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About liuzhou
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Liuzhou, Guangxi, China
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I've gone all Sino-Thai-Caledonian with a plate of a Scottish classic - stovies. Made with minced beef and Chinese celery, potatoes, Thai fish sauce and hispi cabbage. I added black pepper after taking the photo. HP Sauce would have been better but I don't have any.
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A pictorial guide to Chinese cooking ingredients
liuzhou replied to a topic in China: Cooking & Baking
So associated with China is rice, especially in the south, that it would be forgivable to think that's the only grain used. However, it couldn't be more wrong. The grains on offer in any supermarket outstrip anything I've ever seen in any western supermarket. One of the most important is 高粱 (gāo liáng), Sorghum vulgare, sorghum. The name is derived from Latin. There are four main types of sorghum: forage, biomass, sweet sorghum, and grain sorghum. The name 'milo' is often used to refer to sorghum, especially in America but technically only means the last named, grain sorghum, Sorfhum bicolor. Grain sorghum originated in Africa and the milo name is derived from the Sotho, mailo. The first two sorghum varieties above are used as animal feed and fuel with only the last two normally being consumed by humans. Sweet sorghum is also called cane sorghum or Chinese sugar cane. It is the source of sorghum syrup aka sorghum molasses. Grain sorghum can be made into a gluten-free flour (sometimes called jowar or jawar flour - from the Hindi name जवार (jawar)). Grain sorghum In China, sorghum is important in three main applications. 1) 白酒 (bái jiǔ). This is China's favourite liquor and the best brands are made from sorghum. China's semi-official national drink S:贵州茅台; T: 貴州茅臺 (guì zhōu máo tái) is a type of baijiu made in the town of Maotai in Guizhou province. It is one of only two products allowed to keep the old pre-Mao transliteration - Kweichow Moutai. (The other is Tsingtao beer from Qingdao, the modern spelling.) This Maotai baijiu is served at state banquets and gifted to foreign leaders etc. It was used in 1972 by Mao to toast Nixon at their historic summit. A half litre bottle of their premium edition (S: 飞天; T: 飛天 - fēi tiān, flying fairy) will set you back around $350 USD. An aged bottle much more. The record was set in 2011 when a single bottle of a 1935 Kweichow Moutai sold for $1.55 million. Unlike lesser baijiu producers who use a mix of fermented sorghum and wheat, Moutai only uses sorghum. 2) 陕西陈醋 (shǎn xī chén cù), Shanxi Aged Vinegar This black vinegar is China's most popular and is made primarily from sorghum. See above where Chinese vinegars are discussed. 3) Cooked sorghum is eaten directly, usually as 高粱粥 (gāo liáng zhōu), sorghum congee or in mixed grain congee. Only rarely is it served with other dishes as a rice substitute. Sorghum congee -
A pictorial guide to Chinese cooking ingredients
liuzhou replied to a topic in China: Cooking & Baking
American ginseng is Panax quinquefolius but, although the chemical composition is different from Asian ginseng in some ways neither have been proved scientifically to have any medical benefit. They both taste of nothing so no culinary benefit or difference, either. American ginseng is imported to China and is expensive. I know thing about Indian ginseng. -
Yes. Very. In fact, almost always. Certainly the ginger. The pork component is usually an unsmoked ham. When I do make an elevated Chinese stock I like to use Jinhua ham but for everyday stock skip that part.
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I spent hours yesterday making chicken stock in my two slow cookers from carcasses supplemented with chicken's feet, onion, dried shiitake, Chinese celery and carrot. Feet and carcass in one slow cooker Chinese celery Chilled it overnight and woke to 4 litres of beautifully jellified stock with a thin layer of chicken fat which I lifted off and reserved. Most of the stock is now in the freezer. My fridge's gift for me this morning This evening, I poached a couple of chicken thighs in some of the stock, stripped off the meat from the bones and returned it to the stock. I then par-fried some matsutake and bolete and added them to my soup. Served that to myself for dinner with some baguette. The soup was, I think, one of the best I've made (although there are no witnesses). Very tasty stock and well, matsutake and boletes. Can't lose. As usual for me, the photo doesn't do it justice. Now thinking about my freezerful of chicken stock and tomorrow.
