Dejah

I have deleted "MSG" from my cooking vocabulary since college days. May be besides "wok hei", this is what separate home cooking from food in the restaurants. But, many of the sauces and canned ingredients would contain MSG anyway... ← I still use msg in moderate amounts, unless a guest has allergies. Mudbug, I took pictures and measurements when I made black bean garlic spareribs fopr supper Friday. Just got home from performing at a lily festival, beat...so I will write up the recipe and load the pictures early next week.

Dejah: you didn't use "night soil" to fertilize your garden, did you? ← Nope. The aged manure from the horse barn was MUCH ...errr....better. Besides, I didn't have the buckets and poles to carry night soil.

Yeh choi gaw

Peeled, sliced. stir-fried with leftover siu yook with the now non crispy skin! I like kohlrabi for the crunch and the sweetness. Sliced and cooked with pork broth and thin slices of lean pork makes a wonderfully light soup.

When we lived on the inherited family homestead, from 1966 - 92, I had a huge garden. Beets, peas, carrots, etc were available from neighboring farms, but Asian vegs were 60 miles away. So. like my mother before me, I grew Chinese vegetables on raised beds. My neighbor came over with his big John Deer tractor and broke up the "new land". I felt like a pioneer. It took me days to sort out all the grass, haul in very old manure from the hill out in the field, and tilled it all in. Hubby was great as he helped me hill up the dirt into beds. My mom had brought varieties of seeds from China in 1958. She gave me pill bottles filled with the descendents, with instructions to always let the best plants mature to refill the bottles. I grew snow peas, green beans, bok choy, guy choy, amaranth, cilantro, chives, garlic, kohlrabi, wolfberry for the seeds and another variety for the leaves, and the variety of tiger lily with the non-toxic edible bulbs. Never had any luck with lobak, gai lan or long beans. The growing season just wasn't long enough for the long beans but the shorter variety was great. The casing was darker and thicker fleshed. The aged manure worked wonders! I was able to share the bounty with my family, even tho' they lived in the city and can shop, but as mudbug said, homegrown is best! The kids helped eat up the pea crop by "browsing" in the garden while I worked. Alot of the bak choi was boiled and dried for choi gone. Kohlrabi was eaten like apples, stir-fried or in soup. My neighbors allowed theirs to grow verg big, boiled then mashed as a veg. I liked mine quite young and tender, without any stringiness. Those times were before I heard about eating pea shoots. I wish I had all those plants now! Not all the garden was used for Chinese veg. I grew alot of herbs too: basil, mint, borage, thyme, rosemary, parsley, oregano, and lots of flowers. Now, I just have room for flowers and some herbs in container. We have many older generation friends in the city and they provide us with gow gai choi, bok choy, guy choy, fu gwa, mo gwa, sut dow, han choi, and a variety of green beans that is about 20cm x 3 cm! Delicious!

This is the info' from google search: From: Maryland Medical Center Programs, Complementary Medicine Program

Yup, prasantrin. You are specific. I will add Asia City to my "Rona's list of places to eat in Wpg"!

Dim sum chefs DO make these dumplings by hand. If you ever get a chance to watch a skillful one, watch how they smash a lump of dough with their cleaver into perfectly round, perfectly thin pastry before they make the shrimp dumplings (har gow) The parchment conceals the "seam" and prevents the dumpling from sticking to the bottom of the basket. I had several "aunties" making dim sum for me when I had the restaurant. They were home trained, and trust me, each of their dumplings were perfectly pleated, and uniform in size.

The vinegar is for shrinking the uterous after birth. I don't think it will shrink anything else if you don't have a uterous!

Yes. Common English names: "Concubine's Cakes" or "Wife's Cakes" "Lao Po Bing" is actually more common to find regarding spelling winter melon filling (Dong gwa yung) Reports say the filling tends to be much better made in New York than in San Francisco. Really just looking for a recipe for the filling, not with additions such as candied citron, nuts, bean, etc. ← If we are talking about traditional: Lao Po Bing is Lao Po Bing. It's not considered moon cakes. They do have the wintermelon filling, but they are available all year round, and eaten year round. Moon cakes have a different pastry. Lao po bing has "layers", but moon cakes are more cake like. And moon cakes are for celebrating "bat yuet sup ng"...

