Green onions

18-hour pork bone broth. Creamy, rich, cloudy white. This is a weekend project, not a weeknight dinner. Worth every hour.

Sichuan mapo tofu: silken tofu in a fiery, numbing sauce of doubanjiang and Sichuan peppercorns. Finished with a cloud of ground pork.

Street-style pad thai with tofu instead of shrimp, and coconut aminos standing in for fish sauce. Tastes like the real thing, I promise.

2-hour version using chicken backs instead of pork trotters. Still rich, still real. For when you can't do the full 18-hour odyssey.

Ground wagyu instead of pork. Richer, more luxurious, slightly less traditional. Worth the upgrade for a special occasion.

Shiitake mushrooms replace the pork. Vegetable stock. The doubanjiang and Sichuan peppercorns do all the heavy lifting anyway.

Big flat wide rice noodles, Chinese broccoli, oyster sauce and dark soy. The wetter, sweeter, more charred cousin of pad thai.

Replace tofu with shrimp, coconut aminos with fish sauce. Classic. The vegan version is good; this version is the one people order at restaurants.