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From: Gai
Sent: Thursday, May 23, 2013 7:48 PM
To: phaedrus@hungrybrowser.com
Subject: Mary Pan's Sweet & Sour Pork - recipe
Mary Pang’s was very big here in Seattle for a very long time. They went out of business
several years ago. They specialized in frozen entrees like pork fried rice and the sweet &
sour pork. Hope you can help.
Hello Gai,
Mary Pang’s was a commercial enterprise in Seattle producing frozen Chinese foods that were
sold in area supermarkets.
Mary Pang’s actual production recipes, if they were available, would be large-quantity
recipes and might use some commercial ingredients. I had no success locating any of these
recipes, nor was I able to find any copycat recipes for any Mary Pang products.
There was a fire at the Mary Pang warehouse/production facility in 1995 that killed 4 people.
The company went out of business as a result of the fire and never reopened. Mary Pang passed
away in 2009 at the age of 87. Mrs. Pang taught Chinese cooking to thousands of students, and
in 1990 she published a cookbook, "A Wok with Mary Pang."
That cookbook might contain recipes for her sweet & sour pork and pork fried rice. There are
used copies of it for sale at Amazon.com for prices ranging from $7.99 to $20.00:
“A Wok with Mary Pang: A Healthy Stroll Through Chinese Cooking” (Peanut Butter Publishing,
Seattle, Washington) [Paperback]
Phaed
From: roxann
Sent: Friday, April 17, 2015 9:04 PM
To: phaedrus@hungrybrowser.com
Subject: Mary Pang sweet and sour sauce , missing the sweet and sour pork short ribs
and trying to recreate them.
I have the recipe book, but it seems to have a flaw, it calls for 1/2 cup water, 1/2 sugar,
1/2 cider vinegar, what is the 1/2 cider vinegar 1/2 teaspoon or tablespoon it is killing me.
Does anyone know what the vinegar is it apple cider or what and who much.
Roxann
Hello Roxann,
I had no success finding anything on the Internet about this recipe. I looked at 40 or so
OTHER recipes for sweet and sour pork, and I have some comments that might help you.
1) If this is a misprint in the cookbook, then no one except Mary Pang, her relatives, or
the publisher would be likely to know the correct text exactly. One of my readers might
have the cookbook, but they’d have the same thing that you already have. I’ll post this
on my site for input from readers. Perhaps someone else had the same issue with the
recipe and made the bold step of guessing at the amounts until they got it right. If so,
then I hope they’ll respond.
2) The vinegar is certainly APPLE CIDER VINEGAR. All of the recipes that I looked at
called for APPLE CIDER VINEGAR.
3) From the dozens of other recipes that I looked at, neither 1/2 teaspoon or 1/2 tablespoon
of cider vinegar would be right. That’s just not enough vinegar according to the recipes
I examined. It wouldn’t be enough to give it any sourness. The recipes that I looked at
called for anywhere from 6 tablespoons or vinegar to 1 cup of vinegar.
4) In general, the amounts of water, sugar, and apple cider vinegar in sweet and sour sauce
recipes are approximately the same. Therefore, if the “1/2” in the text of the recipe in
the book is correct for water, then the correct amounts are most likely:
1/2 cup water, 1/2 CUP sugar, and 1/2 CUP of apple cider vinegar.
Hope this helps.
Phaed
From: Elaine
Sent: Friday, May 24, 2013 3:42 AM
To: phaedrus@hungrybrowser.com
Subject: chicken with cherry sauce
There is a small restaurant in Bloomsburg, Pa., which is a college town and the name of
it is Harry's Bar and Grill on Main street. they have a fried chicken breast with a cherry
sauce. I have tried to duplicate this recipe but cannot. Can you get this recipe for me?
It doesn't have wine in it.
Thanks
Elaine
Hello Elaine,
It is of prime importance to have the exact name of the dish from the menu in such cases.
I located a menu for “Harry’s Grille” at 20 W Main in Bloomsburg, PA here:
Harry’s Grille Menu
There is no chicken breast entree with cherry sauce on that menu. There is a
“Chicken Lafayette” on the menu, which is a sautéed chicken breast with a sherry sauce.
Yes, I know you said “no wine”, but that’s all there is. I could not find any mention
anywhere at all of a fried chicken breast with cherry sauce from Harry’s in Bloomington.
Sorry.
Phaed
From: Elaine
Sent: Friday, May 24, 2013 7:24 PM
To: phaedrus@hungrybrowser.com
Subject: Fw: chicken with cherry sauce
It is on the menu you sent me as Almond crusted chicken. It is served with a cherry
sauce as per the menu, under appetizers.
Elaine
Hello Elaine,
Ok, I see that the menu description is somewhat different from yours, "almond crusted"
being the key:
Appetizer: Almond Crusted Chicken
Chicken tenderloins dipped in beer batter,
coated with slivered almonds, and fried.
Served with black cherry dipping sauce.
However, Harry’s recipe is not available at any rate. There are other almond crusted
chicken recipes with some sort of cherry dipping sauce that are available.
I’ve no idea whether they are similar to the Harry’s Grille appetizer.See:
WFAA
Yummly
Phaed
From: Leslye
Sent: Wednesday, May 22, 2013 3:36 PM
To: phaedrus@hungrybrowser.com
Subject: Double Dolphin house salad dressing request
Hi:
The Double Dolphin was a seafood restaurant on the upper east side of New York City
in the 1960-70's. They had a light pinkish orange colored house salad dressing that
I remember these decades later. I don't remember it as being like a Russian dressing,
although the color suggests that it might have had that base. I have been looking for
that recipe since they closed and if you could help, you would be my hero!
Thank you,
Leslye
Hello Leslye,
The Double Dolphin Restaurant was owned by Michael Wayne, who also owned The Assembly,
The Old Homestead and The Press Box.
I was not able to find any mention at all of the salad dressing other than two requests
for the recipe that you apparently posted about a year ago on message boards.
I’ll post this in case a reader can help.
Phaed
From: Michelle
Sent: Wednesday, May 22, 2013 4:30 PM
To: phaedrus@hungrybrowser.com
Subject: Looking for a cookbook
Dear Uncle Phaedrus,
I once had a cookbook that contained menus from different countries. I do not remember
the title of the cookbook unfortunately, but it may have had the words "International"
or "Entertaining" in it. It may have been a Woman's Day or Sunset cookbook, as I have
several of those, but again, it may not be. I made the Russian menu from this cookbook
one time. The appetizer consisted of pickles with sour cream and honey. The main dish
was a roast, unfortunately I cannot remember the details of that, but the side dish
consisted of shredded parsnips and carrots that were sauteed in butter. I know it's a
bit of a long shot, but I'd love to know the name of this cookbook. Thank you!
Sincerely,
Michelle
Hello Michelle,
Your clues are not enough for me to find this. I’ll post this on the site in case a
reader might recognize it.
Phaed
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