You are correct, sheetz. There are two kinds of jeet cho: pink or black. My students prefer the black for jiaozi, but for soup, they use the pink. Remember, the black is different from the sweet black vinegar for new mom's soup!

I think I heard my Taiwanese students say"mother's milk" or something to that effect?

Sorry, I am being nitpicking today - too much time on my hands now that I am on vacation, and the full moon? hzrt, be careful with your terms: deep fried is not "gone chow". Gone chow = dry stir-fry (no sauce), deep fried=jow or jah What hzrt described is what we listed on the menu as Singapore rice noodles. What Tepee is talking about, I would order as "gone chow gnau ho". That's a favourite in our family. My Malaysian Chinese friend Edah (from Pang?) uses curry powder in her cooking, but not like in stir-fries, but done more as a suace. She uses an old family recipe, and every Jan. when she goes home, she brings back a supply. I have tasted it, and it is very good - with a predominant pepper flavour tho'. I need to go and see her!

um...don't agree with you, origamicrane. I have seen many men asking for a bowl of the pig trotters in vinegar soup. It's just that they don't eat it all month long like the new mom. There is nothing in it that men cannot or should not eat; nothing there that will affect your virility! Hubby often joined me when I ate the soup, and really enjoyed it. And, young fella, women also pucker up when they eat wa mui, usually when they first put it into their mouths. My Caucasian hubby, nor my halfer sons pucker when they eat wa mui, but I do! It's one of Robin's favourite snacks. I think it all depends on one's tolerance for the sour taste.

Sounds like the way I make Singapore rice noodles except for the eggs. I added bean sprouts to mine.

Hey! annachan! Welcome to eGullet! and to the Chinese forum.

Oh thanks, Tepee, for posting about the post-natal black vinegar pig trotters! My mom made these huge jars of it after each of my 3 kids, along with the chicken and whiskey I posted about in the wood ear thread. Tradition is that a month after the birth, the women folk all gather to eat this soup with the new mom, who has been eating it for the whole month! My second fridge was filled with these two post-natal soups. But, the black vinegar that is used for dipping: jet toe?(toisanese pronunciation)...not the same as the black vinegar for the soup...Am I confused?

I am trying to think of what char quay toew is... I have a net-sister in the city right across the bridge from Singapore, Johor Baharu. Several of my friends and a niece have met her, but I haven't! She's always telling me about the wonderful food there, but she wants my joong!

You guys ain't seen nuthin' yet. Come on, Tepee! Don't be shy. Share your website with ALL your creations. Just click on TPcal! at the bottom of her post. Trust me, guys. You ain't seen huthin' yet!

Well done! sheetz! I knew I had seen it somewhere.

Gum choi = golden needles=great in hot 'n' sour soup; chicken, mushroom, wun yee, gum choi, chestnut "stew". For the new mother, gum choi simmered with chicken, peanuts, wun yee, whiskey and ginger. Mom always tied the needles into a knot. Not sure why...aesthetic appeal?

Thank you. Have I missed the spices you use to season the ribs? If you don't wish to comment, I respect that too. ;) ← I just use the basics: salt, pepper, msg, sugar. Gota make some soon, so I will try and get some measurements for you. Like most of us here, I cook by " a little of this, a bit more of that"...

Or I can give them to my grandson to make log cabins in his craft class. May have a wedding next summer. Cousin's son is getting married. Or I could make a 2 tier for Mom's 96th in 2 weeks...or... Now that we're on the topic, I just might have to boil up some tapioca for boba tea!

Probably because desserts are not a big thing with Chinese people. What is dessert in western world is more like snacks in Assian countries.

...................................of everything! Couldn't resist, Ben Sook!