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A pictorial guide to Chinese cooking ingredients
liuzhou replied to a topic in China: Cooking & Baking
S: 无花果; T: 無花果 (wú huā guǒ, literally 'no flower fruit'), Ficus microcarpa, figs are somewhat misnamed; although you might not see flowers, they are hiding somewhere there. This article explains. https://www.edisonfordwinterestates.org/have-you-seen-the-flower-of-a-ficus-tree/ Figs are sold here fresh in season, but also dried year round. They are used in TCM but what isn't? Figs are supposed to be beneficial for grating lung ailments and coughs. Need I add there is little, if any scientific evidence behind the claims? Dried figs The main culinary use apart from as a table fruit is the dried fruit in a fig soup with pork. This is considered to be both delicious but also a healthful tonic. According to: http://thechinesesouplady.com/string-figs-dried/ dried fruits should be washed in COLD water before using in the soup to avoid them being sour. Not a problem I've encountered and I don't understand the science behind that. We also get these slivers of dried fig to eat as a snack, but also to add to soups and tonic teas or tisanes. -
A pictorial guide to Chinese cooking ingredients
liuzhou replied to a topic in China: Cooking & Baking
I'm sure what you fancy for dinner tonight are some "small nonvascular plants with spores and gametophytes"*. Luckily, Chinese cuisine has you covered. S: 发菜; T: 髮菜 (fà cài) (Cantonese: fat choy), Nostoc flagelliforme is known in English as long thread moss, edible black moss or hair moss (the literal translation of the Chinese). This terrestrial algae is particularly popular at Chinese New Year, not for any culinary reason but a linguistic one. The names is a near homophone of the last two characters of the New Year greeting 恭喜发财 (Mandarin: gōng xǐ fā cái; Cantonese: gong hei fat choy) meaning 'to become prosperous'. ** Until recently, this was harvested in the Gobi Desert and on the Qingdao plateau. Due to overharvesting this has now been banned almost everywhere in China only minimal production being permitted. This has led to price increases and a lot of fake moss being sold although it's not difficult to spot the fakes. The real deal is a dark bluish-green whereas the fakes are pure black. It is also produced in Vietnam, which hasn't banned it, so far as I can determine. In Vietnamese it is tóc thiên (literally 'angel hair'). Wherever it comes from, it comes cleaned and dried. When rehydrated, it visually resembles long vermicelli If you do get hold of it, a great way to use it is with dried oysters. A search for 'oysters with fat choy' will turn up recipes. It has an affinity with mushrooms and dried scallops and is used in soups and hotpot. Dried moss, dried shiitake, dried oysters, dried scallops But perhaps the best known dish for CNY is Buddha's Delight, a dish for which there are as many recipes as there are Buddhists. You could start here: https://www.adayinthekitchen.com/buddhas-delight/ * Encyclopedia Brittanica ** Actually, this is nowhere near the most common CNY greeting. S: 新年快乐; T: 新年快樂 (Mand: xīn nián kuài lè; Cant: sun nin fai lok.) -
I just read this comment in response to an article on a certain internet food site. "I often ate lotus seeds growing up in congee..." Was the writer growing up in congee or the lotus seeds?
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Rice flower carp, S: 禾花鱼; T: 禾花魚 (hé huā yú), Cyprinus carpio is farmed in the rice paddies of southern China and SE Asia. The fish are not only a crop but act as insecticides by eating the bugs and also fertilise the rice with their waste. Dongfried rice flower carp Most of the farmers are from China's ethnic minorities, around here the Miao and Dong peoples and they have developed delicious recipes to utilize them. Miao steamed rice flower carp fillets.
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Search the internet for Chinese lettuce and that's what you'll see. Not the cabbage I posted yesterday.
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Shaggy manes are on sale in every supermarket here. Known as 鸡腿菇 (jī tuǐ gū) or “chicken leg mushrooms”, they are very popular.
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Chinese lettuce is usually this. AKA , celery lettuce, asparagus lettuce, sword lettuce or A-choy. Different species. Lactuca sativa var. asparagina.
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Gyngawdry and Tavorsay I've been seeing these in my local supermarket for years and wondering what I could do with them. They are the Iivers of some unidentified species of fish. Then, yesterday, I remembered two recipes. The first is for gyngawdry, sometimes spelled gyngawtre. Not that it's spelled often. It was first found in writing in 1390 and hasn't been found any later than around 1450, other than in works by other writers, nearly all historians, quoting the 1390 book. The 1390 reference is from The Forme of Cury by the Chief Master-Cook of King Richard II of England, the oldest English language cookbook we know of. 'Cury' is an old form of 'cookery' from the Latin, curia. Nothing to do with 'curry'. GYNGAWDRY "Take the powche and the lyver of haddok, codlyng and hake and of oother fisshe, parboil them, take them and dice them small, take of the self broth and wine, a layour of bread of galyntyne with good powders and salt, cast that fysshe therein and boile it. & do thereto amydoun and colour it grene." The Forme of Cury - PD That the dish disappeared a mere 60 years after its debut is not encouraging, although it lasted longer than Richard, who was forced to abdicate in 1399 and was executed by Henry IV on Valentine's Day, 1400 at the age of 33. The fate of his cook is unreported. Anyway, although I don't know what the species is in my supermarket, I'm totally sure it isn't haddock, cod or hake. I move on TAVORSAY Tavorsay has even fewer mentions only being referenced once - in 1450, just as gyngawdry makes its last appearance in the same document. It does have a clearer description though. "Tauorsay: Nym ye hed of ye codling & ye liuere, & like out ye bones. Cast therto goud poudre of piper & gyngiur and gif forth." Cod head and liver with spices including pepper and ginger. Cod I can get here although not with livers intact. Fish head soup is popular here but is made from bighead carp, not cod. Hmmm. No fish livers in my immediate future, it seems.
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The article says false morels have been ruled out.
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This is what I think of as 'pointy head' cabbage. It is a cultivar of Napa cabbage called 请碼白菜 (qīng má bái cài), literally 'green hemp* cabbage' in Chinese. Whether it's what you are talking about, I don't know. *or 'green sesame'