liuzhou

Don't panic! I have gone all vegetarian for just one meal. I'll get over it by breakfast time. Fried fresh ramen noodles with smoked tofu, garlic chives, scallion, chilli, shiitake mushrooms, garlic, ginger and a splash of soy sauce.

Thanks. Yes, it is. Very much so.

Steamed sea bass. Fish de-scaled and gutted. Rubbed with salt and Shaoxing wine. Cavity stuffed with scallions, garlic and ginger. Garlic and ginger slipped into cuts in the flesh. Green and red chillies on top with more scallions. Steamed 8 minutes. Served with pan roasted asparagus and rice. Ready to be steamed Ready to be eaten

That is a particularly inept computer translation. I've posted the recipe I use in the Recipe Gullet section. Here.

Wowotou buns ( 窝窝头 wō wō tóu), also known more simply as wō tóu are originally from northern China. The name means "nest" and they come in many forms. These are the ones I use. As you can see, they are usually stuffed with whatever the cook decides. These are stuffed with spicy pork and pickled greens, but I've also served them with a seafood stuffing. This is the recipe I usually use. 窝窝头 350 grams all-purpose/plain flour 150 grams black soya bean flour 3 grams instant yeast 260 grams milk Mix the flours well, dissolve the yeast in the milk and stir into the flour until a dough forms. Knead the dough until smooth. Cover with plastic wrap and leave in a warm place until double in size. Sprinkle flour on the chopping board, knead the dough, adding more flour if too wet. until all air is expelled and the dough has a smooth surface. Form the dough into six even-sized balls and rub between the palms until smooth and round. Flatten slightly, then use your thumb to press the dough into a nest shape. Steam covered for 30-35 minutes. Note: The flours used vary a lot. Corn or sorghum flours are very popular, but I don't like corn and sorghum isn't the easiest to find here in southern China. Use what you like, but the overall quantity for this recipe should be 500 grams. It has been suggested that pure corn flour is too sticky, so probably best to mix it with regular wheat flour. They freeze well. Recipe adapted from 念念不忘的面食 by 刘哲菲 (Unforgettable Wheat Foods by Liu Zhefei). This isn't a direct translation, but retelling of the gist. Any errors are mine. Not Ms. Liu's.

I just remembered when I forgot trying to remember and thought of something else. The musical instruments are called 排箫 pái xiāo

I'm sorry you weren't able to make the trip. Beijing isn't my favourite place, but the Forbidden City and the Great Wall are, I suppose, bucket list material for many people. The wall, as President Reagan said is a wall and it's great. I've been twice. Once in summer and once in winter. The forbidden city was interesting , but as a Chinese friend's mother said "I prefer to live in my house." Her house is a two bedroom shack at the side of a river. Her home gets flooded every summer. And I mean totally submerged, not a bit damp. I will also say that Beijing food is not my favourite. One or two dishes maybe, But outside of Imperial cuisine you can buy at eye-bleeding prices, the rest is pretty bland. By the way, It's not my government! It's just the one I have to live under!

You grew up in Thailand? Via Vietnam?

Wow! Thank you so much. I am just happy someone enjoys what I share from my lucky life.

You posted links to Googledrive not YouTube. We need your password to access your Google drive. Please send it to me by DM along with your bank account PIN and credit card numbers. You can embed YouTube videos very easily. Just enter the main YouTube link. You have given the mobile version links which may be the reason they have not embedded. Here they are correctly embedded.

Your images cannot be accessed. Better to upload them here.

