liuzhou

🙄🙄🙄 It's the other way round. Dark is less salty and mainly used for colour. Molasses sounds totally wrong to me, although some cheap (and nasty) brands do add molasses to their recipe. Too sweet. Can you find mushroom soy sauce? If not, Kikkoman is technically more akin to a dark soy sauce than to light. I agree that rice vinegar is not a substitute for mirin, but I don't agree that the vinegar in the recipe is being used as a substitute. It is surely being used to give a hint of acid to balance the rest of the sauce, which you wouldn't get from mirin. Now I'm going to put my eyes back in and have a long lie down. Good luck with the recipe. It sounds fine.

Wagon Wheels were invented in Britain by Burton's Bakery Co. which still makes them. The company started in 1935, although the Burton family had being make biscuits since the mid 1800s. They still sell 125 million Wagon Wheels a year in the UK alone. In 2013, the company was bought by Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, who in turn sold it on in 2021. It is now owned by a Ferraro related company. Still based in Birmingham, England they sell Wagon Wheels in 170 countries around the world. Those I received are a Chinese clone. and although it's over 60 years since I ate an original one, they appear very similar to what I remember. Not very pleasant. The Chinese name has no relation to Wagon Wheels, though; it translates as 'Daily Garden'. The company, Dali Food Group was founded in 1989 and is headquartered in Hui'an, Fujian Province, opposite Taiwan. It seems they entered China during the British rule of Hong Kong. https://www.burtonsbiscuits.com

On further investigation of the gifts above, I discovered that the contents of the ‘nuts’ box were a couple of cans of nut juice and several packs of nutty things. Almonds from Australia / USA, Cashews from Vietnam, Hazelnuts from Turkey, Walnuts from China, Cranberries from Canada, Blueberries from Chile and Blackcurrants from Uzbekistan! The cakes were these. Mooncakes will be investigated tomorrow on Mooncake Day.

Compared to my usual meals, yes. Frog does tend to be a bit more expensive than other proteins. More fiddly to work with, I suppose.

Despite yesterday's miserable deliver dinner, tonight I took my fate in my hands and ordered again from a previously untested restaurant. 蒜米炒牛蛙 (suàn mǐ chǎo niú wā), which is stirfried bullfrog with whole garlic cloves. The other main ingredients were red onion, ginger, chilli, soy sauce and Chinese cooking wine Hallelujah! It was excellent. Garlicky, spicy, and frog-sweet. A winner. Served with rice, natch. ¥42.80 / $5.86 USD

I don't mind peanut oil at all in Chinese food, but rice bran oil is my go-to. I'm just glad they didn't choose cØrn oil! I'm itching to cook in anything except devil oil!

Tomorrow (29th) is the Mid-Autumn Festival which moves around like Easter does. Sunday, October 1st, is China's National Day (the 74th Anniversary of Mao declaring the People's Republic from the balcony of the Forbidden City in Beijing) and is celebrated with a week long holiday. This year the two abut so are being combined into an 8 day holiday. So everything stops at 6 pm tonight until October 7th. This afternoon, two people from the local government turned up at my door bearing gifts. Back left is a box of mooncakes, the traditional gift for Mid-Autumn Festival and front left are a load of assorted nuts. Back right is 5 litres of peanut oil while in front are some small cakes. They also brought ten 100ml cartons of UHT milk and 20 rolls of toilet paper. Happy Mooncake Day!

Here we have the ugliest presentation of delivered food I've ever seen. 新疆孜然羊肉盖饭 (xīn jiāng zī rán yáng ròu gài fàn), Xinjiang cumin lamb over rice. Didn't taste much better. From a local Xinjiang restaurant. ¥23.90 / $3.27 USD. Won't be revisiting. ¥23.90 / $3.27 USD

I am sure there are at least dozens of books with pâté en croûte recipes out there. It is going to be difficult to pin down with such scant detail. Do you remember anything else?

First recorded in 1959 in yes, Canada.

Mices can get in through the smallest gaps. I once saw one wriggle in to my house in Hunan through a firmly, so I thought, closed window. He or she attempted to leave abruptly though when Nora Mao, my cat took issue with its presence and had it for breakfast.

It might be an old-age thing, but I do get occasional cravings for the strangest things that I never particularly liked when I was younger. These are nearly all savoury items. Minced beef pies. Steak and kidney pies. Yeah, pies come into my craving repertoire a lot. Rhubarb pies or crumbles. Gooseberry ditto. I suspect it's largely because I can't get them here and have no oven to make them in, anyway. Also, can't get fresh rhubarb even though it is native to China; it all gets dried and used in the TCM nonsense.

Corona beer isn't so bad that they have to cancel a beer festival, is it? Oh! Wait. Yes, probably! 🤪

All very amusing. Occasionaly, I coat pork tenderloin 'steaks' in this commercially produced coating from McCormacks or I use local versions. This one is for chicken, but they also do some for pork. They are indistinguishable apart from the name on the packaging. They come spiced or non-spiced. We also get panko style bread crumbs* in both the white and yellow/orangey versions as well as several other colours. I only use the white and yellow. Purple 'schnitzels' don't appeal. When I coat fish, I only ever batter it, so that doesn't enter my calculations. Panko (パン粉) literally just means 'bread crumbs', albeit they make them differently. They are also made that way here.

