Dejah

I put slices of lapcheung into the broth to cook at the same time as the wontons. This adds flavour to the broth. The wonton filling is ground pork, shrimp, waterchestnuts and seasonings. This is enough for flavours inside. Check here for a pic of the wonton soup from my foodblog last summer. http://www.hillmans.soupbo.com/soos/foodlog1.html

When sourdough starter is used, would that not give a very different flavour to the bao? I love sourdough bread but can't imagine how it would taste in char sui bao.

Chinese seaweed...the purple/greenish sheets used for making soup- jee choy? (or dee toi in Toisanese). I've never tried that. I too add Chinese greens to my wonton soup, such as yeu choy or Shanghai bak choy. If I don't have either in the house, romaine or iceberg lettuce will suffice. For more flavour, I may also add slices of lapcheung. I prefer cilantro to green onions, and I must have chili oil and sesame oil with mine.

Unless you are making a big pot of chicken stock, 1 chicken seems extravagant. Keep packages of fresh chicken necks, backs, and fresh carcasses in the freezer. When you have a hankering for chicken stock for wonton soup or whatever, throw some into a pot with slices of bruised ginger. If you want to make a big pot of stock, you can use a whole chicken. Bring water to a boil, add slices of ginger and the chicken. Bring everything to a boil again, then simmer until the chicken is just done. This will give you full flavoured stock as well as "bak jam gai" for a main course!

I'm sure Ben is right: how much better to have it made for you and served with such style (did said gorgeous young lady feed the pancakes and duck skin to you as well, Ben, or am I just fantasizing?!). Me thinks Ben was fantasizing "Skin on an alabaster toned doily is a good memory. biggrin.gif" Was that a doily or a dolly?? I have never made Peking duck, but I watched Ming Tsai do it on one of his shows. He used a tire pump and a fan. For marinate, he used a mixture of honey and water, I think. For myself, I make the Cantonese roast duck. I poached the stuffed and trussed duck in a boiling mixture of water and honey. I do let it hang to dry for a couple of hours. The oven cavity doesn't allow me to hang the duck, so I roast it on a rack, starting with breasts down. When it turns a nice golden red colour, I'd flip the duck over, baste it with some diluted honey and finish roasting until the duck is gorgeous! For the inside liquid, I use a mixture of wine, whole brown bean sauce, ginger, garlic, and star anise. In restaurants and BBQ houses, they use an upright oven that allows for hanging of the bird. I believe it also rotates so the birds get an even colour.

I use poultry skewers to close the cavity. Pull up the "pope's nose" and tuck it into the cavity. Then pull one side flap of the bird to overlap the other side and secure it tightly with a metal skewer from one end of the cavity to the other end. You may still lose some liquid, but more through seepage. The amount will vary, depending on whether you are hanging the duck or laying it on a rack to cook. I hope you are putting in more than just water.

I watched an episode of Simply Ming this afternoon. Ming Tsai and his parents made a Master Braising Liquid with pretty much the same ingredients as hzrt mentioned in his first post. They added a whole orange and orange peel. They braised butter fish and suey choy, duck legs with sweet potato and daikon, grilled rib eye steak with red roast-carrot syrup, and a red roast beef shank sandwich. They didn't talk about keeping the master sauce tho'. If interested, the URL is: http://www.ming.com/simplyming/showrecipes...isingLiquid.htm

hzrt:"Skim off the fat with a spoon. Only retain the true liquid before putting in to the freezer." It's actually a good idea to leave the layer of fat on top of the sauce, especially if you keep it in the fridge. This hardens and acts as a sealant, keeping the flavours in and molds, etc , out. Lift it off when you want to use the sauce. I do this as well when I make chicken stock.

This Toisanese family also! I love chicken wings done this way. I usually strain my sauce before I put it away. The bits and pieces tend to get "rubbery and mushy" sitting in the liquid. I had asked about a recipe( in another thread) for the yellow coloured octopus found hanging beside Cantonese ducks at my Chinese BBQ shop. I just realized that it was cooked in Lo shui...pronounced in Cantonese with the long vowel O in LO.

What were you trying to do, hzrt!? Incorporating all the variations into a new curry? What colour did it turn out to be? And, did the two of you eat it all? Looked like a lot of work but I bet it smelled and tasted great!

Whenever I make sui mai, I use a cookie cutter to make my wonton skins round. The trimmings, I put into a baggie and freeze. When I need some crispy stuff to dress any of my dishes, I deep fry the trimmings and voila! The first time I saw deep fried wonton "strings" was at Planet Hollywood. They topped one of our pasta dishes with these thin crispy strands which the server told us was made of wonton skin. So I decided to try this with some of the dishes in my restaurant. The customers like them! These would be great sprinkled with cajun seasoning or anything that you'd use on popcorn.

Pan, Not sure if we are talking about the same item. Shrimp toast to me is fresh shrimp paste smeared on pieces of bread then deepfried. The ones hzrt is talking about are hard dried shrimp flavoured disks made from shrimp and a starch. They are also called prawn crackers. My box is from Shanghai, but has these translations also: KROEPEOK:............ BEIGNETS DE CREVETTES.......... I seem to remember a box I had from Indonesia. The crackers were about 4 inches by 2 inches. They were quite a size when deepfried.

