liuzhou

I finally contacted my ex-student with the pomelo farming family. She told me she has never heard of the leaves being eaten or any other culinary usage, but repeated the Oxford Companion information re ceremonial baths in my opening post, adding that they are boiled in water which is also then used to bathe children with colds. So why they were being sold as a vegetable or spice remains a mystery. Could be. Who knows?

A lifetime squatting over Asian squat toilets develops the necessary muscles!

Sichuan is landlocked, but still comes up with seafood dishes in Sichuan restaurants around the country. 酱爆鱿鱼 (jiàng bào yóu yú), flash fried squid with soy sauce. The squid is almost certainly from Guangxi's Behai on the Tonkin Gulf near the border with Vietnam. Squid. Fresh green and both dried and fresh red chillies, onions, scallions. Soy sauce, ginger and garlic. Rice. Spicy hot.

Nothing like duck tongue, that's for sure.

김 (transliterated as ‘kim’ or more commonly, ‘gim’) is indeed the same as the Japanese 海苔 (nori) which is a type of laver. The wooden chopsticks would certainly also be my choice. The metal ones are indeed slippery and also many people dislike the netallic 'taste' they detect. Some plastic ones are alo slippery. The forks for serving surprised me. Here, if anything, it would always be serving chopsticks or spoons.

Last night. This was titled on the app in English as ‘Spicy Fried Pork Crisps in Korean Style’ but the Chinese name, 辣味猪肉薄脆 (là wèi zhū ròu báo cuì) says ‘Spicy Pork Thin Crisp’’ and doesn’t mention Korea at all. The description reads ‘stir fried pork with Korean chilli sauce, shredded mozzarella cheese, shredded onion and arugula to add to make it meaty, slightly spicy and crispy, rich layers’. I describe it as ‘old, dried up, rock hard, cold toast with no flavour whatsoever’. Truly dreadful. I did forget to add the supplied arugula but it would have made no difference to my assessment. I’ve had good pizza and even a decent salad from this restaurant but this was just an a embarrassment.

Trader Vic's original 1934 menu and somewhat non-PC advertising.

Yes. I've made them with lard too. But butter is just easier to source. I use salted butter, though.

肉宴铁板炒饭 (ròu yàn tiě bǎn chǎo fàn), Meat feast, iron plate fried rice. Roast chicken, ham, scallops, shrimp, egg, garlic chives.

According to the Meituan food app I use, there are 319 luosifen shops offering delivery to my home within 30 minutes. Not all such places offer delivery, so how many shops sell it remains a mystery, at least to me. This only includes those selling the traditional rice noodles in snail soup variety. There are 284 others offering such delights as fried luosifen, which is the same ingredients and flavours as a dry noodle dish. Some offer luosi jiaozi or luosi wontons. Then there are the luosifens with chicken feet, with duck feet, with pig foot, with crayfish, with fish balls (surimi) , etc, etc. The list goes on. One of the rarest is luosifen with snails! (They are used to make the broth but then discarded). They are all mad!

I am not familiar with the brand but from what I read they contain more wheat than oats and are sweetened - a deal breaker for me.

Me too, but they are the only non-sweetened ones I've found in China and they ain't cheap here, either. I shouldn't be so lazy.

It's all really the same product. Many different supermarkets "own brand" products are manufactured in the same factory. They are all the same; just different labels on the cans.

Oh balls! https://news.sky.com/story/asda-sainsburys-and-tesco-baked-beans-products-recalled-because-they-may-contain-rubber-balls-13030874

兰州牛肉面 (lán zhōu niú ròu miàn), Lanzhou Beef Noodles from the local Lanzhou restaurant. Lanzhou is the capital of China’s Gansu province is west-central China. The city has a high concentration of Muslims (the Hui) is famous for its hand-pulled noodles, 兰州拉面 (lán zhōu lā miàn) and for its beef noodles. In fact, the meat here is from 牦牛 (máo niú) which is yak meat and not 牛肉 (niú ròu), beef. Sensibly, the restaurant delivered the beef, noodles etc separately from the broth, leaving me to mix them. Shipping them pre-mixed leads to overcooked noodles. I also bought a couple of 百吉饼 (bǎi jí bǐng), my preferred bread for rou jia mo, maybe tomorrow.

You might expect this to appear in the Pastries and Baking forum, but it’s here for a very good reason. Although baked it is a savoury foodstuff which more sensibly fits here. Ok, they are baked, but so are potatoes! A few days ago, I took delivery of some Nairn’s Oatcakes (eG-friendly Amazon.com link) from Edinburgh, ahead of the Christmas holiday intending to eat them with my cheeses as nature intended. But today, I was thinking “Why?” Imported foods are expensive, but I can buy all the ingredients here! But first let me explain for those who don’t know or are from England! Scottish oatcakes are a sort of unsweetened hard flatbread or cracker, unlike some from England which more resemble pancakes or badly made, cold porridge! So, back to my wondering. “Why did I buy them?” They are so easy to make, something I have done many times in the past but seem to have lost the habit. Basically, I do them as described in this recipe (she also explains more about alien oatcakes). Here are some from the last batch I made. and how to use them. with Wensleydale with Cheddar with Chavroux etc. The best way to eat cheese. As @kaybwill attest!

I decided this afternoon to test the Mongolian “haggis” ahead of New Year rather than leave it to chance and have a bad dinner experience as the first of 2024. I’m glad I did. This is what turned up. For scale, that bowl is 4½ inches / 115 mm in diameter. The contents came already cut in half and not like advertised. It is bears no resemblance whatsoever to haggis, a term they used in their translation. Chewy mutton and hard fat with no spicing or seasoning. I didn't detect any offal. I have been to Inner Mongolia and know they have good food. This wasn’t it! I binned it. A proper haggis is much larger and the contents more finely minced with no large chewy lumps. It is also heavily spiced. Haggis in Scotland - 2019 Fortunately, I had also ordered a couple of spicy roasted quails to snack on so I didn’t go totally hungry. Second disappointment of the day after a less than stellar breakfast.

Like most restaurants here, I usually make rice specifically to fry later (usually the next day). Most restaurants doing fried rice only do fried rice, so have no 'leftover' rice. I seldom have 'leftover rice'.

There was plenty of shrimp, although you can only see one in my picture. They were however, somewhat over-cooked.

I decided I wanted a change from my usual century egg and pork congee, so I ordered this seafood and shiitake congee. The seafood was shrimp and although the taste was OK (once I added some salt) the porrdge was way too thin. I've had thicker cups of tea! Huge disappointment.

Wine I have. And floors. But also beds. Head north-west at Hong Kong.

They are much bigger than makrut lime leaves. They smell of nothing much, but I haven't used them yet.

https://news.sky.com/story/tesco-recalls-christmas-stuffing-because-it-may-contain-moths-13029993 Mothy Christmas!

That lot is just for me. No one else here celebrates Christmas. Actually I don't really either. It's just another day here. But I guess I could squeeze in a couple of guests!

I was rummaging around in the depths of the local food delivery app earlier and came across this wonder. 草原肚包肉 (cǎo yuán dǔ bāo ròu), literally 'grassland belly bag meat'. Yes it's China's answer to my beloved haggis. Comes from the grasslands of China's Inner Mongolia, the autonomous region in the north of China bordering Mongolia and Russia. It is sheep's offal stuffed into the animal's stomach. According to the writing on the image above "it is very fragrant when boiled in water." I don't doubt it. Map by Chinafolio.com That's New Year's dinner sorted out!