jo-mel
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Posts posted by jo-mel
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I like your filling, xiao hzrt! I usually use frozen spinach, a la Rhoda Yee, but I like the taste of chives better, so next time-------. And -- I like that amount of garlic.
Also, I usually pleat and invert. When I have pot stickers in my cooking classes, no one dumpling turns out the same. My idea of a pleat is not someone elses, no matter how much I demonstrate, but when they are placed snugly in the pan and inverted onto a plate, they all look the same, and any pleat imperfection is forgotten. The flavor is the important thing!
How many can you eat at one sitting?
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One of my clay pots, and the one most used, is a smallish clay pot -- the kind with the short hollow handle and the wire around the outside. It is open clay on the exterior and glazed inside.
As long as I can remember, it has had a couple of cracks across the bottom of the pot. One big curved one and 2 or 3 short straight cracks. When I tap it, it has that dull sound of something cracked. The glazed interior doesn't 'appear' to show any cracks.
But the cracks on the bottom are bounded by discolor, as tho something seeped thru the clay. The rest of the bottom doesn't show this .
This pot has never leaked when I've used it. I never did anything to 'heal' it. Somehow, as dear Barbara Tropp said --- it healed itself.
(Xiao Leung -- why don't you come visit me and help me put some pictures up, so that I can show what I'm talking about!)
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I concur. Cooking is an iteration process - iterate through actually cooking the dish. One cannot develop and enhance a recipe by a thought process or by other people's say-so alone. I often see multiple websites posting the same recipe on something. Fancy fonts and banners and credits are all different, but the contents are identical. I don't know who is copying from whom. The recipes don't work just the same.
And I want to see pictures.
As a fund raiser, a group of AFS parents had a "Dumpling Orgy" dinner for 50 or so people. The dumplings were world wide and I passed the recipes out -- each recipe made by several separate people. NONE turned out the same! Same recipe -- different results!
Pictures DO help!
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One of my pet peeves is to add oyster sauce to everything!
Hooray for Dejah!!
I don't exactly know when we all started to use oyster sauce in every dish, but my Gawd it's a freaking epidemic. I swear there are subliminal messages everywhere put up by Lee Kum Kee to get us hooked. Until she passed away several years ago, I used to eat with my mother at least once a week and enjoyed her cooking. At her house and back in the village we always treated oyster sauce as a luxury item for special occasions like birthdays, New Years, banquets, etc. and ONLY used for dipping poached pork or white cut chicken, etc. NEVER, NEVER used as a flavouring ingredient in cooking. (the only time I remember having oyster sauce in the small restaurants near the old village when I returned in latter years was on gai lan). Indiscriminate usage of oyster sauce would be considered economically profligate, and worse, a muddy obfuscation of the flavour of a dish, making several dishes at the same dinner have the same taste. My Elder Cousin who had about a thousand Chinese, "western", and pastry recipes committed to memory because he was semi-literate, calls oyster sauce over usage "dishonest" and the sign of a poor cook.
How many times have we read where someone asks about achieving a certain taste to a dish ---- and the answer is often 'add a little oyster sauce'!!
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Back when we were getting Vietnamese immigrants, people in one area of NJ were finding their pet cats missing. Since a few Vietnamese restaurants had opened in that area, their freezers were checked --- and there were cats in them. To the Vietnamese, they were just roaming animals. Cultural differences. I guess. They really didn't think they were doing anything wrong.
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Cakes with harder textures? Make chai tau kueh. Cut them up into 1" cubes and fry with lots of minced garlic, minced choy bo, thick black soya sauce and chinese chives. Yum!
Sometimes when we make it, we subconsciously purposely
veer towards the hard side, just so that we can end up with some chai tau kueh. 
THAT sounds good! I've never seen/had that dish, but is sounds like something I would love.
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Lightly or slightly is the key. Especially if you don't use it everyday. Too much oil will leave 'gum' as the moisture n the oil evaporates. A bit of oil and paper towels.
