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I don't have a formal recipe. But this dish should be very simple. Marinate the chicken wings with some light soy sauce. About 0.5 to 1 tsp per wing. Marinate for an hour or so. If you can, place the wings over a rack or something to hang them dry. Better: chain them up and set on a small fan to blow on them, so that the skin will dry up to the touch (before frying). Use frying oil, high heat, 400F or so... deep-fry the chicken wings until golden brown. Remove. To make the seasoning: Use a different pan or wok (or remove the frying oil and clean the wok), use only a little bit of cooking oil, high heat... fry up some minced garlic and sliced chili. Then add some salt and ground Sichuan peppercorns (best -dry-roast them first then grind them). Stir the mixture well. Then return the chicken wings so that they will coat on the "salt and pepper" seasoning. Done.

Hotpot for 2 small kids? *cough* *cough* Hope you would order something else too...

Good Grief! Too time consuming? When you retire? Why you young whippersnapper! I ought to take the gai mo so to your butt! ← You want me to hold her down? We Chinese many times go to spend extra time and effort for good eats. Smoked Tea Duck, Peking Duck, many red braised dishes and double-boiled ("Dun") soups, shark fins, etc. etc. take hours and hours of preparations. Soaking a few duck eggs in salt water for a few weeks does not seem too much of effort...

I think that is seems cholesterol is contained in the egg (yolk), that the process of making pei dan would not change that. It's a bummer you can't get raw salted duck eggs. A few Cantonese-Chinese dishes use raw salted duck eggs. You can make your own. There were discussions on it in this forum a little while back. Duck eggs immersed in brine.

Lovely! I rarely see the transparent egg white and jell/liquid like egg yolks. I guess all the Asian markets in the Bay Area need to be fired! Most carry brands from the same manufacturer. And all are crappy. Dried and dull in color.

I may be confused in the English terms. In Chinese (Cantones), we say "zhou yau" (running through hot oil). We use that technique for most of the dishes.

Without a car it would be a little difficult. But I think you can take the cab and it wouldn't be too bad. As mentioned upthread, there's "Scott's Seafood" right on Bristol near Anton Blvd. It is supposed to be a high-end seafood restaurant though I haven't tried it. What I really like, though, is "Prego Restaurante". It is an Italian restaurant inside the Koll's Center (it's a business complex). It is on the other side of John Wayne Airport going from Hilton Hotel. Not that far, though, only a mile or two. Prego Ristorante 18420 Von Karman Ave , Irvine 92612 949-553-1333 I used to work in that business complex so I had many business lunches there. I love that place. Great food, great service. Entrees are from US$15 to $25 or so. With drinks, appetizer, soup or other stuff, $50PP for dinner would probably be about right. There is Il Fornaio across Von Karman, which is also an up-scale Italian restaurant. Il Fornaio has many locations. But there is only one Prego as far as I know. If you think Il Fornaio is good, I think Prego is even better. There is also a less formal "Daily Grill" on Jamboree and about Dupont. I like their country style cooking (Chicken pot pie, meat loaf and such). The lemonaid there is the best. There are also a bunch of good restaurants at Michaelson Dr and Jamboree. I can't remember all their names now but some are pretty good too.

There is already a pictorial for cooking with black bean sauce: Stir-Fried Chicken and Asparagus with Black Bean Sauce (豉汁蘆筍炒鸡片) The illustration uses asparagus. You can use bitter melon just fine. What is this? Shall we change the title of this thread to "Educating Gastro"? I also use grated ginger to mix with pressed garlic and smashed black beans to make a paste. The difference, Gastro, is all in the process. Here is how I would have done it: You already blanched the bitter melons, so I wouldn't return them to the wok until the last minute. I would advice you to "velvet" the beef though. When you put in the garlic/black-bean paste first and add raw beef slices in, the beef slices do not get browned. The taste would not be as good. To marinate the beef, I wouldn't use five spice powder either. The basic light soy sauce and white pepper would be good. So here goes: - Marinate the beef slices - Blanch the bitter melon (I don't do this normally, but you can do it this way) - Use a little bit of oil, velvet (brown) the beef slices to medium rare, remove. - Use more oil, high heat, add garlic/black-bean/ginger paste, fry until fragrant. Add salt. Dash in 2 tsp of Shao Hsing wine. Stir. - Add chicken broth. Bring to a boil. Add some dark soy sauce. Perhaps some water (or else may be too salty). Use corn starch slurry to thicken the sauce. - Then return the bitton melon and beef slices. Stir fry for a minute or two. Done.

Snow ear fungus? Really? That's very interesting! Is it in their original recipe or it is your add-on? I never thought of using snow ear fungus for this type of stir-fried dishes. Would be a very interesting texture contrast.

They are usually eaten as is. They are great when fresh off the grill. Some may sprinkle sugar (regualr sugar) on top. I don't think this is "traditional" Chinese small eats but it had gotten popular in Hong Kong since the 50's. The world is getting smaller!

