The first weekend of 2020 is upon us, and whether you’ve settled into a resolution or not, it’s the perfect time to try something new. You don’t have to completely overhaul your life, of course, but why not change up those routines you’ve unwittingly fallen into over the last couple years? Likewise, you can encourage your kids to try something new as well. After all, variety is the spice of life.

So where better to start than with your family’s first breakfast of 2020!

Not only eating together, but cooking together, is an awesome activity for the whole family. It teaches safety, creativity, nutrition, and wellness.

As beijingkids‘ resident vegetarian, I’m always sharing tasty recipes with my colleagues, eager to spread the joy and versatility of a meat-free diet. And with more and more folks either going completely veg, or at least being mindful of the impact their dietary choices have on the planet — working challenges like Veganuary or Meatless Monday into their schedules — I thought it might be helpful to share some recipes with our readers as well.

Tofu Scramble

One of my favorite things to prepare on a Saturday morning is my famous tofu scramble. At least it’s famous in my house. It’s an incredibly easy dish to prepare, and with just the right amount of cumin, you can capture that smoky egg flavor we all remember digging into while we sat on the couch watching cartoons.

Though this recipe is pretty standard fare for a tofu scramble, don’t be afraid to get creative and add your own flourishes to it. Perhaps you’d like to throw in some broccoli, a side of potatoes, or melt some cheese on top. The choice is yours, and the possibilities are endless.

Ingredients:

• 1 Bell pepper
• 1/2 Onion
• 2 tbsp cumin
• 5 cloves garlic
• 2 blocks tofu
• 2.5 tbsp oil

Serving Size:

• Family of four

Directions:

1) Press your tofu to remove moisture, set aside

     — To do this, simply wrap your tofu in a paper towel or cheese cloth, set it on a plate, and place another plate on top. Set some heavy objects on top, such as pans or books, and leave for at least 15 minutes, or until your tofu becomes dry to the touch.

2) Dice your veggies and set aside

     — Meanwhile, dice your veggies and garlic, and prepare your cumin.

3) Cube your tofu — don’t worry about scrambling yet, you can do that once it’s in the pan

     — Once your veggies are diced, cut your tofu into small cubes by slicing the tofu block lengthwise down the middle, followed by four to five cuts from top to bottom, and the same from left to right.

4) Once everything is chopped and ready, add oil and tofu to pan

     — As your tofu cooks, use your spatula to scramble it up, much like you would if you were cooking eggs.

5) Continue cooking tofu on medium-high 5 to 7 minutes, or until it begins to brown

     — This will help your tofu get a nice firm and crispy texture.

6) Reduce heat to medium-low and add garlic and cumin. Cook for 3 to 5 minutes

     — Once your tofu is browned, add the garlic and cumin and mix well. Let this cook for another couple minutes, or until the garlic and cumin become fragrant. Don’t leave your burner on too high, or else you’ll char these precious flavors.

7) Add onion and bell pepper

     — Continue cooking the entire dish until your onions and bell pepper begin to soften.

8) Serve immediately with a side of toast or fruit

     — If you want to get real fun with it, you can wrap everything up in a tortilla for a delicious breakfast burrito!

 Photos: Drew Pittock

Whether you’re hiking the Great Wall or exploring the hutongs, starting your day with a good breakfast is essential when traveling in Beijing. Luckily, the streets of the capital are brimming with breakfast options, from the familiar to the outlandish – fermented bean milk, anyone? Sure, you could stick with a coffee and an egg McMuffin from McDonald’s, but where’s the fun in that?

Baozi 包子

Baozi, steamed, bread-like buns filled with meat or vegetables, are surely one of the most satisfying – and not to mention portable – breakfasts around. There are almost as many different types of fillings as there are days of the year, from pork to preserved vegetables to lamb and even spicy mung bean noodles.