Today is 元宵 yuán xiāo, the Lantern Festival marking the 15th day of the first lunar month and the last day of the Spring Festival (春节 chūn jié) which begins with the Chinese New Year on the 1st of the lunar month. Today is the day for eating 汤圆 tāng yuán, sweet glutinous rice balls. I was invited to take part in a celebration ceremony this morning in what is considered to be the city's most beautiful park. I half agree. It lies in the south of the city, surrounded by karst hill formations, but for me, the park itself is over-manicured. I like a bit of wild. That said, there are said to be around 700 species of wildlife, but most of that is on the inaccessible hills. There are pony rides for the kids and some of the locals are a bit on the wild side. Park Entrance Karst Hill Although the park has beautiful flower displays and great trees, what I love most is the bamboo. Such a beautiful plant and so useful. They had also hung the traditional red lanterns on some of the trees. The main reason for us to be there was to be entertained by, at first, these three young men who bizarrely welcomed us with a rendition of Auld Lang Syne played on their bamboo wind instruments - I forget what they are called. They are wearing the traditional dress of the local Zhuang ethnic minority. Then some local school kids sang for us and did a short play in English. Clap, clap, clap. Then on to the main event. We were asked to form groups around one of four tables looking like this. Appetising, huh? What we have here at top is a dough made from glutinous rice flour. Then below black sesame paste and ground peanut paste. We are about to learn to make Tangyuan, glutinous rice balls. Basically you take a lump of dough, roll it into a ball, then flatten it, then form a cup shape. add some of each or either of the two pastes and reform the ball to enclose the filling. Simple! Maybe not. Some of us were more successful than others These are supposed to be white, but you can see the filling - not good; its like having egg showing all over the outside of your scotch eggs. Modesty Shame prevents me telling you which were mine. At least one person seemed to think bigger is better! No! They are meant to be about an inch in diameter. Sometimes size does matter! Finally the balls we had made were taken away to be boiled in the park's on-site restaurant. What we were served were identically sized balls with no filling showing. They are served in this sweet ginger soup. The local pigs probably had ours for lunch. The orange-ish and purplish looking ones are made in the same way, but using red and black glutinous rice instead. Fun was had, which was the whole point.

Unfortunately, YouTube has removed all the videos of series 3 for copyright reasons*. This is most unusual, but may mean that CCTV (China Central Television) may be planning to stream them in the future - as they did with series 2. * Please note, I didn't upload them. Nothing to do with me!

Here in the tropics, the temps rarely drop below 23ºC/73ºF apart from about a month (usually February, but earlier this year). Today is 23ºC. In July -August we are looking at between 35ºC and 40ºC / 95ºF and 104ºF. Thanks to stir frying, we survive. OK. stir-frying in wok is high temperature, but only for minutes at most. Salads are rare in Chinese cuisine.

Yes

Oh. good! Me too. I thought it was my computer! Or me! Update. Rechecked. OK Now.

Wotou buns (窝头 wō tóu - literally "nest heads") with minced pork marinated in Shaoxing wine, soy sauce, chilli powder, cumin, xiapi, and fish sauce. Stir fried then added Hunan pickled vegetable. This was a kind of starter. Main course was a simple egg fried rice, which I didn't photograph. I guess you've seen egg fried rice, before.

It does, but isn't at all common. It seems to more prevalent in the US and UK as you say, but also, for some reason, in Indonesia. I don't think it would have chicken here, though. Anyway, I'd happily eat your version.

This one? He also has a general satay sauce recipe here.

Now that the Chinese New Year celebrations are over Pizza Hut has dropped the coin pizza above and launched this. It's odd. What they are offering is special weekday lunch specials. At 35元 you get a " Colourful vegetable salad (small portion)" and a cup of lemon tea. Splash out and for 45元 you are the lucky participant in a "Pine nut chicken with basil pasta package". Including the same lemon tea. Other choices along the bottom are: Teriyaki chicken fried rice set meal Ham and cheese Panini set American Style Pizza Italian Meal (small) Exactly the opposite of localisation and not something that will appeal to many people around here. Few people eat salads. One friend visited England and in a hospital cafeteria asked for a salad she saw and was outraged that they didn't cook it for her! You can pop downstairs from here and there is a food mall selling more substantial Chinese meals for a fraction of the price. It was lunchtime when I passed and Pizza Hut was empty; you couldn't move downstairs.

One thing I like is that, here in China, duck is cheap. This one cost me ¥10.80 ($1.70 USD). A similarly sized decent chicken is between ¥50 and ¥60 ($8-$9.5). The feet and most of the wings had been removed to be sold separately. I jointed it and one breast and the legs are in the freezer for another day. I also have a load of fat in the fridge to render later. With the carcase, including the head, I made a duck stock which I chilled overnight, then de-fatted. Made stock with the meat from the carcase and the other breast. Leeks, onions, carrots, mushrooms, chilli and a splash of white rice wine vinegar. Hot and sour duck soup. Served with steamed bread (馒头 mán tóu).

I'm a self shucker, too. Not only do I enjoy doing it, but that way they are only opened at the last minute.

No. The Irish reference was to me calling the mashed potato and spring onion/scallion "champ". Nothing to do with the very French mustard I used.

Tonight, I've gone Irish. Pork cutlets, spinach and rough champ. I like my mashed spuds to have some texture. I'm not a baby and even have most of my own teeth! After taking the pictures, I added a spoonful of that old Irish national condiment, Dijon mustard.

A lair of dragon fruit, I think! And bream rhymes with cream.