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You can steam them or lay on top of rice during cooking. Eat them as is. Or cut them up, use them to stir-fry vegetables. Like they said: you need some healthy jaws to handle these rubber meat! I am not too crazy about lap yoke or lap cheung since I was a kid. For one thing, I don't like eating fats. Neither fresh ones or cured ones. With lap yoke, I can only find tiny piece of lean meat on each piece. With lap cheung, I always needed to spew out the fatty cubes. The only thing that I like is lap ngap (duck). Again, separate the skin and fat, I chew on the lean meat. That tastes great! But... that's just me... The one pork fat that I do like is mui choy kou yoke (sorry muichoi)... The pork belly is simmered in the sauce for hours and the fat doesn't taste like fat at all! But even so... I can only have it every now and then...

The roast pork used by TP was stored-bought. She used it to make her dish. It is pretty difficult to make roast pork at home. Unless you have a fork big enough to hold the whole pig and a BBQ big enough for roasting. And it takes about 3 hours of constant rotating the pig on the fork. (If you need to make your own roast pork, it won't be faster than you can say "siu yoke"... )

Shouldn't that be an even number? Pigs have 2 rows of nipples, right? "lok fah naum"?

I took a look at the laap cheung reciped trillium linked to... it calls for anise, clove and cinnamon. Those are dominating spices. I could not taste any trace of them in all the years I ate laap cheung.

Let me venture my guess... 1) Covering the pan? Absolutely! Or else the fish will not be cooked. 2) How long? Judging from the size of the 2 fish... probably 10 minutes (counting from when the water starts to boil). Am I right TP? Beautiful pictures and a simple, delightful dish!

I don't know much about the process of making oyster sauce. I suspect that you don't need that many oysters to make a bottle of oyster sauce. Remember they only said "oyster flavored sauce", which is what it really is. Not entirely "juice from oysters", just a flavoring. I think part of the flavor comes from the oyster shells. Tastes heavy in calcium. A big portion of oyster flavored sauce is the coloring, MSG, starch and such. And, as Ed said, the leftover oysters are smoked and dried and sold as another product. I suspect that's "ho see" (dried oysters). BTW: If you "blend" the fresh oysters to make oyster sauce, I think the result will be bad. A whole oyster contains its guts and everything. When you eat it, it's okay. When you blend the oyster, the dark green color "stuff" will come out and dominate the visuals and the taste. Laksa: try some steamed whole oysters with shells (drip of cooked oil and soy sauce) in Cantonese seafood restaurants. They taste really good. Also, oysters with ginger and scallions, oysters with salt and pepper, and, of course, oyster omlettes.

Found this old post about oyster sauce: Oyster Sauce

Really??? I gotta munch on my bag of wolfberries. I usually open up a bag, use a little bit for making soup, and put the rest back in the cupboard (with the bag open). A few months later, they turn dark brown. Thanks to Dejah, I know better now to store these items in a air-tight glass jar. But if I snack on them, I may not even need to bother storing them... My eyesight is not as what it used to be... I hope I don't snack on the raisins by mistake.

Wait... looking at the stove? That's supposed to be a "guy's" thing! Tepee: your dish looks great! I have never thought of doing it this way... gotta give it a try. Your gei chee (boxthorn berries)... do you soak them in water first before use? Or use them as is? And... I am surprised that you didn't arrange the broccoli with stems pointing to the center and the "flowers" pointing outward! It's my turn to say: Thank you! I love your pictures! Keep it up!! *whip, whip* (It's a lot of work isn't it? )

Dim sum... In my opinion, HKFL and Seafood Harbor are in the same class as the following ones: Hong Kong East Ocean - Emeryville; I had their dim sum before, very good. Yang Sing - SF Downtown; I went by there but didn't eat there. The dim sum looks good but the surrounding I didn't like (part of their setting in the weekend is out in the atrium inside a business building) Zen Peninsula - Millbrae; I ate dinner over there. The food was very good. Didn't have their dim sum but I trust it that they would do a good job. Have seen good reviews on chowhound. Fook Yuen - Millbrae; I date dinner there long time ago. The food was very good. Haven't had dim sum there but also saw good reviews on chowhound. Koi Palace - Daly City; I went there once on a Saturday hoping to try them out. The reception area was crowded with people waiting. After 1 hour of waiting and still no hope of knowing when we could be seated, we left with an empty stomach. Judging from the patronship (>90% Chinese) and the long waiting time, they are probably very good. I had been to HKFL about 6 months ago. I think they have totally deteriorated (food quality-wise) from what I knew of them a few years ago. I don't think I will be back any time soon. Saturday at noon - no waiting. If you go further south to the San Jose area, there are a few that are really good. May Flower - Milpitas; I had dim sum there about a couple of years ago. It was great. As for your seafood quest, you may be able to get some in these restaurants too. Especially from Zen Peninsula which I had dined at. Be warned, price-wise: top $$$.

