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Kevin Godbee posted an update
a day ago (edited)
Mu Shu Pork – one of the famous recipes from the Mandarin Restaurant in San Francisco. (Closed in 2006.) From the “Famous Dishes of the Mandarin” section of the book, “The Seventh Daughter” by owner Cecilia Chiang.
They served them the American-Chinese way with wrappers to roll up the ingredients. I served the Chinese way – in a bowl over rice.
A couple of specialty ingredients that I had to get, which I’ve never used before, were dried lily buds and dried tree-ear mushrooms. The dried lily buds smell like Virginia pipe tobacco with a slight topping.
Background: The restaurant opened in 1961, sold in 1991, and closed in 2006. Cecilia died in 2020 at 100 years old.
She taught Alice Waters, Julia Child, and James Beard how to cook Chinese food. “Trader Vic” was a regular as well as John Lennon and Yoko Ono, and Chuck Williams – the founder of Williams Sonoma.
The restaurant was unique when it opened since it was the only Chinese restaurant in the U.S. at the time that offered northern Chinese cuisine. All of the rest offered American-Cantonese dishes as the initial wave of Chinese immigration was from Canton, Guangdong Province. The Mandarin was also the only fine dining Chinese restaurant in the U.S. at the time.
Mercedes Delgado de Miguel, Lana Mihajlović and 3 others1 Comment-
This is such a rich slice of culinary history, Kevin—Mu Shu Pork served the traditional way over rice sounds both comforting and respectful to its roots. Love that you went all in with the specialty ingredients too; dried lily buds and tree-ear mushrooms bring such depth. And that tobacco-like aroma? Intriguing! Cecilia Chiang’s legacy clearly lives on through dishes like this—thanks for sharing a story that’s as flavorful as the food itself.
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