Dejah

This reminds me of one of the more repeatable phrases my cooks used to use all the time: Jahm ah nai gaw taow! CUT YOUR HEAD OFF!

Hi, This is my first post and I love this thread. I am addicted to the Cantonese version of Chicken and Ginger Congee, but mine never comes close. I use the crock pot and have taken Trillium's suggestion about adding the glutoneous rice flower disolve in water and stirred in at the end. It still does not have the same mouth feel. I read the comment about " washing" the rice in salt and oil and would like too know if anyone can describe the procedure Any other suggestions? Thanks, Ok, I cook congee quite often for brunch and usually with chicken and ginger. But, what IS this Cantonese version? Is it supposed to be thin? Thick? Rice still in granular form? Like gruel? Aiyeeeah! I like mine with substance!

My mind is a bit clearer this morning, inspite of the rain. Hubby reminded me that I needed to make a correction about the "lunch or dinner" comment made in an earlier post ( posted August 8th) What I meant to say was: the meal at around noon is lunch. But the evening meal may be called dinner, as perhaps in the U.S. and supper for those raised on the prairies. In England, called "tea"? To make it more confusing, Bill said when he was growing up, the big meal was at noon, for the farmhands, so it was breakfast, dinner, supper. To me, food is food! I'll eat anytime.

awwww, Ben, thanks for the compliments. We are proud of our kids. And, you know what!? They can all cook!

It's a "Moody Manitoba Morning" . . . more rain today. Transferred my daughter from her midnight shift to her day shift at the hospital. She ate 2 pieces of whole wheat toast with blackberry jam enroute. (7 a.m. yawn . . . ) Had my first cup of coffee while waiting for the icing from the fridge to warm up. Made simple decorations with the mauve icing. I need to plan my "writing" better before putting it on the cake! But, Anita will understand when I tell her I baked the cake at 11 p.m. and decorated her cake at 7 a.m. I'll post a picture after the colour intensifes. The licks of cream cheese icing will qualify for breakfast . . . until cake time at 10 a.m.

DAY 4 ~ SUNDAY The family finally all got up around 10 a.m. I still had a few biscuits left in the fridge, so I made my version of egg McMuffins for brunch! Some of us slathered salsa on the eggs, just to give us a kick start before the show. A juicy peach made the brunch complete. On our way to the festival, thunder roared across the city, and it poured as we humped our equipment to the stage. Luckily, our first performance was an entertainers' workshop under the big top: "Partners in Music." One of the questions posed was "When do you rehearse?" My answer, of course, was "while I am wokking" ;-) Over the years, Bill and I learned a lot of songs while I cooked. During the afternoon break, we came home for lunch. Son Robin, our bass player, was home from his I.T. job, an eight-hour drive from Brandon. One of his favourite foods is Shanghai noodles, with a twist. I cooked the noodles with smashed fermented black beans, garlic, Habanero peppers, chopped mint, BBQ pork, and deep-fried julienned wonton skins. These are SO GOOD! Spent the rest of the evening back at the festival. Supper was from Morden Munchies truck, a familiar sight at many outdoor functions in Manitoba. I had a smokie dog, and shared a family sized tub of chips. The grease was hard to resist. Dessert was a single scoop of cookies 'n' cream ice-cream, a dish of apple crisp from the entertainers' tent, and many cups of coffee. A few pictures from our evening show:

hzrt: Thanks for the help! Mucho appreciated. In the lunch photo, it was, indeed, sticky rice in lotus leaf. These ones had lap cheung, Chinese mushrooms and peanuts. suzilightning probably saw the joong from Friday's lunch. I should have left the deep-fried wheat flour cruellers (Thanks Ben! I couldn't remember what you called them before. ) in their original length. They are about 12 to 14 inches long. Would have been less confusing. I cut them so they'd fit into the soup bowls. They are a little crunchy, a little chewy, and a lot of bad cholestrol . . . Can't have jook without them! suzilightning: I'll trade you joong for brownies . . . I can't make these and I love them. "never heard of shoji tabuchi? he is one of the most amazing fiddle players i have ever had a chance to hear...." This guy is incredible. I have seen him on TV, from Branson. Mitsu, our banjo player loves sui mai. I wonder if Shoji likes dim sum? Ben, I hope you are musical. My guests always have to "sing" for their supper. jackl10 "What are electric bagpipes?? " Are you a piper? This is indeed a chanter with a microphone and electronic drones. I'll post a picture once we get them downloaded. BTW, it is nearly midnight. We got home from the festival around 10. I have a carrot cake in the oven for a bday party tomorrow at 10 a.m. The cream cheese icing is made, and some of it coloured mauve - our Ad. Assistant's favorite colour. Daddy-A : The aforementioned carrot cake is another recipe from Best of Bridge. It's called Karrot's Cake . . . it's one of my most requested cakes. Of course you'll get a photo of it tomorrow! I will have today's menu up soon. Just waiting for the photos.