Huh? Like Dejah said: Have you seen her website??? http://www.tpcalcake.net/

Yuki: (1) Do you cut the slit along the long edge of the tofu, or across the long edge of the tofu? (2) Do you use corn starch to dust the tofu, or to dust the fish paste?

Fish paste can be steamed, definitely. I am planning on making another dish that mixes fish paste and tofu and steamed. I like fish paste that is fried more - the caramelized taste is irresistable.

To "polish off"? Like shine it with some sesame oil? We devoured 41.32% of the dish last night for dinner. We had another 39.16% of the dish as lunch today between my wife and me. That leaves 19.52% still in the fridge for any-time snacks... Has anybody tried to stuff fish paste on firm tofu? I have not been successful cooking it. The fish paste always separates from the tofu (because the tofu edges are so smooth). What is the trick that would make the fish paste stick to the tofu surface?

Fried Fish Cake with Puff Tofu (煎酿豆腐浦) Fish cakes (fish paste) are made by grinding fish meat. They are sold in most Asian grocery markets. Puff tofus are deep-fried tofu with many air bubble trapped inside. They are very light and puffy. Here are the main ingredients. To enhance the taste of fish cakes (top center, about 1 lb), I used some dried shrimp (middle right) - presoaked in water for about 30 minutes, dried black mushroom (middle left) - presoaked in water for a couple of hours, and some cilantro (not shown). At the bottom center are some puff tofus. Use 1 to 1 1/2 bag (each bag contains about 12 puff tofus). Dice the black mushrooms into small pieces. Drain the dried shrimps after soaking. Finely chop some cilantro. Use a mixing bowl. Add the fish paste. Add the dice black mushrooms, dried shrimp and chopped cilantro. To enhance the flavor, I added about 2 tsp of sesame oil, and 1 tsp of ground white pepper. Mix all the ingredients and seasoning. Cut each puff tofu into two halves. Use your thumb to depress a cavity in the center of the puff tofu. Use a spoon to stuff the fish paste mixture onto the puff tofu. Continue to stuff the puff tofu until fish paste is all used. Heat up a pan/wok over medium fire. Add some cooking oil. Fry the stuffed puff tofo (with the stuffing side down) until the fish paste has turned brown. Check by flipping over each puff tofu. Remove when done. Lay the cooked stuffed puff tofu on the serving plate, with stuffing side up. The sauce is very simple. Here are the ingredients: garlic (mince it), salt (not shown), white vinegar, oyester sauce, chicken broth, dark soy sauce, sugar (not shown) and corn starch (not shown). Use the same pan/wok, add 1 tblsp of cooking oil. Add minced garlic and a pinch of salt. Cook for about 20 seconds. Dash in 1 tsp of white vinegar. Add 1 to 2 cups of chicken broth. Add 2 tblsp of oyster sauce. Add 1 tblsp of dark soy sauce. Add 2 tsp of sugar. Bring to a boil. Use 3 tsp of corn starch, dissolve in water, gradually add to the pan. Keep stirring. Add enough corn starch slurry until the sauce has thicken to the right consistency. Pour the sauce on top of the stuffed tofu. Finished. 1 lb of fish paste yields about 30 to 40 stuffed puff tofu. Variations You may use the same basic technique to stuff other ingredients. Examples are: red/green bell peppers, anaheim peppers, egg plants, firm tofu, geet gwa, etc..