Hehehe, that's what I do too. ← That's how I get kids to try them! Which ones do you prefer? The colourful ones, the white ones or the ones that are HUGE! Haven't tried the taro chips. Got my taste buds roused now, hzrt. Did your parents ever deep fry mung bean noodles at Lunar New Year? They puff up so fast too. Mom used to sprinkle sugar one these but they are a pain to eat...and to clean up after! I like to cover a serving dish with these then pour saucy food on top.

Well, Yetti, you'll be glad you're not eating at my house today. We had to cancel our dinner party because of a winter blizzard! It started snowing yesterday and developed into a full scale blizzard by this afternoon.. We've had at least 10" of snow so far. The wind was gusting at 50km/hour. I was glad we were at home. Can't complain compared to diasters elsewhere in the world. Hubby, kids and I ate the finger food I had prepared... finishing off with a chicken in BBQ sauce "sizzling hot plate" ( yes, hzrt, sizzling cast iron plate). Luckily, I hadn't thawed the shrimp or made the wontons yet. Will check out the pictures tomorrow and see if there is anything worth uploading. Winter came in like a lion, perhaps it'll go out like a lamb.

Your travelblog is a wonderful read for a snow bound prairie foodie. Thank you for refreshing my memory on the sugar cane juice! That used to be my childhood treat after I drink my weekly cup of bitter tonic tea at the market in HK.

Strange, the only characters I can see are ???? ?????! Thank goodness you had the translation Happy New Year to all foodies! We are having friends in tonight for supper and a jam session. Menu: Spiced beeg cigars, BBQ duck summer rolls, Spring rolls, deep fried wontons, shrimp in blk bean garlic sauce hot plate, chicken in BBQ sauce hot plate, gai lan in oyster sauce, beef lo mein, one couple is bringing "killer curry chicken", dessert is deep fried banana/white chocolate/candied ginger wontons with vanilla ice cream, bottles of wine to wash this all down! Please arrive around 6 pm central time, supper at 7... Foodies! START YOUR ENGINES!

Just checked with my s-i-l who makes the recipe Yuki is talking about. She uses the same method as hzrt, except she stirfries the lap cheung, dried shrimp, and mushrooms and adds them to the rice before steaming. Then she stir fries the mixture quickly (for wok hay...just got my Grace Young book for Xmas ) and adds green onions. She doesn't add soya sauce as all the savory ingredients add enough flavour and colour. I think adding the savories before steaming makes it easier to mix all the ingredients together. My mom finds this dish hard to chew and to digest, so the dutiful d-i-l will sometimes steam a little longer and forgo the stirfrying.

Sticky rice in a wok? I usually soak the rice for an hour or so, drain off the water, then add water to about half an inch above the surface of the rice. This is cooked in a rice cooker. I then proceed to make sticky rice in lotus leaves.

We used to make 24" wokfuls of egg roll filling every evening. It was my son's job to keep turning the vegetables as they cook, and tilting the wok in such a way as to be able to ladle off the liquid as it accumulated. This took at least a half hour. We didn't have to squeeze the mixture. When he feels that it is "dry" enough, he will mix in a cornstarch heavy slurry into the vegetables. This he had to keep tossing and turning quickly and continuously to make sure it mixes and cooks properly. I was glad he worked out at the gym daily! The mixture was all at the same time dry, juicy, gooey, and very heavy. We'd spread this mixture in big deep pans, cool and refridgerated until the next morning. By this time, you can form egg-shapes that will hold its form. My egg roll girl would lay out the wrappers in rows of 6 sheets x6. The "eggs" would be placed in the middle of each sheet . A pass with the pastry brush dipped in egg white on three sides, then each egg roll completed. A wokful would make about 150 egg rolls. At home, I follow pretty much the same proceedure...in a much smaller wok! My filling consists of shredded cabbage, celery, onion, mushrooms and some shredded meat if I want. I don't make these too often. Most of the time, I make the smaller spring rolls...easier.

Yetty: Beautiful picture! And you still deny that you are a professional photographer? There is also another Cantonese name for the rice cupcakes: Boot jai go. Same meaning. Cakes that are molded from a small bowl or dish. The red bean cake is just... red bean cake. (Hung dao go[Cantonese]) ← And I love them both because of the chewy texture of these cakes. Yetti, you should be called "mistress of food porn"....with sadistic tendencies towards people like me on the kuih-deprived prairies! I get to granny-sit for a couple weeks in Feb, so I will have to get my mom to show me how to make these.

Quite acceptable practice when you're in a hurry or having senior moments like I do.

Did I look like I had something to hide when you were here in November? Actually, I was just at a friend's grandson's month old party , and enjoyed this favourite soup.

Pig feet in black vinegar, peanuts, ginger, lily buds... New mother's soup...YUM!

I also follow yuki's proceedure with potstickers...panfry then add water, cover with a lid and steam until all the water has evaporated. This makes the dumplings golden brown and fluffy. With the crab meat, try adding beated egg white to your mixture. This would act as the binding agent hzrt mentioned. I never get fresh shitaki mushrooms here, so reconstitued is all I use. Being a senior, I often forget to prepare the mushrooms early, so I just rinse them once, then soak in hot water for about an hour. This seems to work well except for the piece attached to the stem. Boiling them should have been fine especially if they felt soft when you diced them. I find if you soak them too long, you lose much of the flavour. BTW, save the soaking liquid for the steaming part, or for a soup base with winter melon, etc.

Marlene, Finally got my new computer hooked up and catching up on your wonderful blog! Enjoying it very much and ... You're doing Canadians proud! Dejah