Scallion Pancakes for Chinese New Year

By Sandy Hu
A new video for Video Friday

Chinese New Year falls on Sunday, February 10, as we usher in the year of the snake. Despite our Chinese surname, our family doesn’t have a tradition of celebrating this important Chinese holiday. But we might cook up a few Chinese dishes, just to feel connected.

It you’re putting together a New Year menu in celebration, try this Scallion Pancake recipe from Andrew Hunter, for starters. He shows busy families how to shortcut the prep time by using flour tortillas instead of making the pancakes from scratch.

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How to Toast Spices

By Sandy Hu
A new video for Video Friday

Do you find you’re cooking with more spices, more often? I do! I’m lucky to have a floor-to-ceiling herb and spice cabinet in the Special Fork kitchen and I turn to it often – especially for Mexican, Middle Eastern and Indian dishes.

Many recipes I cook these days call for toasted spices or seeds. Toasting brings out the flavor and aroma of spices and takes away the raw taste – especially important when the spice is used uncooked, as in dips, salad dressings and salads.

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SPAMMED – the Food Kind!

By Sandy Hu
The latest from Inside Special Fork

If you grew up in Hawaii and you claim Spam has never touched your lips, you are: 1) a hermit 2) a protected child of food snobs or 3) telling a lie.

As everyone knows, Hawaii boasts the highest per capita consumption of Spam in the U.S. Spam meals and snacks are sold at local drive-ins, McDonald’s and even the 7-Eleven.

So tonight, when I attend the annual ancestral potluck of the San Francisco Chapter of Les Dames d’Escoffier International, an august gathering of food influencers, guess what I’m taking to represent my heritage? Spam musubi!

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Celebrating the New Year

By Sandy Hu
The latest from Inside Special Fork

On the last day of the old year and into the new, our house takes on the delicious aromas of a Japanese restaurant – the smell of shiitake mushrooms, gobo (burdock root) and soy sauce simmering, intermingled with the tang of rice vinegar and the ever-present fragrance of dashi, the soup stock that’s a signature flavor in Japanese cooking.

As a third-generation Japanese American, my cooking is quite eclectic and more Western than Eastern. I use olive oil by liter, but soy sauce? Not so much.

Still, once a year, I go for tradition – I love that my family has a rich Japanese food heritage nurtured over three generations and I’m proud to carry it forward.

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From the Kitchen to the Christmas Tree

By Sandy Hu
A new video for Video Friday

Each year, we buy a little tree for our Special Fork office. We decorate, keeping to a kitchen theme, using a few purchased ornaments, such as a garland of “candy,” blown glass fruits, fabric ice cream cones and other food-related decorations. Then we fill in by improvising with what’s available in the Special Fork kitchen.

The ornaments we’re making today would look wonderful on a kitchen Christmas tree, or would be perfect for anyone just starting a household who hasn’t yet collected enough baubles.

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