We can probably start a new threat to have some general discussions: In home cooking, trading off a little bit of taste for convenience. Or trading off a little bit of visual appeal for time saving. Chinese restaurants always have a big pot of boiling hot water ready next to the wok. Quickly blanching one or two servings of vegetables virtually take no time. In home cooking for 2, just boiling a pot of hot water would take over 10 minutes... for blanching 4 stalks of bok choy? I would trade off a little bit of taste for convenience. It is nice to lay the vegetable side by side, or even use some carrots to create some animal shapes to put around the serving plate. But in an everyday affair where you dine at home with your spouse and kids, how many of us would take the extra 5 to 10 minutes to create the extra visual appeal - especially in the end if your spouse only watches the TV instead of the dishe during dinner anyway...

It is very true that most Chinese dishes are cooked with, if not a whole chicken, pieces of chicken with bones and skin. As footnoted in the pictorial, one may use any cut to his/her desire. My wife eats white meats only. Our refrigerator is stocked with mostly chicken breasts.

I dread that one day, the "recipe" question will come up. I am one of those people who measures things by eye-balls only. All of the home cooking dishes that I learned from my father, we never wrote down the "recipes". And I hate being so by-the-book of using 1 teaspoon of this and 2 tablespoons of that. Besides, everybody has a different tolerance of saltiness, sweetness, sourness and hotness. I figured that it's better to let the readers fill in the actual cooking quantities to suite their taste. The quantities shown in the pictures, or otherwise depicted in the caption, are the actual quantities used to make those dishes. I will try to make a point to suggest some quantities in future postings. I am waiting for someone to help me publish my cooking pictorials. Then I will sit down and measure everything. Back to your questions: 1) Fermented bean curds, about 2 small cubes per lb of chicken 2) Red fermented bean curds, also about 2 small cubes per lb of chicken 3) Both bean curds are automatically mashed when you stir all the marinades

Do you mean a recipe on how to make oyster sauce, or how to make a dish with oyster sauce?

Thanks for the explanations, danjou. I also had heard of borax (Pang Sa) used to tenderize beef in restaurant cookings when I grew up (in the sixties/seventies). The soft texture in those "steak balls" always amazed me. I always wondered about those shrimps in "crystal shrimp" (ball lei ha kao). They look almost transparent instead of an opique white color. The taste is so unlike the natural, cooked shrimp. How about the dried squids? When I was small, I passed by some wet market and I saw merchants used buckets of water to soak the dried squids. The dried squids swelled up to about 3-4 times the original size. I knew it's more than water that's in the bucket but did not know what else was used. Do you know if they use lye water?

We do that too, most of the time. Sometimes we really like to taste the crunchy, dry fried garlic. Frying the garlic with salt until brown and crunchy (but without overdoing it where garlic turns black (charcoal)), and pour on top of the blanched bok choy can retain the texture that we like.

I think that makes sense. The essence of the conventional Chinese double-steaming method, dun in Cantonese, is to slow-cook the ingredients. We use steam to cook the ingredients instead of open fire so that the temperature will be at a constant 100C (212F) or below. I think using a crock-pot set at low setting would achieve a very similar effect. (edited spelling)

Very interesting. How would this work? Planning a "virtual" restaurant? Gotta get Tepee to do the decoration. She's the artist.

I do that too when time permits. (I should have done that for the picture. ) But when we are in a hurry, like when hunger is protesting, this step is skipped.

Bok Choy with Garlic (蒜容白菜) We bought some very nice, fresh bok choy from the grocer. I made a very, very simple dish using only salt and garlic as seasoning. Usually we stir-fry vegetables with oil and garlic added to the pan/wok at the beginning. Tonight I wanted to cook this like what some restaurants do: blanch the bok choy first, then fry some minced garlic with salt in oil until golden brown before pouring on top of the vegetable. This way, the taste of the garlic remains strong with the vegetable instead of dissolved in the excess water. We bought a little over a pound of bok choy. Peel off each stem and wash well. Use a pan/wok, add in a cup or 2 of water. Blanch the bok choy first over high heat. It takes about 5 to 10 minutes. Remove bok choy. Drain excess water and lay on dinner plate. While the bok choy is blanching, minced 5-6 cloves of garlic. Heat up a pan/wok to high temperature, add a bit of cooking oil, add minced garlic and a pinch of salt. Cook for about 30 seconds until garlic turns brown. Stir well. Pour the garlic/salt mixture on top of the cooked bok choy. Finished.