liuzhou

That's every day life for me! 😃

The only time I make wonton or jiaozi skins is when we are having a party and all the guests join in. A very Chinese tradition, especially at festival times. The rest of the time, I buy from the local market for next to nothing. As do most peoplle.

Well thank you. I agree with you but was attempting to answer one of the questions in the opening post. I can't answer for America.

It's OK as it goes and would be reasonably tasty, but would never pass muster in Xi'an. Anyway, as said above it's not a dish people make at home. And even in Xi'an it's mainly for the tourists.

小笼包 (xiǎo lóng bāo) with my new favourite sesame and chilli dip.

Notes on Noodles a) What kind of noodles? Northern China favors wheat noodles; whereas down here in the south, rice noodles are the default. That said, I can buy both. Other grains (or starches) are also used, but to a lesser degree. b) Where to eat them? The vast majority of noodle dishes are eaten outide the home. You are never far from a cheap, friendly noodle shop. Their noodle dishes are usually excellent. Bad ones don't last! People here are fussy about their noodles! Here are a few of the thousands around town. Another reason to eat them out is that some dishes take hours to cook which is only worth doing large-scale. The local favourite in this city is 螺蛳粉 (luó sī fěn), the broth for which takes at least 10 - 16 hours to prepare. No one makes this at home! c) What dishes? Impossible to answer. Almost every town or city has at least one local specialty. d) How to cook them? It seems to me that soupy noodles are the No. 1 choice most places, but fried noodles are also available.

Yes.

Yes. Laghman is the Uyghur: لەڭمەن‎ equivalent to the Chinese 拉面 (lā miàn).

Wow! That would be starting with the most difficult. By the way, biang-biang noodles is a dish made with a type of hand-pulled noodles (拉面).

Hi, I have lived in China since 1996. I don't know anyone who makes their own noodles, either fresh or dried. So much easier (and cheaper) to buy them in. I do occasionally make Italian types of pasta. This astonishes my Chinese friends who have never considered that it is even possible to home make noodles.

It is available in the US - and from Amazon - under the Totole brand name, a misconstruing of the Pinyin.

Yes. And they often use the Chinese brand I mentioned.

No. It is a green skinned lemon. Common here.

Chicken 'n Chips. With a tomato and basil salad.

Current written Chinese menus are still very often the same. Here is a random example from a book entitled "Stir Frying". The ingredients are listed as 200 grams of shrimp, then scallion, ginger, cooking wine, soy sauce, sugar, salt, MSG, vegetable oil in "appropriate amounts". The cooking instructions are equally vague. Wash shrimp then heat the oil, add all the ingredients and cook. No time is given. Normal.

I seriously doubt that there is a kitchen in China, domestic or professional, that doesn't have some of this. Although I usually make my own stocks, I too keep a jar of this for emergencies. Despite the strange list of ingredients, it is actually very good, considering. Ingredients: MSG, salt, rice, sugar, chicken, food additives (5-taste nucleotides, Sodium, Riboflavin, egg, flavoring, curry powder, shallots, garlic. Allergin Tips: Contains eggs, soy products. Can contain celery, sesame oil, clams, scallops, dairy products.

Tagliatelli and pork kidney with asparagus and basil. Garlic, shallots, chilli, black pepper.

We are far too cultured and polite to mention bell peppers! I apologise from.the heart of my bottom for just so doing!

Pork with black garlic, capers, wine, scallions, okra and rice.

I have a 30 year old Black and Decker toaster. It makes perfect toast! That'll do.

Another thing that gets my goat is recipes telling me to use ingredients at room temperature or asking me to cool things to the same fictional degree of heat! What room? Which room? Whose room? I am willing to bet the temperature in my room and that in yours vary enormously. Like many of us, I have more than one room. Lucky us. They have different temperatures. 5°C, for a random example, is a temperature - room temperature is an ever-changing chimera - a folly on which recipes and gustatory experiences have floundered. I also see this absurdity in reference to ideal wine serving temperatures - reds, we are told, must be served at room temperature. From experience, I can tell you that the average temperature in a Bordeaux chateau's room is nowhere near my, or probably your, room temperature! But I'll confess I may not have been entirely sober when I made that observation. I'd better go back and check.

I haven't made it for a long time, but I always use beef stock, like my French mother taught me. Beef stock in days gone past would have been the cheaper choice. Before the industrialization of chickens, it was an expensive protein. P.S. I only have one mother!

See the The Kitchen Scale Manifesto

The thing is is the "average" medium onion varies enormously. The average here much larger than I was used to in England, say. But my use of onion was just an example. Of course, I judge for myself how much onion to include in a dish. The fact remains that half an onion is an unknown quantity, which in a recipe which is microscopically precise about other ingredients becomes absurd. But my entire post was partly in jest.

That is the problem. The recipe writer knows what they mean by half an onion but fails to convey that information to the reader.