Tepee

Aprilmei, I called my mother and was told there's no waterchestnut in the lobak...I confused it with choen geun. Targeted to make it next week; will buy the ingredients this weekend. Then, only will I list down a more precise list of ingredients, OK? I'm another one of those 'a pinch here and there' cook.

In Msia, there is a fresh pork sausage known as Penang Lobak. I made it many, many years ago...I think I winged it, but it's strips of 5-spice powder marinated pork, covered with minced pork plus fats and minced waterchestnut rolled in a bean curd skin, not a sausage casing, though. Deep-fried. Eaten with chilli sauce and a sticky sweet sauce. Yum! I must try this again. Does yours sound like this? Edited again (it was late): The minced pork and waterchestnut are chopped rather than minced, for texture.

Wow! I WISH...I WISH....I'm wishing very hard someone will come up with the recipe.

For those who are cooking rice for 1 to 3 persons, why don't you steam the rice instead? I've a family of 5 (OK, small eaters) and I've been happily steaming rice for 3 years now. All (genuine) thanks to my confinement lady who scratched my teflon-coated bowl. It's so easy; I use a stainless steel container to steam...no aluminium or teflon worries, and the rice comes out beautifully grain by grain.

Looks as if you can get fish paste more easily than us. Either my mom makes it for me or I buy mine from my organic produce supplier, preservative-free; they make it fresh every morning. I've only made it once or twice from scratch due to the fact that we can't make it to the market early enough to get very fresh fish....or rather DH (he does the marketing). Best to go before 7 am. BTW, I cut my tofu diagonally...greater surface area to pack in more filling. How long does it take you guys to polish off 30-40 yeong dau foos? Tks for the demo.

Thanks, Graham. Any help is appreciated. He's staying at the Halls. I encouraged him to do some cooking but he's saying the kitchen cabinets are already packed to the brim with his housemate's stuff. So, no cooking for the time-being. Methinks he needs some of that ale to make him a bit more assertive.

On the other hand, for all we know, how sure can we be that commercial oyster sauce is made from real oysters or flavoring? At least that recipe has substantial oysters in it.

To expand on my post above..... I prefer baby/medium-sized bok choy to the larger ones. So blanching them doesn't take more than a minute or 2. I start boiling the water as I clean the vegetables. If I were to cook the larger bok choys, I won't blanch it whole...rather I'd separate the thicker stems from the leaves...throw the stems in, followed by the leaves half a minute later. Then after fishing them out, arrange stalks at the bottom and leaves on top. Yeah, I know, I can be anal about such things.... Haven't done the microwave method before. Would this extra step produce yellowish vegetables? While I still have my full set of teeth, my personal preference is vegetables which are slightly undercooked (after all, the vegetables will still continue to cook on residual heat after being taken off the fire) rather than yellow overcooked soft vegetables. Yeah, Hz, I think we need to start a new thread on Visual Appeal vs Time Saved in the context of home-cooking, or Save time in the kitchen - multitask, or What are the permissable shortcuts?

How to make your own oyster sauce with some googling help.

Sheetz, I salute you for your 'never say die' attitude in your attempts. Here are my observations: 1st Attempt: The skin is not the easiest thing to handle, first time. I really enjoy the part where you tease the skin up and around the filling till everything is enclosed. Once that's done, you roll the ball in the palms of your hands till it's smooth. Flour your hand, play with the ball, flour again, till the ball is lightly dusted throughout. The moulds have to be lightly dusted too. Too much dusting and the print will not be clear. Insert the ball into the mould and press 'just enough'. Do your 4-side knocking, and it should slip out. 2nd Attempt: Mung bean paste IS also used for mooncake filling. As with other pastes, it has to be cooked not only till it leaves the sides of the pan, but till it's firm. Stick a butter knife vertically in the paste. It should not topple. 3rd Attempt: The glaze I use is 2 egg yolks with 1 or 2 tablespoons water and a tiny pinch of salt. I brush this all over. (mmmm...this makes a good facial mask).

Glad to hear the success story, BB! And, eating the white/silver fungus is good for you. Just remember to get those which are unbleached.

Yeah...I caught that (good for you!)...but I just wanted to put that in before the durian got 'misunderstood' (?). Thank you.