Local chain Qingfeng Steamed Dumpling Shop went viral in 2013 when President Xi Jinping popped in for a quick lunch at one of their stores in west Beijing. Presidential endorsement or not, we also rate their baozi. We have listed the address for the Dengshikou branch below, but there are literally hundreds of branches around Beijing, so you won’t have to look far to find one.

Qingfeng Steamed Dumpling Shop（庆丰包子铺）
Daily 6am-9pm. 57 Dengshikou Dajie, Dongcheng District (6526 5357)
庆丰包子铺：东城区灯市口大街57号

Jianbing 煎饼

Jianbing is one of Beijing’s – if not, China’s – most popular breakfasts and with good reason. A riot of flavors and textures, a jianbing is a wheat or grain flour crepe cooked on a circular grill then topped with an egg, chopped scallions and cilantro, sweet soy bean paste, and a piece of crispy wonton wrapper. This last element marks a jianbing as being of the Shandong style (the province from which jianbing originates), although you will also find Tianjin-style jianbing around town, which are filled with youtiao (deep-fried dough sticks) instead.

You can find stalls selling jianbing on many a street corner or in food courts in Beijing, making them a good option for a quick snack at any time of the day, not just breakfast. The stall recommended below, Dahua Jianbing, frequently ranks number one on Dianping’s listing of jianbing in Beijing.

Dahua Jianbing
Daily 6am-11am. 21 Beijianzi Xiang (near the intersection of Beijianzi Xiang and Taotiao Hutong), Dongcheng District (137 1788 6176) 
大华煎饼：东城区北剪子巷21号悠惠万家超市内（北剪子巷与桃条胡同交叉路口）

Miancha 面茶

A very traditional Beijing snack, miancha or “flour tea,” has nothing to do with tea. Instead, it consists of a bowl of gloopy millet and rice flour porridge topped with savory toasted sesame paste, making for a very filling breakfast. Eat it standing up out of a plastic bowl along with local hutong residents at this popular spot between Beixinqiao and Gulou Dongdajie.

Daxing Hutong Miancha
Daily 6am until sold out. 7 Daxing Hutong, near Jiaodaokou Nandajie, Dongcheng District (137 1615 0228)
大兴胡同面茶：东城区交道口南大街大兴胡同7号

Douzhi 豆汁

This one is for the hardcore food enthusiasts. One of the most traditional Beijing breakfast items, douzhi(literally “bean juice”) is a drink made from fermented mung bean lees, a byproduct of the production of mung bean noodles. It has a sour, distinctive taste, which many describe as faintly eggy. It is believed to have health-giving properties. Douzhi is often served with jiaoquan (焦圈), crispy circles of fried dough, on the side for dipping. Try douzhi at Yin San, an old school hole-in-the-wall joint near the north gate of the Temple of Heaven (making it a good stop for a pre-sightseeing breakfast).

Yin San Douzhi
Daily 5.30am-noon. 176 Dongxiaoshi Jie, Dongcheng District (150m north of the north gate of the Temple of Heaven) (138 1005 7581)
尹三豆汁：东城区东晓市街176号（天坛北门向北150米）

Wontons 馄饨

You may have had wontons before but the type popular at breakfast in Beijing are slightly different. For Beijing-style wontons, small pinches of filling (usually pork) are wrapped in thin dough and served in a light broth flavored with seaweed, dried shrimp, and cilantro. The wrappers are left deliberately long so they float in the soup. The soup is sometimes topped with thin strips of omelet.

Time-Honored Brand Huntun Hou, which has been around since the 1950s and specializes in wontons and other dumplings, has several branches around town, of which the branch near the Drum and Bell Towers on Gulou Dongdajie is the most convenient for most travelers to Beijing.

