Dejah

Looking forward to the pictures!

Alum is found in the spice section in most grocery chains - as sheetz said - McCormick spices. It definitely is not the same as lye water which is used in the non-savory joongzi my mom enjoys. The recipe I have from Pei Mei's books call for alum, baking soda, and powdered ammonia. I remember making it once in the restaurant - and my cook called it "chou (as in ouch) fun" - stinky powder. I can't recall the scientific name for it, but I had to go to a baker for this.

I'm wondering if the difference is the wording: peashoots and peasprouts? Peashoots would be the tips of a legume plant growing in soil, while peasprouts would be like alfalfa, mustard, broccoli, radish, and mung bean sprouts that are sprouted hydroponically. Peasprouts would be very tender in a dish. Peashoots can be tough if too mature when picked. The first time I heard about them was when my cook's wife immigrated to Canada. She talked about the "new vegetable" everyone was eating - the growing tips of the pea plants. We thought she was crazy, spoiled, to mutilate a plant that produces these beautiful snow peas. But, they are delicious in a simple stir-fry.

Pea shoots, like bean sprouts, should be available around the year. They don't need soil to grow. Just water. It should be quite easy to grow at home too. ← WHAT? Peashoots don't need soil? Are they not the tips of growing plants that produce snow peas. Well, at least, the ones I buy are the tips. Maybe there are different types? Edited to add: I just checked through your pictorial, Ah Leung. Yours are definitely a different type than what I know. The kind I buy in Wpg. ARE the tips of the snow pea plant. They are labelled as "dow miu". But I can't see how, if they're grown in water and have such small stems, that they could withstand stir-frying.

Your pictorial is excellent! The version was indeed labour intensive, but I'll bet your last drop of the soup that you were well rewarded. My method of wrapping is similar to yours, except I use egg white. I don't use cornstarch in the filling either as the chopped shrimp provides the "binding". Try adding chopped waterchestnut into the filling mix next time. They add a nice texture. It seems that you have combined three of my favourite soups into one: wonton, yut gah meen, and savory tong yuen. I would call this version not just wonton soup, not war wonton, but Delux Yut Gah wonton soup - enough for the whole family!

Congrats, misducky , on both weight management and new job! Your blogging is very timely as a collegue of mine and his wife are off to San Diego this weekend for spring break. I'll send them eGullet to follow so they will be well prepared.

Are they like little balls with tiny tentacles? They are usually served as dim sum? I'll have to look next time I'm in the city. Thanks, trillium.

Oh, and now, we have a laziness contest? Men!

The tentacles are my favourite part, especially when they are lightly dusted with seasoned flour and deep fried. But in a braised dish, I want the big chunks!

Bruce: It's wonderful that you and Mrs. C cook together. I'm happy with hubby just helping stack dishes into the dishwasher! Is that Thai basil on the shrimp? I love that stuff - more than the regular basil.

Oh Yum! The only problem is the size of squid. I can only get small ones. They are tender, but I love the bigger ones. Guess that means a trip to Winnipeg.

My Korean students have made this for me, and I made it once from the book they gave me. The sesame oil makes the dish as far as I'm concerned. The recipe doesn't tell me how many grams of fibre, so I haven't got it figured out as to WW points. Bruce? Does Mrs. C Sapidus know?

The main problem with cooking mung bean thread is when when you use them in a stir-fry dish. Just nake sure you add liquid/broth after you stir-fry the threads a minute or so. Otherwise, they will clump. Let them simmer until all the liquid is absorbed. Ready to eat! The potato noodles are easy to work witj. Just cook them like any noodles. They don't clump. Wish I could make chap chae right now...maybe...

