Traditional Taiwanese Meat Pastie, Beef Noodle Soup & Scallion Pancake

We found this awesome blog of a Taiwanese mom (who lives in the UK) teaching how to cook traditional Taiwanese dishes. Her accent is awesome and so hard to understand, but her recipes look really authentic. This past weekend, we tried 3 of her recipes. They all turned out decent, some better than others. I think a lot of it has to do with experience and a lot of times Chinese cooking is based on "feeling", not measurements.

Anyway, first up is the Taiwanese Meat Pastie. It's usually filled with beef, but I prefer pork. So I made both!

Pork Pastie

Beef Pastie

They look pretty similar huh? Unfortunately, they're way too peppery. Next time, I'll definitely cut the pepper in half and chop the onions more fine. Otherwise, they're not bad. Pretty juicy on the inside and crispy on the outside.

Next is the Beef Noodle Soup, which we ate without the noodle and with the Scallion Pancakes. Will made this dish and it turned out great! Next time I think we'll add cilantro, sour pickled veggies and spinach with noodles.

Last is the Scallion Pancake. My grandmother used to make this for us when we went to visit her. It was my all time favorite food from her kitchen and no matter how hard I try to copy down the recipe, I always seem to misplace it...grrr... This recipe from the blog is really close to how I remember my grandma making her version. Unfortunately, I over-kneaded the dough, which made the pancakes flat and chewy instead of fluffy and full of layers (almost like a puff pastry). Anyway, here's how they turned out:

Like I said, trial and error. I think we'll definitely try these recipes again in the future and make tweaks to make them perfect. Yum!

Next on our list of recipes to try is "Ants Climbing Tree". It's basically ground pork with scallions and vermicelli noodles. Another classic dish.