Yuki

Tong yuan symbolizes togetherness so it is common to eat at wedding. Since they are also very sticky, it means the couple will stay(stick) together.

I like the combination of mayo and corn, they are common in western style bun in Hong Kong. What is better than a fluffy bun with almost melting mayo, corn, and ham? Is corn soup like a cream shop or more like the texture of creamed corn? The version I know is like really thin creamed corn and my mom likes to crack an egg in it..........

What is the most popular combination in Japan? I would imagine anything with corn and mayo should be popular.... I like the sicilian on the site and wish they offer eggplant in the local pizza hut. I remember the seafood pizza in Hong Kong had some kind of thousand island sauce on it, it was so good.

Yuki: next time you go to eat at a dim sum restaurant, just save one piece of every dim sum dish that you have ordered. Take them home and freeze them. Then you can have your variety at home! LOL ← Well, although I like the variety but my stomach usually can not house that many food. Today, I had dim sum with my aunt and we ordered 10 dim sum for 4 people. I thought we didn't order enough but it was more than enough food..... My mom told me about my bad habit of always getting hungry really fast but when the food come, I will only take a couple bite. They should get some dim sum restaurant here that serve two pieces of dim sum per dish. How am I going to finish 4 pieces of shu mai with my sister?

The most common frozen dim sum in my house is probably is the bun with vegetable fillings. Also, I get the fish shumai which I steam and add a mixtures of hot sauce, soya sauce, and sesame oil. Anyways, fish shumai is not something that is available in restaurant, it is like a street food. Anyways, if I want dim sum then I would go to a restaurant to get them. The problem is not so much with the quality of dim sum but the variety of them. I want to see lots of food flowing around. It is not fun to eat dim sum at home with only 4-5 types of them.

I got a pasta machine already but there should be more coming... Also got my delivery from Hong Kong - Curry block and black sesame peanut candy from Macau - new kind of noodles from Japan and Korea - 30 dried abalone (my aunt have been drying them for at least 7 years now so they are all ready for cooking) - more of my favourite junk food

An interesting point to note: Many people in Asian cultures like to eat jelly with a spoon, as if it were a dessert, and not a condiment. I had a couple of boyfriends from China and Vietnam who would actually grab the jelly jar out of the fridge and just eat it. And if you visit Asian groceries frequently, you'll see many jelly desserts in individual serving packages, which are meant to be spooned up and eaten straight. And these aren't thick, chunky fruit preserves either. Now, I don't find anything wrong with that, though I don't eat jelly that way. I really enjoy meeting people from different cultures and noticing the differences in eating habits. But this one seems sort of interesting, as it could make a trip to IHOP very advantageous, since there's a dispenser with a bounty of free dessert packets on every table. And I'd say this is one of many examples where Asians certainly get their recommended daily allowance of sugar. ← Are you talking about jelly as in like grape jelly for spreading on bread? The only individual portion thing I know that resembles jelly is jello........ There are grape jelly in individual package but I have never seen anyone eating it straight. Anyways, I know that many Asian do like to add small amount of sugar in their cooking since it balances the flavour. I like to braise pork and mushroom with some brown sugar. But when it comes to dessert time, they find American dessert to be too sweet.

How about dessert ingredients as part of the meal? To this day, I still cannot get used to the idea -- and the habit of my parents -- of cooking rice congee with sweet potatoes, congee with green mung beans, or congee with anything that I normally would only eat in a sweet soup or dessert, and eat them with savory dishes. I wonder if anyone else out there does that. ← is sweet potato considered a dessert item? i think most people eat them with savory foods don't they? (think thanksgiving!) there is a chinese dish of steamed pork ribs in rice powder that are usually steamed with sweet potatoes for a savory/sweet combination called Fen Zheng Pai Gu. i've yet to see any mention of this while searching online. so last month i posted my own recipe <a href="http://www.holyshitake.com/archives/2004/11/steamed_ribs_in_rice_powder_with_sweet_potato.html">here</a> ← Sweet Potato is a dessert food in my house, we make dessert soup with ginger, sweet potato, and sugar. It is also good just roasted.....

I had that ice cream in a chemical engineering presentation in the university. It is not very safe when university students are spraying liquid nitrogen around. I think they didn't try the recipe out before hand so it felt like really watery ice cream.

I am wondering if this is a regional differences. My family is Cantonese and we always serve sweet rice dumplings.

My grandma makes the sweet version with lots of ginger in the soup and the rice balls are filled with black sesame, red bean, and brown sugar. I never tried savoury version with the rice balls. The rest of the dishes are just like normal celebration with whole chicken, whole fishes, bbq meat, stewed mushroom, shrimp and other dishes.

I tried my first Japanese crepe from an amusement park in Tokyo, it was filled with banana, chocolate sauce, and whipped cream. Although anything with mayo is pretty good too....... In the winter, I like the combination of custard and chestnut.