Huntun Hou 
Daily 6am-10pm. 309 Gulou Dongdajie, Dongcheng District (6404 2021)
馄饨侯：东城区鼓楼东大街309号

Soy milk and youtiao 豆浆油条

Think of this as the Chinese version of coffee and a donut … sort of. Youtiao are long sticks of savory fried dough which are dipped in a drink made from blended soybeans and water. There are various sweet and savory variations of this combination throughout China; the Beijing version favors the soy milk warm and slightly sweetened.

For exemplary soy milk and youtiao, head to Taoyuan Village in Sanlitun. We’re cheating with this one since Taoyuan is actually a Taiwanese chain from Shanghai, but that doesn’t make their soy milk any less delicious.

Taoyuan Village 
Daily 7am-2.30am. S9-10, Taikoo Li Sanlitun South, Chaoyang District (6416 5117) 
桃园眷村：朝阳区三里屯太古里南区S9-10

READ: How to Order a Jianbing in Mandarin

More stories by this author here.

Instagram: @gongbaobeijing
Twitter: @gongbaobeijing
Weibo: @宫保北京

Photos: Aaron May (Flickr), xinshipu.com, zhuanlan.zhihu.com

Summer has arrived in Beijing. The heat is here but the sunshine is hiding behind a thick blanket of pollution. Many from the international community have flown off to sunnier places, or are visiting their home countries, while some of us are stuck in the heat and thunderstorms in Beijing. Wherever you are this summer, delicious, easy, and healthy food is a must. In this series, I will share cooling recipes that don’t need a stove or oven.

This week, a super easy, healthy breakfast. Bircher muesli reminds me of the time I worked at the Dorchester Hotel in London, and had to make breakfast for the executive chef and serve it on a platter. Bircher Muesli with fresh apple juice; you guessed it, he was German. This bircher muesli is spruced up a bit with healthy ingredients. Add honey for sweetness, or Greek yogurt for a tart kick in the morning.

Healthy Bircher Muesli (serves four)

– 2 Granny Smith apples, peeled and grated
– 3 cups rolled oats
– 1 cup cooked quinoa
– 1 cup raisins
– 2 tablespoons chia seeds
– Dash of cinnamon
– 1 vanilla bean
– 4 cups almond milk
– Half cup toasted almond flakes

Put all the ingredients in an airtight container except the toasted almonds. Mix together, and leave overnight in the fridge. When the morning comes, serve in a bowl with the sliced almonds and some honey. Breakfast is served!

Photos: Pixabay

If you are particularly into food enough so that you may regard yourself as a foodie, then it is important to stay informed about what this magnificent city of Beijing has to offer. What we will focus on here is the family-friendly side of the spectrum, with a little dose of adventurous spice to slightly nudge you from your culinary comfort zones. Whether it’s the latest and greatest or something a bit off the beaten path, we’ll try to give virtual access to these places so that you can figure what best suits the tastes of your foodie family.

We understand that brunching in the hutongs isn’t always a pleasurable experience with all your little monkeys in tow. Considering there’s usually an obvious lack of western toilets, occasionally dirty facilities, and even navigating the maze of alleyways to find your destination can be a cumbersome task for some. This isn’t always the case though, and there are plenty of great eateries in these old neighborhoods just a stone’s throw away from convenient subway stations that are guaranteed to delight. One of our favorites is, of course, The Hatchery.

For the uninitiated, The Hatchery is a platform dedicated to supporting and growing China’s next generation of food entrepreneurs and concepts. Throughout their time in Beijing, they’ve tackled everything from burgers to Caribbean food, with a couple of different brunch offerings in the mix and have continuously been a crowd-pleaser throughout their tenure.

Last weekend, they kicked off their new brunch featuring Chef Simone Thompson’s take on classic weekend dishes. We were pleasantly surprised by the range of decadent mid-morning offerings, that would please the entire fam and didn’t hesitate a moment when they invited us over to check it out. Just feast your eyes on these pics for the moment and begin salivating before we continue to describe exactly what you are seeing.

