Dejah

Now that you mentioned beef or bovril in your oatmeal porridge, I do recall my mom making savory porridge for my breakfast when we lived in HK. My dad had sent oatmeal from Canada. Funny how I have forgotten about that. Thanks for jogging my memory!

I suppose dried shrimp can be eaten, but they are generally pretty tough until they are soaked. But dried scallops are hard as a rock! ← So are dried squid and dried oysters!! ← I think the dried squid would be the specially prepared snacking ones - usually shredded and flavoured with chili peppers, etc. I don't think my teeth can handle any of the above mentioned. So far, there's been a lot of salty snacks. Do you drink beer or tea with these snacks at 3 am? Ah Leung? What about rock sugar? Bars of brown sugar? Chunks of palm sugar? We are out of peanuts and other snacks at the moment, and I see this morning, my box of rock sugar is...empty!

I've been buying garlic chives at our little Chinese grocery store. They smell terrible in the car on the way home if they are not sealed in a bag! I have been stir-frying it with beef. I eat most of the chives, hubby eats the meat.

Ok, I admit to snacking on pei dan. Every once in a while I get a craving and will crack one for myself. Haw flakes - Of Course! Have to savour each round individually. Mustn't devour a whole stack at a time! I have seen packets of dried squid, but not the shrimp. I used to like the squid, but I find them too smelly now. Peony, I don't know where you're from, but snacking on abalone?! It's $75.00 a can here in Canada! How about yook suhn, aka pork silk? Great snack.

All right, I had a senior moment/brain fart when I called Ah Leung "ham sup lo"! For that I do apologize to his wife for I don't know if he is! What I meant to say was "ham jup lo"...salty ingredients man. I was cooking my paella and thinking, and nearly cut off my fingers when the thought hit me!

Ok, this is just too weird for me. Ah Leung, with all these salty snacks, I'll have to start calling you "ham sup lo"! I can't imagine eating uncooked dried oysters, or dried shrimp. Now, if I opened a can of fried dace, then I'd have to have rice, then that wouldn't be a snack! I might have ramen out of the package though.

I sometimes spread a cube of fu yu (instead of butter) on a bread toast. ← Now THAT'Seven too weird for me, and I love to try new things.

The Dinner! thread in the cooking forum is always an inspiration for meals, whether for a party or at home. I wonder if there would be interest in such a thread with Chinese food? I know Ah Leung's pictorials are a great source, but it would fun to see what others are cooking(Is anyone else as nosy as I?) Somtimes we get really excited about what we cooked for supper and need a place to express that. If we have such a thread, then we won't have to look through every thread (besides hzrt8w's) to get inspiration. How about it, folks? Shall we have a go at this?

As in oatmeal porridge? I like it in congee, plain or otherwise. hzrt8w has a pictorial using fu yu and bitter melon. Whenever we have roast chicken, my husband always requests a cube or two of fu yu to eat with his chicken. I don't think it's the Scottish/English way. I think he's gone overboard on fitting into my Chinese family!

That sounds interesting Mooshmouse. Can you remember if the olive kernels(hung yan) were roasted? They are really crunchy in the raw form. When I use them in a soup, I have to soak them overnight before using. They still retained their crunch even after simmering for hours in the soup. I really like them though.. Speaking of olive kernels, does anyone have a recipe for "hung yan woo"? It's the sweet dessert like sesame soup. Haven't had that for a long time!

Mmmmmm...Fu yu! Lovely, salty, velvety, but not stinky. It is great with just rice, especially fan jeu. I stir-fry green beans with fu yu. When the beans are nearly cooked, mash 3 or 4 cubes of fu yu into the beans, mix well. This is my kids's favourite way to eat green beans. Fu yu is good stir-fried with tender greens: spinach, ong choy, even pea shoots would be good.

Is the ovalette what made this cake a little yellowish in the overall color? ← Eggs give the cake the colour. I goggled ovalette:

Mooshmouse, Ma-La-Gau does indeed smell delicious, and my Chinese students love it when I make it for a treat after exams;-) The recipe I use is from Wei-Chuan's Cookbook: Chinese Snacks. Beat 5 eggs and 1 1/2 cups of brown sugar until thick and creamy coloured. (about 5 minutes) Combine 3/4 cup evaporated milk, 1/2 tsp vanilla, 1/2 cup melted shortening or butter (butter of course!), and 1 tsp baking SODA. Add this to the egg/sugar mixture. and beat for 1 minute. Sift togehter 2 cups flour, 1 tablespoon baking POWDER and fold into the egg mixture to make a batter. Line a baking pan with plastic wrap. I use my cheesecake pan with the release on the side. Pour in the batter and steam for 30 minutes over high heat. Remove, cool ( if you can wait;-) ), slice and serve. This cake is more like a sponge than the one my Mom makes. I have made it for my "experienced aunties" and it passed the test! They said, "Ho Sic lah!" Tonight, I've made 3 doz. char siu baos, a dozen with curry Halal chicken , a dozen curry vegetable baos, and a dozen spicy pork baos. I'm trying to build up their strength before finals next week. My grandson has eaten 3 char siu baos!

Then there's Ma-La-Gau, the steamed sponge cake made with brown sugar and evaporated milk. I actually prefer this cake to the recipe I posted above. Ma-La-Gau is more moist. The egg sponge that my Mom makes is great with a glass of cold milk. My kids like to dunk their cakes in the milk. Peony: In my recipe, it's the beatened eggs that work as the leavening. I have to be really careful with baking powder and baking soda in the Ma-La-Gau. I hate that funny taste when these ingredients are not incorporated properly.

