liuzhou

You are welcome, @DianaB. I was as eager to find out, after you asked. In China, few foods are boned before cooking. Yes, the subtitles issue is a format difference. The DVD does have both languages, but I can't post that.

sadly funny Here

Poached duck egg with duck fat chips.

Pan fried red drum fillet with chips. I got the crisp skin I wanted on the fish, but accidentally tore it as I was plating it, ruining the presentation. Tasted fine though. There was a side of pickled vegetables on the side which looked even more unappealing than the fish, but also hit the spot. And some sauvignon blanc. The other fillet is in the fridge along with head and carcase. Fish soup for lunch tomorrow, methinks.

Mystery solved. As@dcarch guessed it is a chicken and, as I guessed, a very small one. Most unusually, it is served whole. My friend informs me that it is stuffed with a pork and onion mixture, then stewed "for a long time" until very tender. It does become so tender that it is easily picked apart with chopsticks. It called 嫩鸡 nèn jī , which literally means 'tender chicken'. Here she is stuffing the very bird! I mentioned that I had never heard of or seen chicken being served this way before and she agreed that it is indeed unusual, but is specific to her home town of Qinzhou (钦州 qīn zhōu) on the southern coast of China, near the Vietnamese border. I also mentioned to her that it is unusual to have so many chicken dishes at one meal and she corrected me and said there are only two. The 'tender chicken' and 'white cut chicken'. The others are duck and goose. She did concede four poultry dishes is unusual but her family like it that way. I did say the new year traditions are very diverse, and was glad to discover a new one. I live and learn.

Here is a special program on Chinese New Year food celebrations made by the A Bite of China team. Unfortunately, despite the claim in the title on YouTube, there are no English subtitles - only Chinese. But I think it's still worth a look. It's beautifully filmed food porn! It shows clearly the huge diversity between regions of China, but also the common themes. It does tend to concentrate on the countryside, where the traditions are more preserved and diverse. The section from 14m 55s to 23m 50s is filmed around these parts and, among other things, shows the making of the Kou Rou ( 扣肉 kòu ròu ) I mentioned in my first post in this topic.

Turn north at Hong Kong. P.S. I've often done pork/beef 50:50 mix burgers. And duckburgers and, just once, donkeyburgers. Sadly, lamb is ruinously expensive here, when we can get it. Duckburger

I had a more than usually large lunch today and wasn't that hungry at dinner time. I fancied a burger, but only had some pork. So porkburger it was. With chips. Actually, I had two. Must have been more hungry than I thought.

Also, it would have to be a pretty small chicken. And if it is chicken then there would appear to be three chicken dishes on the table. Again unlikely.

I've never seen chicken served whole like that.

I'm not sure what it is, either. I'll ask my friend but she is travelling on business right now , so it may take a little time. It will be something fall apart tender, though.

Indeed, knives are never on the dining table. It's not so much to do with the chefs having superior knife skills, though. The main reasons are a) Knives at the table are considered unfriendly. You might take a disliking to a fellow guest and do them damage! b) More likely, it stems from the traditional necessity to save fuel. Smaller pieces cook more quickly and so save fuel. Of course, there are exceptions to the 'cut into bite size pieces' rule, but not many. Fish are steamed whole, but we just pick off pieces with our chopsticks, just the same. No knives. In fact, most homes don't even have table knives. Just cleavers for the kitchen. Few cutlery/silverware shops have table knives.

CCTV (Chinese Central Television) has now officially posted the trailer for series 3 on YouTube. With luck, they will later post the full episodes as they have done with previous series.

Unexpected lunch invitation today. The centrepiece is a whole big head carp (大头鱼 dà tóu yú) with pickled vegetable in broth. Soup and main in one.

I've been using French Robot-Coupe Magimix processors for decades. My current model is twenty years old and still going strong. The latest models are probably as good.

Chicken noodle soup Liuzhou style. Tofu, reconstituted dried shiitake, 'white' chilli pepper. Mung bean sprouts and Chinese chives Fresh rice noodles I had previously made a chicken stock and reserved the meat. So added the meat to the strained stock, added the above along with a tablespoon of white rice vinegar, salt and copious amounts of white pepper. Put in mouth.

Actually, fried rice isn't as common as many people think. Most restaurants, however will offer one. Yangzhou Fried Rice is by far the most common. It consists of rice, egg, ham, shrimp, peas, onion, plus sometimes corn, cucumber, chilli, MSG etc. It is very tasty. Simple egg fried rice is canteen or street food and is served as a dish in its own right rather than as a side.

Amusing tale, bu sadly, a myth. The expression 'shot' meaning a portion of booze was in use 200 years before then. A 'round of drinks' is even earlier.

I won't say that in China no one ever uses soy sauce in fried rice, but it is rare to the point of nearly never. Doing so is a western thing. I've just spent a while Chinese language searching Google for recipes and haven't found one that includes soy sauce. Yet, as you say nearly all the English language recipes do. It tasted better than it looks, but I'll admit it wasn't wonderful. I just wasn't in the mood to give it the love it deserved.

Ever get one of those days where, although nothing specifically bad happened, just left you feeling you got nowhere? Well, I just had one. No one died; no one was hurt; no promises or expectations were broken or dashed. It was just kind of empty and uninspiring. So I was feeling kind of lost when it came to cooking time. Had a bunch of stuff in the fridge which need using up, so... Did some spicy beef fried rice with unused sugar snap peas from yesterday. Beef, rice, shiitake mushrooms, leeks, chilli and the peas. No egg. No soy sauce (soy sauce in fried rice? Unheard of!) Beef fried rice isn't even a thing here. We get egg fried rice and Yangzhou fried rice and that's it. I would bet heavy money I'm the only person in this city of 5 million who has ever cooked it or eaten it. Anyway, it filled the hole and tomorrow is another day for which I have more gastronautical ideas.

Tons of seafood have washed up or been blown onto land in England during storms. People have been harvesting it from the beaches, but there is a down side. Fisherman are rescuing some varieties, especially juvenile lobsters, and returning them to the sea.

You reminded me of the scene in Hardy's "Far From the Madding Crowd" where Bethsheba's sheep are dying from ruminal tympany (swollen bags) and Gabriel saves them by leaking their gas. Don't remember any pickles or students in the book, though. And definitely no rap, oily or otherwise.

It triggers no memories for me.

Spicy squid with sugar snap peas. A popular pairing round these parts. Squid, peas, garlic, ginger, chilli, oyster sauce. With rice. Couldn't get much simpler, but too many restaurants overcook the squid. In fact, I never order it in restaurants any more.

If I posted every odd, or just plain wrong translation of Chinese on food labels and menus that I see, I'd never get anything else done, but this one appealed to me in a number of ways. If it had just been a case of the bizarre idea of students requiring some sort of pickle exclusive to them, I probably wouldn't have posted this. Nor would the nonsensical concept of non-preservative pickles have merited much attention, but then I read the ingredients list I've never been a fan of rap 'music'. Never understood it. Never wanted to do so. But it's interesting that it is also a type of oil. But, most of all, the juvenile in me still appreciates the final piece of advice they offer. From henceforth I shall make every attempt not to leak gas.