Gua Bao

Thanks to New York chef Eddie Wong, author of “Fresh Off the Boat,” Gua-Bao has became a foodie favorite in the past few years. And with Chinese New Year fast approaching, this time of year is when these delicious steamed buns are most commonly served.


Bosses in Taiwan are known for being demanding and strict. But on the 16th day of the 12th month on the traditional Chinese lunar year, many bosses gather all of the employees and treat them to an extravagant banquet called a “wei-ya” (literally meaning “the end”) as a way to show gratitude for a year of hard work and dedication.

In the past, some particularly insensitive employers have supposedly used the event as an opportunity to ceremoniously can certain employees by turning the head of the cooked chicken toward the seat of an unfortunate worker who would soon be fired.

However, for the most part, it’s a time to establish rapport between the boss and employees over some delicious traditional Chinese dishes. No wei-ya is complete without a platter of Gua-Bao. Since Gua-Bao kind of resembles a wallet, it’s also said to represent a wallet filled with money to symbolize how much money you will earn next year.

 

When filled with braised pork, the Gua-Bao is also called hu yao zhu, literally meaning “tiger bites pig,” to symbolize the biting of all the bad things that happened in the past year.

Traditionally, a Gua-Bao is made with pork belly and stuffed with sour mustard preserves and sweet powdered sugar, which is not my favorite combination of a bao. So this week I’d like to share with you my own Gua-Bao recipe using five-spice chicken, pickled cucumbers and sweet sesame carrots. To make this even easier to prepare, we are going to be using the slow cooker. The best part about this recipe is that everything can be made ahead of time. This is absolutely one of my favorite things to make for parties and potlucks, and it’s always guaranteed to be a crowd pleaser.

You will need:

Ingredients: (Serves 4 people)

 

For the steamed buns:

4 cups all-purpose flour

1½ Tbsp. sugar

1 Tbsp. vegetable oil

2 tsp. instant yeast

1½ cup lukewarm water

For the five-spice chicken:

4 large chicken thighs

4 cloves garlic

3 scallions

1 inch ginger

1 onion

2 dried pepper

1½ Tbsp. soy sauce

¼ tsp. white pepper

1¼ tsp. sugar

½ tsp. Chinese five spice

salt and pepper to taste

¼ cup water

For the filling:

1 cup sliced cucumber

½ tsp. red pepper flakes

2 Tbsp. rice wine vinegar

½ tsp. sugar

2 carrots

1 tsp. sesame oil

1½ tsp. brown sugar

¼ tsp. sesame seeds

1 tsp. vegetable oil for frying

handful of cilantro

brown sauce and hot sauce to taste

Directions:

Start by roughly cutting up the garlic, ginger, scallions and onion and set aside.

 

Brown the chicken thighs with a little bit of vegetable oil in a large cast iron skillet for two minutes on each side.

Place the browned chicken thighs in the slow cooker with all of the five-spice chicken ingredients including the chopped garlic, ginger, scallions and onion. Cook on low heat for 5 hours.

To make the steamed buns, mix all of the ingredients together and kneed for five minutes until the dough is smooth and elastic. Cover it up and let it proof in a warm and draft-free place in your kitchen for about an hour until the dough has doubled in size.

After the dough has doubled in size, punch the air out of the dough and roll the dough out to about 1/8 inch thick. 

Cut circles with a cookie cutter or a mason jar lid.

  

Use a rolling pin to roll the circles from the middle out and do the same with the bottom to make sure your dough is rolled out evenly into an oval shape. Brush vegetable oil on the rolled-out dough and fold the dough in half with the greased side in.

 

Place the folded dough in the steamer and let it rest for 15 minutes; the dough will rise again for a little bit but not double in size. Then steam the buns on high heat for 15 minutes. Turn off the heat and let your steamed buns sit in the steamer for 5 minutes with the lid slightly open. Press down the bun with your finger and if the bun springs back up, your bun is ready. These buns will keep in the refrigerator for two weeks and in the freezer up to three months; you can reheat them in a microwave and they will be just as soft and fluffy.

To make the pickled cucumbers, slice the cucumbers into thin slices and toss them in rice wine vinegar, hot pepper flakes and sugar while you’re waiting for the buns to be cooked.