Daddy-A et al: Will answer your queries, post recipes, etc once this day is over

It’s Sunday morning . . . thunder is rolling overhead, and rain. I can see a bit of blue to the south, so maybe it will be clear by the time the festival opens at noon. We are on stage at 1 p.m. I’m going to backtrack a little and catch up on Saturday’s (yesterday) lunch, or dinner to the U.S. readers. Dim sum was the order of the day. Ran out of time last night due to rehearsals, etc, so I knocked up the har gow and sui mai in the morning. Pulled the sticky rice, beef meatballs, and baos from the freezer. I started the jook (congee) before I had my breakfast: a cupful of rice, slices of ginger, and lots of fresh chicken neck bones and backs. The necks give the best flavour, and the bits of meat works all through the congee. As my family doesn’t like watery jook, I silkened thinly sliced chicken breast and added it just before serving. The beef balls were steamed for 20 minutes. They still had that pink tinge inside. This came up in the China and Chinese cuisine before: Why do the meatballs stay pink no matter how long they are steamed!? Jo-mel thought maybe the cilantro was the culprit. I liked cilantro A LOT, so it got to stay ;-) The meatballs were bouncy and chewy, as dim sum meatballs should be. Kept these warm in the oven while the har gow and sui mai were steaming. I zapped the already steamed baos and sticky rice in the microwave. Hubby picked up the wrong gage strings last night. This is what happens when you try to find the “freshest” from the back of the rack While downtown, he picked up “deep fried devils”, Chinese long donuts, yow tieu? for the congee. I really appreciate the Real Canadian Superstore for carrying this item. Now, if they’d just bring back the egg custard tarts! Drank pots of Oolong tea with lunch. One of my Taiwanese student’s family is in the tea business. He gave me a gift when he returned home.His last words were “Anytime, Teacher, you need tea, e-mail me”! The whole band was here now, so it was “going over the song list” once more. China-Li was trying to keep her harp in tune. High humidity plays havoc with her strings. Then it was: I need a new 9-volt battery for my electronic bagpipes! Scramble, scramble through a multitude of drawers . . . At the end of the session, Adrenolin was pumping and we headed off to the fair grounds, where the festival was held. Our show was titled “A Folk Odyssey” . . . Celtic, Canadian folk and cowboy songs, Aboriginal, Appalachian, bluegrass, blues to gospel . . . as mixed up as some of my cooking! Supper was in the performers hospitality tent. I didn’t need to cook for the first time this week! There were BBQ burgers, hot dogs, vegetarian items that I didn’t get to, trays of fresh vegetables and dip, fruit, a huge tray of apple crisp, various cakes and cookies, coffee, tea, etc. My camera was already filled with pictures, so no pictures of the food here. The festival ended shortly after midnight. China was volunteering with the St. John’s Ambulance First Aid Brigade until midnight, and then she dropped me off and headed for her midnight to 8 a.m. shift as an attendant in a group home. I crashed. The guys went to an after-show bonfire at a country home. They are still in bed, so breakfast will be brunch before heading out for our 2nd show at 1 p.m. Bill and I are on stage with two other couples. It’s a workshop, Musical Partners, Musical Friends. Bill and I will have been partners for 38 years this August 29th. What’s for supper? Ummmmm…Let me think about that. I DO know that two cakes need to be baked and decorated by tomorrow. One is for my school’s Administrative Assistant’s birthday, and one for the little boy next door.

Sneaking in another few minutes before leaving for warm-up practise, at drummer's house today. Jake: Mitsu is quite unusual . . . plays a mean five strings and sings too! He also brought his congas and various percussion instruments. We've jammed several times but he is not a full time member of our family band. Daughter is just going over her pieces with her brother on the Celtic drum (bohran). He drove in from Red Lake, Ontario late last night to make the gig. (8 hour drive) I am trying to put the kitchen back to order before I leave Breakfast was quick this morning. Grabbed acouple slices of toast, smothered with crunchy peanut butter and a marvelous marmalade. The marmalade was from an elderly friend, a war bride from England. The recipe has been in her family for years. I haven't made any but if anyone is interested, I will post the recipe later. Lunch was various dim sum items and silkened chicken congee. Will add details perhaps after our show this evening.

jo-mel: You can say " Siang tiu" which means in one piece... or " mm ho tsee" don't cut! When I buy crispy pork (siu jook) it is really hard to keep all hands off the crispy parts!