Definitely not the opinion of many in this tiny corner of my world. Just composing this off my head.... What is seductive about the durian? Who knows? Not the durian, but the scent of the durian, Not the spikes, but the challenge of breaking through the barrier, Not the color of the seeds within, but the texturefeel of the flesh, Not merely the rich sensation, but the bitter, sweet undertones of tastes, For there are as many (types of)* durian aficionados as there are varieties of durians, Let the season begin! sign, TP - will not be seduced by fruit, but by dessert. edit: to add '(types of)'.

So I like my food to look pretty....bok choy is one of those veg which, after blanching, I like to arrange it all side by side (overlapping a bit) all in one direction, then drizzle with the garlic, oil and oyster sauce.

Let's!! Over to you, Sue-On...we have a restaurant to open!

....not exactly...

And yet the dead horse continues to be arisen and led to water. . . ← Aaarrr! Me beauty! Are ye quick!

I'm not feeling particularly seaworthy tonight (here), mates, so I'll be unadventurous and say that these fish sauces must have been developed by these respective cultures, which makes sense, because they are close to the sea, not land-locked. I don't think we want to go into pasta and noodles etc...that horse is beaten dead.

The "why's"... snow frog fat - good for the complexion (same goes for pearl powder). bear paws - aphrodisiac bat soup - strengthens the lungs (asthmatic cure). We used to drink a lot of this during hunting season when we were young because my father used to go hunting (bats, squirrels, wild boars, pigeons) snake gall - tonic I'd love to hear about the exotic foods of other cultures too.

Adding to your list of what weird stuff we chinese eat....snow frog fat, bear paws, bat soup, snake gall... , bear paws the only thing I haven't tried out of this list.

Oh, I'm really jumping for joy! What great sites! THANK YOU! Thinking about menus are a bit difficult at the moment because the children can't take spicy food yet. And I try not to repeat a dish for at least 3 weeks. Fortunately, they are comfortable with western food too, so it's chinese/msian on M, T, W, and western on T and F. The 桂花果凍 Gwai Flower Jelly found in the leisure-cat site really took me down memory lane. During my mother's past trips to HK, she will always buy gwai fa ko (our favorite HK sweet) for us...but really had to hunt for it on her last trip. It seems to be going extinct. About my ability to read, it's 'half past six'....I'm english/malay-educated; chinese only as extra class.

BB (may I call you that?), that sounds very much like double-boil to me. I do that for individual herbal soups, er hem...soups to rejuvenate after a certain time of month. I've 3 crock-pots, one for little bear, one for mother bear and one for father bear, for different uses. You're welcome.

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Another great dish....for dinner next week. I've been see-sawing between liking loin or ribs forever, currently favoring ribs. There must be only one producer of maltose...because I have that same jar in my kitchen.

Thermal pots are a big thing in Taiwan....apparently each household has more than one. Mine is from Taiwan; it can hold high heat (heat last attained from cooking) for 8 hours, after which the heat slowly dissipates. It's not electrical; saves power with less cooking and no electricity worries if you have to leave it unattended. Basically, it's a high-quality stainless steel pot which you take out to do your cooking, after which you transfer to the insulated container. Apparently, the brand I have is one of the best, the cooking in the pot can reach a very high heat. I really love it. *cough* I use to have incidences where I forget to watch over a soup or rice porridge, and I end up with a dry pot or burnt porridge. No more. Great for stews and sweet soups too. You cook the food for, say, 30 minutes recommended for chicken, sweet soup just 10 minutes, then transfer to the pot. The end results are beautiful. Everything is nicely soft and juicy. If you don't want the meat to be too soft, just remove it earlier. You can use it for cold purposes too. For parties, since I don't have an ice-machine in my fridge, I keep ice in there. It's very mobile. Make your life easier. Get one now! Do I sound like an advertisement or what?

Hi Big Bunny How long did you cook your sweet soup? Did you pre-soak your fungus? I don't have Dunlop's book so I don't know what other ingredients went in there. But, yes, generally, you should allow longer time, say, at least 4 hours, for a 'plain' soup. Soup with more solid ingredients can take double that time. I was also pondering over what you meant by steaming without a lid? All steaming I've done has been lidded, except for the last 5 minutes for some traditional cakes or baos. I'd love to learn something new here. You'll probably have a favorite pork belly recipe of your own. Here's a few more. All can be converted for cooking in a crock pot. OT, but these days, I use less of my crock pot, favoring my thermal pot. With a thermal pot, you only have to boil/cook for half an hour tops, and the dish is left to slowly stew in the thermal pot. Very resource-saving, and no worries about leaving any electrical appliance on should you leave the house.