liuzhou

The chicken skin fruit trees have just cropped and it's a bumper harvest this year. These pictures were sent me by a friend in Wuxuan, a town near here.

That what the sandalwood boards are - slices of tree trunk. I've seen the same with the other true woods I've mentioned.

I do regularly eat white button mushrooms. Never had a problem in 50 + years.

Yes, but.... They last for a few days, which baguettes in France (or Vietnam) don't. In France four hours at best. In Vietnam, bánh mì sellers get two or three deliveries or bake the same number of batches throughout the day. In France, you have to get up early or go without.

We also get 法棍 (fǎ gùn), literally French sticks. These are baguettes 🥖. Sometimes. Never great, the best come from Walmart or a Taiwan chain of restaurants here on mainland China. Those from local bakeries are highly unpredictable. They aren’t anywhere close to the real French baguettes my French grandmother bought every morning, but are edible bread. Walmart China Baquettes

The rosewood is too hard a wood and my knives don't like it. The bamboo ones are the ones I use more for cutting bread or soft meats (not the same boards) but scar easily if I say, chop through bones. I prefer boards somewhere in-between. I have three different sizes of the bamboo but I generally prefer the sandalwood for heavier use. Must get a new one. The old one disappeared in my last house move.

Are croissants bread? Arguable. Wikipedia describes them as a cross between bread and flaky pastry, but Wikipedia is flaky, itself. The Chinese name is 牛角面包 (niú jiǎo miàn bāo), literally cow horn bread. Whatever, the vendors of these translate them as croissants which they 100% aren’t. Although hinting at being crescent-shaped but forgetting to curve, in fact, in addition to looking slightly under baked, they contain in their depths industrial ham and pink slime sausages dressed with sweet mayonnaise. A hanging crime in that France.

Maybe in southern Asia, but in China and SE Asia most cutting boards are made from bamboo (not technically a wood, but a grass). A few more are made from Ironwood, rosewood or sandalwood. I have both bamboo and rosewood. Neither are great.

Here is the Guardian's Felicity Cloake's take on it How to make piri piri chicken – recipe | Chicken | The Guardian

Titanium. Idiotic idea. I do buy this. Seldom use it, but it's very cut resistant and seems kind to my knives. Handy in emergencies.

But enough good news. As if the abovementioned toast wasn't bad enough, beware of this. It is the dreaded 'toast' again but this time unsliced and worse. It is called 红豆吐司 (hóng dòu tǔ sī) and is flavoured with sweet red aduki bean paste. Very sweet and nasty cake; not what I call bread..

However dire, offerings are, there are a few honourable exceptions, top of which I give you 馕 (náng). This is a speciality of China’s huge far-western province of Xinjiang which borders Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Russia and Mongolia. Xinjiang is predominantly populated by the Muslim Uyghur people and has a very district cuisine. 馕 (náng) comes from there. In the Uyghur language, they call it نان (nan), meaning bread.. This in turn comes from the identical Persian word for bread. The main type of Xinjiang bread is of course, what is now known in the west as naan, although it was spelled ‘nan’ in English until around the 1970s. This I can find in many of the popular Xinjiang style restaurants found all over China. Again, seldom baked in homes, in Xinjiang it is sold in the many naan bakeries in every town or village. Unlike Indian or other naan, the Xinjiang variety is usually ornately decorated. Xinjiang nang Sadly, I can also get Mission brand Indian style ‘naan’ which is foul in comparison. Sweet and cloying. Indian in appearance only. Mission 'Indian style' naan. I'm on a mission to eradicate it.

Yes, I can easily get the necessary. In fact, I used to make my own regularly. In a large toaster oven. However serious health issues over the last few years put an and to that. I'm no longer physically able to.

The temperature hit 38℃ today, so I cooked as quickly as possible then served it cold. Stir fried freshly peeled shrimp (by which I mean they were alive ten minutes before they hit the wok. Stir fried octopus Served those to myself with a Mission brand Naan. God it was awful. Only took one bite. Sweet and cloying.

Yes.

