Dejah

Oh, I see you DID use bing tong. I haven't been using pork belly because it is way too expensive to buy here. I was looking at a small slab, about 12" x 12", and it was going to cost me $30.00! Pork shoulder picnics with the skin on was $1.00/lb last week, so I stocked up. May not have as much fat on it, but that's ok diet-wise. I have also made this with pork butt roast if I find a piece with a good layer of fat. That turned out well also.

Beautiful colouring on that belly of yours. Did you use bing tong with the mushrooms too? Somehow I can't get past the sweet and what I consider savory of the mushrooms.

I blanch, sear, add all ingredients, bring to a boil, then braise in the oven for several hours. The heat is consistent, and you don't have to keep watch over the pot as often. Chinese rock sugar - bing tong, gives a different flavour as it is produced from strong solution of sugarcane juice. Common granulated sugar is the very refined form from sugarcane juice, or from sugar beets. The refining process pretty much removes all the flavour except the sweetness. Not sure about the pein tong - the brown sugar bars. One source says they are totally unrefined sugar from the sugarcane or a special kind of palm.

I'm not sure those are tiles on the roof tops - not familiar enough with them as they are non-existent on our prairies. And I'm not sure the architecture can be found in Maryland, but the ingredients made me think of C. Sapidus immediately.

To xiaoLing's suggestion of rehydrated dried shrimp, add some pre-soaked mung bean noodles and soy sauce. I think Ah Leung has a pictorial on that. You can also stuff these melons with seasoned ground pork - with or without finely chopped shrimp, then braised. Or, make a soup with chunks of melon and pork. I have also used this as a substitute when wintermelon is not available. I have a "hoard" of eight jeet gwa in my cool basement from the Chinese gardeners in my city. Boy! Do they baby their melon vines - to my benefit.

See gwa and okra are very different items. I think non-Chinese call see gwa okra because of its similar ridge appearance. See gwa is from the squash family while okra is from the mallow family. I've seen okra used more in East Indian than Chinese cooking.

I would leave out the shitake mushrooms and the soaking liquid - does not work well with the honey. I use palm sugar or rock sugar when I make braised pork along with star anise, cinnamon stick, ginger. garlic, scallions, chili peppers, but no daikon. Gastro, are those the same dong goo you'vew been soaking for...how many hours now?!

I love fresh waterchestnuts, but I hate peeling them. Did the lady selling them use a special tool, or was she just really adept with a paring knife? Really enjoyed your blog. Thank you!

Would love to see your Lunar New Year Feast, Peony - just don't post any pictures of your father drinking blood! I remember drooling over some of Tepee's posts last year! My food has been looking particulary blah picture wise, but tasty. Maybe I should start using food colouring! Hubby's been wanting hot' n 'sour soup, dong gwa tong, gnow yuk jing mui choi, even jee juk jing ham yu - a real change from prime rib, sweet desserts, etc over the holiday season.

By Day 8, I just might have to accept the many invites from my former Taiwanese students to visit and eat! All the food and pictures have been amazing, Nishla. Now, I assume you've been collecting recipes from all the banquets, food stalls, etc, and we can expect to see them pictorialized in the Chinese Eats thread very soon!

Shouldn't be any problems using the dong goo if they've been soaking in the fridge, but they may not be as flavourful. If they haven't been refridgerated, check and see if they smell like dong goo, and that there's no slime on them. I've had some soaking in the fridge since the 27th and just used them for dong gwa tong on Monday, and hot 'n' sour soup yesterday. As for salting the oil prior to stir-frying, this helps to better distribute the salt. It's the same as infusing the oil with aromatics, heat from chilis, etc. Po-Po also said it will prevent dangerous splatters if you drop some water into the hot oil. I'm not so sure about the second reason, but I'm not about to question her +85 years of cooking (she will celebrate her 98th bday this August).

Not sure if this is widespread at all Safeway stores, but the ones in my city have a package of six or eight? "connected" cupcakes iced to look like a slab cake. You can have it decorated for birthdays, anniversaries, etc. The idea, I suppose, is "just in case" there is no knife for cutting the cake. Just before Christmas, we attended a "welcome home to the newlyweds" event. They didn't have a second wedding cake; instead, they had an arrangement of cupcakes decorated with Xmas themes. It was unusual in that they had charms that represented certain prizes hidden in them.

I would agree with Ah Leung on the mushroom stems. You could throw them into soup, but I would hate to bite on one! Even with long time simmering, they remain tough. Considering the price of mushrooms now, I don't think you should worry about "wastefullness", but your elders would be proud of your thriftiness. Nor Mai fan would never stay long in my fridge. But, when my sister brought out three dozen foil trays of nor mai fan from their favourite restaurant in Richmond, B.C., we did freeze them. They had a cardboard lid on top. When we wanted some, we'd let them thaw at room temp. then steamed them before eating. They were fine even after a month.

Nishla: Very much looking forward to the rest of your "Eats in Taipei"! Will you be going to Taipei 101? A student of mine worked there a few years ago - probably as a busboy. I'd be interested in seeing and hearing about the food they serve. I think he said the restaurant was at the top?

A Canadian blogging from Vietnam - wonderful way to start the new year! I am curious about the rice noodles. Are these the steam ones that are also used in the Chinese dim sum item called cheung fun, or are they the rice paper wraps used in fresh spring rolls? They look delicious!

Suzy: Thanks so much for a beautiful blog. It brought back many wonderful memories of our trip to Oahu several years ago.

