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hzrt8w

eGullet Society staff emeritus
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Everything posted by hzrt8w

  1. From the ways things are going... and if Steven Jobs has his way, you might be able to buy (download) a recipe for $0.99 each right to your video IPod, along with pictorials (at least) or videos on how to cook a dish. Hey... that's not a bad business to get into. A "hzrt8w production"! Or should I use "w8trzh production"? Let me ask Oprah.
  2. Try this link: http://www.wingtat.ca/recipes/recipes-index.htm The way they construct their website is kind of funky. You need to access the "company profile" in order to get to the English pages. But of the recipes they listed in English (which are different from their Chinese ones), I don't see them being typical Chinese cooking - with kebob, grilled chicken, oven-fried chickens and french fries.
  3. Jay: I am so glad that you enjoy it. This is a fairly popular dish among millions of families in the Guangzhou/Hong Kong area. I have a few more pictorials in the pipeline, but have been busy last/this week. Have a final tomorrow...
  4. I stumbled on this website when surfing. I like a couple of the recipes (e.g. tea eggs, crispy duck, fried egg plants). All in English. It doesn't seem like the site is maintained (very few posts): http://www.everything-chinese.com/content/...y/6/85/49/30/0/
  5. I wanted to see if I can find more information about chess cakes on Google. I typed in using Chinese characters. It returned only 2 pages. While both pages mentioned chess cakes, they contained no information on what the cakes were. So I typed in "Chess Cake" on Google and did another search. Lo and behold... Google returned thousands of pages!!! Wow... could it be that so many people knew about the Chinese chess cake? I started clicking on some of these recipe pages. They were all talking about CHEESE cakes with the word misspelled as "CHESS"!!! LOL. *shaking head*
  6. And you have been married for how many years???
  7. Are you giving us a word puzzle? Would it be this: 彬 (Sound: Bun [Cantonese], meaning: polite) But those 2 are not men side by side. They are wood side by side, which means forest. Man is: 人 Wood is: 木
  8. hzrt8w

    Beijing dining

    Those look like printed characters. I can only guess they are Chinese characters but they are too small to read.
  9. Yes. Just sing that matching the musical tune. RE: flag cake... Origamecrane had informed me since, that those are actually mooncakes! Sorry. I thought they looked like flag cakes. (Or actually the translation should have been "chess cakes".) Chess cakes look like mooncakes: square in shape with round edges. They are much smaller. They look just like the chess pieces in Chinese chess - thus the name. I can't remember exactly how they taste. I had them when I was small. But I don't have a sweet tooth, so I am not too into desserts. I think they contain lotus seed paste but may be wrong.
  10. hzrt8w

    Beijing dining

    I just noticed... what is that little paper slip on the right side of the eggplant dish? Fortune cookie slip?
  11. hzrt8w

