, February 5th, also the first day of Lunar New Year! I’ve been organizing some events in New York, Boston, and San Francisco for the coming months and hope you can join me in celebrating the book launch. (More will be added!)

• February 11th at Books are Magic (Brooklyn, NY) - Talk and Tasting with Matt Rodbard from Taste

• February 20th at Brooklyn Brainery (Brooklyn, NY) - Asian Chili Sauces! A Lecture and Tasting

• March 12th at Brookline Booksmith (Brookline, MA) - Book talk and tasting

• April 6th at Omnivore Books (San Francisco, CA) - Book talk and tasting

• April 17th at Brooklyn Brainery (Brooklyn, NY) - Asian Chili Sauces! A Lecture and Tasting

• April 25th at the Museum of Chinese in America (New York, NY) - MOCA Food Talks with Diana Kuan and Matt Gross

Win a free cooking class! And 1 month until book launch!

There's less than one month to go until the release of Red Hot Kitchen, featuring *hot* dishes to make with 9 versatile Asian chili sauces! And I've teamed up with my publisher Avery and the Brooklyn Brainery for another giveaway!

This time, we're offering a chance to win 1 spot in a Brooklyn Brainery cooking class (no expiration), or a free private Skype class if you live outside New York. For the Brooklyn Brainery class, you can choose from any of the ones I teach, including Dumplings & Wontons, Intro to Sichuan, Vegan Chinese, and many more. (We'll be posting more classes for February through April soon.)  For the private Skype class, groceries aren't included, but you can design your own class with 3 dishes that we can do in under 2 hours. This is a great way to have your favorite dishes and flavors demystified! 

So how does it work? Simply pre-order the book from your choice of 8 stores, then fill out this short form by January 23rd, 2019. (If you've already pre-ordered, no problem! Just fill out the form with your order number, and thank you for your early support!) 

One winner will be chosen at random and notified via e-mail by February 1st, 2019. This is open to residents of the 50 United States and the District of Columbia, aged 18 and up.

Happy cooking!

Shanghai Hot Sauce Noodles

Hello! It’s been a whirlwind of a few months here at Appetite for China HQ. There have been many late nights of editing, classes for the Brainery and private clients, a few photo projects and new cooking experiments undertaken, a long-overdue trip to Hong Kong, many sleepless nights, and many more cups of coffee. I am thrilled to let you know, though, that my second cookbook Red Hot Kitchen will be out February 5th, 2019! (And it’s available for pre-order now!) I know the next 2 months will also fly by, but along the way I’ll be posting updates, fun sneak peaks, and giveaways here on the blog, on Instagram, and on Facebook. Cooking new spicy foods, or DIYing hot sauces, definitely makes the dark dreary days of winter a little more exciting.

Earlier this week I conducted a poll via Instagram stories for which spicy dish you’d like me to reveal in today’s post: Shanghai Hot Sauce Noodles using Sriracha, or Vegetarian Bibimbap using gochujang? The first few hours the race was neck and neck, but by morning Shanghai Hot Sauce Noodles pulled ahead to be the clear winner, by a margin of 2 to 1. I personally love both dishes, but do realize that Shanghai Hot Sauce Noodles are a little lesser known here in the US and might be a bit more intriguing!

The recipe in Red Hot Kitchen is based on similar bowls of noodles I had eaten at little mom and pop noodle shops when I lived in Shanghai. I practically lived off these noodles, alternating between them and soup dumplings or pan-fried soup buns for my weekday lunches. This vegetarian version is as good as the more common versions using pork, and you can always add meat if you’d prefer. Now, Sriracha is not traditionally used in Shanghainese cooking, but I do use it here to add heat while cutting the amount of saltiness that can result from using too much doubanjiang, or Chinese fermented bean paste. (My motto is, if you can deviate from tradition while making a dish better, go for it!) :)

Even though Red Hot Kitchen teaches you to make Sriracha from scratch, you can use store-bought versions in this recipe.

Reprinted from Red Hot Kitchen by arrangement with Avery Books, a member of Penguin Group (USA) LLC, A Penguin Random House Company. Copyright © 2018.

SHANGHAI HOT SAUCE NOODLES

SERVES 2

When I lived in Shanghai, la jiang mian was found on almost every street corner, at quick eats restaurants that catered to bustling lunch crowds. A piping hot bowl of noodles and spicy broth with tofu, peanuts, and a generous helping of chili sauce was the ideal quick lunch, and I slurped countless bowls a week. In Shanghai, the restaurants usually only use doubanjiang (a Chinese fermented, salted chili bean paste) for the heat. At home, however, I like to pair doubanjiang with Sriracha to make a version that retains the same heat but is less salty than the restaurant versions.

