liuzhou

For some reason, I can't open either of the links in your post, but I think you mean this shape. My confusion arises from the imagery in the Amazon ad you linked to showing only this shape. I don't see how it would work with the flat cans. Maybe I'll have to buy one. By the way, anything being available on Alibaba doesn't necessarily mean it's available here. A lot of their stuff is export only.

Wouldn't work on any of the sardine cans I buy, either here in China or in the UK. Wrong shape.

If so, I'll be the richest 150 year old in history!

I didn't buy it in an art gallery. Unless they have taken to disguising art galleries as supermarkets complete with kitchen utensils aisles complete with regular forks and knives. And checkout lanes.

Saw this today and thought how idiotic, so I bought it. About 75 cents US. A combined knife and fork. Of course, if the knife were to be anywhere near able to cut anything, it would be a useless handle for a fork. Also, the design renders both tools impractical at best. Difficult to hold and your hand will be slathered in food. What sort of idiot did they think would buy one? Oh! Wait a minute!

I have some cans of paint and one of lubricating oil. I hope that's enough.

including recipes for disaster.

This amused me. They don't have any zip code!

True (I've seen similar reports), but the legal shark fin market is in sharp declne. President Xi banned it from all official entertainment (where most fin was eaten) both nationally and at local level. Also, a growing public awareness of the horrific harvesting methds has had an effect. Yes, there will still be black market supplies, but they too have been curtailed. How far new attitudes will take things, remains to be seen.

China manufactures by far the majority of the world’s microwaves, but while it is true that many people in mainland China have them, very few are actually used for cooking. They are mostly seen as tools to reheat the last meal’s leftovers. Of all those microwaves, those capable of baking (convection microwaves) are a small percentage and three to five times more expensive. Even those who do own such things seldom bake in them and they can’t bake everything. There was a brief fashion about eight years ago for baking, but most people were using toaster ovens to bake Western style cakes. Nothing Chinese. Several shops opened selling the appropriate ingredients. 90% of them lasted a year or two at most. People moved on the next craze. The bookshops had a few Western style bakery cookbooks, but no longer.

I was thinking about this topic and your question, this morning. So, I did what I should have done earlier and searched in Chinese for baking cookbooks and chose the images option. Here are the results. Almost everything that turns up looks derived from European and American baking to me. I repeated the search on Baidu, the most popular Chinese search engine. Results here. almost the same. Very little recognisably Chinese. Unfortunately, Google is not available to me at the moment. Presumably, the censors are terrified cakes will bring down the entire system, but you could try using this search term - 烘焙食谱 = baking cookbooks. Normally, I'd say "If you do find a suitable Chinese language cookbook, please tell me.", but I'm not really a cake person and don't have an oven! Good Luck!

10 lamb filled, steamed jiaozi. Served with a chilli oil dip.

They are usually sold in sets of two here.

I have those too. Very useful for all kind of tasks. They're very common here.

@Ann_T I had the Xinjiang Polo (Lamb over Fried Rice) dish above for lunch again, today and confirm there were no potatoes or carrots harmed in its making. There was however, carrot in the accompanying side of stir fried beg. I'm sorry, but I still have no better explanation for what we both saw as possible potato in the photo I posted. I look forward to seeing your version, if you get round to making it.

Around 2003, I was helping a friend set up a new restaurant here in China and one day a woman turned up touting Apple Cider Vinegar for the bar! She spent an hour or more extolling its virtues and ability to cure everything except idiocy and gullibility. She got nowhere near a sale. I did suggest some good scrumpy or hard apple cider would do nicely, but she seemed unsure if any such thing existed. Twenty years later, it is still on sale in supermarkets, so someone must be buying it, proving it doesn't cure gullibility. Image from advertisment.