To counter the "musky" taste... try using more ginger?

Boiled, fried, steamed... you are cooking the pork belly to death! Looks very nice!

I want to clarify something here, from a language/linguistic point of view... Chinese is Chinese - the language has a unified set of characters (symbols, pictograms as some call them). Each word has a specific meaning (or multiple meanings). The composition of sentences - in standard Chinese grammar - does not change regardless of dialects. Dialects are more different pronounciations of the same Chinese words. For example, the same word "Chicken" would be pronounced differently in Cantonese ("gai") than in Mandarin ("ji"). However, in different dialects we may call things differently. Cantonese do compose our sentences in a way that is different from standard Mandarin Chinese. Some words cannot even be committed in writting. (And throw in the confusion... Mao had started the campaign to simplify the Chinese characters. Now we have two sets of characters: the standard character set (used in Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan) and the simplified character set (used in everywhere else in China).) To learn the Chinese language, you need to pick a dialect to learn the spoken portion. Mandarin is the most standard (official). The way you speak is exactly the way you write. You can go anywhere in China by speaking Mandarin - even in Hong Kong as now it is the "standard". Most of the restaurant workers in the USA probably, still, speak Toisanese or Cantonese dialects but they also probably understand Mandarin as well. (Edit: typos)

They are hollow. When you flip the 2 cast irons plates, the batter runs to the other plate and creates the cavity. Some references (in Chinese): http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%9B%9E%E8%9B%8B%E4%BB%94 Lots of Google pictures: http://images.google.com/images?num=100&hl...F-8&sa=N&tab=wi

Thanks for the explanations, Tepee. Do we have this in Hong Kong? ... hmmmm... we have some similar ones, but not in the form of "love letters". That's why I have never seen them before. But this kind of "waffle" making small eats are probably very popular in many countries. In Hong Kong, the ones that we make are using 2 cast iron plates with many ball shape "holes" and the holes are arranged in a honeycomb fashion. One pours the batter on one side, close the 2 plates, then turn them so the batter floats to the other plate. When done, a plateful of about a dozen "balls" - all still interconnected by some batter - would come out. The vendor may sprinkle a little bit of sugar on top. Eating at home, you may add jelly or peanut butter. In Hong Kong Cantonese, we call it "gai dan tsai" (small chicken eggs). LOL... yes, I am very careful when I speak to my parents-in-law. They often get frustrated because when they speak Toisanese, I often misunderstand them. I have a hard time telling the difference betwen "one" and "two" ("eeit" and "ee"???). While in Cantonese, those two words are more distinct: "yut" and "yee". I often go to meet them for dim sum at eleven o'clock while they said twelve o'clock.

I have only seen one type of dried beancurd sheets. There are beancurd "sheets" (flat), and there are beancurd "sticks" (curled into long, wrinkled stick shape). Which one did you use for making sweet desserts?

Venison and bones!

Don't feel bad. That's how I feel too and I am a native Chinese! Caught between two Malayisan-Chinese (Hokkien, Cantonese and some mixed dialects) and four (or more) American/Canadian-Toisanese-Chinese (Toisanese, Cantonese and some mixed dlalects), plus some occasional Mandarin, and my gradually decaying Cantonese, I too need to search through distant memory lanes (and often need to make guesses) to put meanings into some words.

It sounds like these "love letters" are made when folding 2 pieces of cast iron plates and heated on top of a charcoal stove? And you have more than a pair of cast iron plates to rotate? Wish I can see a picture. <<<Kick>>> Photographer... go to work!

penoy do you first crumble the dried beancurd sheets before cooking? I found that if I don't, the sheets will stay whole and will not break during cooking. May be it depends on the beancurd sheets?

My favorite is AA Bakery, one block uphill from Golden Gate Bakery. AAB and GGB are probably even par from the picture you showed. I didn't make it to AAB one thing because the line was too long. Patrons are tourists and locals mixed equally. At AAB, mostly locals. Some like Eastern Bakery on Grant. I think Eastern is too old and too geared towards tourists.

I believe Ben was saying "the village" (gah hing) dishes - dishes that are popular in the rural areas in China. His would be Toisanese/Cantonese village style dishes.

You say leh? ← Well. My confusion was contributed by 2 factors: 1) I only knew of winter melon used in making savory soup, not "tong sui" (sweet dessert soup). So using it to make a dessert is an eye-opening experience for me. 2) When I hear the word "soup" used repeatedly, I automatically associated that with the savory soup. This is taking me to the next level in Chinese culinary art. (And how many dan (段) are there?)

Did you make this peony? This is most excellent!!! That's exactly what I would like to practice how to do. We have no hot, sunny weather here... that is a problem. "long yuk" like - dragon meat? Or "long" as in burnt? I cannot figure out which word it is in Cantonese. P.S. You know how to make EVERYTHING!!! From home cook meals to bakery stuff to snacks. This is amazing! Have you considered taking an apprentice? (Me!!!) Or writing a book? (I can help!)

Why are we eating tasteless meat?