Cut carrots into sticks and sauté them in oil, brown sugar and sesame seeds for a few minutes until the carrots are soft. Remove from heat and drizzle sesame oil over it.

Start assembling the buns by placing the chicken, carrots, cucumbers, the scallions and cilantro in the middle of the bun along with a spoon of brown sauce and hot sauce of your choice. 

I have a recipe for homemade brown sauce in the “Beef Stuffed Scallion Pancakes” column on the website, or you can get brown sauce at your local grocery store as well. 

Bring them to your next potluck or make them on a weeknight using the slow cooker for dinner. Happy Wei Yah and enjoy!

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National Review Goes After Trump, Trump Swings Back

National Review, the bulwark of conservative journalism and opinion for 50 years, has, after months of jabs, finally taken off the gloves in its fight against the candidacy of GOP frontrunner Donald Trump.



With a cover reading simply “Against Trump” and listing well-known conservative contributors like Glenn Beck, William Kristol and Edwin Meese III, the journal founded by William F. Buckley pulled no punches in its attempt to stop the billionaire’s populist campaign.



Led by an editorial, NR warns, “Trump is a philosophically unmoored political opportunist who would trash the broad conservative ideological consensus within the GOP in favor of a free-floating populism with strong-man overtones.”



Calling Trump “a huckster,” they nevertheless cede some credit to him for exposing the disconnect between the Washington GOP and the grassroots. In a warning to conservatives, the editors write, “If they cannot advance a compelling working-class agenda, the legitimate anxieties and discontents of blue-collar voters will be exploited by demagogues.



We sympathize with many of the complaints of Trump supporters about the GOP, but that doesn’t make the mogul any less flawed a vessel for them.”



The editorial’s conclusion is unambiguous is its condemnation of both Trump and those conservatives who’ve expressed support or even embraced him:



Some conservatives have made it their business to make excuses for Trump and duly get pats on the head from him. Count us out. Donald Trump is a menace to American conservatism who would take the work of generations and trample it underfoot in behalf of a populism as heedless and crude as the Donald himself.



In a separate piece in the magazine’s February 15th issue, NR has compiled short essays from 22 commentators, many of whom are conservative leaders.



Radio host Glenn Beck called Trump’s ascension “a crisis for conservatism,” while Weekly Standard editor William Kristol asks, “Isn’t Trumpism a two-bit Caesarism of a kind that American conservatives have always disdained? Isn’t the task of conservatives today to stand athwart Trumpism, yelling Stop?”



Ed Meese, former attorney general under President Ronald Reagan, laments that in a field of strong candidates with solid credentials of leadership, the rise of Trump meant “the political atmosphere is polluted by the vicious personal attacks” rather than a debate of ideas.



Meese concluded, “At a time when the nation is suffering under one of the most divisive and incompetent presidents in history, our people need positive, unifying leadership, not negative, destructive political rhetoric.”



Nationally syndicated columnist Cal Thomas sees the anger of Trump supporters, admitting much of it is justified. However, he concludes, “Anger is not policy. Trump channels a lot of the righteous (and some of the unrighteous) anger of voters and sees the solution as himself. Isn’t a narcissist what we currently have in the White House?”



For his part, Trump responded how he has throughout so much of this campaign — via Twitter.



National Review responded by reminding Trump of what he’d said about the magazine only last April.

As a result of so forcefully speaking out against one candidate, NR publisher Jack Fowler reported they’ve been “disinvited” from co-hosting the February 25 GOP debate in Houston. Fowler wrote, “We expected this was coming. Small price to pay for speaking the truth about The Donald.”

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"Lights Out"on America's Power Grid

ISIS attacks in California and Paris may be just the beginning of an unprecedented plot to bring America to its knees by targeting our nation's scandalously vulnerable electric grid, warn officials at the Pentagon and FBI.



Why? Because terrorist groups like ISIS realize they can't beat us with brute military force on the conventional battlefield. We're way too strong for that.



But when the electric grid fails, it will be like watching America have a heart attack right before your eyes.



It's like when the heart stops pumping... everything shuts down and the patient flat lines.