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The teeny tiny fishies are best steamed in a dish on top of cooking rice.
"...teeny tiny fishies"?
Isn't it usually a slice from a larger fish like mackerel?
No, we were referring to the whole "teeny tiny fishies" that are about 1 inch long. There are several varieties, some are translucent white, some are silver, some are miniatures of a fish. All are delicious done the way I suggested and eaten with a bowl of plain rice.
Are those teeny tiny fish --- Whitebait Fish? Popular in the East - Wuhan and environs?
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Not being near a Chinatown when I first started cooking Chinese -- (in the 50s) When I was able to get a piece, I peeled it, sliced it, and stored it in a jar with sherry -- in the refrig. It lasted forever. When it first started appearing in the stores I found about the mush when I just put the root in a drawer in the refrig, but soon found that storing it in paper and plastic helped hold it longer. I read that technique somewhere. The paper absorbed the moisture and the plastic kept it from drying out. But for years now, I just put the roots in my onion/potato drawer in the cabinets. As Xiao Lueng says, they will shrivel up after a while, but now that it is available everywhere, I just get a fresh ones.
And --- there is always planting it. Tried that, too. Interesting plant!
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To me --- beef or lamb just has to have garlic and scallions, and of course, a hoisin based sauce.
Carrots may add color to a dish, but I don't want them.
If it is broccoli in a dish, I want Chinese broccoli.
If there are green peppers, then I want a black bean sauce.
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A couple of pictures: (scroll down to the picture of "Chinese spinach" on the first link)
http://www.foodsubs.com/Greenckg.html#Chinese%20spinach
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=htt...6lr%3D%26sa%3DG
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jtn-- they look wonderful! I'm sure they taste as good as they look -- finger lickin'good!
You are so brave to show us the inside of your oven!!!!
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I'm not sure what the terminology is but there is an entire category of very finely ground meat balls, so fine that it's impossible to identify each chunk of meat, pressed into balls a bit smaller than a golf ball. They're totally different from Western meat balls, which would be more analagous to the Chinese "lion's head". Gòng wán is my favorite, made of pork and flavored with garlic. Shrimp and fish balls are pretty good but a little bland. My least favorite is beef.
What uses are there for these meat balls? The only thing that comes to mind is soup, but it seems like they would be very versatile. I once chopped up gòng wán in place of sausage for a spaghetti sauce. It turned out nicely. The mild flavor seems compatible with many dishes, and not just Chinese cuisine. I think chopped up and placed in a omelette would be good.
My first thought was the meatballs you find in a dim sum house. Then there are Pearl Meatballs.
One of my cookbooks has a recipe for meatballs in a sweet/sour sauce and served over rice.
I have a recipe for a northern "Vinegar Splashed Meat Balls" used as an appetizer, that always gets raves.
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13- 烹 Peng - Frying food on either side until brown, then water or stock, and supplementary ingredients are added. Cooking continues, on low heat, until the liquid has been reduced to dryness.
13- 烹 Peng
烹煎大虾, Shrimp First Fried then broth added and reduced
Click through the Google image search page to view the picture:
(Sample 1: 烹煎大虾, Shrimp First Fried then broth added and reduced)
炸烹茄条, Halfed Egg Plant Cooked with Carrots and Peppers
Click through the Google image search page to view the picture:
(Sample 2: 炸烹茄条, Halfed Egg Plant Cooked with Carrots and Peppers)
香烹鸭脯, Duck Slices
Click through the Google image search page to view the picture:
(Picture is good but the link is slow)
I found that the term 烹 used in naming a dish could also mean as a way of serving: Some stones are preheated and are used to hold the food, either directly or indirectly by laying the stones at the bottom and a metal container is laid on top. Food is kept warm from the stones. Here are some examples that I found:
石烹牛蛙, Stones are preheated and thrown into the bottom of the wooden barrel. A metal pot is laid on top. Then food is poured on to the metal pot to keep warm.
Click through the Google image search page to view the picture:
万年石烹海虎王, Stone (marble?) is carved into a bowl shape to hold the soup (?)