    Beijing dining

    These 3 dishes are surprisingly similar to Cantonese style cooking. Are those shrimps fresh water shrimps? They look a bit small in size. I learned long ago that while in Beijing, avoid ordering seafood items. Bejing is inland, any seafood items would need to be hauled by train from the coastal ports. At least that's 20 years ago. Perhaps their transporation technologies have improved now. River fish are okay.
  12. 生日快乐 Means "Happy Birthday". 亲爱的本 Means "Dear Ben". (Ben's translation is "本"... Ha! He needs to tell us his Chinese name...) 对您 This I have a little difficulty with. 您 Means "You". But 对 means against, or opposite... not the exact translation of the word "to". We usually use the word 祝 (means "wish"). We typically sing the birthday song as: 祝您生日快乐 (Wishing you a happy birthday) Sorry for the linguistics off-track.
  13. So... in short of that, you get it from the food? They sell them in "pint" boxes too!
  14. I want to first put in a qualification so I don't get a lot of people angry at me. The following is my personal observation based on my own experience growing up in Hong Kong, everything in Hong Kong-Cantonese style. I am not sure if it can be generalized. If you are talking about a family celebration in the restaurants for a birthday, then pretty much anything goes. Typically the host (if not the birthday person him/herself) would order things that the birthday boy/girl likes. That's only common sense. If you are talking about a formal banquet... well... I typically didn't see birthday banquets for "young" people. What I typically saw were birthday banquets for 50th, 60th, 70th, 80th birthdays (the big ones). (Maybe it's the affordibility factor?) The menu is the traditional banquet dishes, not that much different from wedding to birthday (or baby red egg (first month)). It is more a factor of how much money the host wants to spend, really. In a birthday banquet, though, one would see towards the end there would be a dish of noodles ("sou mein" - symbolizing longevity) and also some "sou bao" (steamed buns with lotus seed paste filling that shaped like peaches) - also symbolizing longevity. Could it be that the tradition (difference between weddings and birthdays) is now lost? The banquet dishes had been discussed before. If you want to see an example: Click here.
  15. Ben Sook: Through time, we will find some outstanding websites on Chinese food recipes that's presented in English (or best... bilingual)...
  16. Looks more like a sautee pan than a frying pan... have you always used this type of cookware? hzrt? ← I often read on the Internet forums that someone gets really interested to learn how to cook Chinese food. You know what's the first thing that they do before they even buy a Chinese food cookbook? They go out and buy a wok! LOL! To cook "Chinese" food, it's in the ingredients and the process. Yes using a wok is nice, but it's not an absolute requirement. What you see in these pictures is what I have used in the past 20+ years to cook Chinese food. Yes I am a Chinese. Yes I have used a wok. No I don't current own a wok. I do all my stir-fried dishes with two 12-inch frying pans or sautee pans or whatever they are called - from the set of utensils we received for our wedding. I have been using them and I love them. They are easier to toss and to clean. Someday I might get myself a 12000 BTU or 24000 BTU stove. When that time comes, I will then buy a cast iron wok to make "proper" Chinese food - with "wok hey" and the whole nine yard! As long as I am using these tiny stoves, I am not going to bother. (And Tepee... I envy your equipment! )
  17. Ben Hong's 63rd Birthday Special Banquet Menu 乳猪一品拼盘 Suckling Pig Combination Platter (Sucking pig, BBQ pork, roast duck, jelly fish and pork legs) 百花酿蟹拑 Deep-Fried Crab Claws 上汤焗龙虾 Lobster Braised with Premium Broth (*cough* *cough* Hey hey!!! Why are you guys so impolite! You should wait until our special guest picks the first piece!!! Sorry Ben.) 瑶柱会北菇 Dried Conpoy Braised with Black Mushrooms 红烧蟹肉生翅 Shark Fin Soup with Crab Meat 北菇鲍贝扒时蔬 Abalone Braised with Black Mushrooms and Lettuce 清蒸海上鲜 Steamed Fish 红烧脆皮乳鸽 Fried Crispy Pigeons 鲜菇干烧伊面 Yi Fu Noodles Braised with Fresh Straw Mushrooms 海鲜蛋白炒饭 Seafood Egg White Fried Rice 精美甜品:煎堆,旗子饼 Desserts: Deep-Fried Sesame Sticky Rice Puffs and Flag Cakes Footnote: These pictures are courtesy of origamecrane