Your cake looks so light and fluffy. Here is my Mom's recipe for a similar looking steamed cake: Beat 6 eggs and 1 1/2 cups sugar for 20 minutes. Sift 1 1/3 cups AP flour onto a piece of wax paper. Gently fold the flour into the egg and sugar mixture. Line a bamboo basket with wax paper. Bring a large pot of water to a rolling boil. Steam the cake for 20 minutes. If you have a bamboo lid, use it; otherwise, you may need to wipe the inside of your steamer lid to prevent water dropping onto the cake. Let the cake cool for a few minutes before removing it from the basket. Invert the cake onto a plate, remove the wax paper, and revert the cake onto your serving platter so the original top side is up. Sprinkle toasted sesame seeds over the top of the cake because a bare cake is bad luck.

I suppose you can put BBQ duck and rice in lotus leaves, but I think it would be a waste of the wonderful flavour of the duck itself. Salted pork belly or char siu may be used as liu. As for a dish where the leaves are eaten, the only one I can think of is Chinese New Year jai - the vegetarian dish with fermented black beans, fermented soy-soaked olives, fun see, ha mai, fat choi, etc. My family likes to make a huge wokful, then wrap a spoonful in a leaf of iceberg lettuce before eating. That's something I look forward to each year.

Great looking liu, Ah Leung Silow. But, you don't need to boil the lotus leaf, just soak it for acouple of hours in hot water with a weighted plate on top. But then, I suppose you were in a hurry? To maximize the flavour of the lotus leaf, try cutting the leaf in half, then wrapping some of the liu into a packet as with lotus leaf nor mai fan. It's easier to take to work that way too! My son's collegues at work are always amazed at the lunches he takes in. Finally, he told them his mom is Chinese.

I have 2 Korean ladies in my university EAP class. I really enjoy the food they cook for our potlucks, other social activities, etc. However, I have a dilemma, and it may be insensitive of me to post this question. In the past, my Chinese students have been the big "garlic breaths" in the classroom. Now, I am nearly fainting from my two Korean ladies. Is copious amounts of garlic in every Korean dish? Is there anything that would prevent second hand garlic before they come to class? I am hoping they will pass through my class at the end of the term.

Chinese celery has a stronger flavour than the usual N.A. variety in supermarkets. You may want to use the latter variety in nor mai fan so as not to overpower the other ingredients. I use Chinese celery in stir-fries as the main vegetable with meat. I made leen yeep fan for my students last week. It's such a pain to try and incorporate the liu with the sticky rice. Next time, I will do as Tepee does: simultaneous cooking, then mix the liu in once the water boiled off has boiled off. And, I added peanuts, but I didn't like them.

Superior broth just means excellent flavourful broth and not a broth brewed from the three meats together. Each kind can be a superior broth on its own. For myself, I never combine beef with either chicken or pork. I have used chicken broth to augment pork broth if I am short, but I've never added pork to chicken. Beef, I use on its own because it has such a full-bodied flavour. Chicken and pork are more subtle. I've never added ham or proscuitto or ham in making stock. It would be good if you want the smoky flavour. I know my mom sprinkles finely diced ham on shark fin soup, but I've always felt it was a sacrilege

I always keep some Campbell's Chicken, Beef, or Thai Broth in my pantry for general use: in stir-fries, in quick soups, stews, etc. To make stock when I have time at home, I use chicken necks/backs attached, pork neck bones, or beef soup bones.These are readily available in meat counters. These parts have great flavour, and they can be discarded without concern for waste. However, the bits of meat on the necks and bones are good eating with just a sprinkle of salt, even after hours of simmering! These are what I use for my congee base (usually chicken). I take the bones out just before serving, pull off the meat and put the meat back into the congee along with more sliced meat. It's the soft texture that is so good. When I make stock for the freezer, I don't add green onions or ginger as I don't know what I'll be using it for. I want just the pure chicken, beef or pork flavour. Unless you are making the stock for a specific dish, such as pho, I would suggest using just the bones.

Made stir-fried "Sichuan dow jie" last week. Instead of using Sichuan preserved vegetable, I used chili radish from the jar, toban sauce and Sichuan peppercorns. As hubby is very much a carnivor, I stir-fried sliced beef and added that to the top of the beans instead of mixing it in. I've got to learn how to use the flash properly for pictures. The beef looked more "velvetized" in real life. I deep fried the green beans, but I don't think I'd do that again - too greasy.

I just noticed that Kent pan fried his spring rolls. I find that deep drying gives a lighter finish to the wrapper. The American/Canadian egg rolls use the big yellow wrappers that are more pastry-like. If your oil is at the right temperature, and the filling is not wet, you can get a nice blistered crispy egg roll. If the wrapper gets wet from excess liquid in the filling, or if they sit too long before deep frying, then the wrapper will end up chewy in spots. The ideal is the blistered look.

Usually, large pieces of Chinese cabbage (suey choi) are placed around the meatballs as they are steamed. This gives the appearance of the lion's mane, thus the name Lion Head.

Here are the spring rolls I made last week. I used garlic chives, fun see, bean sprouts, woodear, and some shredded leftover char siu. We ate them with sweet chili sauce. Grandson ate them plain.