Dejah

Should it be "Pai Dan So"? "So" means crispy skin (made of flour and butter mostly). "Gow" means cake usually. I am familiar with Pai Dan So. What does Pai Dan Gow taste like? hzrt8w: You are correct. Pai dan so...of course! Should I have another piece for dessert right now? or Wife's cake?

Last night, (because I couldn't wait until today!) I had Wife's Cake and Pai Dan Gow for late night snack. My neice arrived from Burnaby laddened with boxes of pastries from Kam Do Restaurant and Bakery Ltd. of Richmond, B.C.

I usually brown any meat that goes into braised/stewed dishes first...adds nice flavour and a bit of "browning". I do this when I made a large casserol of black bean garlic spareribs. Once the ribs are browned, I drain off the excess fat. The smashed garlic and ginger is cooked first, then add the black beans before returning the ribs to the pot. To this, I add pork stock to cover, and some black beans that I previously blended with some water. This really adds to the flavour and colour without adding soya sauce. I boil this mixture for about 20 minutes, then thicken with a half cornstarch and half flour slurry. This prevents the sauce from breaking down when you do the next step. The whole lot is poured into a cast iron casserol dish. Put the lid on, into the oven at 350F for an hour. When ready, the meat is full of flavour, tender and ready to put over large mounds of fluffy rice...LOTS of rice! I agree with Ben about the hot wok/cold oil method. This is especially true if you rinse your wok between ingredients. This ensures there is no moisture left on your wok...so no surprise splatters when you add the oil. Mom said that if you salt your oil before the ingredients, this will also prevent splatters, especially if you are adding freshly washed and drained vegetables.

Gou qi soup is like rhubarb...the first treats from the garden for me. Gou qi is a perennial. Before guy choi, spinach, melons, etc is ready for soup, gou qi is. It always helps when the older "aunties" in the city bring you bags of the leaves, cleaned and ready to use. Gou qi zi is also the last soup harevst from the garden.

I like my watermelon au naturel as well. My older relatives seem to like salt to "enhance the sweetness" of the melon. Anyone know how to cook the white part of watermelon rinds? I remember eating it but can't remember how or with what it was cooked ? I love Chinese pomelo rind (goo look pei) that had been soaking in soya sauce... thinly sliced and steamed on top of pork.

I know what I will be snacking on tonight...gai jai bang...those little chewy cookie things with nam yu in the middle. My sister just came in from Burnaby, B.C. with a suitcase full of goodies. I have beside me, nam yu peanuts, candied ginger and of course the cookies mentioned above. She also brought me lots of dried goods, for making soups. I have just found out what one of the items I use all the time is called in English. At least, this is what is written on the package " fragrant solomonseal rhizome". Also, I got lotus nuts, Chinese almonds, shittake mushrooms, and several other soup ingredients. Back to the topic on hand...midnight snacks: I love having leftover soup or vegetables from supper as my midnight snack.

I have a gou qi zi shrub in my garden and it is always loaded with plump red berries by late summer. Used to pick them and air dry for later use in soups, but mostly, I like to make soup with freshly picked berries, with a clear pork broth. My daughter likes to eat them fresh off the bush. If you air dry the fresh berries, they will stay red. You must pick them WITH the stem intact. I didn't know that you can use the leaves from the gou qi zi shrub for soup. There is one kind where I use the leaves for soup, just called gou qi. The leaves on the qi zi bush are longer and more slender. The soup gou qi are more rounded. I cut the individual stalks, run my hand in the opposite direction the leaves grow, then stick the stalks back into the ground for next year. These have never developed into bushes. I love the soup with salted egg swirled in it... gou gai dan fa tong!

Funny how the bitterness can be refreshing. I find that whenever I make soup with bitter melon...Bitter followed by a cool and refreshing sensation.

lap cheung bao! This always works when I run out of char sui

I enjoy the grass jelly drink, but hate the struggle to get the" last chunk"from the can... One of my Chinese students brought grass jelly to a potluck supper. It was cut into chunks and swimming in a mixture of diluted sweet condensed milk. I prefer it ice cold in a light sugar syrup. 仙草 I believe the second character is "grass"? There is another "jelly" that I love...called agar agar. Can't remember for the life of me, at this moment, what it is called in Chinese. It is like Jello, except it is clear, and often has egg swirled in it with sesame sprinkled on top.

Gary, I'll take your wife's advice on that! That would save me acouple hours of work. Just don't tell my Mom. We were at an 11 course Chinese wedding banquet last night. The final dish before dessert was fried rice in lotus leave. The leave was mainly for presentation. The fried rice had egg cooked in the rice, Chinese mushrooms, peas. It was then wrapped in a large leave and cut on top to look like a lotus flower.

The joong I made were with bamboo leaves. They average around 3.5 to 4" wide and about 18" long. You'd have to soak and then boil these to soften them up before use. The banana leaves I have were cut into big squares, about 12" x 14". The original leave would be much bigger of course. I have never made joong with banana leaves, just for steaming fish.

I think it may be "xiao luobo" (not to be confused with "xiao laopo"). ...perhaps hung lo bak jie? for the little red salad radishes. Regardless of what they SHOULD be called, I am, at this moment, making savory cake with those big, long white suckers.

