#ChineseFoodiesofIG: Christine Wong of Conscious Cooking

 

This is part of an ongoing series of interviews I’m doing with my favourite Chinese foodies that I follow on Instagram. Come and follow the #ChineseFoodiesofIG hashtag on Instagram and leave a comment showing your support for these talented folk!

Where are you from? Where are you really from?

Although I was born in Hawaii, and have lived in the U.S. for most of my life, my heart is in Hong Kong. While I love the vibrancy and energy of the city, I value the tiny fragments of nostalgia with the old school mom and pop shops. Plus, my favorite untouched beach in the world is there.

What does home taste like?

Home tastes like a freshly cooked bowl of steamed rice.

Share a food memory:

Interestingly, the food memories that come to mind all involve onions which I unfortunately now have a food sensitivity to. My mother used to bake the most incredible onion herb bread when I was growing up. I will always remember loving it, even though it has been decades that I’ve eaten it. Sadly we don’t have the recipe anywhere.

Favourite Chinese vegetable?

Taro. I love the earthy taste of this root and all the different ways of preparing it, in hearty stews, in dim sum — taro puff (芋角) and taro cake (芋頭糕), crunchy chips, and the sweet taro tapioca soup.

Best zero waste cooking tip:

My favorite tip when I host my cooking workshops is to save all the fresh food scraps like tough asparagus and mushroom stems, garlic skins, etc and make a delicious soup stock from them.

The perfect stir fry:

The perfect stir-fry is using up everything in the fridge, especially at the end of the week. We always save even the smallest bit of leftovers from any meal, and these work well when combined with the addition of a few fresh ingredients.

Who's your Chinese food legend?

Madame Cecilia Chiang

Dream dinner party guests:

The Obamas, Greta Thunberg, Audrey Hepburn, Hayao Miyazaki, Stephen Chow, the Dalai Lama… and my daughter, because she's awesome.

Top three cookbooks:

There are so many great ones, and I love that so many of my Instagram friends all have cookbooks. My top 3 however are How To Cook because it continues to be a great all-round reference, Yotam Ottolenghi’s Plenty/Plenty More for all of his incredible veggie inspiration, and Fuchsia Dunlop’s Every Grain of Rice for her extensive knowledge of Chinese food.

What would you like to tell the world about Chinese food?

What I love about Chinese food is the diversity of all the regional styles and flavors. I love it all but also aspire to redefine dishes to embrace using local and seasonal ingredients and to ‘unprocess’ foods by making them from scratch with real, whole ingredients. My hoisin sauce in The Plantiful Plate cookbook made with prunes, coconut sugar, water, tamari, rice vinegar, sesame oil, and spices, is suitably sweet and true to the store-bought version.

 
#ChineseFoodiesofIGJenny Lauchinese identity, chinese american food, chinese american, blogger, bloggers, new york, eco, environmentally conscious, zero waste, vegan, plant based, food writerComment