liuzhou

They were two separate dishes. I certainly know of scorched rice in English and so does Wikipedia. There are many recipes on Google - search for "guo ba". That said, as the Wiki article notes, few people make it at home now. I can buy in any market or supermarket. I don't know if it is available in Asian markets where you are. I had never come across the soy braised sweet potatoes before, so can't help there. I did find one Chinese language recipe online, but it wasn't what I ate. Sorry.

Unfortunately, the hardest flavour to find is my favourite, potato flavour.

Perhaps. Though they don't really have an eating out culture. Subsistence farmers rarely do! But who else can the restaurants be for? The area sees very few tourists, either domestic or foreign. However, the younger generations have mainly moved away to the big cities to make your consumer goods and are sending money back. Things are changing slowly.

They were not to impress me or anyone else. Each meal was in local restaurants and everything we ate was a standard menu item. There were also locals eating.

Yes, their food is very similar to that of Hunan and Guizhou, both of which share borders with Guangxi not far from where I was and both of which also have substantial Miao populations. The dishes are as spicy as they look, or even more so.

Four and a half hours after that epic lunch, it was decided it was dinner time. This was a spicy soup based on a pork stock, but oddly tasted very much like the Thai tom yum soup. Utterly delicious. Kou Rou (扣肉 - kòu ròu). Steamed pork belly and taro slices. Chicken in Chillies Shrimp with "Japanese" Tofu Pork White Cut Chicken (poached organic chicken) Dip for chicken - made from the bird's blood and various herbs and spices. Turbot Steamed loofah with garlic and chilli Mixed Pickled Vegetables Water Spinach Pumpkin Cakes Safe to say I didn't go to bed hungry last night! More on the Miao people here.

Yesterday, I crept out my self-imposed exile from the world to make a special trip into the wilds of Guangxi to visit a somewhat strange site. The Chinese government has introduced a scheme to move some of the ethnic minority people out of their poverty-ridden villages in the mountains and relocate them in new villages in areas with a better infrastructure. They are also given training in marketable skills so that they can increase their income. Actually, for many, to get an income for the first time. They are mostly subsistence farmers. Anyway, it all sounds wonderful, but I'm not so sure. It smacks of "social engineering" to me. But I don't know. Anyway a small group of us were invited to visit one such new village which is a new home to a number of Miao ethnic minority families. And, of course, we got fed! Here is lunch. I can't remember what every dish was, but will make my best efforts. These were strange. Shrimp in a passion fruit jelly. The passion fruit was excellent, but totally overpowered the shrimp. Beef with Black Fungus Clam and Mustard Green Soup Pork Vermicelli Something Mixed Vegetables and Fungus Beef with Chillies Scorched Rice 鍋巴 - guō bā with a Spicy Pork Sauce. The best dish I ate. Green Beans with Chillies Pork with Chillies Meat with Taro - not sure what meat. I don't particularly like taro, so skipped this dish. Looked like leather or stained wood, but was soy braised sweet potato. Rather good. Rice Paddy Fish with peppers. One of my favourites. Food. Sorry, missed this one. I guess this is self explanatory. Bamboo Shoots dinner to come

The only way I've ever seen silkies used here is for soup. There may be other uses, but I've never encountered or heard of any. You certainly woudn't want to roast one. Apart from making good soup, the broth is considered to have medicinal benefits. Old layers (老母鸡 / 老母雞, lǎo mǔ jī, literally "old mother chicken") are highly prized so not particularly cheap in relative terms. Chicken's feet and heads are in all my chicken broths.

...and cauliflower isn't ever rice, either.

Every day, around the world, thousands, if not millions of menopausal chickens retire from the egg-laying business and are used for soup - and they make for very good soup at that.

Around the World in 130 Chicken-Soup Recipes This popped up on Facebook. Looks interesting. Anyone sampled it?

I can't be of any help with bulk buying in the USA, but I do eat a lot of seaweed. I am partial to this Korean seasoned snack type nori. But will make do with one of the many Chinese equivalents such as It also features in my favourite crackers. and even But probably I use it most in seaweed egg drop soup and other soups. For that I buy this unseasoned dried nori. I also sometimes crumble some into my beer batter for fish and chips.

via Twitter "According to this advent calendar I'm eating, Christmas was 5 minutes ago."

You need to change your grocer. Baby carrots are a thing and it's easy to tell the difference between them and carved old tough ones. Whether they are worth eating is a whole other question. I have no problem with them.

Yes, I've had the Cambodian Rice. It's not so different from the Thai Hom Mali - but slightly cheaper! I doubt I could tell them apart in a blind tasting. I see where you are coming from with the alkaline rice, but I doubt very much that's how it is used. Your average supermarket shopper is not going to be grinding rice to make noodles, when they can buy the noodles for a fraction of what it would cost in terms of cash and effort.

I went to the larger supermarket today. They have all the same rices that I mentioned yesterday, plus some. Here are a handful of the more unusual. Tibetan Red Rice "Forbidden" Black Rice Not all Jasine Rice is Thai. This is Cambodian and I've also seen it from Laos... ... but most is Thai. Alkaline Rice? No idea what that's about.

Yes, if you believe such things. I'm not a fan of sweet soups, but know that mung beans often feature.

I was in my local supermarket earier and, with this topic in mind, had a look at the varieties on offer. In total, they had 21 different rices. 16 of those were white rice, both short and longer grain, plus glutinous rices. All were Chinese grown rice except one - my regular Thai jasmine rice. Chinese rice is not the best in the world! The others were brown rice, black and red rice, the latter two coming in both regular and glutinous varieties. It isn't the biggest supermarket and I know the larger ones have even more. One exception to my general dislike of Chinese rice is this. It was a gift and and don't know much about it, although I have actually been to the field it was grown in. I ony know it is considered to be a superior variety, low yield and hence expensive. I'll try to find out more. I'd love to find Basmati rice, but relations between China and India have never been good. Few Indian products are available here.

Here are some of the earliest usages as recorded by the OED.

A visiting friend brought me this 300 gram bag of 花菇 (huā gū) or "flower mushtrooms" - prized dried shiitake from 田林县 (tián lín xiàn) - Tianlin County of 百色 (bǎi sè), a prefecture in Guangxi near the borders with Yunnan and Guizhou provinces. It also borders Vietnam. Tiamnlin is a forested, mountainous area inhabited by the Yao and Miao ethnic minorities and well known for its wild mushrooms.

Meatballs (75% pork, 25% beef) with a fresh tomato sauce and tagliatelle. Balcony basil.

This was inspired by @Dejahand her Scotch Broth up-page, although it's nothing like Scotch Broth. I wanted to do Scotch broth but there is no lamb in the markets at the moment. Nor could I find the essential barley. The nearest I could get was Job's Tears, which are often substituted for barley, but are no relattion. Instead my eyes fell on some green mungbeans. That'll do. So this is mungbean soup in a duck stock with leek, carrot, mushroms and further sinified with some "small bowl" black wood ear fungus. Made for a warming lunch on a cold day - the temperature has dropped from 26C to 7C in a week. Brrr!

Spicy clam and mustard green soup. Lemony, steamed sea bass with orzo, tomato, and spicy, pickled garlic.

“Thanksgiving” is an American festival in which various observances, accessories and fripperies are used to disguise the fact that the center of attention is, in fact, just a big, tasteless white bird.