Fred12fred

The Frugal Gourmet - 3 Ancient cuisines book has a recipe for chuen fun that I've used fairly successfully. I presume you just need to hack them into strips and, voila!, fun! No nasty boric acid either

Abra, I'm loving the pictures and descriptions of your week! The food looks wonderful. I'm a little behind on reading your blog and see that you were underwhelmed by the skate... BUT, if you ever do try it again, you must try the Skate with Tamarind Gastrique recipe that Mark Bittman did with James Boyce in his "Bittman Takes On" series...they have the recipe online at howtocookeverything.com...this recipe is a keeper!

Most of the comments here seem to refer to boiling the edamame, and THEN salting. Is this a more common way to prepare them? I tend to boil them IN salted water as it gives them a better taste to me... Of course, boiled and salted frozen edamame is probably even better And, the chili/cumin/basil looks good!

I agree with the majority of the posts here...it is much easier to buy ready-made than to make them yourself. I followed a recipe from the Frugal Gourmet's Three Ancient Cuisines book and found that, while tasting fairly good, the result wasn't worth the effort. But, on to my question, I have been reading the wonderful food blog "Cha Xiu Bao" (http://chaxiubao.typepad.com/), and on April 1st, 2005, he had posted a comment on cheung fan and in there, he shows a picture of the rolls with a brown-ish sauce on the side. It looks to me like some sort of sesame based sauce and he seems to make a reference to a sesame sauce as well.. Does anyone know what sauce this is? And, more importantly, how would one go about making this? All of the dim sum restaraunts that I've been to serve cheung fan with a sweet soy-based sauce (which, by the way, the Frug provides a very good version of in the aforementioned cookbook).

To me, the ultimate recipe for Beef and Tomato comes from Grace Young's cookbook. Basically, tomatoes, ginger, green onion, oyster sauce, and sugar. My wife and I live and die by this recipe.

Black cod is going to be huge (until it gets overfished and goes bye-bye like Chilean Sea Bass ) I'm lucky enough that I can sometimes get it live for $5.99/lb at the local Asian market.... Mmmm...miso black cod....

I can assure you, it tastes anything but revolting. Its probably one of the best uses for leftover turkey and thanksgiving accoutriments you can possibly have. ← No knife, no fork, and no napkins in the picture So, exactly how did this get from plate to mouth without making a huge mess?

Julienne the chayote, toss it into some oil and stir fry for a bit then top off with a little oyster sauce. Simple but good as a neutral veggie side-dish.

I've always heard that nutritional yeast is good on popcorn, but I've also heard that it can give you a severe case of gas...so I've been leery of trying it True, false?

I have an Atlas as well and find it works very well and haven't had any problems. I do agree with marie-louise's comment above. As another left-hander, I do find it a bit awkward to use sometimes...silly right-handed world...why do companies design things backwards?

This looks like it's going to be fun! Looking at the Costco purchases, I'm just struck by how "American" it all looks...not what I would have expected...maybe it's just me Although, the load of candy on the table reminds me that I need to get my Halloween shopping done! Is Halloween celebrated in Japan?

Wow...9 pages of cauliflower! My wife and I absolutely love cooking cauliflower this way. Both of us hadn't eaten it for years and years because the only way both of our parents cooked it was steaming or boiling until mush. Now, we can't get enough! $0.99 a head in San Diego! We do a cauliflower pasta that works out great. Just roast the cauliflower on some aluminum foil and "deglaze" the foil using water or chicken broth after cooking. Brown some garlic in a pan with olive oil, add cauliflower and pasta, and thin sauce as necessary with the "deglaze" broth. Sometimes we'll top with a over-easy fried egg... Yum

The only Quiznos sandwich that I like is their Tuna...straight out of the toaster. The second that sucker gets cold, it's just like any other mayo-laden tuna sandwich.

Actually, my wife and I are trying to figure out if there's a herbal supplement that we can buy that contains it and I thought that there may be one but under a different name. I was hoping that it was a plant that would be recognizable to someone other than a Chinese herbalist. I appreciate all the help. I will look into the threads and the links provided have been very helpful.

Does anyone know if there's an English name for the herb dong quai? Does this come from a common, recognizable plant? I'm not looking for the scientific name of the plant, just the normal name of it. If there is one... Thank you!