藏菜 (zàng cài) / Tibetan: བོད་ཀྱི་ཟས་མཆོག, Tibetan (西藏) Cuisine Part One Cue the Mississippi Sheiks’ Sitting on Top of the World and sit back. 藏菜 (zàng cài), Tibetan cuisine is one of the least well known, even within China. Internet information is sparse and often inaccurate. There are very few Tibetan restaurants outside Tibet itself. There are a few in Beijing, of which again few are authentically Tibetan. There are no Tibetan restaurants in this province, so far as I can determine. So, I have little experience of the cuisine, although some years ago, I did go to one of the better Tibetan restaurants in Beijing. I know it was authentic as I was taken there by a Tibetan I knew and trusted. Tibet, བོད་ལྗོངས། in Tibetan, 西藏 (xī zàng) in Chinese, is overall the highest inhabited place in the world, with an average elevation of 4,500 meters/ 14,750 ft above sea level. The capital Lhasa, Tibetan: ལྷ་ས, Chinese 拉萨 (lā sà) sits at 3,650 m / 12,000 ft. It borders India, Nepal and Bhutan to the south and south-west. It also borders Yunnan, Sichuan, and Gansu to the west, and to the north are Qinghai Province and the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. Its population is around only four million, but another three million ethnic Tibetans live in neighbouring provinces of China as well as in other countries, especially in India. The elevation is boosted by the Himalayas on its southern side. Tibetan: ཇོ་མོ་གླང་མ། (Qomolangma), which Chinese borrowed as 珠穆朗玛 (zhū mù lǎng mǎ), is what the west calls Mount Everest, the world’s highest peak at around 8,850 metres / 29,000 feet and so named by Colonel Sir George Everest (1790-1866), British Surveyor-General of India (1830-1843) who, being an entitled imperialist moron, sensibly decided to name it after himself. The peak lies on the border of Tibet and Nepal. In Nepalese, it is सगरमाथा। (Sagarmatha). Qomolangma I have never been to Tibet. Two reasons. a) It difficult to go. Despite having a residence permit supposedly covering all of China, I still require a separate permit to enter Tibet. This can only obtained by travel agents in certain cities; none where I live. Even those permits can be suspended any moment depending on the political whim of the paranoid communists. Local holidays and anniversaries are a prime target. b) All travellers there are troubled to some degree by altitude sickness. My idea of an enjoyable vacation does not include gasping for air with every breath. However, I have seen Tibet (and Everest). Many years ago, when I was much younger and fitter, I did visit Nepal and India and saw them from there. At that time, all of China was closed. Being so high the land is mainly grasslands and mountains, cool to very cold. Little grows there, so the people, despite their strong Buddhist culture, depend very heavily on meat and dairy products. Many Tibetan Buddhists are not vegetarian as so many people presume; the Dalai Lama states in his autobiography that he eats meat. However, there are rules about what meat they can eat. Only hoofed animals are allowed. Small animals are prohibited as they are seen as wasteful. A rabbit doesn’t feed many people. Vegetables, until very recently were rare. Main proteins are yak, cattle, sheep, deer, antelopes and gazelles. Fish is extremely rarely eaten. Yak predominates; it is eaten raw, cooked in many ways, dried and as sausages. Yak - image 51miz.com Tibetan Yak Sausages Yak butter is ubiquitous and is used to make ཇ་མར, yak butter tea, a bit of an acquired taste. It's sweet and gamey at the same time, with a creamy milk flavour following it. Yak yogurt is thick and pleasant, thanks to its high fat content. Tibetan Butter Tea Their main grain is barley which does grow in these extreme conditions. A roasted barley flour known as རྩམ་པ tsampa in Tibetan, 糌粑 (zān bā) in Chinese is ground into flour which is made into bread cakes and buns, eaten as a breakfast cereal, mixed with yak butter and tea to make a kind of meatball and also made into beer and a type of barley wine called chang. Tsampa Mushrooms do grow there, as everywhere. The most important mushrooms economically are caterpillar fungus, Cordysep sinensis and matsutake, tricholoma matsutake, which are harvested from the wild. The locals rarely ear them. Too valuable. Most are exported to Japan where they fetch high prices. Cordycep sinensis Tibet has not only influenced its neighbours, but the traffic is two way. Indian curries are found, especially in Lhasa. There is also Nepalese spilt-pea pancakes and several noodle dishes from China. Next time, I’ll look at some specific dishes. Note all images are mine or public domain, unless stated otherwise.