Our great country would be crippled in a matter of minutes, without our enemies having to fire a single bullet.



It's a frightening idea... and worst of all, it may already have begun to unfold:



ISIS terrorists are already inside our country. Former CIA official Dr. Peter Pry warns, "There is an imminent threat from ISIS to the national electric grid and not just to a single U.S. city." Dr. Pry says that attacks on just 9 of the nation's 55,000 electrical substations could result in nationwide blackouts for up to 18 months.



The government is woefully unprepared. It seems like the government has been fixated on taking more & more away from people who worked hard to earn it, while doing virtually nothing to secure our nation's infrastructure. They've ignored dire warnings from experts about the grid's vulnerability to physical, electromagnetic pulse (EMP) and cyber-attack by ISIS and other terrorist groups.



"Our death toll would be staggering" reports FOXNews. We've all been fine when the power goes out for a few hours and even days, but an extended blackout would be devastating. Frank Gaffney, founder of the Center for Security Policy predicts that "... should the power go out and stay out for over a year, 9 out of 10 Americans would likely perish."



Imagine a blackout lasting not days, but weeks or months. Your life would be frozen in time right at the moment the power fails. Lights all over the country would go out, throwing people into total darkness.



Without access to a generator, your fridge, electric range and microwave would be dead. All the food in your fridge and freezer would spoil.



Your well couldn't pump any fresh water into your house. And even if you don't have a well, a total grid failure means no fresh water to drink, cook, or clean with.



You wouldn't be able to operate your radio or TV, or charge your cell phone, so you'd feel isolated and cut off from your friends and family.



Sadly, this is NOT science fiction or some crazy doomsday theory...



Veteran news anchor Ted Koppel just wrote a book called Lights Out that details this exact scenario. And CENTCOM General Lloyd Austin says, "It's not a question of if, it's a question of when."



That's why many Americans are taking matters into their own hands and are securing their own solar powered generator.



Solar generators are a smart choice because they produce an endless supply of life-saving electricity when you need it most - and without gas, fumes or noise.



Our top recommendation in portable solar generators is the new Patriot Power Generator 1500.



The Patriot Power Generator 1500 is a breakthrough device that generates up to 1,500 continuous watts of clean, quiet, and free renewable power.



That's enough to power lights for safety and comfort, your computer, TV, cell phone, and even small appliances like a small freezer or critical medical device that will sustain your family during a power outage.



You can see a live demo of it in action here



Imagine how much peace of mind you'll have right away when you get your own generator. Because if a crisis hits and your family asks, "When will the power come back on?" you'll calmly reassure them that they're safe and they will have plenty of electricity to power the critical items.



You'll be able to power lights... preserve food... recharge cell phones and computers... and keep critical medical devices going. Your home will be a little island of light and warmth, even if it is dark everywhere else.



Listen, nobody can predict the future. None of us know exactly when or how an attack on our electrical grid will hit.



But from everything we see, it could be soon and it could be devastating.



Watch this video and find out for yourself...

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Why 20 Top Conservatives Oppose Trump

Over 20 conservative leaders published a piece in the National Review urging other conservatives to speak out against Trump, an effort led by National Review editor Rich Lowry who spoke out on "The Kelly File" Thursday night.



"If you are truly are a conservative, you believe in ideas and principles...they are basically afterthoughts to Donald Trump," Lowry said.

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The state of the presidency: SPENT

By Charles Krauthammer



President Barack Obama's address to Congress was less about the state of the union than the state of the presidency. And the state of this presidency is spent.



The signs of intellectual exhaustion were everywhere. Consider just three. After taking credit for success in Syria, raising American stature abroad and prevailing against the Islamic State -- one claim more surreal than the next -- Obama was forced to repair to his most well-worn talking point: "If you doubt America's commitment -- or mine -- to see that justice is done, just ask Osama bin Laden."



Really? Five years later, that's all you've got?



Indeed, it is. What else can Obama say? Talk about Crimea? Cite Yemen, Libya, Iraq, the South China Sea, the return of the Taliban?



