Ben Hong

"Cha lao"(restaurant) bao dough is almost always made with baking powder only...and sweet. Most recipes in cookbooks call for yeast dough, as in "man tou" or bread dough. Two entirely different doughs, different taste and textures. What is authentic? Both as they are both great in its own right. The baking powder style is light, fluffy and on the sweet side. The yeast dough is less sweet, heavier and more substantial or filling. This is just plain white bread dough, with a bit of extra sugar. As for filling, any cha siu mixture is good, but don't make it too wet. Kristin, leaving out the fermented bean curd gives a "cleaner" palate/taste in the eating. But some do like the heaviness of the bean curd taste. Tout a son gout, n'est-ce pas? BTW kimchi is fermented too, no?

Hakka is NOT a southern Chinese province. The term literally means "guest people", indicative of a certain huge group of people who were dispossessed by one or another civil upheaval in Northern China and were doomed to migrate from their northern homelands into the south where, understandably they were not always welcomed. I repeat, the term Hakka is NOT a province.

Missionary er,ah, face to face fashion

Hzrt8w, I'm thinking that the Dan Ga Nui is a grandmother now . As for the white-gloved young lady, she would still be in her er, prime, uh, 30+ maybe? But then my wife says to one and all that I'm a happily married man. Skin on an alabaster toned doily is a good memory.

Peking duck is too difficult to replicate faithfully at home. In a restaurant, they have the proper ovens and several young cooks with lung power to inflate the quackers. All that huffing and puffing, hanging and drying...ahh screw it . For taste, Peking duck does not come close to a good duck done Cantonese style . The major aspect of eating Peking duck that appeals to me is having it served to me by a gorgeous young lady in a long forgotten restaurant in Hong Kong, hmm, all pulchritudinously wrapped in a tight chipao and white gloves

Yep, the Malaysian Curry Powder on the right is our favourite.

This Toisanese's family always had it at home , although it was always thought of more as a restaurant kind of dish.

To Indians and other South Asian people the word "curry" means a style of cooking or a whole range of generic cooking. To us it's more limited in meaning to a dish or the mixture of spices, ie: curry powder. Pre packaged "curry" powder would not be used by any self-respecting housewife or cook in traditional Indian cooking. She would grind and mix her own spices to make "garam masala", according to her family formula for any particular dish. Most times the garam masala is mixed just prior to cooking. Hence, a properly prepared Indian dish is as good to the olfactory senses as it is to the gustatory. Having said that, my favourite curry powder is the Malaysian packaged stuff. Like all dry spice mixes, you must cook it in a little oil before use, to release the aromas and make it less "gritty".

I am not so sure if Lo shui is the right pronounciation. I have always heard it pronounced "loo shui". If that is the case, the it does NOT mean old water. But I have been wrong once before To "loo" something means to steep it in this very savoury and aromatic liquid. The ingredients posted so far is about right, but everyone has his own formula. It is so simple that when my son left home, a pot of loo shui was the first thing he made. He ate well. Loo shui can be kept indefinitely without refrigeration if it is being used every day, but in reality it should be frozen if the interval between uses is more than a couple of days. My own container of the stuff is over 7 years old right now. I never loo liver as liver clouds up the liquid too much. Of course fish and sefood like squid or octopus needs a separate batch. There is one old story about how in the spirit of cooperation and welcome, a restauranteur would send a pot of his own loo shui to a new restaurant that's just opening up. Apocryphal?

Ah, now I see what Yuki is driving at. My mother used to make a rice pot that was similar. We Toysanese call it "yu fan" or literally oily rice and it was usually eaten around the harvest season. After the savouries have been added, the final cooking step was to put the pot back on the stove and steep the rice as in making normal rice for about 20 mins. It was and is my absolute favourite rice dish. The savouries included lop cheung, lop yuk, bits of leftover meat, scallions, diced kohlrabi or green beans, dried shrimp, etc. *drool*,. Sorry, it is lunch time where I sit and I gotta go EAT

Sticky rice is not supposed to appear in individual grains after cooking. It IS supposed to be sticky, soft and tend to stick together. There is a real valid reason why it is called STICKY RICE

You SQUEEZE What we used to do in our commercial process, and the restaurant too, was to squeeze as much of the moisture out of the veg. matter as humanly possible. All vegetables-Chinese cabbage, beansprouts, mushroom, etc. have to be blanched well, to make the water extraction easier. Keep liquid flavourings like soy or oyster sauces to an absolute minimum. The filling should be semi-dry to the feel, not like yours pictured. Oh, in the commercial process because of the need for a longer shelf life, the meat is also pre-cooked .