The list of ingredients you posted is the same except for yu choi and arrowhead, Seith. Thanks! However, my Mom doesn't cook each as a dish, but does cook each ingredient separately then tossed together at the end. We may eat this mixture as part of a meal, but we love it more as a snack - forkfulls wrapped in lettuce.

sheetz: You are much more ambitious than I! The layers look perfect. Maybe some day, even I can produce that! If you can get some whole plums in brine, try steaming spareribs with meen see sauce and a few mashed plums on top. Saltyilicious! Ben Sook: My kitchen is always ready to feed you. Bruce: I loved the way you described my food! I never gave thought to combinations - I just did. Thanks to you, I'll have to pay attention now.

Finally, time to sit down, process and post some pictures from our Sunday dinner: The "mess in my place": Clockwise from high noon: chicken, vegetable medly and special BBQ sauce for hot plate, pickerel with dow see, ginger and green onions for the steamer, appetizer platter with baked curry chicken in puff pastry, shrimp chips and spring rolls ready for deepfrying, steamed gai lan. Spring rolls, curry chicken, and papaya: I could never make the same dipping sauce as Vietnamese restaurants, so I just threw together some fish sauce, seasoned sushi vinegar , chopped mint and ground white pepper. It was surprisingly good. Just like doing perfect french fries, this is the "first fry" for the ginger beef: The ginger beef after the "second fry" and tossed with the spicy ginger sauce. I deep-fried some fine threads of gingerr and toss them on top. The leftover scallops. I was a bit late with the trigger finger. These Sechuan salt and pepper shrimps were great! I'm trying to remember who posted the recipe for them. They were tossed with rice flour and 5-spice powder. Texture was wonderful - like glass shrimp. I don't care for Sechuan peppercorns, so I just used 4-peppercorn spice and roasted sea salt on top. And finally, chicken hot plate with BBQ sauce. When I poured the sauce on top, there was a huge column of smoke - delicious smelling smoke! On the lower portion, you can catch a glimpse of the hot'n'sour soup. The round white dish at the top was the pickerel that I didn't get a picture of. We had Tsingtao beer, Pinot Grigio, and a Placido Chianti throughout the dinner and evening. Dessert was mango pudding.

Looks and sounds like you "kicked it up another notch!" Went out to our "farm house" for the afternoon, so supper was a throw together of leftover fresh chicken stir-fried with lots of Spanish onion, chopped up chilis and curry powder. Vegetable was steamed gailan finished with a drizzle of sesame oil. No rice as I had high fibre WASA biscuits with cheese for a snack. I need time to process my Sunday dinner pictures.

Dejah, there is a recipe for bao in In the Vietnamese Kitchen, but the dough does not call for yeast, just baking powder for leavening (and it also calls for milk). I'm interested to hear about any experiences with this dough. The Chinese bao dough I've made calls for yeast. ← Susan: Before I found bao mix, I used an old recipe from my Mom. It too had flour, baking powder, sugar and milk in the mix. It made beautiful fluffy baos, and tasted great IF the baking powder was mixed in well. I have never used the recipe with yeast, although one of my Chinese cooks did with the baked char siu bao. My customers preferred the steamed ones, so I never got into baking them again. The bao mix that I buy now has baking powder mixed into it. Again, just milk and sugar are added. I use my KitchenAid and it doesn't take long, especially with my trusty old tortilla press. But then, to make from scratch doesn't take long either - just a matter of convenience.

Yum! Bruce! Any leftover char siu for baos?

Say" Mmmmm yeet ", and Gastro can shoot back at the offensive server and say" "Chee seen ah."

Found the recipe for gima wu in Grace Young's Wisdom of the Chinese Kitchen. She said to use rice flour and NOT glutinous rice flour (nor mai fun). Sorry if I screwed up anyone's attempt. If you need the recipe, PM me and I can send it to you.

Short and direct: Point to the item and say" Sun seen mah?" - fresh? in Cantonese.

Wow! Gastro Mui. That's 4 hours of simmering for 1/4" x 1/2" slices. I'd be interested to know if the meat end up as slices.

The techniquee in cooking mung bean noodles and sweet potato noodles are very different, so be aware.

They look pretty thick for fun see. Could they be the Korean style sweet potato or potato starch noodles for chap chae?