"Surveys show our standing around the world is higher than when I was elected to this office," Obama boasted. Surveys, mind you. As if superpower influence is a Miss Universe contest. As if the world doesn't see our allies adrift, our enemies on the march and our sailors kneeling, hands behind their heads, in front of armed Iranians, then forced to apologize on camera.



On the domestic side, Obama's agenda was fairly short, in keeping with his lame-duck status. It was still startling when he worked up a passion for a great "new moonshot": curing cancer.



Is there a more hackneyed national-greatness cliché than the idea that if we can walk on the moon ... ? Or a more hackneyed facsimile of vision than being "the nation that cures cancer"? Do Obama's speechwriters not know that it was Richard Nixon who first declared a war on cancer -- in 1971?



But to see just how bare is the cupboard of ideas of the nation's most vaunted liberal visionary, we had to wait for the stunning anachronism that was the speech finale. It was designed for inspiration and uplift. And for some liberal observers, it actually worked. They were thrilled by the soaring tones as Obama called for, yes, a new politics -- a post-partisan spirit of mutual understanding, rational discourse and respect for one's opponents.



Why, it was hope and change all over again. You'd have thought we were back in 2008.



Or even further back to 2004, when Obama electrified the nation with his Democratic convention speech: "There's not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America; there's the United States of America."



Tuesday night, Obama did an undisguised, almost phrase-for-phrase reprise of that old promise. Earnestly, he urged us to "see ourselves not, first and foremost, as black or white, or Asian or Latino, not as gay or straight, immigrant or native born, not as Democrats or Republicans, but as Americans first."



On cue, various commentators were moved by this sermon summoning our better angels. Good grief. I can understand falling for this 12 years ago. But now? A cheap self-quotation, a rhetorical mulligan, from a man who had two presidential terms to act on that transformative vision and instead gave us the most divisive, partisan, tendentious presidency since Nixon.



Rational discourse and respect for one's opponents? This is a man who campaigned up and down the country throughout 2011 and 2012 saying that he cares about posterity, Republicans only about power.



The man who accused opponents of his Iran treaty of "making common cause" with Iranians "chanting death to America."



The man who, after Paul Ryan proposed a courageous, controversial entitlement reform, gave a presidential address -- with Ryan, invited by the White House, seated in the first row -- calling his ideas un-American.



In a final touch of irony, Obama included in his wistful rediscovery of a more elevated politics an expression of reverence for, of all things, how "our founders distributed power between ... branches of government." This after years of repeatedly usurping Congress' legislative power with unilateral executive orders and regulations on everything from criminal justice to climate change to immigration (already halted by the courts).



There is wisdom to the 22nd Amendment. After two terms, presidents are spent. Nothing shows it like a State of the Union valedictory repeating the hollow promises of the yesteryear candidate.

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Xian Bing - Chinese Pan Fried Meat Pies

For the past few years Xiao Long Bao (aka Taiwanese soup dumplings) have become wildly popular. But another Taiwanese street food that you may not have tried are Xian Bing, also known as Chinese pan-fried meat pies. These meat pies have even more soup packed in the pastry and they only take half the effort to make as soup dumplings. In fact, they are so juicy, it’s almost hard not to make a big mess with the soup shooting out when you bite into the pie. My brother Chih-Wei is the only person I know who can skillfully eat this pie without spilling a single drop of soup onto the plate. If you like soup dumplings, you will love this yummy, juicy meat pie.

You will need:

Ingredients: (Serves 3-4 people)
For the pie:
3 cup all purpose flour
¼ tsp. granulated sugar
pinch of salt
½ cup boiling hot water
½ cup cold water
1 Tbsp. vegetable oil

For the filling:
1 lb. ground beef
4 cloves garlic
1 onion
4 scallions
1 tsp. ginger
1 tsp. salt
½ tsp. granulated sugar
½ tsp. white pepper
4 tsp. soy sauce
1 tsp. cooking wine
3 Tbsp. sesame oil
6 Tbsp. cold water

3 Tbsp. vegetable oil for frying


Directions:
Mix up flour, sugar and water. Stir in hot water to the flour mixture with a pair of chopsticks or the back of a wooden spoon to give it a mealy consistency. What you are doing here is half-cooking the dough. This is a very common method for making bun and dumpling skins.