Click through the Google image search page to view the picture:
(Sample 2: 万年石烹海虎王, Stone (marble?) is carved into a bowl shape to hold the soup (?))
#13 - 烹- PENG
Peng is a process which involves frying the foodstuff on either side until brown, then introducing a limited amount of stock or water and supplementary ingredients. The cooking is then continued over a low heat until all the liquid has been reduced to dryness. This is, in a way, fairly akin to 'Cantonese Ch'a Shao', except that in the latter process the complete drying of the food is achieved through barbecue-roasting.
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Thank you -- for the compliment, but even more so for the advice. I'll try to keep that in mind. The cabbage was eaten, raw. It's got a great texture, I think.
I had these wonderful pork chops with cabbage, too, but I sauteed the cabbage with some bacon and had them on the side.
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I can't resist. Here is a picture of steamers I had over Memorial Day weekend in Gloucester, MA. Yes, I know that's not in Jersey, but I was a Jersey girl eating them!
The reason they are sitting on the rim of the bowl is that they neglected to bring me clam broth, and while I waited for it, I continued to open them and line them up, waiting for their hot bath.
I just thought I would share this picture for anyone who is craving steamers. Yes, I am a brat (but suffering right along with you!)
I want more!
You are a tease! I can smell them and taste them just by looking at them!
Being from Massachusetts and marrying into NJ, I had to go cold turkey on steamers and fried clams (and the Howard Johnson stuff is NOT fried clams) This was 40 years ago. One night we were our for dinner and I mentioned fried clams to the waitress (they were called waitresses, back then) She said she could have the chef fry some up with no problem. I was delighted! Until the dish came. They were simply shucked little necks that were breaded and fried. NOT THE SAME! Not my New England fried clams. At that time you couldn't even get them at the shore, but now you can --- so I can finally get my fix.
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I assume kao is 烤
I can find fu in one of my dictionaries, but I can't find it on line, so I can't link it here. But it is fu as in fu pi or fu zi - (wheat bran). And if you can follow this, it is:
[...]
Hmmm.... I think that "kao fu" is 烤腐 then, with "fu" referring to "fu pi"?
But that still doesn't quite make sense. Fu in "Fu pi" is made from soy beans. Gluten is made from wheat? Why would it be called "fu pi"?
Kao meants BBQ or bake from your translation. Are those gluten really BBQ'ed or baked?
Did we misunderstand the Chinese name for this?
A picture of the package or the dish would really help. Most of the time I have trouble recognizing an English translation of the item, or the recollected phonetic memory of somethint called in Chinese, then identifying an item from a picture. I guess I am totally a visual person.
Ah! I finally found it! It is not 'fu' as in 腐
It is 麸 / 麩 fu1 - bran
Does this help?
(Just a thought on the 'kao'. Could it be this 'kao' 拷 as in beat/torture? Since the wheat goes through such a wringing procedure to get to be gluten, it kinda makes sense.)
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I have a hard time figuring out what "kau fu" is, both in Chinese and in English.
I assume kao is 烤
I can find fu in one of my dictionaries, but I can't find it on line, so I can't link it here. But it is fu as in fu pi or fu zi - (wheat bran). And if you can follow this, it is:
生 without the left slant stroke , over 冬 without the two bottom strokes, put those together and to the left of 夫.
Make sense?
HeeHee! It is easier to make wheat gluten than find it in a dictionary!
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I would say it's a tooth paste with both ends flattened? Tootsie Roll?
Okay... from a solid geometry point of view, it is a cylinder intersecting two triangular prisms, one on each side, with the 2 prisms offset by a 90 degree angle along the axis of the cylinder...
Signed,
Ah Nerd Leung
Xiao hzrt -- You are sounding like Project! (No offense, Project --- just jesting!)
Well, with these Joonzi, you have outdone yourself! Aside from all the work involved, and the tasty results, the pictorial is fantastic!
