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I happened to like oyster flavored sauce. I add it to quite a few dishes that I make. But not everything. I seldomly use it as is, except pour on top of some stir-fried/steamed vegetable and want to make it quick. I usually use it to mix in to the sauce of a particular dish. There are some old posts on how oyster sauces are made, such as: Oyster Sauce, Manufacturing/Cooking with Oyster Sauce

Thanks for the link, trillium. It looks like Chai tow kway is similar to Cantonese (Guangzhou'ese?) daikon cake but not quite the same. Perhaps this is the Teochew style? I think I have seen them in some Teochew style restaurants here. They call it "Law Bak Gou" in Chinese, just the same as the Guanhzhou'ese name, but they cook the cake with eggs and bits of dried shrimp and "Choy Poh" (preserved turnip) in a mix (not binded to the cake). Or is this Hokkien style?

The little dried fish - the white color variety - is called "Bak Fan Yu" (white rice fish). Or some call them "ham yu jai" (small salted fish). They are not really salted, just sun dried. Unlike the salted fish, by themselves they taste rather bland. We usually cook (steam on top of rice or stir-fry) them with soy sauce to add some taste.

I concur. Cooking is an iteration process - iterate through actually cooking the dish. One cannot develop and enhance a recipe by a thought process or by other people's say-so alone. I often see multiple websites posting the same recipe on something. Fancy fonts and banners and credits are all different, but the contents are identical. I don't know who is copying from whom. The recipes don't work just the same. And I want to see pictures.

I live in Sacramento, CA, USA. Where we are pea shoots are readily available at about US$2.00 a pound. Sometimes on sale for US$0.99/lb.

Thank you for the first hand account. Soaking soya beans I can deal with. We drink a few cups of soya milk everyday so it may worths the price in the long run. Where we are soya milk is not expensive (e.g. 64oz for US$1.50) and the shops are close by. Do they provide user instructions? What's the difference in your steps/additives between making tofu, soy milk and tofu fa using that machine?

This seems very similar to the Hong Kong Typhoon Shelter Style Crab. Except the curry leaves and butter. Dried prawns <==> Chinese lap yuk.

Thanks for the links and comments. Well, I would make my own if the machine is really "automatic" and all I need to do is to add soy beans, water and plug it in (and clean up, of course). I don't want to do any more work... Making taro cake is time consuming enough...

And what is "chai tau kueh"? I could not figure out the Chinese words. * * Cake?

No I haven't. The wok stays dry and rusting is not a problem. But I think I should start doing that... oil it slightly. Thank you.

I am a true animal lover. They all taste good.

I would like to see salted shark. Whole.

I never had "crispy" eel with garlic and chilis. The eels I had are mostly stir-fried with a dark soy sauce base and lots of oil. Are you sure that's eel you had with garlic and chilis (battered and deep-fried first to crispy)?

Thanks for your tips, sheetz and Seitch. So I should stick with the regular rice flour and not use sticky rice flour. When I made daikon cake the first time using only rice flour, it turned out stiff... which led me to think I should have used sticky rice flour. The more into these dim sum things, the more I am confused on which dim sum using what flour. I am a bit unsure about using regular wheat flour for this. Just does not seem to taste right. When I made the daikon cake, I did cook it in a pot until soft before mixing in the rice flour slurry. That part, I learned. However, when cooking taro cake, I didn't want to wait until the taro turns mushy. I wanted to maintain a little be of texture. The taro flavor was there. My big issue was with the binding agent. Too hard... too soft... Agreed... need to experiment with the consistency. Now I don't know what to do with the 2 bricks of not-so-good taro cakes. Maybe that's what in-laws are for!

This week I am experimenting with making taro cake (dim sum). BTW: daikon cake and taro cake can be made in a very similar way. Many moons ago when I made daikon cake, I used regular rice flour only (jim mai fun). The cake patties turned out very stiff and the taste was a bit chalk-like. Yesterday I made a taro cake. This time I only used sticky rice flour (noor mai fun). Actually, I learned from a website that I could use a blender to blend stick rice (grain) and water instead of using sticky rice flour. This time, the cake patties turned out very soft and the cake does not hold its form. Has anybody made this before and would share some experience? I think the next time I try this (either daikon cake or taro cake), I would mix regular rice flour with stick rice flour, 1 to 1. (May be blend regular rice with sticky rice with water.) This way the cake will stay soft but hold its form. And I will add some corn starch to smooth it out. Daikon/taro to rice flour ratio (by weight): 2 or 3 lb to 1 lb When I blended the sticky rice in with water: Sticky rice to water ratio (by volume): about 1 cup to 2 cup. The taste of the cake is about right (adding dried shrimp, black mushrooms, salt, soy sauce, sugar). Just the texture that challenges me.

Old days? Boy, do you make me feel ancient becauase I remember this very well. ← Well... 20 years ago...