Rachel Thank you for the wonderful pictures! Especially the pictures of the packaging for the wrappers. I was out shopping for wraps this weekend trying to find the brand with a rose...as it turns out, almost all brands have a rose on them! This time, I went for the brand that felt the thickest...we'll see if I still have the disintegrating problem. Of course, I need to try the damp towel trick as well! What my wife and I like to do in terms of filling is to replace the bean threads with some steamed jicama and we'll add some egg cooked with a little soy and sugar (kind of like Japanese tamago) and use some steamed Chinese lap cheung (pork sausage) along with lettuce, cilantro, and basil. For sauce, we use a mixture of hoisin and peanut butter....although gus_tatory's miso-mayo sauce sounds great. I wasn't planning on making rolls until later in the week, but this threads gotten me in the mood for them tonight

Uh oh...crushed peanut candy...I haven't had that in YEARS! I used to love it when I was a kid. The only problem was how to eat it without having it disintegrate into a pile of powder in your hand Hmm...it's a Friday...I suppose I can sneak out of work a little early to go shopping...

Dejah, I'm just catching up on this thread from the weekend and was knocked out by how wonderful the dim sum looked! One question: your bao's look incredible! Could you please post your dough recipe? Mine don't turn out nearly as well...instead of white, light and fluffy, my baos turn out grey and doughy Thank you!

Regarding Banh Trang wrappers, what brand do you all prefer? The Vietnamese grocery store that I go to must have a dozen or so to choose from. The last brand I bought (Sword Fish Brand) isn't very good. I think they are too thin, so they virtually dissolve after a brief soaking in water. Funny thing is that they were the most expensive brand in the store ... $1.49 Anyway, I'd like to hear what brands people are using so that when I get through this bunch, I can purchase a better wrap.

Sigh...this is what my mom used to make when I was growing up...I need to take a trip home... Just to confuse everyone, we would call these chun juan in Chinese, but egg rolls in English... But, now that I'm reading this thread, my experience outside the home parallels the others, where egg roll would mean the chimichanga-type and spring roll the "real" (to me at least) type

I always prefer to make a teriyaki-type sauce for my salmon...I just pan fry the salmon skin side down for a few minutes then pop it into a 350 degree oven to finish cooking, then make the sauce in a separate pan using equal parts mirin and soy with sugar to taste. Simple yet tasty!

Hest88, When we were in LA, we would take weekly trips to the San Gabriel 99 Ranch shopping mall. (on a side note, I have to say that you don't know what a great place 99 Ranch stores are until you don't have one nearby. They have the best fresh fish counter that I've ever seen. I especially like that the one that we live near now stocks live black cod for $6.99/lb!!! ) My wife and I just loved the vegetarian steamed dumplings and the hand pulled noodles at Chu's Mandarin in the mall. Also, we would make frequent visits to MPV Seafood for dinner. For dim sum, we used to go down to Empress Pavilion in Chinatown...but it was always so crowded that we started to feel like it wasn't worth the time... But, it's been years since we were there...a road trip may be in order now...

Admittedly, my tastes run more towards the Cantonese style Chinese food (blame it on my HK born wife )...but I've found that the Chinese restaraunts on the East Coast (NY and Philadelphia Chinatowns) are significantly better than what I've found in LA. We've lived for years in Southern Calif, Wash DC, and San Francisco. To me, the biggest difference is that the restaraunts that we've frequented on the East coast will serve the food very soon after cooking, so you get that "wok-chi" effect of smoky goodness (especially for chow-fun and other noodle dishes and don't get me started on the custard tart right out of the oven that I had in Philadelphia which was THE singular best dim sum item I have ever had...it haunts me to this day... ). From my experience in LA, you just don't get that immediate serving of the dishes and, as a result, you lose that essence that, to me, separates restaraunt Chinese food from home-style. Also, for some reason, LA chinese food tends to be salty to my taste. To me, SF Chinese food is better than LA. I especially like the roast duck and cha-shu that we used to buy on a weekly basis from one of the BBQ shops in Chinatown...we still haven't found any place that makes roast duck that even comes close... Also, based on limited experience, Toronto and Vancouver Chinatown restaraunts are on par with NY and Philly. We had an especially memorable chow fun in a hole-in-the-wall restaraunt in Toronto's Chinatown on a vacation there years ago