 
Now add in the cold water and vegetable oil. Kneed for two minutes until the dough is smooth. Cover it up with plastic wrap and let it rest while you make the filling.

To make the filling, start by mincing the garlic, onion, scallion and ginger. Set it aside.

In a large bowl, mix salt and sugar into the ground beef. Add cold water, one tablespoon at a time, while stirring the beef until the water gets absorbed into the beef. This is what’s going to make the filling turn into soup once it’s cooked.

Mix in the soy sauce, cooking wine, sesame oil and white pepper.

Gently mix in the minced garlic, onion, scallion and ginger. Don’t stir it too much or else the water and oil will start to separate.

Now roll the dough into a log and cut it into 10 to 12 pieces.

Roll the cut-out dough individually into 4-inch-diameter disks with a rolling pin, but leaving the center thicker than the edges. The best way to do this is to spin the dough counter-clockwise while rolling the rolling pin back and forth on the edges of the dough with your other hand.

Take about 2 tablespoons full of the filling and place it in the center of the rolled-out dough.

Gather the edges of the dough to seal the pie. Pinch off any extra dough.

Gently pat the pie down to a disk with the seam side facing down.

Heat up 3 tablespoons vegetable oil in a large non-stick skillet on medium-low heat. Place the pies in the pan, seam side down. Cook for 5 minutes or until the bottom is golden brown. Make sure you check the bottom of the pie to make sure it doesn’t burn.

Turn the pie over and cover the skillet. This will make sure the filling gets cooked. Cook for another 4 to 5 minutes until both sides are golden brown.

You want to let these pies cool for 5 minutes before serving, or else the soup inside will be burning hot when you bite into them. Crispy on the outside, soft and chewy on the inside is the key. As you can see, a lot of soup spills out when you bite into the pie!

Serve these pies with some soy sauce and vinegar and a little hot sauce. Enjoy while it’s warm.

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ISLAMIC TERROR: WE MUST KILL THE NEST

By Marshall Frank

All the news is about the San Bernardino massacre, of course, because it occurred on American soil.



With the advent of additional Islamist refugees swarming into western regions, including North America, we can expect these attacks to accelerate.



Radical Islam is a global problem. It is not about a few nice people who were suddenly “radicalized.” This is not just a religion; this is a culture, this is an ideology, this is a form of government and this is a movement that is gaining momentum…and we (Americans) are in the crosshairs. Meanwhile, all our president and Attorney General can worry about is the backlash against Muslims while ISIS, al Qaeda and other terror groups become better financed, better equipped and more emboldened.



Do not let presidential propaganda cloud your heads by insulting our intelligence, saying these people are not Islamic. ISIS, and all the other terror organizations, are absolutely Islamic based. We are doing a terrible job.



When a house is infected with cockroaches, you don’t get rid of them by killing a few here and there. You must kill the nest.



This is not being perpetrated by a few radicals. Rather, they are numbered in the millions and they exist in most countries of the free world, not only Islamic countries. They have a sophisticated communications network. They have leadership. They have multi-millions of dollars that keeps flooding the terror network.



The organized murder machine has randomly executed over 27,300 acts of terror in the last 14 years. It doesn’t matter who we catch, who we kill, who we prosecute or who we expose.



They keep coming, just like those cockroaches. And when we kill one or two, we claim a false victory. Osama bin Laden’s death means nothing, ZERO – other than symbolism. It has deterred nothing.



Check out www.thereligionofpeace.com and follow the body count, most of whom are innocent Muslims, people of their own “religion.”



The following chronicles this past week alone:

2015.12.08 (Kandahar, Afghanistan) – Nearly forty civilians are slaughtered when Taliban fundamentalists pour machine-gun fire into a crowded market.

2015.12.08 (Tulunan, Philippines) – Three villagers are shot dead by Moro Islamists.

2015.12.07 (Tripoli, Libya) – Sharia advocates behead two men for ‘sorcery’ at a public event.

2015.12.06 (Aden, Yemen) – A suicide car bomber turns seven ‘apostates’ into rubble.