Oh Man! That looks SOOOOOOOOOOO GOOD! I must try fo yu as a marinate component. Whenever I've eaten in restaurants, they use a "sweet soya" on spring onion crispy chicken and cheung fun. Any suggestions on brands? I haven't found one yet

Shiewie and Yetti, Could you post your recipes for the jongzi you each mentioned in your posts. This would be a great way for us to, as lorea said" One of these days, I'm going to go beyond my comfortable favorites (glutinous rice, fatty pork, and shiitake mushrooms....or using Yo Fan as a filling) and try something new."

Spaghettti, Can you take pictures when you make the jongzi with your mom? I have a friend from Indonesia. She would love to see your work with your mom. I made some jongzi for her, with duck, mushrooms, shrimp, peanuts, salted egg yolk and onions.Called me last night to say she only had one left... For your dad's, after parboiling, how long would you boil the jongzi? Actually, I like the shape of the ones you showed. They could be done much quicker! With the no mai gai ( sticky rice in lotus leaves), I cook the rice completely, cook the filling, then wrap it all together. These only require steaming for 20 minutes to "set" everything.

Thanks Gary. More gadgets for my kitchen!

Pandan leaves, are these available in some form in N.A.? Haven't made zongzi with just regular rice for a long time. I used to boil these for 3 hours. Even then, they don't have that silky texture that glutinous rice developes. The rice stuck together fine. I just boil everything 2.5 hours. Once, my staff forgot to watch the clock and boiled the zongzi for 4 hours. The rice was still intact but lost some of that "chewiness" . The peanuts weren't mushy tho'. Spaghettti, is the meat in whole pieces or ground? Do you cook the filling before putting it in the zongzi?

hzrt8w: Dejah: I think the "almond flavoured silken dofu fa available in stores, especially some have mango or peach flavors" are not dofu fa. They are almond jello, made from gelatin. The ones sold in Superstore are definitely dofu...I used to make the almond jelly for the restaurant when dofu fa wasn't available. The customers liked to eat it with fruit cocktail, not fresh fruit but canned fruit!

Ooooooooooooooooo I remember those big wooden vats...The vendor used this special paddle and "sliced" slabs of dofu fa into your bowl...drizzle the syrup on top. Some like to stir all that up, I like to spoon up a chunk of dofu..then dip my spoon to let some of the syrup float around the dofu fa, then into my mouth! I kinda like the almond flavoured silken dofu fa available in stores now. Don't care much for the mango or peach flavoured ones.

I look forward to mooncakes. Guess you can call me a "poor wretche" 'cos I usually search out the double yolk ones. Superstore usually carries the tins of 4 large cakes or 8 small ones. A week after the festival date, they usually go on sale...so I buy more and put them in the freezer. Only one of my 3 kids enjoy them, except for the egg yolk. I remember my mom used to make them herself, in the late 50sn when they were not available. Saw Chef Michael Smith do an episode on Chef At Large, in Vancouver. He visited a Chinese cooking school where the students were learning how to make moon cakes. I'd love to get my hands on some of those "shape paddles". Mom used a salmon tin.

Revival of this thread prompted me to make congee for lunch today. 9 am Started the big pot boiling with a fresh chicken carcass, big slices of ginger and jasmine rice (didn't measure). I let that boil for about 15 minutes, then turned the heat down to medium for about half an hour. Had some errands to run, so turned the stove down to low to let the congee simmer. I got back around 11:30 with long donuts and fresh cilantro in hand. Had some fresh pickerel, so I sliced that up, along with some fresh chicken breast. These were silkened with veg oil, cornstarch, a little salt and added to the congee when it came back to a boil. The texture of the congee was definitely creamy. To serve, we had little dishes of light soya sauce mixed with chopped cilantro, sesame oil, fresh ground pepper. I like to eat my congee with the added crunch of chili radish in sesame oil. The congee had bite and we could still taste the delicate pickerel slices and chicken. When I was last in the city, I bought packages of "instant" natural jelly fish. The one I tried today was chili vinegar seasoning. Hubby asked why I enjoy eating "Chinese rubber bands!"

Gary wrote: Were they round? Yes, round and white.

I went digging in freezer and pulled out a package of wrappers, specifically called Wonton Wrappers. These are of wheat flour and egg. I also have a package labelled Shanghai Dumpling Wrappers. These do not have egg, just water, flour and a food preservative. Gary, are Shanghai dumplings a familiar term, and are they like Cantonese soup wontons? Or, are they jiaozi, boiled, with water added each time the pot comes to a boil? I have only mades these once, when we had a Chinese professor from Nanjing at our house. We made the wrappers and used ground pork and sui choy for the filling. We ate these with dipping sauces. I just picked these commercial wrappers up thinking they are for jiaozi... These are definitely white.

My non-Chinese hubby always says that the twisted shape my mom makes taste better I make them all with the same ingredients, so it may be psychological or downright flattery! I microwave mine untied but still wrapped. Once in a while, I cook it too long and a thin outer layer gets chewy, the inside steaming good!