We ordered the Buttermilk Breakfast, featuring a fried chicken thigh, maple syrup, scrambled eggs, mushrooms, 12-hour baked beans, and spinach. This plate pleased with its protein power and hearty but photogenic plating. Of course, the star of the meal was the buttermilk fried chicken, of which we no doubt wished there was more of than just a thigh, but we can’t blame them for not completely satisfying our overly gluttonous (and very much American) tendencies. Other than that, the scramble, sautéed mushrooms with spinach, and baked beans mixed nicely with each other and the occasional contact they made with the flow of maple syrup.

Next up was their take on French toast. As ubiquitous as it is necessary, this effort went far beyond what we typically see on a brunch menu. As we sat waiting for it to arrive the staff came over to express that it was currently being plated. We were slightly perplexed at why this bit of info was divulged, but when it arrived in all of its sweet grandeur, it became clear as day. Consisting of brioche pastry, chocolate butter, bacon, banana, candied pecans, and maple syrup, it was enjoyable destroying this delightfully conceptualized, abstract expressionistic display on the plate with our fork and knife.

The final thing that we would like to let you know as a figurative cherry on top is that in addition to having delicious offerings for mom and dad, the little ones can eat for free off the kid’s menu during brunch hours (11am-5pm). This gives the adults a bit more financial leeway to explore the satisfying brunch plates The Hatchery currently has on offer.

The Hatchery
8am-10.30pm, Sun-Thu; 8am-late Fri-Sat, 88 Dongsi Jiutiao, Dongcheng District (8950 8065) 东城区东四九条88号

Photos: Courtesy of The Hatchery, Kipp Whittaker

My daughter and I went to a book reading this Saturday at The Bookworm. The Magic Paintbrush by Julia Donaldson captured my attention as we have a copy at home. One of my dearest mommy friends gave it to our family as a farewell gift when we left London to move to Beijing. We met on a bus in London when her first daughter was only three weeks old. Since that moment, we braved many story times in the libraries around east London. I was happy to find a bit of this magic back in Beijing at The Bookworm.

The Magic Paintbrush by Julia Donaldson is about a girl who finds a magic paintbrush and the adventures that follow are both magical and an ethical lesson for children. The kids were all listening and en enraptured  by our story teller, Karin Markowski, a teacher at the Pakistan embassy college. She had a little riddle for the kids, of course some painting after the story telling, and hot chocolate and cookies followed after.

This morning proved story telling is still a great way of spending time together, in a magical environment where books line the walls. The Bookworm makes it a bit easier for parents with coffee and breakfast.  I would not mind spending every Saturday morning at The Bookworm with a latte.

While there, I found out what else was going on at The Bookworm. They will host a flea market this Saturday November 26 from 12pm till 6pm on their rooftop terrace. The following Saturday, December 3 Karin Markowski will resume her story telling with another favorite by Julia Donaldson, Stick Man. Be sure to brings some sticks to create your own stick man after the story.

Find more information about The Bookworm here:

http://www.chinabookworm.com/

Pauline van Hasselt has just started working for beijingkids. Born in Wassenaar, The Netherlands, she moved with her husband and her 3 year-old daughter to Beijing in June of this year. Prior she lived in the Netherlands, Belgium, Paraguay, Texas, and London, studying and working as a chef. Pauline enjoys biking around Beijing, finding markets and new restaurants, reading crime and fantasy books in bed, and most importantly, turning her house into a home for her family.

With Dunkin Donuts on the brink of making its triumphant return to Beijing after an absence of 15 years, we here at the Beijinger have been waiting with anticipation. Originally scheduled to start welcoming customers just before Spring Festival, the first shops (in Changping, Shunyi, and Wangjing) are now slated to open either at the end of this month or some time in early March.

Eighteen varieties of donuts will be sold when they finally do swing open those doors for real, but the question we just could not wait to have answered was: will the local donuts taste just like home for us DD fans? And perhaps more pertinent to the long-range prospects for the brand, will Chinese people go for it this time around?

