liuzhou

The two versions of suancai are ready to eat. They are not usually rinsed or soaked. Both are simply chopped finely and served as I described.

Understand. I'm the same here with regard to most non-Chinese ingredients. I'd love to buy good olive oil, for example, but can only find oil from very dubious sources. There is nothing wrong with the vinegar you have and it will be very suitable for the purpose in mind.

It isn't Zhenjiang vinegar, but is black vinegar and similar. It is Shanxi* Aged Vinegar, although I can't see how long this one has been aged. It'll do exactly the same job. *Shanxi (山西) is a province in northern China. Zhenjiang is in Jiangsu province in eastern China, near Shanghai. Zhenjiang vinegar is generally considered China's finest. If you see it, buy the oldest you can afford!

I don't know but I suspect they are using a similar technique as your recipe does but using black rice vinegar, probably Zhenjiang vinegar (often known in the USA as Chinkiang vinegar), and perhaps dark soy sauce. There isn't much I've not thought of making, but a lot I've never gotten round to!

5. Pickled Garlic Vinegar pickled garlic is common enough. In fact, it is frequently sitting on the table in smaller restaurants in many parts of China as a sort of free* appetizer, alongside raw garlic in Xi'an. These are a Sichuan version called 酸辣蒜头 (suān là suàn tóu) - Pickled Spicy Garlic Heads. I always have them in the pantry. Great with cheese! Maybe grate with cheese, too. Never tried. They are made from the immature garlic bulbs and rice vinegar with spices. A more unusual version, which I've only seen once, is this I forget the precise name, but they are soy sauce cured garlic cloves. They were extremely good. * Nothing is free! The cost is no doubt factored into whatever you order.

I've been trying to think of any Chinese recipes using ground/minced beef but although there are many for beef in general, not so much pertaining to ground beef. Apart from mapo tofu , which has already been mentioned, I can think of 1. Ants Climbing Trees (蚂蚁上树 - mǎ yǐ shǎng shù). Both Fuchsia Dunlop in The Food of Sichuan (eG-friendly Amazon.com link) and the relevant Wikipedia article on this Sichuan noodle dish only mention pork, but it is also often made with beef. 2. Mr. Xie's Dan Dan Noodles (牛肉担担面 - niú ròu dàn dàn miàn) is an excellent dish using beef. Again, Fuchsia Dunlop has the recipe. 3. Ground Beef in Nests (窝窝头牛肉 - wō wo tóu niú ròu) The only local dish I can think of is this, which I have had in restaurants and made myself. The beef is stir fried with garlic and ginger (and any spices you care to include - I used cumin in the batch above) and pickled vegetables of choice and served in the buns. There is a recipe for the buns here in Recipe Gullet. I'm sure there are more, but I'll need my second coffee of the morning before dislodging them from what remains of my mind.

Me too. And I never took a photo either. Too busy wiping pineapple juice from my face and hands, I guess.

Yes. I've seen here and all over SE Asia.

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Brined and slow cooked pig's tongue. The tongue was trimmed of excess fat and gristle then brined for 24 hours. In retrospect, a heavier brine would have been better. Don't ask me what the ratio was. I just threw in what I thought to be a reasonable amount of salt. Next time. Then it was slow cooked for around 4 hours. The timing is a little uncertain because a technical error with the slow cooker (i.e. me forgetting to put the lid on!) confused the issue a bit. The meat is slightly overdone, but not unpleasantly so. Served cold with home-made Chinese pickled vegetables (泡菜 (pào cài)).

4. 泡菜 泡菜 (pào cài) has a confusing etymology. 泡 ((pào) means 'bubble' or 'steeped; soaked'. Together with 菜 (cài) meaning 'vegetable' it means 'pickled vegetable'. I can imagine the name comes from the pickling liquid bubbling as things ferment; or maybe it just means the vegetable is steeped or soaked in that same liquid. Or both. Take your pick. Whatever, the name covers all wet-pickled vegetables (including the suancai above). That said the most common use of the name is for this: It normally consists of cabbage or mustard leaf with daikon radish, carrots, chilis and ginger , but there are many variations. It is usually served as a pre-meal appetiser or palate-cleanser, but sometimes with the main meal. Available all over China, but often associated with Sichuan where it is particularly popular. The example pictured above is a commercial product and is pickled in rice vinegar with some spices, the most common method. Some are done in a brine. Here is my own home-made version. Same vegetables as I listed above (cabbage rather than mustard, here), done in rice vinegar with green Sichuan peppercorns.

Not so bad! I'm always fascinated by how quickly the market people can peel and de-eye pineapples here. A few seconds per fruit. I even bought one of the dedicated pineapple peelers they use, but I'm still hopeless. Lovely looking pineapples you got there!

It was kind of hard to tell. Certainly not roasted but perhaps boiled. I'll ask next time, but the supermarket people rarely have any clue about what they are selling.

Shiitake are different. They are Lentinula edodes. Some are more valued than others (flower shiitake for example) but that is based on aesthetic considerations, not taste or age. I can't comment on UK prices for mushrooms. It's over 30 years since I left. I guess they haven't got cheaper, though! I think a large part of why I have never left China after coming for only two years, 25 years ago, is that it would be too painful to leave behind the huge selection of mushrooms that every supermarket and market carries. I have detailed that on this topic from a while back.

Which other mushrooms?

.. which is really just one choice. They are all agaricus bisporus at various ages.

Here is an unusual pickled item that doesn't really need any explanation other than its name. 3. Peanuts pickled in apple vinegar with yellow chilis. I recently found these in a supermarket. I didn't make note of the Chinese name and don't want to guess. If I see them again, I'll take down their details and edit this. Anyway, they were surprisingly good, but so is anything with chilis, in my book.

https//www.eatthis.com/news-grocery-outlet-opening-new-locations/

There are many types of mustard.

I can't make out all the ingredients there but all those I can see (apart from mustard) seem to be artificial preservatives and flavouring. The second picture in my first post - the southern style version of suan cai - is a commercial product made in a friend's pickling company. It only has salt and spices in addition to the mustard. Must be kept chilled.

Thailand and Vietnam's use of a Chinese pickle was being discussed. Not Thai or Vietnamese pickles.

That is neither Chinese or mustard. It is Japanese. It is pickled daikon radish, also popular in Korea. The Japanese probably did get the technique from China, though.

The only one I've seen in Thailand is phak kat dong, their version of suancai. I don't remember neon though. Is that the one you mean? Vietnam also has their version - dưa cải chua. I've never seen the salted version in Thailand or Vietnam, but it may be there.

There is plenty evidence which predates that study. I remember reading it years ago.