liuzhou

I've only once seen donkey in a market. That was in a small Yunnan village in 1998. The poor beast's head had been removed and propped up on the vendor's table as an advertisement or to prove the meat's provenance. Here, I've never seen it in any supermarket. The only place to buy it seems to be in restaurants which serve the meat. They will sell you a jin or two (a jin=500g) raw. I've often bought in the past to cook myself but my local place closed down a couple of years back, so I'm glad to find this new place. The same applies to horse meat. I can get both from the delivery app. Donkey Meat

I was delighted tonight to find on my delivery app 小炒驴肉 (xiǎo chǎo lǘ ròu) - stir fried donkey with garlic, ginger, scallion, hot green chilli, carrot, Shaoxing wine and soy sauce. One of my favourite meats and eats. So tender, lean and nutritional.

Are you trying to start a war? 🤣 Most people would say an Irish classic. Beef and Guinness, to be precise in the choice of stout. But that is possibly incorrect. Stews have existed since the dawn of cookery. Guinness didn't exist untl 1759. More likely a few years later someone had the bright idea of combining it with beef in a stew. but whether anyone had used stout before I don't know for sure, but i guess not. Whatever, it gives me an excuse to post a beautiful portrait.

Here a new one. This, my fellow gastronauts, is camel milk cheese from China's troubled but beautiful far-western Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region*. Historically, mostly Muslim, it is a desert area and so, home to the aforementioned even-toed two-humped ungulate, Camelus bactrianus. According to Wikipedia, so it must be true The cheese is weird. It is naturally sweet, dense and chewy. The taste and texture remind me strongly of a kind of candy called White Rabbit Milk Chews sold in every store in China. It isn't at all cheesy, but oddly pleasant. * China has five so-called autonomous regions. I live in one - Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. In fact, they have no real autonomy.The only real advantage they have over any other province is that the governor must be of the local ethic minority, here Zhuang; in Xinjiang, Uygur. This is largely meaningless as the goverorship is purely honorary and the real power is in the hands of the local Communist Party Secretary who is never from a minority and is appointed directly by Beijing. They are rarely even from the areas they govern.

I'm a-Chewin' Camel Milk Cheese Details here .

One Indian Village, More Than 100 Varieties of Mangoes Gastro Obscura

Most mornings, I have 皮蛋瘦肉粥 (pí dàn shòu ròu zhōu) for breakfast. Before I got sick, I would make a huge batch overnight in the slow cooker and make up portions and freeze some, then refrigerate the rest. It lasts a good four days in the fridge. When I took one from the fridge, I replaced it with one from the freezer, keeping track of the refrigerated stock and using in rotation. Since becoming sick, I don't make it, but have it delivered. It's OK but mine, if I may say so, is better (and a lot cheaper). Anyway, the delivery stuff always comes with one of these little bags of pickles. About 25 grams in each. Pickles are perhaps surprisingly popular with breakfast. I don't always use them, so I have built up quite a collection. Here is one of each type I have (I have about ten of each!) Top row L-R: Mustard tuber (green packet); "Student's" mustard tuber (blue); Mustard and Woodear Fungus (green) Bottom row L-R: Five spice mixed vegetables (blue); Spicy Fish and Oyster Mushroom (small red bag); Cowpeas (green); Daikon Radish (red) around 70 bags!

There's plenty fat in the meat. It doesn't dry out. There are a number of stewed duck dishes in Chinese cuisine, especially in Hunan.

You're right. I missed them from the ingredients list. Sorry. Will edit. Add them along with the other spices after stirring the doubanjiang.

I'm not sure. It could work, but I suspect the flavour of the duck would be less developed. Kind of like making a tomato sauce and adding cooked meatbals to the sauce to warm them rather than simmering them in the sauce to cook them.

炒面和鸡肉 (chǎo miàn hé jī ròu) - Chow Mein with chicken.

After last night’s dinner debacle, I decided to play it safe tonight. I revisited a supplier I have used before and ordered 鱼香肉丝 (yú xiāng ròu sī), fish flavour pork slivers. There is no fish involved. Instead, this Sichuan dish uses ingredients normally or traditionally used to flavour fish dishes. These include the normal garlic, ginger, chillies and scallions along with Baoning or Zhenjiang (Chinkiang in America) black vinegar*, Shaoxing wine, soy sauce and sugar. Here these are used with thinly slivered pork tenderloin but it is also often made with sliced pork when it is called 鱼香肉片(yú xiāng ròu piàn). Fuchsia Dunlop has a recipe. The portion was generous enough to leave me with lunch tomorrow And jolly good it was, too. $4.88 USD inc delivery. * Baoning vinegar is from Sichuan, so would be first choice, but Zhenjiang (from eastern China) is more widely available and is very similar.