Well, supper was a bit of a rush as rehearsal for tomorrow's show was called for 8 p.m. Good thing I had the salmon with all the fixings preped and waiting in the fridge. I tend to forget time when I am making stuff Instead of our usual jasmin rice, I cooked basmati, and steamed some asparagus. To prevent the banana leaf from burning, I placed the salmon bundles on top of foil on the BBQ. Thirty minutes over medium flame, it was ready to eat! I just drizzled melted butter on the asparagus and added a sprinkle of coarse salt. Diet Sprite worked well with fish Didn't get as much done as I wanted 'cos the phone kept ringing! I do have a cookie sheet full of beef meatballs. Made some sweet 'n' sour chicken drumettes from a Canadian cookbook series called Best of Bridge. I already had sticky rice in lotus leaf and bao in the freezer. Perhaps with some congee, this will suffice for lunch tomorrow. Got home about half an hour ago. Having acouple of homemade old fashioned oatmeal, pecan and cranberry cookies with a glass of milk while we wait for our Japanese five-string bluegrass banjo player, Mitsu, to arrive. Will probably run over his feature numbers before heading off to bed. Daughter China will be playing Celtic harp and electronic bagpipes on the show. Guess we'll go over her slections when she gets home from her midnight to 8 a.m. shift! Until tomorrow . . .

Apologies for no-show posts from last night. Have pics but need text. Schedule's a bit cramped at the moment . . . doing interpretor job via 3 way phone with American company this morning, as well as trying to get stuff ready for lunch . . . as well as rehearsing with daughter and the gang. Will catch up when I get a "clear window" later. Sorry

Jason, Here's the recipe I used when I had the restaurant. Now, I make up five lbs each time, and portion it into Ziplock freezer bags. I pat each bag of meat flat so it is thin and will thaw quickly. I order the ground pork from a local butcher who was my supplier. The pork has 15% fat content. The shrimp and waterchestnuts used to be hand-chopped with 2 cleavers. My son was a whiz at that. It was my daughter's job to get her hands into the tub of cold meat and fixings and get it all mixed up thoroughly. She's quite happy to have lost that job. 40 lbs. lean ground pork, one commercial size can of sliced waterchestnuts, 5 lb box of small shelled and deveined uncooked shrimp. Seasoning: Using a Chinese porcelain soup spoon: 7 spoons of sugar, 10 spoons of salt (same for MSG option), 2 spoons white ground pepper, 7 spoons EACH of oyster sauce, sesame oil, soya sauce for colour, 1/4 cup veg. oil, about 1/2 cup of cold water. Work the mixture for a few minutes with your hands. This produces a really nice texture and makes sure the seasonings are well distributed. These days I use my KitchenAid with the paddles to do the mixing. To test the seasoning, put a small ball of meat in a bowl. Add acouple tbsps. of water, cover with platic film and microwave for about 15 seconds. Taste and adjust if needed. When I make war wonton soup, I sometimes put a small shrimp inside the dollop of meat. This mixture can also be used for sui mai if I don't have time to make plain pork filling. I may add a bit more water and beat it again for a more "elastic" texture ... not sure if that is the right description for the texture.

Jenny, Yup, I make my own pie crust,, but I have been known to use frozen shells from the store. I use the old Crisco shortening recipe: 4.5 cups flour (less than what they say), 1 block of Crisco, 3/4 cup ice cold water, 1 tbsp vinegar, one egg beaten and salt. Jo-mel, Atticus (Atti, Woofie, Muffin, Snowball) is very polite when it comes to human food. Whenever we are eating, he sits, usually beside Bill as he is easily swayed, waiting patiently. He drools something fierce, and belches until he gets his morsel. You can come and visit anytime, jo-mel. I know you can teach me quite a few things about Chinese cooking! Phaelon: Thanks for the compliment! I have a great camera and sidekick to help with the pictures. Ben: I'll guard the rest of the joong until you get here. Jason: I will post the recipe for my wontons. You might have to scale it down a bit. :

