jo-mel
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Posts posted by jo-mel
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The raw shallots didn't taste bad, but they certainly didn't taste mild and subtle, perhaps the cooking brings it out....
I don't know that I've personally ever thought of them as being "mild onions." Certainly not when compared to actual mild onions. I've always understood them to be a sort of cross between onions and garlic. Could be completely wrong about that of course. Not sure even where I first heard that.
When a recipe calls for shallots (which I usually do try to have on hand) and I am not in a position to get them, I chop up the whites of some green onions and then add a sliver or two of garlic.
But again....I've always basically just been guessing.
I use them in lots of things....in addition to the steak sauce, green beans & shallots come immediately to mind.
That sounds similar to what I read aeons ago. One book said that if a recipe calls for shallots and you don't have any, just substitute onion with a little bit of garlic.
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Doesn't putting the sauce in the pan for pot stickers gunk up your pan and set off the smoke detector?
The sauce uses chicken broth and several flavors. You do have to watch the pan when the liquid cooks down as the sugar in the hoisin can over brown the dumplings. The end result is really good!
Carpenter's original recipe uses a little sugar and a tsp. of hoisin, but I've cut the sugar out and use a heaping tsp. of hoisin. Also, I cut corners and use the dehydrated orange zest you get in the spice bottles.
Here is the sauce I use:
: (Add instead of the cooking water) ½ cup chicken broth, 1 Tbsp. oyster sauce, 1 full tsp. hoisin sauce, ½ tsp. chili paste, 2 Tbsp. sherry, 2 tsp. minced orange peel. (watch carefully at end of cooking. Don’t brown too much.
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CHENGDUDE - No Copper Well Street noodles? (Tong Jing)
Impressive list!! One could graze all day and night!! Sounds good to me!
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I guess I'm the only one who likes jiaozi absolutely plain. I can taste the juices inside the dumpling better.
If I do use a dip, it is Zhen Jiang vinegar, or that bottled dumpling sauce in the squat bottles. The brands are Weichuan and Master.
For potstickers, however, I like Hugh Carpenter's way of putting a sauce in the pan, instead of water, for the steaming portion of the cooking. No diping sauce needed.
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You probably still need to edit the translations after putting it through Alta Vista.
I am wondering how many people on this board can read Chinese? Just curious....
I studied the language in the 80s and 90s, but I have to overlearn to retain, so I usually rely on my dictionaries. I can get the gist because of the radicals and phonetics. (I LOVE the language!!!!)
I had a converter on my old computer, but somehow it didn't transfer to this one. I really should look into it.
The recipe in that tome, I bought, will take a while, but now that it is on my mind, I want to get at it.
The recipe for the batter from that Jian Bing link uses: 1 part soy flour to
2 parts white flour and water. The ones I had in Beijing just added egg, scallions and a liquid hot sauce.
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Bert -- In that Wei Chuan noodle book, the dough, the chef is holding, looks quite firm. His fingers barely make a dent as he is holding it.
His knife looks like a simple, long, not too wide, cleaver. If your dough is really firm -- but not quite frozen, a sharp potato peeler might work. Worth a try.
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Here is a link to another Jianbing
photo.
I loved the story of the kid who's mom made him the jianbing on your link. It was very sweet. Do you have memories like that of jianbing?
That picture of the JianBing is what I remember from the streets of Beijing. They were SOOOOOO good!!
But I've never found a recipe for them. I tried to make my own batter and do it at home, but it was best to taste them as a memory, because I didn't do a good job.
I see that William's link has the recipe. With all my Chinese language cookbooks, I should be able to just sit down and translate it.
I never realized they were originally a Shandong food.
Another edit!
I copy/pasted the translation of the jianbing to Altavista translations, and I then realized that it is a description -- not a recipe. I should have looked closer, because there are no food amounts)
But I have a copy of a Chinese food encyclopedia that I bought in Beijing --- all in characters. With this talk about jianbing, I think I will sit down and do a translation. (or maybe scan it to altavista??)
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Yuki --- That steamed roll, that is formed from dough threads, is called Luo Zi Juan -- Steamed Snail -- in the Chinese Snacks Wei-Chuan book. There is a recipe and a picture of them.
I've never made them. I'm lazy! I usually buy them in a Chinese supermarket.
Edited for correction:
The picture and recipe don't show scallions, but they can be added to the dough -- just as the dough for steamed flower rolls have scallions.
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The one chef that I was really able to watch -- at a sidewalk restaurant, stood back from the boiling water, also. The wok of boiling -- actually a vat -- was well below him and he aimed for the water, but even then, some pieces went on the sidewalk. The dough looked quite stiff, and didn't settle as he held it. I've forgotten what the knife looked like, but his slices were decisive, and there must have been wrist action, as the shreds were tapered -- not chunks.