• 5 tablespoons vegetable oil

• ½ cup raw peanuts

• 2 tablespoons store-bought doubanjiang (Chinese chili bean paste)

• 2 tablespoons store-bought Sriracha

• 1 small onion, finely diced

• 1 large carrot, finely diced

• 8 ounces smoked or baked tofu, cut into ½-inch cubes

• 1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger

• 2 teaspoons sugar

• 5 cups vegetable broth

• 1 pound fresh Chinese noodles, or 8 ounces dried noodles

• 2 scallions, finely chopped

1. Heat a wok or large pan over medium-high heat until a drop of water sizzles and evaporates on contact. Add 3 tablespoons of the vegetable oil. Add the peanuts and fry until they start to turn golden, about 2 minutes, being careful to not burn the peanuts. Reduce the heat to medium. Add the chili bean paste and Sriracha and stir-fry with the peanuts just until fragrant and the oil starts to redden, about 20 seconds.

2. Add the onion and cook until translucent, about 2 minutes. Add the carrot, tofu, ginger, and sugar and stir-fry for another 30 seconds. Add ½ cup of the vegetable broth and cook, stirring constantly, until the liquid has evaporated. Add another ½ cup of the broth and repeat the process. (This allows the peanuts, onions, carrots, and tofu to absorb more flavor.) Finally, add the remaining 4 cups broth and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer for 20 minutes.

3. Meanwhile, bring a medium pot of water to a boil and cook the noodles according to package instructions. Drain and divide into individual bowls.

4. Pour the broth over the noodles. Garnish with the scallions and serve hot.

The Best Chinese Dumplings in Brooklyn + The NY Dumpling Project

Because I've written pretty extensively about Chinese food and teach dumpling classes every month at the Brooklyn Brainery, I often get asked where are the best places to get dumplings around New York (other than home or in class.) 

So a few months ago, I created the NY Dumpling Project, where you can follow along for recommendations for dumplings around New York. And not just Chinese dumplings, but also Korean, Russian, Polish, Italian, and Uzbek dumplings...with many more nationalities to come! The beauty of dumplings is that many countries around the world have their own versions, and these little nuggets of fillings wrapped in dough are pure comfort food with characteristics unique to their places of origin.

But of course, China is where dumplings originated, about a millennium ago. Periodically on this blog, I'll round up some favorites from the NY Dumpling Project. Today we'll start with the best Chinese dumplings in Brooklyn. (It's my borough, and when weekend train schedules go bonkers, which is every weekend, these dumplings shops are where I turn to the most.)

1. Wontons in Chili Oil (Sichuan Wontons) at Han Dynasty (City Point Shopping Center, 1 Dekalb Ave, Downtown Brooklyn) - Han Dynasty, a Sichuan mini-chain from Philly, used to have just one New York outpost, in the East Village. Lines were super long, even just to get take-out. Then the Dumpling Gods shone down on us and Han Dynasty opened a location in the basement of Dekalb Market in downtown Brooklyn. The Wontons in Chili Oil are a must-order. Be aware that all of the dishes at Han Dynasty, including the wontons, differ in spiciness levels depending on who's cooking in the kitchen that day. But whether your wontons come flaming hot or just mildly spiced, rest assured you'll want to just slurp up this addictive sauce. 

2. Pork and sweet corn dumplings at Kathy's Dumplings (7924 3rd Ave, Bay Ridge) - Kathy's Dumplings is such a little gem in Bay Ridge. My favorites here are the pork and sweet corn dumplings, wrapped in violet cabbage juice wrappers. The dumplings are wrapped and steamed to order, which means you'll wait a bit longer for dumplings here than at other shops around the city, but the difference in flavors is noticeable. Definitely also explore the other menu options, including the salads, pancakes, and bubble teas. 

3. Any of the soup dumplings at Yaso Tangbao (148 Lawrence St, Downtown Brooklyn, or 253 36th St., Industry City ) - This fast-casual spot specializes in soup dumplings that are much better than any of the restaurants that drawn long lines in Manhattan's Chinatown. The classic pork soup dumplings are my favorites, though the new chicken soup dumplings with activated charcoal wrappers are pretty swell too (and no, they don't turn your mouth black.) There are two locations, one in downtown Brooklyn and another in Industry City.

4. Pan-Fried Juicy Pork Dumplings at East Wind Snack Shop (471 16th St, Windsor Terrace) - There *is* truth in advertising. These little morsels are so juicy that you'll feel like you're eating pan-fried soup dumplings. Chef Chris Cheung is a New York native who opened this little shop on the Park Slope / Windsor Terrace border after working at Nobu and Vong. The cozy vibe and inventive snacks menu remind me very much of Hong Kong eateries. And Cantonese snack fans rejoice: this is one of the few places outside Chinatown to get fresh Hong Kong egg waffles. 

5. Hot Oil Wontons at Dumplings & Things (375 5th Ave., Park Slope) - Also Sichuan wontons, these are not as spicy as #1 from Han Dynasty, but still very tasty. In warm weather, get a container to go and eat your wontons outside at the picnic area at Old Stone House or in Prospect Park. 

6. (No photo yet) All the dim sum dumplings from Pacificana (813 55th St. Sunset Park) - This is by far my favorite dim sum restaurant in New York, and the har gow and shu mai and other dim sum favorites don't disappoint. And there's actually ample space here for dim sum carts. Plan to arrive before 11am on weekends to avoid a long wait. 

Do you have any favorite Chinese dumplings in Brooklyn (or elsewhere in New York) to recommend? Let me know in the comments below!