Using a few back-channel connections we discovered that Dunkins has been training its staff on the ins and outs of donut making here in Beijing for months, which meant a daily surplus of donuts with no sales outlet. The good folks over at the training kitchen were kind enough to give us one of their fresh batches to put to the test.

We assembled a panel of six foreigners and six Chinese, to taste all 18 varieties and rank them from their least to their most favorite.

Panelists tasted and rated each of the pastries on four qualities: the consistency of the product (the dough, the topping, the filling); the flavor accuracy (did the chocolate taste like chocolate? Did the blueberry like blueberries?);  the overall taste; and, if the panelist was familiar with the original Dunkin Donuts from the US, the authenticity of the product. Each taster tried the donuts in a randomized order to prevent palate fatigue,

Here we present our findings, counting down from the least to the most favorite of the 18. The donuts are listed according to the average ranking of all 12 members of the panel. To tease out foreign versus local tastes, we also list the rankings for the Chinese half of the panel and the foreign half.

18. Smile
Foreign Rank: 17; Chinese Rank: 14
This banana cream-filled creation with a banana-flavored topping came in last, putting off tasters from both sides of the aisle. Points off for the brittle coating that easily fell off the delicate donut upon biting, and the banana flavoring that tasters found artificial. However, some of our tasters loved it, finding it cute and unique among the other flavors.

17. Boston Crème
Foreign Rank: 9; Chinese Rank: 18
This classic cream-filled, chocolate-coated donut did not fare well overall. Fans of the hometown version will find the dark chocolate coating not sweet enough and too waxy, while the filling lacked the vanilla taste of its American cousin. However, the tasters that did like this one appreciated the fact that both filling and topping were less sweet than US Boston crèmes.

16. Strawberry Frosted
Foreign Rank: 13; Chinese Rank: 16
This strawberry-topped cake donut looks the part – it’s the classic Homer Simpson donut with sprinkles – but tasters found its strawberry flavor artificial and its coating too waxy, which meant pieces of the topping broke off with each bite. Fans praised its strong strawberry essence and cute appearance.

15. Chocolate
Foreign Rank: 11; Chinese Rank: 13
This plain, unglazed chocolate cake donut failed to stand out to many of our panelists. Chinese tasters likened it to a mildly chocolate-flavored mantou, while fans of DD from the US found it not sweet enough for their liking. Fans praised its simplicity and the soft richness of the not-too-sweet chocolate cake base.

14. Blueberry
Foreign Rank: 12; Chinese Rank: 10
Tasters praised the strong blueberry essence of this jam-filled donut, though Chinese tasters tended to think the filling was too sweet. DD fans found it to be a fairly accurate rendition of the US version, and some claimed to have tasted actual blueberry fruit in the filling.

13. Strawberry  
Foreign Rank: 7; Chinese Rank: 15
While fans called this one “perfect” and loved the strawberry filling, others claimed it was not as authentic a fruit taste as its blueberry cousin and the sweetness of the jam overwhelmed any strawberry taste.

12. Milk Cream
Foreign Rank: 16; Chinese Rank: 5
This lightly sweet, cream-filled donut was one of three donuts that strongly polarized the panel, with foreigners ranking it quite low and Chinese ranking it high. Foreigners found the filling lacked sweetness or a distinct flavor; Chinese praised it for the very same reason, enjoying the light, creamy filling and finding the overall package not overwhelmingly sweet. Half of the Chinese panelists ranked this donut among their four favorites.

11. Peanut Crunch
Foreign Rank: 14; Chinese Rank: 9
One of two savory donuts that make it on to the Beijing Dunkin Donuts menu, the Peanut Crunch was ranked high by Chinese panelists for its fresh peanut flavor. However, foreigners expected more of a sweet, peanut buttery taste and were surprised to find it on the salty side. Panelists both foreign and Chinese appreciated the coarse nature of the peanut pieces, which gave the donut a markedly different mouth feel than the rest.