Day 2: Here we go again! Slept through a refreshing early morning rain, which hasn't stopped! Good thing we are performing at the Folk Festival on Saturday and Sunday and not today. While my coffee was brewing, I drove downtown to pick up China-Li, our daughter, from one of her three medicine-related summer jobs. She worked from midnight to 8 this morning. As it was still raining, we demolished the last couple of pieces of banana cream pie for breakfast. Took a bit of time to check out and respond to the queries regarding yesterday's lunch entry. Packed China her "crunchy lunch" of chicken and greens sandwich, fresh cauliflower, celery sticks, sweet pepper, and Babybel cheese. For dessert, there's a leftover biscuit from last night with mixed berry jam and grapes. She then left for her day job at the city hospital. Bill and I processed the pictures and posted yesterday's supper log. It's now mid-afternoon. I have ground beef marinating for tomorrow's dim sum meat balls. The fresh Shanghai noodles are cooked and cooling. By now, we were in need of sustanence. No time to cook for lunch, so I pulled some frozen joong (sticky rice in bamboo leaves) from the freezer. My Mom and I made 200 of these packets this summer. http://www.angelfire.com/trek/erbmuseum/soos/ Bill and I devoured one each, along with some Dragon tea.This tea was brought back from China by a friend who went on a qi-gong tour. It was light and went well with the savory joong and chili oil. Hubby is itching to go buy new guitar strings and check in at the festival for our passes. So, I'd better get the pictures done up and post this! Now, onto preparing shrimp dumplings, BBQ pork bao, sui mai, curry chicken in puff pastry. For supper tonight, we are having lemongrass/cilantro/lime salmon, and something else . . .

What a challenging task! I am the blogger for the week, started yesterday, running until next Wed. Take a peek ... in General Food Topics

We have to drive 2.5 hours to Winnipeg to buy our BBQ duck, sui yook, etc. Even tho' we keep everything in a cooler, the smell gets thru' to the nostrils. Do you think we'd leave it untouched until we get home! That's why we keep WetOnes in the car.

Day One continued . . . I needed a nap after my wonton soup but Dejah's kitchen had hungry family to feed for supper. Most of my postings in Egullet have been in the China and Chinese Cuisine Forum. As mentioned in one of the threads, I am a lo wah kiu . . a Chinese immigrant who's been here a long time. Our family's involvement with food began with my paternal grandfather, who worked as a cook (on the CPR railroad crew). Later, working as the cook for the first water commissioner of Winnipeg (Manitoba's capital city), he saved enough money to buy himself a little hotel and restaurant in the small village of Newdale. My dad joined him from China when he was 16 years old. They didn't serve any Chinese food at that time . . . just good hearty prairie fare, translated to mean meat and potatoes! Newdale was well known by many avid duck hunters . . . especially our American neighbours to the south. Clark Gable was said to have been a frequent visitor. During hunting season, Dad always had a big pot of stew, made with beef short ribs, big chunks of vegetables and buttermilk biscuits. It remains one of our favorite comfort foods. So, as requested by my sister, who doesn't do much Canadian cooking, I spent my afternoon cooking stew, biscuits, and another of my Dad's signature dishes -- home-made banana cream pie. For the stew, I used beef short ribs and brisket point. Stew never seems to taste as good without the fat and the bones. The meat is seasoned with salt, pepper and flour, then browned in my stew pot. While the meat waited patiently in a pan, I browned chunks of onion, celery and carrots in all that gooey stuff on the bottom. The meat went back into the pot, with enough beef stock (made from leftover roast beef, au jus, and rib bones) to cover. To this, I threw in bay leaves, 4-peppercorn steak spice, and about 1/4 cup of Italian herb blend. Brought this to a boil for about half an hour, then transferred everything to my big trusty old stainless steel roaster. This concoction "stewed" in the oven at about 300F for acouple hours. About 45 minutes before supper, I added new potatoes, more carrots and celery. It went back into the oven, without the cover. While waiting for the stew, I mixed up 3 batches of the buttermilk biscuit recipe. Once the roaster came out, I popped in 12 biscuits at a time. They were ready by the time everyone (14 adults 3 kiddies) came to the table. We're not really knowledgeable about wines, but we did have acouple bottles of Australian Wolf Blass Pinot Noir which went well with the stew. Oh, we also had peaches and cream corn on the cob. The West-Coasties liked their corn with lime juice and crushed peppers! Even Atticus, our Great Pyrenees dog, got into the act. Someone slipped him a verboten cob of corn -- he never turns down "human food." Any under-the-table contraband is a welcome change from his usual Pedigree "rice and lamb" pellets for sensitive stomachs. Also made banana cream pies in the afternoon. I was supposed to hand whip the cream like Dad did, but my Kitchen Aid insisted on helping. Hubby then dashed off for rehearsal with a Christian rock band, getting ready for Faith Festival on September long weekend. Knowing his religious inclinations, it must be his musical talent that prompted them to select him as lead guitarist for the gig. Tomorrow's schedule will be making dim sum and food for Saturday's crew. My head is spinning!

