liuzhou

Wet breakfast. Lobster balls in a spicy fish stock based soup.

Lemon coriander pork with garlicky boletes and orzo.

Today's haul foraged from my farmers market. 姬松茸 (jī sōng róng), Agaricus subrufescens. Known in English as Almond Mushroom. In Japanese, they are himematsutake.

A while back I mentioned that my local farmers market had closed down for renovation, but would re-open in two months. Today, five months later, it finally reappeared. I was nearby and thought I would check to see if there was any progress, so was happily surprised to see it open. I must admit they have done a good job and it looks brighter and cleaner, but smaller. Most, but not all of my favourite vendors were there. I didn't really need anything, but couldn't resist these beauties.

Clam and mustard green soup. Spicy shrimp with orzo.

Various plants' rhizomes are called galangal but Sanguinaria canadensis isn't one of them. It is usually called 'bloodroot'. Alpinia galanga is greater galangal, Alpinia officinarium is lesser galanga. Marginal inclusions are Boesenbergia rotunda or Chinese ginger and Kaempferia galanga or sand ginger, some of which I bought today!

Exploding Sriracha!

Linguini with a pork and a spicy, fresh tomato ragu-ish sauce. Finished with somewhat unevenly distributed Grano Padano.

Her YouTube channel is wonderful. It is is one of only two I have subscribed to and the other is not at all food related. I also follow her on Chinese social media. Yes your link is long, but informative. It is compiled and translated from a number of Chinese sources about her.

Exactly.

Non-identical twins?

I leave it to my local Hong Kong style roast goose joint which always does it better than I ever will.

I might be strange, but I quite enjoy it, as I do filleting fish and dissecting pretty much everything. What type of mushrooms did you need; can't they be subbed?

Larry's Ingredient List

Instant read probe everytme. You need to know the internal temperature.

Probably not.

This seems timely although I know my time zone is way ahead of most of you! Merry Crimble.

I've never heard of it, but generally McCormick is where I go when I want stale over-priced spices and dried herbs that taste of nothing.

Thanks. Apart from the pork soup, I think everything else was versions of things I've made and posted before, but some new to them. They were astonished but delighted by black garlic, but then I love it, too.

This evening, at their request, this old pensioner cooked a five course dinner for three hungry twenty-year old Chinese women friends, but under the pressure forgot to take any pictures. There were matsutake mushrooms in there which fascinated them, but not as much as the black garlic I accompanied them with. I did a sort of Moroccan inspired chicken thing with ras el hanout. Clams with oyster sauce. A soup of pork and 粉葛 (fěn gé), Pueraria montana var. lobata, kudzu, Japanese arrowroot. Stir fried spinach with salted black beans and garlic. And the obligatory rice. Lots of fruit was eaten afterwards. Fun, hard work and photographic memory lapse.

I know this is a very old thread, but I want to correct something. Luffa - 丝瓜 (sī guā) and snake gourd - 蛇瓜 (shé guā) are two very different things. Snake gourd is Trichosanthes cucumerina, whereas luffa is Luffa aegyptiaca or Luffa acutangula.

Well, you wouldn't want me to be ordinary, would you? I was kind of messing about and fancied some soup, but the only mushrooms I had were dried and the weather was being very unfriendly, so this is what I came up with instead of going out. If I ever have to leave here, I'll so much miss the local supermarkets having up to ten different fresh mushrooms and even more dried.

They were, yes.

My favourite way to cook them is my attempt at a dish served in a small restaurant near my countryside home. They slice them into segments about 3 - 4 inches long, topped with finely chopped and fried garlic, then steamed. But the most common way of cooking here is to roll cut them then simply stir fry them. They also go well with eggs or tofu (again stir fried). The two different types are not a matter of age. They are distinct cultivars. The light ones are Luffa acutangula whereas the darker ones are Luffa aegyptiaca. The light coloured ones are generally my preference. The darker ones have a rougher skin and I tend to use them in soups more. You definitely don't want to be eating old luffa, but then no market should be selling it, unless as a scrubbing sponge / exfoliant. Sadly, now is not luffa season.

Mushroom soup using 灰树花 (huī shù huā), maitake, aka hen-of-the-woods and 姬松茸 (jī sōng róng), almond mushrooms. The stock is the drained soaking water for the dried 'shrooms, with a little garlicky chicken stock. Chinese chives sprinkled on at the end. Very simple, but a umami bomb.