In that picture in the Wei-Chuan Noodle book, Bert -- it looks like the chef is holding the dough, in his hand, over the water. That is not what I remember, but on that sidewalk, the dough was a massive piece and he held it in his arm.
Maybe well chilled dough is the answer.
(Just watch your fingers!!)
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When you described the Guo Kuai, I looked in Nina Simond's China Food (It is a guide - not a cookbook). She has a page on "Sichuanese Dim Sum Glossary, and among the listed I saw -- Niurou Jiaobing -- Fried Beef Cake and she described it as a flaky cake, flavored with Sichuan Peppercorns and a ground meat filling.
So with that name, I looked in Dunlop's book and on page 133, she describes a Sichuanese Flatbread (guo kuei) and altho there isn't a recipe - there is a vivid description. It sounds like it might have been coiled before frying.
Could the noodles with the vinegar/chili dressing be Tong Jing Mian -- Copper Well Street noodles? These wonderful noodles used to be street food but then it evolved into a restaurant. (The original Copper Well Street Noodles, that is.) But there must be others with similar noodles. These are one of my favorite noodles, altho, when I was in Sichuan Province I never had them. they can be served hot or room temp.
I first found them in an obscure cookbook, then again saw them in an Asian Pasta book. It you think these might be what you are looking for, I have a recipe. There's garlic/ginger/Sichuan pepper/ black soy/ black or red vinegar/sugar/sesame oil/chili oil in it and they use regular egg noodles.
The times I was in Sichuan Province, the only street food I had was grilled meat with a hot curry paste. I was only in Kunming a short time -- no street food.
The Liang Fen I haven't found.
Let me know about the noodle recipe.
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A couple of my books also show Honey Ham as a Western dish. A good example of how not all Western dishes have to be 'hot'.
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Cabbage! Long ago I decided that if I had to eat only one vegetable for the rest of my life --- it would be cabbage. Aside from all the suggestions above, just think of what you can do to cabbage ---- stir/fried, cheesed, creamed, sweet/sour, braised, scallopped, stuffed, cold, soup, plain buttered, and on and on. What other vegetable can do all that?
Once, when in China with a group, we were served a stir/fried cabbage. You should have heard the groans! (not from me. I knew how good it was.) But cabbage must have been a good crop that year as we saw it over and over. It was so good, that after a while everyone was saying -- "Good! We are having some of that wonderful cabbage!!"
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A take-off on the name of a street, for a Chinese take-out: Wah Chung on Watchung St.
The first time I was in Wilmington, Delaware, I was looking for a Chinese restaurant. I was at a light, and could read part of the writing on a window down the street. It said Ming Ton, and I thought to myself -- Great! There's one! As I got closer, I realized it said "The Wilmington Book Store"!!
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Gary -- I kinda figured it would be some sort of sauce -- xihongjiang / fanqiejiang / fanqiezhi. Even ketchup can carry these names. As we all know, the word 'paste' and 'sauce' is interchangeable in other things like 'brown bean sauce/paste. We get a mindset on things. I see 'tomato paste' -- I immediately see short tube can. LOL!
William -- I'm so delighted that you have joined in with us! I'm having a renewed interest in food from your area of China, now.
As Suzanne said --- you can get some practice in English and we can brush up on our pinyin.
Do you eat much Western food?
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Yes, the Kong Mansion food made at Qufu is quite famous. It is little different to Shandong style foods,because it use a lot of taste from royalty.
In fact I didnot often eat the real Shandong-style foods,maybe my mother made food just is real Shandong-style food.
William -- what is a typical Shandong meal that your Mother would have served?
Do you follow a recipe for that Sweet/Sour Tenderloin? I find it interesting that you mention 'tomato paste'. Is that the real thick one, or the thinner saucy one?
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I think the most plausible story is that Orange Chicken / Beef it was originally an adaptation of Szechuan Tangerine Peel Beef. Then it got the Sino-Americanization treatment: (1) battered before being deep-fried (2) lots more sugar in the sauce (3) lots more cornstarch in the sauce. Which I guess (except for 2) is not that different from the Sino-Indianization treatment or the Sino-Koreanization threatment.
Dittos on that.
Oranges have a looooong and respected history in China and preserved or dried peel finds its way into beef, duck and pork dishes. Bruce Cost said that even if the orange were inedible, the Chinese would probably have grown it just for its peel!! LOL!
It is probably the Western love of sugar that has resulted in the sweet, breaded dish that we have come to know and love.
Skimming thru some of my books on traditional Chinese cooking, the dishes with orange peel have so little sugar that it is almost not a factor in the taste of the dish.
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IMHO, firm is best for tofu you deep-fry yourself. If soft is all you have, cut it into equal-sized cubes and press it for an hour or so (I put it in a rectangular baking dish, place another, slightly smaller flat-bottomed baking dish on top and put a big rock or a water-filled saucepan in that dish).
