liuzhou

Yes. A lot of my cooking is “vaguely Asian“. I just get irritated on the internet (especially YouTube) when I see things labelled as “Chinese” when someone has decided to add a drop of soy sauce to their shepherd's pie or the like. Or even worse when things are described as “Chinese“ because they contain Japanese ingredients!

Sure, chao mian is available in every almost food stall on the mainland too, but is nothing like what has been pictured above. And the concept of "chao mian noodles" is linquistic nonsense in any variety of Chinese, given that mian (or mein) means 'noodles', specifically wheat noodles. If I were to go into any store or supermarket and ask for chao mian, they would think I'd lost my mind.

Without wishing to get too off-topic, it's the opposite. 'Stodgy' originally meant 'muddy' and the culinary usage followed a short time later. Its use to describe a person's thinking came from the earlier meaning.

Thanks. Now I'm baffled. Never saw anything like that before, but they sure ain't Chinese!

This is the most popular regular, everyday brand available round here.

Of course there are better brands, but hard to find and expensive. Pearl River Bridge is one one of the best internationally available mass-produced, that's all. The brands I use are probably not available in North America - I don't know, but I do have some "artisanal sauces", but don't always use them. I usually use a more common brand. Depends what I'm cooking.

Started with clam and sweet potato shoots soup. This is usually made with mustard greens, but I had sweet potato shoots needing using. Green stuff! Brined and breaded half chicken breast. The breading is spicy. With garlicky maitake mushrooms and Chinese chives. Unusually for me, no carbs except the breading!

Pearl River Bridge if you can get it is good.

I don't know what you have access to, but most soy sauces are better than Lee Kum Kee's! Dark soy sauce is not a substitute for light, but Japanese is OK.

Thanks. Here chao mian is often a flat noodle more like tagliatelle, but as I said above, it can any of many types of wheat noodle. In fact, in many places, if you ask for a noodle dish, you will be asked if you want flat or round. I usually go for flat.

Thanks. Never seen anything like that before. Must be American-Chinese. Chow mien (炒面 - chǎo miàn) is a thing here, but never crispy and can be many different types of noodles - although always wheat. Fried rice noodles are 炒粉 - chǎo fěn.

Host's note: this discussion began in the Food in the Time of a Pandemic topic. What are chow mein noodles? (Serious question - "chow mein" means fried noodles. Fried noodle noodles?)

Maybe, but only if you are my ex-wife, which I somewhat doubt. I seem to remember them being quite popular back in the pre-food processor days in London.

Korea? Or at least a Korean or Asian market where you are?

I had the same one! Wonder what happened to it.

Because one was undamaged doesn't mean they all are. I'd test them all!

Twice cooked pork ribs with garlic, ginger, chilli, star anise, garlic scapes, Shaoxing wine and soy sauce. Stir fried sweet potato shoots and rice. Two days to cook and eaten in minutes.

In Scotland, no. The little whitish turnips are called little whitish turnips, but are not common. Neeps are very, very common. The wikipedia article on rutabaga is unusually good on the etymology of the various names.

Very easily!

Yes, but not in taste, not that I've ever tried such a cross! 😁

Indeed. Apologies for the typo. Now edited.

Yes, we do that in Scotland, too. Swedes or turnips or neeps. In London, always Swedes, as I remember. In China, we call them unavailable!

Yes, they seem to have a few names, but the only references I found to witchcraft was on US websites!