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Susan Jung
Editor, Food and Drinks
Susan Jung trained as a pastry chef and worked in hotels, restaurants and bakeries in San Francisco, New York and Hong Kong before joining the Post. She is academy chair for Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan for the World's 50 Best Restaurants and Asia's 50 Best Restaurants.
Susan Jung trained as a pastry chef and worked in hotels, restaurants and bakeries in San Francisco, New York and Hong Kong before joining the Post. She is academy chair for Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan for the World's 50 Best Restaurants and Asia's 50 Best Restaurants.
Areas of Expertise:
Cooking, eatingLanguages Spoken:
English
Mustard seeds are classed by colour, with the darker ones more pungent. Make the most of their flavour in a spicy vegan dish.
A key ingredient in Indian cuisine, dried turmeric adds complexity and subtle bitterness to dishes. It is also used in Vietnamese food.
Chilli comes in spicy and milder varieties and is used in sauces, pastes and powdered to add a kick to a range of foods. Handle with care.
From the same fruit as nutmeg, mace is harder to grate but goes similarly well in cakes and milk-based dishes. It can also be used in stews.
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Nutmeg, an aromatic spice native to Indonesia, adds flavour to béchamel sauce, purées and dishes with egg or cheese. But use it sparingly.
A versatile spice that varies depending when it’s harvested, ginger can be pickled or used as seasoning. It goes with meat and seafood.
The bitter spice comes in green and black varieties with the former more intense. It is used sparingly in Indian dishes and desserts.
Star-shaped and with a strong licorice-y taste, star anise is best used sparingly. Ideal for pork and beef dishes, it flavours desserts too.
Also called anise seed, the spice has an intense, licorice-y flavour. An aid to digestion, it goes well with seafood and in biscotti.
One of the spices that goes into jerk seasoning in Jamaica, allspice is employed in Europe to make spiced breads such as gingerbread.
Cloves, the immature flower bud of a tree, are used – whole or ground – in sweet and savoury dishes, to which they impart an intense flavour.
Why is vanilla so expensive and how should I use it in the kitchen? Your questions answered, plus an indulgent recipe for meringues.
The spice, derived from the bark of a plant, is used in Chinese, Indian and Middle Eastern cooking, and by bakers. See our easy recipe ideas.
Chinese people follow a lot of traditions to boost their luck during Lunar New Year. Here’s how to give yours a bump during the Year of the Dragon, from money and colours to clothing and food.
This dinner party appetiser uses veal instead of beef, making for a lighter flavour and texture. The pickled shallots can be made the day before, and the veal needs to be chilled before chopping.
This pie dough isn’t usually used for empanadas but is delicious. Fill these pastry pockets with a spicy mixture of Spanish chorizo, potatoes and onion.
This is a summer meal that doesn’t take long to cook. Because the lamb is deboned and flattened, more of the meat is flavoured by the marinade.
Calamansi may be small but they punch above their weight when it comes to flavour. The intensity is balanced with crème fraîche.
Great with chicken and seafood, tarragon, a complex, versatile herb with a hint of aniseed, is the star of the show in these two recipes.
Tender, moist and rich, sweetbreads are well worth the time and effort to prepare them properly, but they’re probably not very good for you if you suffer from high cholesterol.
This healthy, summery salad combines quinoa with stir-fried squid, arugula, crunchy radish and creamy home-made hummus.
This rich, sweet tart is light and silky smooth with a brioche crust, fresh figs and raspberries, and a colourful pistachio filling.
This lamb shoulder is salted and rubbed with the famous North African spice mix for two days, then slow-cooked until tender and moist.
This chicken dish uses almost the whole bird, and you can make it with whatever spring vegetables and wild mushrooms you like. There is also a bonus dessert recipe, for lemon posset.
A meaty Italian classic, veal shanks are slow-cooked with porcini mushrooms and served with a tart gremolata to offset the umami flavours.
Making home-cured bacon is a skill worth mastering. We give you the basics – the seasonings and type of sugar you use is up to you. The process takes about a week.
What doesn’t taste better with bacon? The first of these recipes combines it with new potatoes, wine and lashings of unctuous cheese, the second puts bacon with oysters and onions. Both are easy.
When Hong Kong-born Dominica Yang found her mother’s handwritten recipes, she wrote a cookbook based on them, Mum’s Kitchen – Back to Basics, dedicated to her mum and her late sister.
As she bids farewell to the South China Morning Post, Susan Jung looks back at how Hong Kong’s restaurant scene has transformed over her quarter-of-a-century tenure.