We drink a lot of soya bean milk. Mostly in the morning. Now that the weather gets warm, I had a couple of unhappy purchases. The soya bean milk just turned into curd in the refrigerator. The soya bean milk can be kept for a few weeks if kept refrigerated. I found that if the bottle was taken outside, warmed to room temperature, then brought back to the refrigerator, the soya bean milk will turn into curd the following day. I just don't understand the reason behind this. Why would it turn into curd (solidified) when changed from warm to cold? Does anybody? Also, I have seen some recent newspaper ads that they have developed these "automatic" soya bean milk maker. Apparently all you need to do is to add dry soya bean and water, power it on and a few minutes later (or whatever the time period is) you will have freshly made soya bean milk. These machines are selling at about US$100 each. I am skeptical about these "automatic" machines. Most machines are not really fire-and-forget types and you have to put in a bit of work. Has anybody used such a soya bean maker machine? How good do they work? Do you think it worths the price?

I had seen the demo of dragon hair candy making years ago and had tasted it. Sorry... I have to say it looks better than it tastes. My impression: too powdery. The making process is a work of art... starting from a small piece of sugar/corn syrup slab, hand-pulled to form a ring... a ring becomes 2 rings, 2 become 4, 4 to 8 and let the exponential equation take over. Very impressive demo. It is similar to hand-pulled noodles.

Hey... anything I can do to get good eats. Practicality first, elegance optional.

Here is what my experience is, from someone who keeps buying stuff and easily forgets what's stacked in the cupboard... I have not seen pei dan stored in the refrigerator in the grocery store. They are sold in room temperature. After you have bought the eggs, you should use them ASAP. I don't know how long they will last. A few weeks maybe. When I bought pei dan from some of these stores, they were already dried and had lost flavor. Apparently they got stuck in the store for who-knows-how-long before I bought them. There is no way to tell from the outside especially now they shrink-wrap all eggs in styrofoam packages. Chinese manufacturers don't put date stamps on the package to tell you to "use it by...". (Are you kidding?) Go figure. Unlike salted eggs, pei dans don't go rotten. As time goes by, they dry up. Instead of soft like jello, it's a bit hard like rubber. In the old days, the keep pei dan in the preservatives (salt, limestone and mud mixed with rice shells?). As long as the eggs are coated with these preservatives, they last much longer. In the old days, they sold pei dan in those preservatives. Modern packaging did not emerge until the 80's. In the name of convenience, the shelf-life goes down the drain.

I think if I want a vegetable combination, I would order it as such. This differs from restaurants to restaurants, of course. From some of my experiences: I ordered Beef with Broccoli, I want beef and broccoli - I got beef, broccoli, and straw mushrooms and carrot slices. I ordered Mapo Tofu, I want minced pork and soft tofu - I got minced pork, tofu, carrot dices, green peas and water chestnut dices. I ordered Kung Pao Chicken, I want chicken, green onion, maybe green bell pepper - I got chicken, green onion, green bell pepper, onion, carrots (again), water chestnuts (again), bamboo shoots (where did this come from?). I ordered Salt and Pepper Squid, I want salt, garlic, pepper slices and squid. That's it. I got salt and pepper squid on top of a bed of shredded cabbage. The list just goes on and on. In some restaurants, I couldn't distinguish one dish from another. They used the same set of mix vegetables to accompany the featured ingredients. Black bean sauce, oil sauteed ("yau bow"), kung pao, oyster sauce... same stuff. Inexpensive space fillers...

fellowpeon: Welcome to eGullet! I don't store ginger in the fridge. I found that, as with most things, storing ginger in the fridge will introduce water moisture on the ginger which causes it to sprout or go mushy as you said. I found that doing what the stores do is more effective: leave the ginger in a plastic wire mesh bag and leave it in the open (best where the air circulates a bit). The skin may go a little bit dry but it lasts for weeks. As far taking scallops/seafood out of the wok, thicken the sauce, then pour on top... that seems more like western cooking technique. (I do use the technique in braised dishes but not stir-fried dishes.) In Chinese cooking, we typically thicken the sauce first before you return the scallop/seafood. Once the scallop/seafood is coated evenly with the sauce, we can transfer the ingredients to the serving dish. Timing is crucial. In order not to overcook the seafood, it should be removed when it just turns cooked (or slightly undercooked) to compensate... just as Chef Dejah said.

Some kind of skin lotion?

I just follow the popular, traditional Cantonese recipes in stir-frying vegetables. There are benefits in following hundreds of years of accumulated experiences through Darwinism evolution... survival of the tastiest. There are some combinations of vegetables/meat are better than others. For example, Cantonese cook Ong Choy with beef and shrimp paste/fu yu. If you use chicken/shrimp, it just doesn't taste the same. If you use brown bean paste or fermented black beans for seasoning to cook Ong Choy, it doesn't taste the same. Vegetables like Ong Choy are more selective in mixing with seasoning and meats. On the other hand, other vegetables such as Bok Choy or Choy Sum are more general, good for any type of stir-fries. I always feel that the Chinese restaurants in America use too many different vegetables in stir-fried dishes. Water chestnuts, carrots, straw mushrooms, bamboo shoots, onions, celery, bean sprouts, green bell peppers... chop chop, chow chow. Sad. Well... survival of the most money making.

I have a feeling that you are just pulling my legs. But I'll bite. 1. Why mincing amaranth? Wouldn't it be better cooking (Chinese way) with the leaves just peeled off? 2. 1 head of garlic seems overly generous. Usually 3-4 cloves would be enough per cooking round. 3. The shrimp paste is extremely salty. 1/4 cup can last you 4-5 rounds of cooking. Use only 2-3 tsp for each round of cooking. Fermented bean curds... maybe 3-4 cubes. You adjust for your own taste.