I've seen it occasionally with 腐乳 (fǔ rǔ) on menus but never had the combination. Like @KennethT, I like it simply stir-fired with plenty of garlic. Nearby Guilin is renowned for its furu, which comes in two varieties, plain and spicy. I can imagine it with the spicy （香辣腐乳 - xiāng là fǔ rǔ). Spicy Furu

Dinner was a delivery disaster. First of all I had selected a dish of steamed sea bass and rice, which I intended supplementing with some of the bags of 酸菜,(suān cài) that I have collected recently. This is the pickled vegetables that Korea took and turned into their kimchi. Fifteen minutes after placing my order, someone from the restaurant called to say that they were out of sea bass. After my berating them for running out of a major protein by 5:30 in the evening yet continuing to advertise and accept orders for something they don’t have, they offered me a full refund. Well, they suggested first I chose something else but I declined. They only have six main dishes on their menu, none of which appealed. Time wasters. I then skimmed my phone and remembered that I’d heard of a new place offering Zhuang Lemon Duck, one of my favourites. Found it quickly and ordered that with rice. That came to ¥18, under the minimum ¥20 charge. So, I added some smacked cucumber in spicy sauce. That tipped me over the minimum and up to ¥25. $3.50 USD. 18 minutes later it was at my door. Sadly, it was nowhere as good as I’ve had before. The duck was nearly all flabby skin and bone and there was no sign of the statutory Zhuang long-preserved lemons. Instead, I think, they had just squeezed some lemon juice over the delivery container. It was heavily flavoured by thick slices of raw ginger. Also, the dish was swimming in sauce. It is normally a relatively dry dish. Big disappointment. The rice was over-steamed, too. The cucumber was fine, not having required any actual cooking. Oh, well try again tomorrow.

Yes, I did mention the white variety. I too prefer the green, but then I also prefer green aparagus to white. Yes, I know the Vietnamese and Thai names but was getting concerned I was giving too many names! Cambodia certainly has it; in Khmer, it's trakuon. Laos too, where it's pak bong.

Water spinach is illegal to grow or sell in most US states as, if not carefully controlled, it can become invasive. Story (podcast and transcript) here (NPR).

Ha! I'm kind of bored with the stuff. It is the default greenery in every restaurant or canteen here. It was the only green vegetable offered in the hospital I was in this year. Everywhere, you hear people asking the wait staff "有什么青菜 (yǒu shén me qīng cài)？What greens do you have?" The answer always includes, and is often limited to "空心菜 (Mand: kōng xīn cài; Cant: hung1 sam1 coi3)." This has many names in both Chinese and English. water spinach, river spinach, morning glory, water morning glory, water convolvulus, Chinese spinach, Chinese Watercress, Chinese convolvulus, swamp cabbage, ong choy or kangkong. In Mandarin Chinese, besides 空心菜 (kōng xīn cài), it is 通菜 (tōng cài), 通心菜 (tōng xīn cài), 壅菜 (yōng cài), 瓮菜 (wèng cài), 应菜 (yìng cài), 藤菜 (téng cài), 瓮菜及葛菜 (wèng cài jí gé cài), among others. The most popular name, 空心菜 (Mand: kōng xīn cài) literally translates as 'hollow (or empty) heart vegetable' referring to its hollow stems. There is also a white variety, grown under restricted light à la white asparagus, though that is rarer. Maybe I'll give it a try again - it's been a while.

Frozen (home made) wontons. Boil water, salt it, drop in wontons. When they float (approx two minutes later), fish them out. Pretend they're Italian. Dress with olive oil and black pepper (or chili flakes). Eat.

Canned sardines on toast.

It can be hard for me to source lamb / mutton / goat here in south China, although it is very popular in the north and west. The southerners complain about the smell. Pity for me as I love it.

The only real difference in the second burrito was that the chicken was cut into larger cubes and the sauce lacked the Sichuan flavours. But it was good, too.