Sorry, but now I'm confused. I've never encountered pineapple cakes in China. That, of course, doesn't mean they don't exist. 99% of buns are steamed not baked. I'm not sure what taro globes are and can only find one reference on-line although it does mention Taiwan. Mooncakes are baked, yes. But almost always by companies who make nothing else. There is one right next to my home. Restaurants buy them in from them. Mochi is Japanese, not Chinese. I'd really like to help, but I seriously doubt you're going to find any Chinese language books covering baking. It's a rarely used technique in China.

I know it's hard in the restaurant business and many are struggling. Some desperately seek gimmicks to set themselves apart from the competition. Few work for long. I've seen many here come and go. Here in China, a recent fashion has arisen for this bizarre type of service. Instead of plating the food, the server brings a whole wok full of food and tips it into the centre of the table, which is covered in paper. Seafood is the most common I've seen. These screen grab images are from Douyin, the heavily censored version of Tik-Tok used in China. I have the videos but can't post them at the moment. More censorship. Dig in! I'm sure there are others!

Yes/. Mostly by error, from what I've seen.

Yes, the red in my meal was chilli peppers. There was no potato though. It was a delivery meal, so I didn't cook it and I can't remember what that white piece at approx 7 o'clock in my picture was. If you forced me to guess, I'd say it was a clove of garlic. Good excuse to order it again, just to check! I find The Woks of Life website a very unreliable source of information.

If you eat Chinese style, you can have both together! It is very unusual to just have one dish for dinner. Never seen @Shelby's dish in China. though. Unfortunately.

鱼香肉丝 (yú xiāng ròu sī), Fish Fragrant Pork Shreds. There is no fish in it at all; instead it uses ingredients and flavours usually associated with Sichuan fish cookery. Ginger, garlic, onion, chillies, doubanjiang. It is salty, sweet, sour, and spicy. Served with rice.