I have always preferred to demur from giving out recipes, for many, many reasons, but the main one is that I cook by taste and procedure. It is difficult to impart the nuances of procedure to someone by words alone and nigh on impossible with regards to taste. Sequim's problems with recipes IS the problem with recipes. In my experience a lot of recipes are not complete; in procedure, ingredients, proportions, cooking times, etc., etc. A lot of recipes are written too simply or worse, with the assumption that the reader has a certain level of expertise. Sequim did right in asking advice.

Ohhhh, Sue---Oooonnnn, are you hiding something from us? Do you have an announcement to make????

I believe that it is a symbolic dish. The roundness of the dumplings, or any thing, symbolizes unity, oneness, completeness, etc. Sweet is sweet. Therefore "sweet unity".

Dejah, I do know how to make it, but my wife and family can't get past the "yuan" so I don't add any. Ergo: lobok soup.

I don't make them and I don't have any female relatives close at hand to invite me . But I can remember my mother's version. The glutinous rice balls (yuan) were in a broth with bits of pork, dried shrimp and julienned lobok. Sprinkle a few bits of coriander or scallions on top and you're good to go.

Beef and gai lon or broccoli is one of my favourite standbys at home. But I won't order it in a restaurant, if you know what I mean.

There's no fast way to make good stock, and it's not at all difficult. Chinese meat stock: 3 lbs. of chicken necks & giblets, pork riblets, bones, or any combination of bits and boney scraps of either animal. The majority of the scaps and bones should be raw. Rinse well and put it all in a stock pot, cover with cold water and boil for 3 minutes. Drain, discard the water, rinse bones and scraps again. Cover with cold water to half again as deep as the bones are; throw in a couple of green onions, a thumb sized piece of ginger (smashed), bring to a boil, then lower to a simmer and simmer for 3 hours, adding more water as needed. When done and cooled, strain into clean containers and freeze what you don't use right away. Presto.

Whoops sorry. "Ung choy" should read "chung choy"

Dejah: the reason why ginger is put into a soup with gai choi, watercress as a main ingredient is to balance the extreme cooling effects of the green veggies. Very humbly submit my names for the salted and preserved veggies that you mentioned: Ja choy is the knobby salted green root veggie normally associated with Szechuan. It is generally found in cans and covered with chili powder. Mui choy is the sallted and semi-fermented leafy greens of bok/gai choi(?) Almost black in appearance and very soft to the touch and teeth. Ung or tung choy (literal translation is eastern vege.) is the salted large roots of a brassica relative of bok choy. Generally found in clear plastic packages in thick slices, brown in colour with salt seen on the surface. I my experience, this is not called "ham choi". Now, if you can help me out with my memory, please ask your mother what the salted and preserved garlic leaves are called. They normall come in a clear plastic bag, chopped up, golden brown in colour and are devastatingly tasty when steamed with belly pork.

Like I said, any port in a storm. You may want to and have the time to drive from Adelaide to Sydney to get a fix of fresh dimsum, some of us just "have" to make do with what's at hand. Tout a son gout, oui?

Depends on the producer. Here in Atlantic Canada, we have a small Asian/Chinese grocery and they get theirs from a source in Montreal, 550 miles away. They are good. But to get a fix, any port in a storm.

I think that the so called msg syndrome is comprised of a soupcon of mass hysteria, mixed with a bit of hypochondria blended with a dose of xenophobia. If people who profess to be allergic to msg were really allergic, they would have to abstain from 90% of all the savoury snacks and processed foods they would normally consume in a given day. Just yesterday I got drawn into a discussion with a lady who cited all the "textbook" symptoms of an msg allergic reaction that she got after eating at a Chinese restaurant. She talked between mouthfuls of bbq flavoured potato chips. Ddohh!

I love Pierre Berton's body of work and his "Canadian-ness" and I really do have a copy of his "Canadian Food Guide". (Favourite recipe is his corned beef hash). Having said that, the turkey recipe as printed in the Globe and Mail yesterday sounds wayyy to elaborate and time consuming for mys style. It is only a damned turkey, after all.