An easy, quick way to get pressed bean curd is to wrap the cake in several layers of paper toweling, and nuke on high for 4 minutes. The result is a firm cake ready for use. Freezing also firms it up, but the ice crystals leave it looking like Swiss cheese when it is thawed, so I don't use that method any longer. I do like the micro-waved version, however.
Gus --- The only Chinatown's I have are: NY, Wash.DC, Montreal, Chicago, SanFrancisco, LA, London and NEWARK, NJ. Yep -- Newark!! I don't think it is there anymore, but at one time I came across several Chinese grocery stores, and someone said that at one time it was quite a busy place!
I have yet to visit Toronto or Vancouver --- Yet!
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Huang Ying, William! Ni Hao!
One of my disapointments is that I never got to Shandong Province. I would have dearly loved to have visited Qufu, and experienced Kong Mansion food.
We all know of and respect Qingdao beer. It is very popular here in the West.
What foods do you usually eat?
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Leek SUM. Sum meaning "heart" =Leek heart??
In my Dahlen/Phillips Chinese Vegetable book, there is a Leek called Da Suan / Daai Suen that is Allium ampeloprasum. It is whitish-pale green about 10 to 12 long and an inch at its base with root tuffs. It looks solid.
But here is a picture like the one in the book:
http://images.google.com/images?q=Allium+a...G=Google+Search
3rd row on the right.
Could it be it?
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Shanghainese, Cantonese, Pekinese, Szechuan, Swatow, Hunan, Hakka, Fukien, all regional differences are coloured and shaped by the availability of ingredients, cooking fuels and custom. One region's sweet and sour pork is another's gu lo yuk, one region's twice cooked pork is another's double cooked pork, one region's gou-tee is another's potsticker, etc. You can find homologues of any dish of any region in another region. They may not be EXACTLY the same, but would be similar enough to identify.
And, they are all DELICIOUS.
I call it "The meatloaf syndrome". Your meatloaf is different from my meatloaf and the gal next door. All good -- all different -- all meatloaf!
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Oh boy!! How to describe Shanghainese food! It is so complex that I hope someone can do it completely in a few words.
It is rich, it rarely is light, but there are light dishes. It uses sugar, vinegar and wine liberally. It is famous for local foods found in the nearby cities -- Hangzhou, Suzhou, etc,. It is known for its long cooking, and stewed dishes -- known a Red Cooking (Hong Shao). It is famous for its ham so you often see dishes featuring ham. It is in a delta -- so many fish and shellfish dishes, and its climate allows abundance.
Because of the British/Russian/French colonies, and the trading with Europe --the international influence is seen.
To me, it is not delicate food. There are delicate dishes, but for me it is stick to the rib kind of cooking, with many flavors.
Lions Head, Salt Cooked Chicken, Hairy Crab, Yang Chow Fried Rice, Honeyed Ham, Drunken Chicken, Shanghai Noodles -- (a thicker noodle than seen in other areas) are but a few of the famous dishes.
I've just touched the surface!
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It's been a while since I was there, but I guess you would still find You Tiao on the streets in the morning.
Youtiao reputedly originated in the Shanghai area (actually Zhejiang). The story goes that some people were sitting with the cook in a dumpling shop in Hangzhou, when someone mentioned the betrayal of Yu Fei by Qin Hui. One of the kibitzers picked up a strip of dough, saying "This is Qin Hui". then picked up another one, saying "and this is his wife." He then twisted the two together and tossed them in a pot of boiling oil.
Remember that when you eat one!
I remember that story everytime I eat YouTiao!
There is a (if I remember correctly, a 'relief', or ?statue? of those 'two devils' at the Yu Fei Memorial in HangZhou. Directly in front of the 'relief' is a sign saying 'Don't Spit'!!!!
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Chang & Kutscher:
An Encyclopedia of Chinese Food and Cooking: 1000 Recipes Adapted to the American Kitchen
I'm glad to see this book was mentioned; it is my standard book for Chinese food. No photos, no frills, no editorial or historical commentary -- just a lot of recipesI don't even know where or why I bought it but I'm glad I did.
It's very easy to use and always has a recipe that covers whatever ingredients I have on hand -- so I don't need to go running to the store.
Indeed -- a good basic, down to earth book full of authentic recipes. No General Tso's Chicken here!
My first copy was in 1979, and that was the 9th printing, so it has been around for a loooong time. (relatively)
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It's been a while since I was there, but I guess you would still find You Tiao on the streets in the morning.
My favorite Beijing street food -- aside from the delights at the night markets, is Jian Bing --- a 'batter, and egg wrap with scallions and hot sauce'. They are sold by individuals with a special grill, out on the sidewalks.
Dumplings: Tips, Techniques, Recipes
in China: Cooking & Baking
Posted
Yes.
Guo = pot / Tie = iron / potsticker.
I wish my characters would transpose!