Before coming to China in 1996, I had never thought of aubergine / eggplant / brinjal as being associated with Chinese cuisine. How wrong I was. 30 years ago Sichuan cuisine was almost unknown in western ‘Chinese’ restaurants. So, famous dishes such as 鱼香茄子 (yú xiāng qié zi), or 茄子肉末 (qié zi ròu mò) were unknown. That has changed. Tonight I went for the latter, 茄子肉末 (qié zi ròu mò), Aubergine / Eggplant with minced pork. This common Sichuan dish is stir-fried with 豆瓣酱 (dòu bàn jiàng), known in America as Toban sauce, or similar. You may see the two parts of the Chinese name, 茄子 (qié zi), eggplant and 肉末 (ròu mò), reversed to become 肉末茄子 (ròu mò qié zi). In restaurants in China, the predominant ingredient is listed first; some restaurants have both on their menu. I go with the eggplant first variety, the most traditional. This was accompanied by 空心菜 (kōng xīn cài, literally ‘hollow heart vegetable’), water spinach / Kangcong / ong choy/ morning glory etc. Another multiple-named ingredient (in both English and Chinese!) Served with rice. That dish is deep, and I couldn't finish it, so I have leftovers for tomorrow' s lunch. Bonus. ¥22.60 / $3.11 USD inc delivery.

扬州炒饭 (yáng zhōu chǎo fàn) Yangzhou Fried Rice. Yangzhou is a city sitting on the north side of the Yangtse (note 1) river in eastern China’s Jiangsu Province. The city is known for its refined cuisine and especially for its fried rice, widely considered to be one of the best. The internet is full of recipes, most of them wide of the mark, as are those on YouTube etc. This is an authentic recipe from Yangzhou. Ingredients: 300 grams of cooked white medium grain rice, refrigerated overnight. Red chilli pepper to taste Green chilli pepper to taste 30 grams finely diced carrot 80 grams good quality ham finely diced (note 2) 5 grams white sesame seeds, untoasted 10 grams finely diced onion 3 grams minced scallions 3 grams salt 1 gram chicken bouillon powder Method: 1) Prepare everything before cooking anything! Number one rule of stir-frying. 2) Heat wok and add a little neutral oil (note 3). When oil starts to smoke, add scallions and onions and stir rapidly until fragrant then add the chilli peppers, carrots and ham. Stir briefly, then add the rice, mixing it in well and breaking up any lumps (note 4). When rice is fully incorporated add the salt, chicken powder and sesame seeds Notes 1 The term ‘Yangtse’ is all but unknown in China. The river, the world’s longest, is called 长江 (cháng jiāng), meaning ‘long river’ in Mandarin Chinese. 2 Good quality ham sausage can be substituted. The ham of choice in Yangzhou is Jinhua ham from Jinhua city in neighbouring Zhejiang Province. Good Italian hams work well. 3 Soy oil, sunfower oil, peanut oil or rice bran oil are best. Never olive oil. 4 The best way to do this is to press down of the rice in the walk with the back of a wok scoop. This breaks the lumps without breaking the individual grains of rice. Keep stirring until piping hot and serve.

Yes. That is true but I was surprised to see a restaurant in China going on with that theory. Most Chinese customers have a strong aversion to uncooked food.

Today, I bought a pizza. Pizzas are not vegetables. But this one was delivered to my home accompanied by a vegetable I've rarely seen in markets or supermarkets in China, but occasionally in restaurants. I'm talking about Eruca vesicaria or Eruca sativa Mill., popularly known in Commonwealth English as rocket, from the French roquette which in turn is from the Italian ruchetta. It was adopted into English in the early 16th century. In the USA and Canada, it ls known as arugula from the Calabrian dialect word, aruculu, although this seems to be a mid-20th century innovation. Whatever you call it, it is native to the Mediterranean lands. In Chinese, it is bizarrely known as 芝麻菜 (zhī ma cài) or 芝麻叶 (zhī ma yè). These are misnomers. They translate as ‘sesame vegetable’ or ‘sesame leaf’, respectively. Sesame is a totally different plant, Sesamum indicum, and I have seen no evidence that its leaves are eaten other than being used in TCM, mostly as a laxative. I was surprised that the rocket was delivered separately to be eaten uncooked or just wilted in the pizza’s residual heat. When it is (only occasionally) used in Chinese cuisine, it is usually lightly stir fried like any other green vegetable rather than being treated as a herb. Occasionally it is added to soups. Eruca sativa Mill.

I'd agree, but the shop is only five minutes away and I do like it a bit wilted. Certainly not to sogginess, though.

I didn't know what I wanted tonight, but I knew what I didn't want - 中餐 (zhōng cān), Chinese food or, really anything Asian. But, not being up to cooking for myself, I only had the chance to sort out something from the least bad western places. I remembered a recently opened place that I'd ordered from before, but couldn't remember what I had eaten. I perused their offerings looking for whatever I ate before but failed to spot it, then saw this Normally, I stary clear of pizzas in China, but I'm a sucker for parma ham and arugula which this is offering, so I decided to risk all. Ingredients listed are black truffle sauce, Parma ham, sauteed mushroms, onions, mozzarella, arugula etc. I knew they black truffle sauce would be tasteless; Chinese black truffles always are, Howwever, the pizza was fine, if not as good as the similar one I ate in Saigon five years ago (last time I ate pizza!); this one was a bit oversalty. Also, the arugula arrivedseparately in a plasic bag for me to scatter over the dish, presumably to wilt in the residual heat - it didn't. It did come with a free decal for me to stick onto my cell phone though, not that I will do so. ¥40.40 = $5.54 USD

Yes, these are also available here, but have largely been superseded by the induction type of model above. Cleaner and safer when used on the family dinner table.