jo-mel

I have a 12 incher, and altho it is heavy, it is not nearly as heavy as cast iron skillets I've used. I bought it at Kam Man in NJ, but it doesn't have a label on it, so I can't tell the make. It has a long handle and a loop handle You can google light-weight cast iron woks.

I understand it takes 3 years to master those noodles. Florence Lin's noodle and dumpling book has recipes and pictured techniques, but also has a recipe with instructions on doing it with small amounts of dough.

How was the lamb done? And was the rice cake that smoth oval that is kinda chewy? (I love that texture) What kind of sauce for that dish?

I've used used the wetstone and once in a very long while I will resharpen all my cleavers that way. BUT-- I find that just using a cleaver in each hand and swiping them against each other -- the way you would a cleaver and one of those sharpening sticks -- works just fine. Just before I have my cooking classes, I take all my cleavers and just go to work, using two at a time, and after 50 or so swipes - on each side - they are sharpened just fine. 50 swipes really doesn't take much time at all -- 30 seconds a side?

What did it taste like? (chicken?)

The texture changes and so does the color. But when sliced, it holds up better in stir/fries. It isn't as fragile as fresh bean curd. (I still prefer nuking the cake, wrapped in paper towels, for 4 minutes.)

The Mayo Shrimp has been around for quite a while and I've had it several times at Chinese wedding banquets. The 'fruity' part may be from the pineapple (sometimes orange)juice, and/or coconut milk that is often found in the sauce recipe. I believe the recipe was born when Hong Chefs went eclectic and combined their traditional Cantonese background with an international flavor. (I could be wrong, but that is the way I heard it)

Ever since I tasted "Master" brand dumpling sauce, it has been my choice. It comes in a small squat bottle and in mild,hot and garlic flavors. Here is their logo, but they don't picture the dumpling sauce on their site. I have picked the sauce up in various Chinese supermarkets. http://www.commerce.com.tw/modules.php?mod...ide&ID=A0002357

One Sichuanese dish I really like is Shredded Beef. Not many places make it right -- in that the beef is usually just stir/fried. The beef is supposed to be chewy, done by long cooking of the shredded slivers, or by deep/frying, and most often the dish has carrots in it that are cooked to a sweetness state. Sometimes there is a sauce and sometimes the beef just has a glaze, but it is the texture of the beef that is interesting. One of the best I've had was at Shun Lees in NYC. "Land of Plenty" has a good one, but doesn't have the carrots. I don't know how authentic the carrots are, but I like them done in this manner. Here is one that I use: SICHUAN SHREDDED BEEF Ingredients: 1 pound flank steak 2 eggs ¼ tsp. salt 4 Tbsp. flour 2 to 3 carrots - julienne 1 large stalk celery – julienne 2 scallions – shredded diagonally 2 thin slices ginger – shredded 2 cloves garlic – minced 2 to 3 small, green or red chilies, seeded and shredded Sauce: 1 tsp. hot bean paste 1 Tbsp. soy sauce 1 Tbsp. sherry 2 tsp. sesame oil 1 tsp. sugar 1 tsp. cornstarch 2 Tbsp. chicken broth 4 cups oil for frying ½ tsp. ground Sichuan peppercorns for sprinkling Preparation: ---Cut the steak across the grain into ¼ inch strips, about2 inches wide. Then cut, with the grain into ¼ inch thick shreds. ---Beat the eggs, add salt and flour and mix well. Add beef. Mix and let marinate 20 + minutes. ---Shred the carrots into their own bowl. ---Combine the celery, scallions, ginger, garlic and shredded chilies in a bowl. ---Combine the sauce mix Cooking: ---Heat the oil in a wok until smoking. Add the beef shreds and deep/fry for 4 to 5 minutes, stirring to separate the shreds. Remove with a slotted spoon to drain. ---Add the carrots to the wok and deep/fry for about 1 ½ minutes. Remove with a slotted spoon to drain. ---Pour off excess oil, leaving about 1 Tbsp. oil in the wok. (or use another pan) ---Add the celery, scallions, ginger, garlic, shredded chilies, and carrots to the wok and stir/fry about 1 minute. ---Stir the sauce, add to the wok, and bring to a boil while mixing. ---Return the beef to the wok and mix in till well coated with the sauce. Note: Ground Sichuan peppercorns: Heat one or more Sichuan peppercorns in a dry skillet over medium heat, for 4 to 5 minutes, until they are fragrant and turn a darker brown. Grind in a mortar or mill. Store in a tight jar. They will keep indefinitely.

For hot pot, I like making little mini OxTongue steamed buns. You simply place a piece of the cooked meat inside -- and yum!

never mind! I finally found a reference and it is used for cooking up medicinal potions! ← When herbs or whatever boil inside it, the steam comes out that "funnel-spout" and you can breathe it in.

liuzhou -- sounds like the restaurant grandson is related to your Zhuang friend's Grandmother!! I bet if either DID give you a recipe, they would leave out a couple of key ingredients! LOL!

