Thanks to our colleagues at Asia Society’s Center on U.S.-China Relations, we are reading this excellent investigation into the effects Chinese iron mining in Guinea, by Bloomberg’s Sheridan Prasso and featuring the work of our old friend, environmental lawyer Zhang Jingjing, and well summarized in this excellent video. It came out in June, but if we missed it, maybe you did too?
As we continue to follow the aftermath of Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan earlier this week, we recommend checking out the latest installment of the Lawfare Podcast with Julian Ku, Zach Cooper, and Sophia Yan joining Lawfare’s editor Benjamin Wittes, this op-ed by Yu-Jie Chen and this Isaac Chotiner interview with longtime American Taiwan expert, Shelly Rigger.
In happier news, last week, a ChinaFile essay by Shen Lu, “Scallion Dutch Baby: How I Revised My Recipe for Home,” won the Association of Asian American Journalists award for Excellence in Commentary. The essay is in part about cooking, and so to share our celebration of the prize with all of you, we invited Shen to share recipes for two of the dishes that appear in her essay.
Scallion Dutch Baby (for one)
Ingredients
- 1 large egg, beaten
- 1/4 cup milk
- 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons butter
- 1 scallion, chopped
- A pinch of salt
How to make it
- Gather the ingredients.
- Preheat the oven to 475 F.
- Combine the egg and milk in a small bowl. Whisk to blend thoroughly. Whisk in the flour and salt until batter is smooth.
- Put butter into a small saucepan with an ovenproof handle, an oven-safe glass container or a small cast iron skillet.
- Stick the pan in the hot oven and melt butter.
- When butter is melted, take the pan out. Pour the batter into the pan. Sprinkle chopped scallions on the batter. Put the pan back in the oven.
- Bake the pancake for about 10 minutes, until puffy and golden brown.
- Remove the Dutch baby from oven. Ta-da!
Mom’s Hongshaorou
Ingredients
- 1 lb pork belly
- 1 knob ginger
- ⅓ cup Shaoxing wine (黄酒)
- 1.5 tbsp light soy sauce (生抽)
- 1.5 tbsp dark soy sauce (老抽)
- 1.5 tbsp rock sugar (6-8 little cubes) or regular cane sugar
- 1 cup water
How to make it
- Cut pork belly into 1-inch cubes. Slice ginger (3-5 big slices)
- Cover pork with cold water in a saucepan, a Dutch oven, or a clay pot. Bring to a boil. Skim skum and impurities.
- Add Shaoxing wine and ginger slices to the pot. Turn up the heat.
- Once the liquid starts boiling, turn the heat down. Cover pot, and let it simmer for 40 minutes.
- Add soy sauces and sugar. Lid on. Simmer 20-30 minutes.
- Uncover pot. Turn up the heat. Reduce sauce until it’s thickish. Keep braising if you want a glistening coating. I always keep enough sauce for a second/third bowl of rice.