10. White Chocolate
Foreign Rank: 10; Chinese Rank: 8
Another polarizing choice that defied Chinese/Foreign divides, with tasters on both sides either loving or hating this confection. Featuring a white chocolate frosting and chocolate sprinkles over a chocolate cake donut, the White Chocolate was ranked in the top four by one foreign and one Chinese taster, while others gave it generally lower standing. Those that did love it noted the unique white chocolate topping in a field of mostly dark chocolate coatings that provided a nice contrast with the chocolate cake base.

9. Original Cake
Foreign Rank: 6; Chinese Rank: 11
This rendition of one of Dunkin Donuts’ originals stays true to its taste back home. Soft, moist, and delicately spiced without any overpowering fillings or toppings, it’s perfect for dunking in coffee, said our panelists.

8. Marble
Foreign Rank: 8; Chinese Rank: 4
A slightly misnamed donut, as it’s not much more than a Chocolate Frosted with a decorative swizzle of white topping. The topping is markedly less sweet and somewhat more waxy and brittle than its American counterpart. Nevertheless, the Chinese side of the panel liked it enough to give this pastry a fourth overall ranking.

7. Sugar Raised
Foreign Rank: 15; Chinese Rank: 3
This cake donut has a light dusting of sugar. Foreigners found the dough soft and airy but the sugar coating was not quite sweet enough and too grainy as a consequence of using fine granulated sugar rather than powdered sugar. Chinese reactions included that it was not too sweet, placing it it the third best donut overall.

6. Chocolate Frosted
Foreign Rank: 5; Chinese Rank: 7
A heavy, dark chocolate flavor permeates this local version of the classic Chocolate Frosted, and rainbow sprinkles complete the deal. Rankings were dependent on if you enjoy a darker, more bitter chocolate flavor; self-professed dark chocolate fans loved this donut, whereas those used to the sweeter taste of its American doppelganger were less thrilled with this entry.

5. Cinnamon Cake
Foreign Rank: 3; Chinese Rank: 17
The authentic flavor of this classic powdered donut propelled it to the number five slot on the overall rankings, with one foreign taster saying it was right out of his 1970s American childhood. A moist cake base here is complemented with a light coating of sweetened cinnamon powder. More interestingly, this was the only donut on the panel that foreigners loved and Chinese people hated, with foreigners ranking it as the third best of the bunch while Chinese rated it second-to-last.

4. Pork Floss
Foreign Rank: 18; Chinese Rank: 1
Savory dried pork is employed for this decidedly not sweet donut that panelists agree would never fly in Dunkin Donuts’ home country. However, the Chinese side liked this donut the best, praising the texture and balance of the donut with its unusual, slightly salty topping. The most polarizing donut of the entire field, with Chinese rating it Number 1 overall whereas foreigners rated it dead last.

3. Glazed
Foreign Rank: 1; Chinese Rank: 12
The foreign panel chose this one as the top donut overall. One of the most authentic of the entire field, it featuring a classic, sticky-sweet topping over an airy raised donut base. “I died and went to donut heaven,” said one foreign panelist. The Chinese side found it on the overly sweet side.

2. Death by Chocolate
Foreign Rank: 2; Chinese Rank: 6
True love knows no boundaries, and chocolate lovers both Chinese and foreign gave high rankings to this unique concoction with a three-pronged chocolate attack: a rich chocolate filling, a chocolate coating, and chocolate shavings on top. A less sweet dark chocolate tinge to all three prevents it from becoming too sweet to handle.

1. Almond Choco Crunch
Foreign Rank: 4; Chinese Rank: 2
The surprise overall winner had a universal appeal that remains unsurpassed, and is the only flavor to receive a top four ranking by both Chinese (2) and foreign (4) panelists. The contrast of the crunchy almond slivers, the rich, dark chocolate topping and the soft dough of the donut base shot this one to the top of the overall rankings.