Dejah -- that looks SO good! I like the idea of the arborio rice. It looks chewy and I like texture like that in rice. Two questions -- is this the Ping recipe? Since I don't see carropt, I assume it is not the recipe Ce'nedra listed. Also -- is the lamb in dices or small slices?

At Chengdu 1 last night, we added a couple of dishes that were on the less hot side, as our adult daughter is not as gung-ho as we are about spices. We had Spicy Lamb with Special Pepper Sauce, a fav of ours, Chicken with Yellow Chives which had some large red peppers in it but was not HOT, Steamed Riblets with Rice Powder, Shredded Potatoes with Green Pepper - (a must have dish for me), and Sauteed Bean Thread with Snow Pea Sprouts. This last dish was the first time I've had it at CH1, but would order it again. About those shredded potatoes. I had them in China years ago, but never could find a recipe for them when I scanned my many, many Chinese cook books. I had them again with a group of Chinese students at Dartmouth, but still could not find them anywhere. I made some on my own but they weren't quite the same. Finally, I came across a recipe in "Cooking from Mainland China" (158 authentic recipes from the PRC -- Barron's) I was delighted, to say the least! You can imagine how I felt when I read the first reports from Chengdu 1. I love them!! I should really go there more often as we have barely scratched the menu and I am torn when I go over the menu. I do wish, tho, that there were more wheat noodles. Copper Well Street Noodles is a favorite of mine and a Sichuan dish, altho its roots were as a street food. Hmmmm -- I wonder if they would make them for me?

What did I do wrong when I posted my last coments?? I'll re-do them here ----- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ It took me years to find a recipe for Jian Bing, but now it can be found on the internet. Here is a link to a recent EGullet thread on pancakes and part way down, I have a lead to jian bings. Also you can do a google search. Good luck! http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=117350 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fengyi -- what is the sheet of stretched dough? When I've seen Jian Bing made, it was just the crepe batter spread over the cooking surface and then the other stuff went on top to cook before being folded. Some cooks put a fried devil (you zha gui' 油炸鬼) inside the folded crepe, but I preferred them without them. I hope the jian bing makers are finally allowed to do their magic again. I'd Loved to have been in Beijing for the olympics --- but only if I could have indulged myself with those tasty crepes!

Thank you SO much. I'm a huge fan and have been cooking my way through her books! This dish and the Beijing Jian Bing are the two I've had no clue how to duplicate at home, and my instructors in culinary school had never heard of either, unfortunately! Thanks again. Much appreciated! Regards, Marc ← It took me years to find a recipe for Jian Bing, but now it can be found on the internet. Here is a link to a recent EGullet thread on pancakes and part way down, I have a lead to jian bings. Also you can do a google search. Good luck! http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=117350

I've never seen one in any Chinese home. Never seen it. And the local kitchen supplies shops don't have them. ← HEN YOU YISI!! 很有意思 -- very interesting! So what happened to woks in China? Beanie --Thanks for that link. Clicking on the titles of the dishes hzrt8w has cooked, shows how his flat pan is well able to turn out dishes of all kinds.

Our wonderful hzrt8w has many great dishes (with pictures) where he has made the dish step-by-step --- all in a flat pan. (They use to be listed in the topic section on top of these posts. Where are they now? I first started out stir/frying in a large iron skillet. It worked just fine. The pan was heavy, but there was plenty of space and heat, AND the pan was well seasoned. BUT-------Using a wok gives me more flexibility. The sides of a wok make it easy to move ingredients around with a chinese utencil. And the woks with a handle give you lots of control over how you cook. This coming fall, my cooking class is cooking a meal with only pots and pans -- no woks. It can be done, of course. I just prefer using a wok.

Rather than 'roll and squish', how about 'pop and press'?? 'Pop' the dough in a tortilla thingie and 'press'. A really useful tool for making scallion pancakes, too. (Hi there, Xiao Hzrt! 好久不見! )

The 'pancake' in the link picture looks like an egg roll wrapper. (to me anyway)

The question of the "hot" seems to come up from time to time. Mostly by the question of whether it is a Northern or Sichuanese dish. I wonder if it originated in the North as that was where the seat of government usually was, and as the Mandarins were sent out across the country to run governments in the provinces --- they took their chefs with them? As the saying goes "When in Rome" ---- So the chefs used the special seasonings of the area?

Ahh -- scallion pancakes are just the best! So few ingredients, but such flavor! I was making the during a Super Bowl half-time one time -------- but they never left the kitchen. The guys in the group came into the kitchen and ate them as soon as they came out of the pan!! I don't remember even getting one myself!!!

Shrimp Paste has a distinctive pungent flavor and aroma. Think Anchovy Paste, but stronger in odor and flavor.

I just thought of this one --- Jianbing. Here is a link: http://www.jadedragon.com/cooking/jianbing.html A google search will show a YouTube demo. The ones I had in Beijing didn't use the sauce or the crueller --- just the flour, egg and all and then folded. They were fine like that.