  18. Chicken with Lemon Grass and Black Bean Sauce (香茅豉汁鸡) I have tasted one dish in a Vietnamese/Chinese restaurant. They used lemon grass to stir-fry diced chicken with fermented black beans. The fragrance of lemon grass has given this dish a characteristic taste. I really love it. Suggested serving size: 4-5 Ingredients: Chicken breast (1 1/2 lb, about 4 pieces), lemon grass (use 1/2 stalk), onion (1 small-size), garlic (about 5-6 cloves), fermented black beans (2 tblsp). Not shown: chili pepper or jalapeno (1/2). Trim the fat and dice the chicken breast into 1 inch cubes. Sauces to marinade the chicken: Sesame oil (3 tblsp), fish sauce (3 tblsp), Shaoshing cooking wine (1.5 tblsp), ground white pepper (1.5 tblsp), corn starch (2 tblsp). Use a mixing bowl. Combine the diced chicken with all marinade ingredients. Mix well. Set aside to marinate for 30 minutes to 2 hours. Minced the garlic. Chop 1/2 stalk of lemon grass. Discard the most outer layers and trim off the top 4 inches. First make about 3 cuts along the stem, then make the cross cuts in very fine increments. Peel and wedge 1 small onion. (Not shown: cut 1/2 chili pepper (e.g. jalapeno) into thin slices. Also, rinse, drain and mash the fermented black beans.) Velvet the marinated chicken first. Use a pan/wok over high heat, add 3 tblsp cooking oil. Add chicken. Stir. Cook until chicken is closed to done (pink color just disappeared). Remove from pan and drain. After removing the chicken, add 1 tblsp cooking oil. Heat until oil starts fuming. Add minced garlic, lemon grass, mashed fermented black beans and sliced chili pepper. Add a pinch of salt (to taste, or skip). Stir and cook for 20 seconds. Add wedged onions. Stir. Cook for 1 minute. Dash in 1 tblsp of white vinegar. Stir. Add about 1/2 cup of chicken broth (or water if you don't have chicken broth). Add 2 tblsp of fish sauce and 1 tblsp of sugar. Bring the mixture to a boil. Add cornstarch slurry to thicken the sauce to the right consistency. Re-add the chicken back in the pan. Stir well. Cook for another minute to heat up the chicken. Finished. The finished dish. Notes: This dish is basically the same as the Cantonese Chicken with Black Bean Sauce, with the addition of lemon grass. Variations: you may add green bell pepper to this dish, or use other types of meat instead of chicken (e.g. beef, shrimp).
  19. Actually this website does have an English version. ← They do. I did take a look at it. Their English version recipes are different (much small collection too) than their Chinese version recipes. And, my impression... not quite Chinese.
  20. Another outstanding recipe site. Recipes in Chinese only. Lots of pictures on the dishes. http://www.wingtat.ca/recipe_index.php
  21. Cat (www.leisure-cat.com) makes a lot of Hong Kong style dishes and cakes and desserts. Lots of pictures. Recipes are in Chinese only. http://www.leisure-cat.com/
  22. I follow the famous Hong Kong chef/educator Maria Lee's (李曾超群) website. I learned a lot from reading her recipes (only in Chinese, but a lot of pictures) - even how to make Peking Duck. http://www.marialee.com/chinese/MyRecipes.htm
  23. I want to dedicate this thread to link to some really outstanding Chinese food recipe websites for easy searches.
  24. Very interesting. I don't think I had this before. I wonder how they tie it in with West Lake (Sai Woo). Would this be a Hangzhou speciality originally?
  25. I used to work as a waiter at a restaurant called "Ming's Garden" in La Jolla (San Diego). The owner was a Chinese who grew up in Paris. He operated this Chinese restaurant (Mandarin/Szechuan style) and offered an extensive wine list because of his knowledge about wine. His wine list featured over 100 different wines from many wineyards, both in California and Europe (France mostly, Germany and Italian too). His wine list folder is thicker than his menu. We had some once a month "training" from the wine distributors telling us how to push different wines. We got to taste some of the samples. Imagine that: after going to school all day, working all night at the restaurant, had dinner at 11:00 pm, and had this distributor come in and "trained" us and offered samples at 11:30 pm! Basically the simple rules are: white wine goes with white meat (poultry and fish), and red wine goes with red meat (beef). Duh!? But... back then most of us (waiters) were foreign students... what did we know about wine? It was a good education. I just wished it wasn't held at 11:30 pm to 00:30 am! Also, spicy food (e.g. kung pao chicken), get some fruity wine (e.g. Chenin Blanc ) to balance the spiciness. But when eating fish, which is very delicate, get some extra dry wine (e.g. Chardonnay). Light red meat (e.g. beef stir-fried with vegetables), get some light red wine or rose (e.g. Pinot Nior, White Zinfandel). Heavy red meat (e.g. red cooked beef or brisket), get some heavy red wine (e.g. Burgundy, Cabernet Sauvignon). When some customers came in, they liked to order some "Chinese" wine to go with Chinese food - which to me was not a very smart thing to do. The Chinese wine production (>20 years ago, maybe still is) was so limited. All we carried was "Wan Fu", a fruity white wine that was similar to Chenin Blanc I think. If that's what they wished, that what they would get. We also learned that before the meal: maybe in the bar or munching on appertizers, drink cocktails, champaign or beer (we sold a lot of Martinis and Tsing Tao). During main courses, table wine. Drinking beers during meals would be considered "unsophisticated" but some customers did - as Chinese patrons often do. After meal, it's time for dessert wine (e.g. sherry) and cognac from VS, VSOP, Napoleon to XO. Yeah, drank them with a "Banana Flambe" (fried battered bananas burned in flame) dessert. Ming's Garden got a copy of the secret recipe and made hell of a Mai Tai too...
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