Just one question -- the sweet rice you used is more of a longer grain than the rice I usually use when I use sweet rice. And the few times I've made these, I believe I used the plumper rice. Much difference?
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The California Culinary Institute might be a start. They may have leads.
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生日快樂,
生日快樂,
生日快樂親愛 Dejah------
生日快樂!
All the abalone dish needs is a candle!
The harp --- how beautiful. Is she pursuing music as her life's work?
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Kent -- Pleeeeze stay in China a little longer!
I have so enjoyed your trip and those great pictures. What wonderful memories you have gathered these past weeks.
I've never had pig tail. Tasty? The presentation of some of those dishes are beautiful --- especially the fish in the fried curd skin. Like a flower!
Where do I start on your Flickr -- there are over 18,000 pictures there!
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How can a package of 6 salty eggs have 2 good ones, 1 so-so one and 3 bad ones?
The mama duck only loved 2 of her ducklings! One she just tolerated, and the others she ignored!
What a waste! Could you have brought the bad ones back to the store to make them more alert as to what they are selling?
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12- 燉 or 炖 Dun - Closed steaming. This is done in a container that has been sealed by foil or a lid. Food first has a short boil followed by a rinse to clean impurities. All seasoning is done before the actual steaming begins.
12- 燉 or 炖 Dun - Closed steaming.
Typically this may be called "double boiling", or boiling within a pot of boiling water. The surround boiling water would keep the ingredients cooked at a constant temperature of 100'C. (212'F) Slow cooking.
干貝雞燉排翅, Double-boiled Shark-Fin Soup with Conpoy and Chicken
Click through the Google image search page to view the picture:
Sample 1: 干貝雞燉排翅, Double-boiled Shark-Fin Soup with Conpoy and Chicken
燕窩焦糖燉蛋, Double-boiled egg with Bird Nest
Click through the Google image search page to view the picture:
Sample 2: 燕窩焦糖燉蛋, Double-boiled egg with Bird Nest
首乌炖竹丝鸡, Double-boiled Chicken with Herbal Ingredients
Click through the Google image search page to view the picture:
(Picture is good but the link is slow)
Sample 3: 首乌炖竹丝鸡, Double-boiled Chicken with Herbal Ingredients
炖排骨, Double-boiled Spareribs
Click through the Google image search page to view the picture:
#12 燉 or 炖 Dun / Dan
In contrast to 'Zheng', Dun is closed steaming, that is, steaming in a closed receptacle; and in China the mouth of the receptacle is often sealed with paper which is stuck down or glued on. In the West this can be done by covering with a piece of aluminum foil, but with so many different types of casseroles with lids available, it is rarely necessary to resort to this.
It is always the practice in 'Dun', before the cooking proper starts, to place the food in boiling water for 1-2 minutes. This is followed by a quick rinse in cold water before placing the food in a casserole or closed pot for steaming.
The boiling and rinsing help to cleanse the food of impurities as well as to lock in the juices. All the seasoning, marinating, adding of supplementary materials, garnishing, and decorating should be completed before the actual steaming starts.
Often in 'Tun' only a very few ingredients and supplementary materials are added to the main ingredient, which is usually meat. This is in order to achieve an end-product of impeccable purity.
Because of the great desire and tradition of achieving purity, this method is very much favored in invalid cooking; besides, the prolonged steaming, which is habitual in this process, also insures that the food will be extremely tender. Pure and tender food is considered ideal for the sick and aged.
Again in contrast to'Zheng', 'Dun' is, as a rule, a lengthy process -- 30-40 minutes upwards to 3-6 hours. Another process called 'Gao', which is very long simmering over low heat, produces very nearly the same results. In this process, as in 'Dun', the food is subjected to a short, sharp boil, followed by rinsing in cold water, before the actual cooking starts.
Chinese vegetables
in China: Cooking & Baking
Posted
Kinda looks like a grape leaf to me. Grape vines have tendrils --- as do squash plants. I couldn't find it in the Thesaurus I usually refer to.