liuzhou

No. Chinese.

Last month, I posted in the Unexpected Food Gifts topic a selection of chocolates a friend sent me from a startup company providing up-market chocolates to the Chinese market. This garnered some interest and prompted more than one person to express surprise at the inclusion of dark milk chocolate, something some people felt was perhaps a contradiction in terms. Now, I am no chocolate expert or even a big fan of chocolate* of any kind, and therefore I was clueless, as usual. So, I was interested to read this in today’s Gruaniad. It is a review of some, dare I say, artisan chocolates of that description. Notes on chocolate: darker bars that pack both moral and fibre I know we have some chocolatiers here. How common is it? Do you make it? We also have major chocolate eaters. Thoughts? Opinions? * My only real interest in chocolate is linguistic. The name has an interesting history as it passed from language to language. English took it from French which took it from Spanish which took it from pre-Spanish Mexican which took it from Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs. Chinese, 巧克力, meaning 'chocolate' was borrowed from English and is pronounced something like chow-ke-lee. (Pinyin: qiǎo kè lì)

Thanks. The wrapper contained a second jia mo.

These were delivered. I'm still not up to cooking.

Tonight, I revisited an old friend but with a twist. These are 羊肉夹馍 (yáng ròu jiá mó), a variation on the type I normally make and eat. Like mine, these originated in 陕西省 (shǎn xī shěng), Sha'anxi province in west-central China. Much of the province's population is Muslim and so eschews pork. Their meat of choice is mainly mutton / lamb / goat* or beef. Order rou jia mo in Beijing or Shanghai and you'll probably get pork. These are sheep or goat. I tend to make them with beef. Apart from the meat being non-standard, the buns 馍 (mó) are also different. Instead of a bread-like bun, these are more a flaky pastry. I prefer the bread type, probably because they're what I first encountered when I lived in Sha'anxi's capital, Xi'an. But I like them all. * As with many languages and cultures there is no difference between these meats in people's minds unless it's essential to differentiate. In Mandarin Chinese, 羊 (yáng）cover all three unless it's absolutely imperative to specify say, goat. That would be 山羊 (shān yáng, literally ; 'mountain sheep'.) I've come across the same phenonomen in India and Jamaica among other places. Here is the dedicated rou jia mo topic. These

What I do in my supermarket when facing death by plastic bag reluctance to open is head over to where they lay the fish out on ice, rub my hands on the ice and then open the bag no problem. i don't know but I guess rubbing the walls or freezre cabinets would do the same. Cold wet is the aim.

We had a Marathon bar in the UK too. In 1990, they were renamed Snickers to fall in line with the rest of the world. In 2020, Mars Wrigley brought it back for a limited three month stretch. I even get Snickers here; it's the only western chocolate widely available in China.

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.