Final Foreign Rankings:
1. Glazed
2. Death by Chocolate
3. Cinnamon Cake
4. Almond Choco Crunch
5. Chocolate Frosted
6. Original Cake
7. Strawberry  
8. Marble
9. Boston Crème
10. White Chocolate
11. Chocolate
12. Blueberry
13. Strawberry Frosted
14. Peanut Crunch
15. Sugar Raised
16. Milk Cream
17. Smile
18. Pork Floss

Final Chinese Rankings:
1. Pork Floss
2. Almond Choco Crunch
3. Sugar Raised
4. Marble
5. Milk Cream
6. Death by Chocolate
7. Chocolate Frosted
8. White Chocolate
9. Peanut Crunch
10. Blueberry
11. Original Cake
12. Glazed
13. Chocolate
14. Smile
15. Strawberry  
16. Strawberry Frosted
17. Cinnamon Cake
18. Boston Crème

This post was first posted on thebeijinger.com on February 22, 2016.

Photos: Michael Wester

Baked apples can be deceptively unhealthy. The addition of copious amounts of brown or powdered sugar, not to mention the sweetened cream, ice cream, or custard often dolloped on top, generally makes them the type of healthy-seeming fruit desert that secretly punishes. These recipes are stripped back to include all of the spice, crunch, and fragrance, but with more nutritious sources of flavor. Each recipe can be served alone, or with natural yogurt, coconut cream, or ricotta. Alternatively, before cooking add a teaspoon of butter or coconut oil to the top of each apple for some additional satiating fats.

Baked Apples with Chopped Nuts and Dates
Simply scoop out the center and fill with a mixture of dried fruits and chopped nuts. A simple recipe, with no additional sweetener and just water added to the pan to provide moisture.

Apple Pie Baked Apples
Another filled apple, this time with vanilla and honey for extra flavor. To retain the apple’s juices these are first baked in foil and then without. Although presented as a desert recipe, these would make an equally delicious breakfast.

Pumpkin Spice Baked Apple
The previous recipe calls for 40 minutes of cooking time, while this recipe calls for 20; obviously given a little extra time in the oven the apples will be mushier, and sweeter.

Photos: originaleating.com, paleoleap.com, and thegraciouspantry.com

Growing up in Ireland we had bread and potatoes. Rice and pasta when my mother tried her hand at international food. I was in my teens before I encountered polenta; a hard little shuttle puck of loaf, char-grilled, and served alongside a steak. It didn’t make a favorable first impression: coarse grained, bland, and dried out. But a finer grain, simmered to a soft, creamy consistency, makes an excellent porridge. You can jazz it up with any number of toppings, sweet or savory. Polenta is on sale at Jenny Lou‘s and April Gourmet‘s around Beijing, and it’s also available at Sanyuanli market.

Coconut Cream Strawberry Polenta
Does that not look (and sound) delicious? Instant polenta cooks for five minutes in coconut milk, while the flaked coconut toasts in the oven. If you make this recipe with slow-cooked polenta it will taste even better. Strawberries aren’t in season; you can substitute with any soft-fleshed fruit.

Breakfast Polenta with Maple and Mascarpone
Pictured up top, this recipe calls for a 25 minute cooking time, and pairs creamy polenta with thick, rich marscarpone, warmed maple syrup, fresh fruit, and toasted nuts. If the description alone doesn’t have you drooling, check your pulse; because my friend, you’re dead inside.

Creamy Breakfast Polenta with Asiago, Thyme, Bacon, and Poached Eggs
Poached eggs and bacon are a match made in heaven. With a strongly flavored cheese, (asiago, as the recipe calls for, or a strong parmesan), and a soft dollop of polenta, this is a filling bowl to start the day with.

Photos: Courtesy of edibleperspective.com, thecurvycarrot.com, and bakerbettie.com