We retired from the Chinese restaurant biz in 2002, but I still have panic attacks on Xmas eve and New Year's eve remembering how crazy busy we were on those days! This holiday season was the only time we prepared and froze the most popular items like chicken balls. Yeah, I know, it's not authentic, but they were traditional on the Canadian prairies. Our chicken balls were hand cut from chickens we dissected ourselves. Each piece was dipped in egg wash, hand breaded in cracker meal and formed into perfect balls about 1.5 inch of pure meat. All other restaurants deep fried their tiny bits of meat in one inch thick batter. Chinese food was definitely the tradition in this city for Xmas eve, New Year's eve, and New Year's day. On Dec. 24th, we would close at 8 pm, and I would rush home to the prime rib already cooking in my oven. New Year's eve and New Year's day, most orders would have been placed days before. We would organize 15 "order forms" per 20 minutes, and that could total 150 containers of food! There can also be "cater" orders for 50 thrown in. There is no point anyone popping in to pick up an order, or calling in for food to be delivered in 30 minutes. We get a rest on Xmas Day. New Year's eve consists of two waves: supper time, and 11 pm to midnight. New Year's day is just supper rush. Now, on those days, we have non-Chinese food at home: lamb on the 24th, turkey and ham on the 25th, and prime rib and seafood on the 26th. New Year's party was a potluck at friends. On the night that all members of my family (brother, s-i-l, their 3 daughters, and my own three kids who have all worked at Soo's) are home and around the dinner table, our favourite game is "Soo's Menu". Our items continued to use the numbering system set up by my dad when he started the biz in 1972. When I took over the biz and introduced some authentic dishes, and Szechuan items, the numbers grew. It's nostalgic and hilarious trying to match a number yelled out by someone to the name of the dish. That's the Christmas tradition in a family who used to own a Chinese restaurant. BTW, Pam, which Chinese restaurant did you go to? Kum Koon for dim sum?

A quick stir-fry with beef tenderloin, red and green peppers, zuchinni, onion, and jasmine rice. It's a late lunch/early supper. We've packed our gear and ready to set off on a 2.5 hours drive to play a 4 hour gig! If I don't get back on line before Xmas, I wish everyone in the eGullet family a Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Good Health, Fortune, and Great Cooking in 2007!

Happy Gwa Ung, everyone! My mom invited me over for tang yuen, but I am "obligated" to go for an East Indian luncheon today with my ESL school staff. It's free too! Peony: My family would love that peanut-filled tang yuen!

Tepee! Do you have dentists in your family? I'll be making mango pudding with pureed mango and evaporated milk as one of our desserts. Might just have to break down and do sago too. Hubby loves rice pudding, and that's one I don't make often. His mom and I always laughed about rice pudding. She would only eat rice in sweet pudding with raisins and cream, and I would only eat rice Chinese style. ETA: I assume I can use small tapioca in place of sago if I can't get that in Bdn?

Yes, Peony, my mom always celebrates winter solstice. I won't/didn't make any because we just had it, and Bill isn't that fond of the dumplings. He usually tries to sneak them to the dog, and the dog is proned to "backdoor trots" as well. It must be because both Ben Sook and Atticus swallow the dumplings whole!

aznsailorboi: I use the lobak goh recipe from Grace Young's Wisdom of the Chinese Kitchen as a base. Here's the URL for the recipe: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/recipe_views/views/100779 I don't follow the amounts really because I have a very large deep pan. For the flour, I have always used only rice flour(jeem mai fun), never glutinous rice flour(nor mai fun) because that's the way my mom always made it. The batter consistency, I add enough liquid (water/lobak water/mushroom and shrimp soaking water) to the flour until it will coat my hand, but not thickly. I am thinking 6 cups shredded daikon, 3 cups rice flour and no more than 3 cups liquid. Like I said, I go by feel.

Just call them by their colour: yellow spuds, orange spuds, grey spuds with hair, purple spuds, red spuds, gwei low spuds...

Ditto on the squid preparation a la Ben Sook. aznsailorboi: You DO need to make your own lobak goh! Check out mine on: http://www.hillmans.soupbo.com/soos/lobakgoh.html We'll be eating mostly non-Chinese food for the next few days, but I made a Taiwanese recipe earlier this week. It was chicken fillets "breaded" with a mixture of shrimp, waterchestnut, green onion and carrot then deep fried. I'll upload the picture later when I can get the "other computer" You coined the perfect phrase for this thread, hzrt: "a never-ending multi-author food blog."

jo-mel taught me a trick to hold the fish above the hot oil over the wok for a few seconds, let it kind of settled before laying the fish on the wok (well oiled by tilting and twisting). It does help to prevent the skin from sticking to the wok. ← Do you mean to hold the fish on a "spatula" of some sort while immersed in the oil before laying it in the wok? "Above the oil" wouldn't have any effect. To suspend the fish before releasing it allows the skin to coat with oil, cook and firm up. This prevents the fish from sticking to the wok. BTW, where's our venerable jo-mel? You are very observant, Ben Sook. I've seen so many Chinese mixing 7-up with Crown Royal and brandy at banquets. Me, I'll just take it straight up - the 7-Up, that is! Edited to add: hzrt: I think the eggs with tomatoes that Kent made is different from yours because eggs are the featured ingredient in this recipe. The saucier one that you make has tomatoes as the featured ingredient. Kent's would be Eggs Stir-fried with Tomatoes whereas yours would be Tomatoes Stir-fried with Beef and Eggs.