Dejah

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.

Basic Savory Tang Yuen a la Dejah's mother: Soak 1/4 cup ha mai or 3 - 4 conpoy(dried shrimp or scallop) Shredded lobak - whatever amount you want. I do a whole one about 12" long 'cos I love it more than the dumplings. Put the lobak into a pot, add just enough cold water to cover. Bring to a boil and cook until tender. Mom always said to cover the pot, and when it starts to stink up the house, it should be ready. Drain the lobak but save the water! Slice and velvet some pork tenderloin. Slice 2-3 lapcheung diagonally. Set these aside. Bring a pot with the lobak water and good stock to boil. For the dumplings: The amount of flour and water depends on how many are eating, and how many dumplings you can eat. Basic: 1 package glutinous rice flour to 2 cups water. Place flour in a bowl. Add just enough water to make a dough the consistency of playdough. Roll into balls the size of your thumb nail. When the stock boils, add the dumplings and rehydrated hai mai/shredded conpoy. When the dumplings rise to the top, add the pork and lapcheung. Finally, add the cooked lobak. Adjust seasoning. To serve, ladle some of everything into a large bowl. Drizzle with sesame oil and top with cilantro or green onion. Have a side dish with soy sauce, white pepper, and mah la oil if you wish for dipping the dumplings. If you can't find lobak, you can substitue with suey choi, but it's lobak that makes this tang as far as I'm concerned!

Wei-chuan is a good series. I have several of the books. My Chinese students have borrowed them because it has the Chinese instructions too. I hoped they would use the English side, but when they're hungry....... I don't always cook and eat Chinese. To me, variety is important. Here's what we had the last few days: meen see pai gwut, fuyu ong choi, guy choi tang, home-made pizza, Malaysian curry chicken, Greek moussaka, Kraft dinner with creamed salmon. Chinese?

Strange idea eating these "apricot kernels". It is known that the apricot seeds contain "amygdalin", a cyanide compound which can be harmful if ingested in large amounts.

Wow! An entrance in the Chinese tradition: bringing a gift of food (siu thlim? in TOisanese)on your first visit to "our home". Welcome cyen! Your savory cake is something I might try. I love sweet and salty together.

Interesting! The mung bean noodles you chose seems quite a bit thicker than the ones we use in Cantonese cooking. ← They actually look like the potato starch noodles used in Korean food.

Oh! Daikon shreds! They do look like rice noodles, sorry. That's interesting. The starch comes in the balls instead of from the shreds. ← Tell your wife that starch is good brain food. She worries overmuch ! I'll post the dumpling process tomorrow. I need starch!

What are you talking about, noodles?! Those "noodles" are shredded lobak! Your late night cramming for exams have scrambled YOUR NOODLES!

I don't imagine you can order this in any restaurants, so, Michael, you'll have to get adopted by some kindly Po-Po. Or, you can make it yourself. It's really very simple. Shall I teach you how to DIY? My family serves this during Chinese New Year. I get a craving for it several times a year, especially in the winter.

But you used green chili not red ones! ← Don't be so vain and put your bifocals back on lah! The green ones are sweet peppers cooked with the chicken. I diced and sprinkled the red Thais on top! Unappreciative scoundrel. We can get two varieites of persimmons: the flatter, orange and firmer ones called fuyu, and these which become soft - hachiya. Both are products of USA.

Dejah: That looks delicious, but I could not figure out which recipe you made. What is it called in the Land of Plenty? Thanks! ← Sorry about that! It's actually from Chinese Cuisine, from the Wei-Chuan cookbook series. It's unusual also in that the chicken pieces are marinated in soy sauce, cooking wine and cornstarch, then deep-fried. The other ingredients; green pepper, onion, garlic and black beans are stir-fried, then the chicken pieces are added back to simmer and thickened before serving. I had Ms. Dunlop's book out at the same time, and that title stuck in my mind...as it should!

After my meeting in Winnipeg, I took a friend shopping in Chinatown. It was quite an experience for my Icelandic friend Inga. Here are some of the items I picked up at the Asian grocery store. Can you pick out all the items? We also went to Maxim's Bakery (They're everywhere!) I bought lo po bang, dan tat, beautiful crumbly walnut cookies ($5.00/doz, the size of a silver dollar!), and a pastry with a duck egg yolk. On the way out of the city, we stopped at De Luca's, a well-known Italian grocery store. I've always wanted to go but never made the time. Not sure if this was a good idea this trip as I couldn't resist the persimmons, at $1.49 EACH! I got home just at supper time, so we had a throw together supper with the ha mai har fun, char siu, and chow yu choi mu. Hubby and I each had a persimmon. They were beautiful. The dan tat was for a snack later. All the other pastries went to my mom.

Here are acouple of the dishes I made over the last week: Chinese Cuisine: Wei-Chuan's Cookbook series: black bean garlic chicken (edited to change source from Ms. Dunlop's Land of Plenty) It's different and "lighter?" the way I usually make it, and I enjoyed it very much. Ah Leung, I added the chopped fresh chilis just for you - my Kylie touch! Chop Suey: Wish the colours were brighter, but it was simple and went well with the chicken and rice. There were beansprouts, onion, celery, green cabbage, fresh mushrooms, and green onion. My daughter likes to eat chop suey the day after it was cooked.

Would savory tang yuen count as dumplings? This is what we had for lunch yesterday: glutinous rice dumplings, shredded daikon, lapcheung, ha mai, pork and waterchestnut meatballs, lots of cilantro, ma li oil in pork broth I dip the dumplings in a mixture of light soy, sesame oil, and lots of freshly ground pepper along with the chili oil.

Here are the venison kebabs I prepared for our year end pizza party. I marinated them with chopped chilis, lime leaves, lemongrass, galangal, oil, and a bit of light soy sauce. It was the first time my students from China had ever tasted venison. Just ready to go on the BBQ: Off the BBQ and ready to eat: Luckily, the weather was mild that morning and I didn't even need my parka to stand outside.

I used to make a filling with velvet chicken and slivers of ginger for warteep. This was a nice change when served as a platter with pork siu mai, char siu baos, leen yeep zhong, and har gow.

Why ruin a good thing? If I had a chance to eat these, I would just sit, peel and enjoy until the pot is empty!

The word that will launch a thousand pots!

The ma lai goh looks perfect, and I guess it was delicious if you ate a quarter of the cake beofre you posted! It's really important to sift and mix in the baking soda and powder really well. There's nothing worse than getting a bitter mouthful when you are expecting sweet,. moist goh. Did I mention the addition of glutinous rice flour into the recipe? My elders told me to replace 2 Chinese soupspoonfuls of AP flour with equal amount of glutinous rice flour for that "chewiness" texture of really good ma lai goh.