2015.12.05 (Koulfoua, Chad) – Three female suicide bombers massacre twenty-seven patrons at a local market.

2015.12.04 (Ramadi, Iraq) – Five suicide car bombers take out over two dozen Iraqis.

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Nasi Briyani

After spending so much time cooking and baking over the holidays, the last thing I wanted to do this past week was to cook or eat another big meal. Therefore this week I’d like to share with you a very simple one-pot rice dish that can cook in under 30 minutes — my Singapore/Malaysian fusion Nasi Biryani. Many of the spices happen to be ingredients we often use in holiday baking, so it’s also a good way to use up some of those leftover spices.

Biryani is a rice dish with a lot of spices, vegetables and often meat. The word “biryani” originates from “birinj,” the Persian word for rice. There are many, many different versions of biryani across the world, from South East Asia to Africa. The version that we’ve been enjoying at our house is the Singapore/Malaysian nasi biryani. It is believed that biryani was introduced to Malaysia by Indian Muslims as well as the Arab diaspora. This is a healthy and very simple dish you can make as a post-holiday meal. Or if you have anymore energy left to cook for a New Year’s Eve party, this is a great last-minute party food to put together. I’ve actually brought this dish to several parties and potlucks during the holidays and it has always been a crowd pleaser.
You will need:

Ingredients: (Serves 4 people)

1 cup basmati rice
1⅓ cup water
½ cup coconut milk
1 onion
1 carrot
2 cloves minced garlic
1 tsp. minced ginger
½ tsp. turmeric powder
¼ tsp. coriander seeds
1 star anise
1 cinnamon stick
3 cloves
2 cardamom pods
1½ tsp. coarse salt
¼ tsp. pandan leaf extract
2 Tbsp. vegetable oil

For the toppings:
¼ cup raisins
¼ cup toasted cashew nuts
1 small fried shallot

Directions:
Start by soaking the rice in 1⅓ cup of water and let it sit for 15 minutes.

Slice onion and carrot into thin strips.

In a deep pot, cook the onions and carrots along with 1 Tbsp. vegetable oil on medium low heat until the carrots are soft and onions are translucent. This will take about three to four minutes. Once the onions and carrots are cooked, turn the heat up to high and toss in the cinnamon stick, cloves, cardamom pods, coriander seeds and star anise, along with the remaining 1 Tbsp. vegetable oil. Cook for one minute or until you can smell the fragrance from all of the spices. If you don’t have whole spices, you can substitute each with ⅛ tsp. ground spice.

Stir in the coconut milk and the soaked rice, along with all of the soaking water and turmeric powder. Cook until it comes to a simmer. Stir in the pandan leaf extract and cover the pot. Turn the heat down to low and let it cook for 10 to 15 minutes. If you can find fresh pandan leaves, you can just tie two leaves into a knot and place it in the pot instead. For those who are not familiar with pandan leaf, it is a tropical plant that is used widely in Southeast Asian cooking. It’s got a very unique, almost creamy and sweet flavor. You can find the extract in Southeast Asian grocery stores or online. However, if you want to skip this step, that’s fine too. I have made this dish without the pandan in the past and it still tastes very delicious with all the spices and coconut milk. But the pandan leaf is what will give it the unique Malaysian taste.

While you are waiting for the rice to be cooked, you can prep the toppings. Lightly toast the cashew nuts in the toaster oven or on the stovetop until it’s brown. To fry the shallots, slice them into thin rings. Fry the shallot on medium high heat with 1 Tbsp. vegetable oil until it’s brown and crispy (about 1-2 minutes).

Once the rice is cooked, toss in the raisins and fluff the rice very gently. Cover the rice up again and let it sit for 5 minutes to allow the raisins to infuse with the rice. After that, sprinkle the fried shallots and cashew nuts on top of the rice and serve.

If you wish to make a big quantity for a party, you can quadruple the recipe, but I would recommend to only double the spices.

Nasi Biryani is great on its own as a meal, or you can serve it with some chicken satay or lamb kebad and enjoy!

Check out a similar dish, “Xinjiang Lamb Rice,”
http://thewayriceshouldbe.blogspot.com/2015/11/xinjiang-lamb-rice.html

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