Good Morning! Thanks for all the encouraging comments . Damn nervous about doing this blog after reading the incredible ones that went before. Just getting last night's supper entry to post. I got home too late from chauffering duties to process pictures. To answer a couple questions first: Johnnyd and Laska: "Is that a dollop of chilli/sambal on top of the wontons? I can't tell but those look like fresh noodles? Store-bought or home-made? Shrimp egg noodles? I'm unfamiliar with those." That dollop is a mah la oil I made, crushed chili peppers, veg oil, garlic and shallots. One of my Vietnamess friends showed me how. It packs a wallop The noodles are store bought, at our local Superstore. Saves a lot of time, and really quite good. For the Soo's archived link, we used a Sony Mavica. It has since died. I am using a h/p 5.3MP now. My hubby Bill is the whiz on the computer. He processes and trims down the pictures for me. For that, he gets fed well What else but Tim Horton's would you drink in a rural hockey city? My grandson love TimBits...I love their honey cruellers.

FOOD! GLORIOUS FOOD! The word "BLOG" is a familiar one in our house. My hubby Bill, is a prof. in the Faculty of Education, and "blogging" is one of the requirements for his Communications and Computer technology courses. But, I have never been involved in blogs until this invitation...and this sounds much tastier! Thanks for the opportunity. Life is much more relaxed now that we have retired from the restaurant biz. http://home.westman.wave.ca/~hillmans/soosera.html Since 2002, I have been teaching half time at our university in the EAP program with international students. This leaves me the rest of the day to cook . . . what else? Brandon is a rural city of 44,000. Dining out does not include gourmet meals, tasting menus, etc. Until I found Egullet, a tasting menu was a 9 or 11 course Chinese banquet, complete with a 26 oz. bottle of Crown Royal ;-) My cooking these days involve learning traditional family recipes from my 95-year-old mother, pulling out old recipes from pre-Soo's Restaurant days, and trying out ideas from Egullet and my overflowing collection of cookbooks. This week will be a hectic one for blogging. My sister and family are visiting from Burnaby, B.C. so lots of food will be involved. On top of that, hubby, our kids and myself are performing Saturday and Sunday at the celebration of the 20th anniversary of the Brandon Folk Music & Crafts Festival. We will have out of town musical guests . . . so more food! Good thing I am on summer vacation this month. DAY ONE I love my mornings. When university is in session, I am up at 5 a.m. so I could do my prep. while the house is quiet. These days, I can sleep in until 6 a.m. I take our daughter to work at her summer job at the hospital, then I get to relax with my breakfast and 2nd cup of coffee. Today, I sat out on the deck with a cup of Tim Horton's brew-at-home with Coffee Rich creamer, 2 slices of toast with my home made peach/apricot/pineapple conserve. I love this stuff on toast, ice cream or just by itself as a snack. The recipe is one handed down by hubby's Nana Campbell. She even used bits of apricot pits in her recipe! It added a touch of crunchy bitterness to the sweet and tang of the fruit, but not enough arsenic to topple us. For lunch, my daughter packed a roll-up made with whole wheat tortillia, poached chicken breast, a handful of spring greens with raspberry vinegrette, shredded carrot and juilenne cukes. At home, we had wonton soup with shrimp egg noodles, Shanghai bok choy, shrimp and lap cheung.

Wife's Cake picture and description: http://chinesefood.about.com/library/blphotowifecake.htm

Wife's cake is sweetened wintermelon paste encased in a flakey layered pastry, like the ones on pai dan so.

Black bean sauce is fermented black beans, mashed and blended with soya sauce. I find it too salty, and don't care for the flavour. I prefer to mash my own soaked and rinsed dried black beans...or blend my own "sauce" with water. Black beans in the prepared sauces are too fine to be rinsed.

I use a recipe from About.com as a base. http://chinesefood.about.com/library/blrecipe053.htm