Like slice of toast with your breakfast? You could use your phone translation app to ask for toast in a restaurant. You won’t get it though unless you are in a hotel breakfast room or restaurant catering to foreigners. All the translation apps translate toast as 土司 (tǔ sī). This, as you can see, is a sound-alike loanword from the English toast. Except it doesn’t mean toast at all. It is what linguists call ‘a false friend’. Sort of like when French learners guess ‘travail’ means ‘travel’, when it means ‘work’. It simple means 'sliced bread'. Some joker saw sliced bread and assumed it was that mysterious thing he’d heard of but never seen – toast. Misnamed it and it stuck. So, that's what you’ll get. Dreadful, low-quality blotting paper slices of CWP ‘bread’. Often sweet, too. 土司 (tǔ sī) - 'toast'? Here’s a tip. Instead of asking for 土司 (tǔ sī), try asking for 烤面包 (kǎo miàn bāo) . This is a more accurate translation and translates as ‘broiled / grilled bread’. However they will in 99% of cases take some of the blotting paper and broil that then serve it cold.

I’ve said this before and I’ll likely say it again because it bugs me. If you are coming to China for any reason and are partial to the occasional sandwich, unless you are in Beijing or Shanghai, you will be out of luck. Most Chinese don’t know what bread is, They think they do but are very mistaken. What passes for bread here is 99% of the time cake. Bread shaped cake. Breadalike. China’s breads are almost all steamed rather than baked. So I’d like to introduce you to some of what I can buy anywhere but never do (and a few exceptions). I’ll start with 馒头 (mán tou), probably the most common. This is a steamed roll made from the same dough as 包子 (bāo zi), bao buns, but unfilled and often sweetened with sugar. Occasionally, they are coloured using vegetable (or artificial) dyes. depending on what colouring agent is used, these may or mat not taste any different from the plain ones. Images from Meituan online shopping app,

But boiling water never exceeds 100℃ at sea level or whatever temperature appertains a different altitudes. In any one place, there is no difference in temperature between a boil and a hard boil.

Kalbi is Korean for ribs (갈비- kalbi) ; it refers to a dish in which Asian pear is used to tenderise the ribs. It isn't the name of the pears.

I know some of you have come across or even used dried shrimp in Chinese or other Asian dishes, but these are even better. Dried tiny fish and dried shrimp from Hunan. I tend just to fry them with a bit of of chilli flakes and eat them cold as a beer food snack. However they can be and usually are added to stir fries or other dishes as potent umami boosters. The fish are approx 4.5 cm / 1¾ inches long and the shrimp 2.5 cm / ¾ inch.

I haven't used it myself, but it is common here in south China and SE Asia. However, not with steaks (which aren't a feature of most of the cuisines). I have elaborated on the Asian pears and their role in marinades in this topic.

Mention in another topic of the use of “Asian Pears” being used to marinate meats got me thinking. The term is a bit silly. There are many varieties of pear in Asia. They’ve been cultivated in China since 2000 BCE. However, in English the term refers to only two of the at least 74 types. These two are native to China. Pyrus pyrifolia, known in China as 沙梨 (shā lí, literally ‘sand pear’) is the more common one. These are native to southern China and northern Vietnam, and Laos, where I am but also now grown in many places, especially Japan and Korea. They do not have the classic pear shape, but are more apple-like in appearance. In fact, one of the many English names for the fruit include ’apple pear’. The large fragrant pears are usually served just as a table fruit, sliced and raw. They are much juicier than most pears. They are prone to bruising so are usually carefully wrapped for transit. They also keep well in the fridge for several weeks. These are the pears most commonly used as in marinades for beef, especially Korea where they are known as 배 (bae). They are considered essential by many in the Korean dish 불고기 (puɭɡoɡi), bulgogi. An enzyme in the pears are a natural tenderiser. Ground pears are also used as a natural sweetener. The pears are also pickled here in China. Pickled Sand Pears The other pear described as ‘Asian pear’ is Pyrus × bretschneideri, 鸭梨 (yā lí, literally ‘duck pear’). A common name English name is ‘Chinese white pear’. The Chinese name comes from the pears seeming to resemble mandarin ducks; I don't see it, myself. These are native to north China. Definitely pear-shaped, they are crisp and less sweet than most pears. Duck Pear These are eaten as a table fruit. I don’t think they are used for marinating meats.

Where in Ireland were you? I've never met anyone in Ireland who didn't know what it was and I've been there hundreds of times. That said, it is more of a home made dish than something you'd find in a restaurant. I often make it (and champ) here in China.

I came across these today. 苏子 (sū zǐ), Perilla frutescens, Perilla seeds. According to the distributor I keep telling them "If your fish smells 'fishy', change your fishmonger. It's not fresh!", but they don't believe me.