liuzhou

Although I can get western type vinegars easily, I do most of my pickles in Chinese white rice wine vinegar which I find to be much milder. My pickles tend to be of the quick variety, although I have done longer treatments with results which please me.

The bayberries in the above picture aren't very clear so here is a better image. In Chinese, 杨梅 (yáng méi). They are native to these parts.

Today's haul. Mangoes, lemons, limes, lychees, bananas and bayberries.

KFC just sent every cell phone in the city this ad for their latest breakfast choice. They are turning into a noodle shack. 葱油拌面 (cōng yóu bàn miàn), literally 'scallion oil mix noodles' although together the last two characters refer to noodles with soy sauce. ¥14 ($1.95 USD) is a steep price for this dish. The same (better?) dish can be had yards away for half that.

There are many of them. But then the Chinese have long loved pressure cookers. Midea and Supor are generally considered to be the best brands. I've never been tempted.

You are welcome. What is awesome is watching them being made fresh. A skilled chef holds a great lump of dough in their left hand/arm and with their right shaves off bits of dough which fly through the air and land in a large pan of boiling water. These are skimmed out seconds later and served. Cabaret with lunch! There are videos on YouTube (which I can't reach at the moment). Use the translation or the Chinese to search.

It shouldn't, nor did I say it did. What does matter is when a chef introduces a new dish of his/her own devising or makes a wild guess at a recipe without knowing anything about the cuisine they are 'contributing' to. See the topic below for examples.

The crispy noodles originated in Hong Kong, possibly influenced by the British who ruled it from 1841 to 1997. They would originally have been rice noodles. Certainly, crispy noodles aren't found anywhere else in China that I know of.

I don't really have anything to add to what has already been said. Although chow mein was probably introduced to the USA by Cantonese speaking immigrants, they adapted to using local ingredients which were more easily available. The result in terms of the noodles was more akin to northern Chinese noodles. Lo mein and and chop suey ditto. The wide variety of different chow meins around the world bears this out. Some of these bear zero resemblance to anything Chinese. It is against my principles to recommend anything from Wikipedia, but their article on chow mein, while containing some inaccuracies, does give a reasonable description of chow meins around the world. What this is, I have no idea! There is nothing surprising about this. Immigrants elsewhere from various parts of the world have taken their cuisine with them and modified it to local ingredients then to local tastes. Indian cuisine in Britain is often very different from that of India (often better, in fact) and features dishes unknown in India. In fact few Indian restaurants in Britain are actually Indian; they tend to be Bangladeshi or Pakistani. I remember reading somewhere (Bourdain?) that the majority of cooks in American Chinese restaurants are actually Mexican. Later generations of immigrants often shun restaurant work and seek more lucrative careers in medicine, law, finance and other professions. Same with Indian restaurants in the UK. You don't see British Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak dishing out chicken tandoori masala in the local curry shop!

刀削麵 (dāo xiāo miàn) = Knife Shaved Noodles, a favourite of mine. From China's Shanxi province.

Not so much a myth, although it encompasses myths; more a misconception perhaps. Today, I stumbled across a bizarre discussion in some corner of Facebook, when some clot claimed that chow mein was 100% American and unknown in China. Not so. Well, not exactly. The name ‘chow mein’ is virtually unknown. It is a corruption of 炒面 / 炒麵* which in Mandarin (known in China as 普通话 (pǔ tōng huà)), the official and dominant Chinese language is chǎo miàn when rendered in pinyin the officially recognised transliteration. This is pronounced something like chow myen**. No doubt someone will point out that chow mein is both the Cantonese name and a Cantonese dish. Wrong on both counts. In Cantonese it is caau2 min6. Also wheat noodles, which are always used in chao mian are mostly associated with northern China, while the south favours rice noodles (炒粉 - chǎo fěn when fried). The Cantonese area is about as far south as you can go in China. One thing for sure, if you visit China and hope to find your favourite style of chao mein, you’re possibly going to be disappointed. 炒面 / 炒麵 (chǎo miàn) simply means ‘fried (wheat) noodles’, so is a category of dish and not a menu item as such. I only recall seeing it once on a menu as a dish and that was in a college canteen where they only had one choice. Rather than simply listing chao mian, menus will almost always give a specific type of chao mian of which there are many. Seafood chao mian, beef chao mian, pork chao mian, chicken chao mian, sausage chao mian, ham chao mian, egg chao mian, duck chao mian, donkey chao mian and many, many more. I’ve even see Spam® chao mian! There are also regional types such as Shanghai chao mian. There is a good illustration of the variety on offer here. These are only really sold in canteens and fast food type places; or at home; not usually in more upmarket restaurants. Also, chao mian in China uses soft noodles of any description. The crispy chow mein noodles (a tautology if there ever was one) are unknown here in mainland China. Also the type of chow mein that comes with the brown sauce is unknown here. The dish may include some soy sauce, but more as a seasoning than a sauce. This quote from one internet recipe describes something no one here would recognise. I often cook chao mian and have posted many examples here but many people may not have considered them to be chow mein. I’m not saying there is anything wrong with whatever chow mein you get locally, just saying it is unlikely you’ll find it here. * As ever, when I give two Chinese names, the first is in Simple Characters as used on the mainland and in Singapore, whereas the second is now only used in Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan and among some of the Chinese diaspora. ** Chow rhyming with brow; myen Is pronounced like yen, but with an initial /m/ sound.

