liuzhou

A WOMAN in the US has become the laughing stock of the internet after revealing she has spent the past few days mistakenly washing her hands with a block of cheese, rather than a bar of soap.

I know, but explaining a joke always spoils it!

Bried chicken breast cooked 1-10-10 then finished with an olive oil, black garlic, chilli and Chinese chive sauce. Served with orzo and a side salad which I neglected to photograph. Just a simple green salad. You know. Green stuff.

A linguistic food funny. Right up my street!

Lunch today was leftover last night's dinner repurposed. I fried the leftover rice then added the left over lentil prawn mixture. I think it was actually better than yesterday's dinner.

About burnt is the perfect toast!

Don't worry! Lentils are very, very difficult to find in China. I have some, but an explanation would be longer than War and Peace!

I have no idea what this is, although I made it. I woke up this morning with a craving for lentils and rice. I would have liked brown, but only have red. Cooked them with garlic, ginger and chilli and chicken stock, because that's what I do. Took some Thai red curry paste and fried that with the prawns I had and needed to use then drained and added the lentils and some scallions. Would have added coriander leaf / cilantro but didn't have any. It may not look like much, but it was damned tasty! Served with Château Local Beer. I'll do it again.

No, it's kitchen paper / paper towels.

Didn't have any bacon for my baguette sandwich, so subbed pork cutlets (salted and peppered).

...and that said, without a shadow of doubt, the best food I've eaten in China has been home cooked!

Yes. Like 99.99% of Chinese people do. In a quarter of a century I've never met anyone here in China with anything but a regular stove. I wouldn't even know where to source a high powered burner. They seem to be a peculiarly American obsession. "Wok Hei" is a Cantonese term unknown to the vast majority of Chinese people. In Mandarin, spoken by most Chinese people, it would be 镬气 (huò qì), but to repeat, most would say "What's that?" Cantonese speakers are around 5% of China's population.

I'm either going to die from Coronavirus or boredom, whichever arrives first, so decided to forget healthy! Breaded chicken with chips and tomatoes. I cooked and ate this or similar last week too I think, but enjoyed it, so why not do it again?

I know I've posted versions and variations of this before, and there was never anything very exciting about it, but there is a slight twist here. Normally, I use duck eggs, but my favourite duck egg vendor is hiding at home during these strange times, so these are chicken eggs. Soft boiled with flatbread.

The usual. Pork and shiitake baozi.

Everything normal here, too.

Braised beef with garlic, chilli, ras el-hanout, turmeric and cinnamon.. Spinach and chick pea salad. Orzo.

Stir fried chicken with garlic, ginger, chilli, Shaoxing, soy sauce, Chinese chives, coriander leaf and hen-of-the-woods mushrooms.

Meatballs in tomato sauce with orzo. Balls were pork, breadcrumbs and capers. Sauce was white onion, red chilli, green chilli and tomatoes. Orzo was Orzo. Or Orzi.

Simple pile of chips with sea salt. Just what I needed.

There is also a good list of Vietnamese restaurant menu dishes here from Andrea Nguyen. No audio, though.

Pork and garlic chive dumplings (饺子 - jiǎo zi). Soy sauce, Zhenjiang vinegar and chilli dip.

With apologies to anyone who does have a food allergy.

Saigon Siblings in cooperation with Andrea Nguyen have compiled a useful glossary of Vietnamese food expressions. Sound samples are included for pronunciation.

Often, but not always. In fact many are moving away from that in the cities (where 80% of the population live). McDonalds, KFC and Chinese equivalents are everywhere! Every supermarket has olive oil. Yoghurt and milk tea are hugely popular. I think your view of Chinese habits is somewhat out of date.