新菜 (xīn cài) - Xinjiang (新疆) Cuisine 新疆维吾尔自治区 (xīn jiāng wéi wú ěr zì zhì qū), Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region is China’s westernmost region, bordering within China on Qinghai, Gansu and Tibet to its south-east and internationally bordering Mongolia to the north-east, a tiny part of Russia to the north, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India to the west. Its capital is Ürümqi (Chinese: 乌鲁木齐 - wū lǔ mù qí). It is China’s largest administrative region. Its autonomous region status is by virtue of its large population of Uygur (also spelled Uighur), Chinese: 维吾尔 (wéi wú ěr), Muslim ethnic minority people. Its real autonomy is virtually zero. The Uygur are a Turkic people and their language and culture is much closer to Turkish than to Chinese. Their food is strongly influenced by Turkic cuisine, too and especially by its immediate neighbours, especially the ‘-stans’. Xinjiang, literally means ‘new border’ and has been part of China since 1884 during the Qing dynasty. Its historic name is East Turkistan, although that name has been denied them by the communist regime. It remains a troubled region. There are tensions between the ethnic minorities and the many Han Chinese immigrants, especially in recent years. But I’m not getting into the politics here. Its food, despite being far from what most people consider to be Chinese cuisine, is very popular across China, today. Xinjiang was a major part of the Silk Road linking China to the west and that brought spices and techniques from the west, but it also absorbed influences from its eastern neighbours in China while still retaining its own unique identity. Although ‘regular’ Chinese food is widely available there now, I intend to focus more on the native ethnic minorities’ cuisine For religious regions, they do not eat pork; instead lamb/mutton is their main protein, supplemented by beef, horse and chicken. Much of the food is halal. Saltwater fish is far, far away, so what fish etc there is is mostly freshwater. Whereas the Chinese use chopsticks for most of their eating, in Xinjiang it’s hands. The Xinjiang food most widely found around China is certainly 羊肉串 (yáng ròu chuàn), or in Beijing dialect 羊肉串儿 (yáng ròu chuàn ér), exactly the same thing. These are fatty lamb cubes on sticks, grilled over charcoal and spiced with Xinjiang’s favourite spice, cumin and chilli along with other spices. All over Xinjiang and in every city I’ve visited in China, night markets have the Xinjiang kebab people, mostly street food but also available in many restaurants. And they are damned delicious. Cubes of fat, ideally from the sheep’s tail, are interspersed with lean lamb; the fat renders flavouring the meat. Sold by the stick in the streets. I ate them nearly evening in Xi’an, outside North-West University. Excellent beer food. I must have eaten thousands of them in the year I lived there. I still eat them here, around 3,000 km/1,864 miles from Xinjiang. Lamb Skewers Another lamb favourite is 孜然羊肉 (zī rán yáng ròu), Cumin lamb, a simple dish of fried lamb flavoured with whole toasted cumin seeds, chilli peppers, and coriander leaf/cilantro. It is similar to the kebabs above, but stir fried rather than grilled and is flavoured with soy sauce and Shaoxing wine. Cumin Lamb Also popular is 羊肉抓饭 (yáng ròu zhuā fàn). In Uygur language, this is known as polo and is a form of pilaf or pilao and is rice flavoured with cumin, onions, carrots and lamb. In some versions it is sweetened with raisins. The Chinese name means ‘hand-grasped mutton rice’, referring to it traditionally being eaten using the hands. It is usually served as a lunch dish. Polo Before leaving lamb behind, I should mention that a good Xinjiang snack food is 烤包子 (kǎo bāo zi). These are bao buns containing lamb but instead of being steamed in the usual Chinese manner, are fried or grilled. Roasted Bao Buns The most famous Xinjiang chicken dish has been mentioned here several times in the past. 大盘鸡 (dà pán jī), literally ‘big plate chicken’. Many of visitors assume that they are eating some ancient, traditional Muslim dish but they are wrong. The most widely accepted story of its origin is that the dish was invented in the north Xinjiang county of Shawan (沙湾县 - shā wān xiàn) in the early 1990s by an immigrant named Li Shilin from Sichuan who was trying to recreate his home town flavours, but using locally available chicken and potatoes. The inclusion of Sichuan peppercorns in nearly all recipes supports this theory as Sichuan peppercorns are not otherwise part of Xinjiang cuisine. I remember being introduced to it in Xi'an in 1997, when it was described as a 'new dish'. The dish caught on in its birthplace, then spread out along what was the Silk Road to Xi'an, then all over China. Some say it was aided in this by its popularity with long distance truck drivers. Warning: When they ‘big’, they mean BIG. A normal serving is easily enough for four to five hungry people and, if they get through that, they will be served extra noodles to ‘soak up the juices’. Most restaurants offer a smaller version, which is what a friend and I normally share. It, too is more than enough. Big Plate Chicken Alternatively, instead of the noodles, some restaurants serve Xinjiang’s famous bread - 馕 (náng). Linguistically related to naan bread, this usually circular bread made from a fermeted dough, is often flavoured with, you guessed, cumin and chilli and there is a saying "One can go without eating meat for three days, but can't live one day without nang". Nang Bread Xinjiang is also famous for its fruit, especially 哈密瓜 (hā mì guā), Hami melon, a sweet type of large musk melon. These are ‘exported’ all over China and are highly prized. Dried fruits, especially raisins are sold on the streets of many Chinese cities by travelling vendors. This man turned up here every summer until he retired and sent his son instead. Xinjiang Raisin Seller and his dried grapes Hami Melons Also, sold on the street from carts or tricycles is 新疆切糕 (xīn jiāng qiē gāo), a type of cake made from nuts, glutinous rice, dried fruit and melon seeds. I always buy this when I see it. The main nuts used are walnuts and peanuts (technically not a nut). Here, I can only give a brief introduction but I hope it gives an idea of the very different foods and flavours from this part of China. Why it wasn’t included in the list of eight cuisines I started from, I have no idea. It is one of the best and enjoyed everywhere. Next? Another very different Chinese cuisine.