I recently bought a packet of Dark Chocolate Digestives online. These were shipped to me from Hong Kong. Unfortunately, the shipper just stuck the packet into a box without the usual ice packs. From Hong Kong to my home in mainland China isn't that far, but far enough for the chocolate covering to melt somewhere en route in the tropical heat (c 40℃), then cool again slightly as it reached me. The biscuits were solidly glued together and resembled a 20 cm high, lop-sided layer cake. I had to saw them apart with a bread knife in lumps of what were once 3 separate biscuits and eat then that way. Big disappointment. The company also carries the milk chocolate variety but I prefer dark chocolate, so passed.

When you start taking your health advice from Fox News... Good luck.

Contrary to popular opinion, 'prawns' or 'shrimp' is not merely a dialect differentiation Yes, in general, the Americas prefer 'shrimp' whereas Australia prefers 'prawns'. The UK uses both, differentiating by size, the smaller ones being 'shrimp' and the larger 'prawns'. However, while it is generally true that shrimp are smaller, it isn't necessarily a size issue either. There are taxonomic differences between the two. This Spruce Eats article explains. As does this from USA Today. Image © the Spruce - Fair Use An example of the confusion is that the famous Santa Barbara spot prawn is actually a shrimp!

You'll never get all the flesh off the stone, but you can get close. I lay the mango on a cutting board. It naturally rests so that the stone lies parallel to the board, then take a knife and feel for the stone and run the knife across the top side of the stone. It's sort of a similar technique to filleting a fish using the backbone as a guide. When you have removed one half flip the mango back over then repeat to remove the other side, hopefully leaving the stone relatively flesh free. The same company I bought the mango tool from also does these, but they are not adjustable, so you need to buy your mangoes to suit the tool. Screw that!

Having bought a mango cutting frivolity device, I thought I'd better buy some mangoes. I weighed the one on the left and it is 663 grams / 1.5 lbs (approx). They need a day or two on the counter before sampling.

My lychees being harvested.

Except the essential step of cutting the mango into two stone-free sections.

There are indeed many such places here, too. Fresh (as in live) fish and seafood is de rigueur in many parts of Asia. This one is on the street where I live. The customer goes up to the tanks and points out exactly which specimen of whatever it is they want. Then a member of staff fishes it out.

I too love head on shrimp and prawns and agree with @KennethTthat deep frying is best. I buy them live and purged so they go straight into a hot wok of oil (they are killed instantly) and cook in seconds. I then drain and dress them with mix of salt and toasted then ground Sichuan peppercorns. Smaller examples can be eaten shell on, but no matter what size they are biting into the head is orgasmic.

Same here. My knife can deal happily with any mango, no matter the size.

To be honest, I just bought it out of amusement value. It was very cheap. However, it doesn't do anything I can't do with the same knife I still need to cut the mango in half in the first place. It just adds another unnecessary tool to be washed.

... and the winner (drum roll) is @Tropicalsenior

No cephalopods involved. You were more on the right track before. Here it is in my fair hand.

Fully extended it is 21.5 cm / 8½" end to end and at its widest 8cm / 3⅛". The only adjustmant is that the three pronged part retracts for storage.