Thai style chicken feet Since it is in Chinese, I made a translation of the recipe Cleaned Boneless Chicken Feet - 1 lb (Shouldn't be a problem if you use boned chicken feet but the cooking time might be different since prepared chicken feet is often cooked already) Green Onion - 1 Garlic - quarter of it onion - half of it Bird Chili - 2 Sauce Fish Sauce - 5 tbsp Sugar - 6 tbsp Lime juice from 1 lime white vinegar - 3 tbsp hot water - 4 tbsp salt - a bit to taste Instruction 1.) Boil the chicken feet for 5 minutes or until it soften a bit 2.) Put the chicken feet in ice water and store in fridge 3.) Meanwhile chop the green onion, garlic, and pepper. The onion should be sliced really thin. 4.) Add the sugar into the water and vinegar. Then add the rest of the ingredients from the sauce ingredients' list. Adjust taste. 5.) Strain the chicken feet really well and add everything in it 6.) Store in the fridge for at least 5 -6 hrs. It is best overnight.

I usually get lots of styrofoam container from restaurant and put all the used oil from the kitchen in them. Also, I wipe the pan with paper tower to absorb any oil before washing them. It is probably not wise to throw a large amount of oil down the sink.

I love jajangmyen, it is a simple dish to prepare. My first experience with jajangmyen was from instant noodles and they are not bad. Now, I just need to buy some black bean paste.....

I like the white one because it is not as soft as the steamed ones, and is more crunchy. Also, I don't really like the strong seasoings on some of the steamed chicken feet(I don't know if it is weird to say that I can't taste the feet with those seasoings.....).

I like the "white cloud"(direct translation) chicken feet in dim sum, it is served cold and I think it is marinated with chili and vinegar. It is also called Thai style chicken feet. There are deboned chicken feet in the market but I would be scare to get them. How did they manage to all those tiny bones out of the feet? There are stories that chicken feet prepared in China is placed in bleach to make them appear more clean and white. Anyways, I am still eating chicken feet but prefer to do them in the privacy of my home. When grandma comes back home, I will ask her to make me a big batch of chicken feet.

I don't know, the food that I can think of is bitter melon and herbal soup. My sister love anything with bitter melon since a kid such as stir fried bitter melon with spare ribs, bitter melon tea, and bitter melon soup...... Also, she would finish my bowl of herbal soup that is usually black and smells terrible. I think her love for such bitter food is weird for even adult. Talking about duck, I travelled to China when I was three. My parents brought a duck from a shop and wanted to devour it after taking a shower in the hotel. When they are finished with the shower, my sister and I ate the entire duck. Is it common for parents to cook a separate meal for children in North Amercia? Most Chinese parents that I know wouldn't do that, the kid will just have to eat what is on the table. Also, I think North America's children are really picky about food.........

Actually, the store would wrap the popsicles for you if you buy over 30 of them. It is just some ice pack and those cool silver bags. We took the taxi from the store to the Macau Harbour, then from the Hong Kong harbour, we got a ride from my counsin. So overall, the trip took around 2 hours.

I had the most amazing taro and coconut ice cream in Macau. It was a recommendation from a taxi driver(I had good and bad experience with them.......). The restaurant only sell ice cream, red bean popsicles and simple food(instant noodles, sandwich with luncheon meat...etc). This is like a restaurant from the 60s and their ice cream really is the best. It is simple, and there is only the traditional ice cream flavour like taro, coconut, chocolate, strawberry, and vanilla. The taro ice cream is a really pale purple color and tasted like pureed taro mixed with cream. The coconut ice cream tasted like really thick coconut milk. For our souvenir, we brought 30 red bean popsicles and took it back to Hong Kong. I tried in making almond tofu this weekend but it tasted so bitter due to excessive amount of almont extract.

I think that if you put enough bones into the soup, it should solidfy when placed into the fridge without any gelatin or aspic. It would be cut into little chunks and mixed into the fillings. Not so sure about the thick soup method, wouldn't it cause the fillings to be too wet?

I made some dumplings yesterday with unusal fillings. It had kabocha(Japanese pumpkin), onion, pork, curry powder, and oyster sauce. Before anyone think I am totally weird, it is actually not that bad of a combination. It was good pan fried and would not recommend steaming/boiling them. I imagine that it would be better if it was deep fried and served with some sour cream. It was kind of like samosa........... I think for my Christmas project, it would be baking more cookies and think of weird fillings for dumplings and other interest items. How does rice ball filled with banana and chocolate sound?

I love eggplant.... actually I used to hate them as a child because they made my tongue really ichy. Favourite way to cook eggplant 1.) Roasted Japanese eggplant with miso 2.) Stir Fried Chinese Eggplant with mapo-tofu like sauce(there is an offical name for it but I don't know its english translation, I know that it contains fish though) 3.) Deep Fried Eggplant on the street is also good with some hot sauce. For some reason, the large eggplant that I got in the western supermarket tasted like water to me(there is no taste). Did I just picked a bad eggplant, used the wrong recipe(baked with Parmesan), or this kind of eggplant just doesn't taste good?

They should get rid of the pork rinds and put this product on the shelf. Is it just like a more crispy version of fresh fried chicken skin?

When I searched on google, it seems like Enchanted Pork might be double cooked pork. I am thinking it might be young garlic shoot or another vegetable that I only know by its chinese name. How thick is the vegetable in width? Is it about the same size as green onion?