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Experienced joong makers: how many bamboo leaves do you use to wrap a joong? 1? 2? 3? 4? 5? I heard of some using 1 leaf. But that's for a very tiny joong. With the amount of liu I was using, I found it impossible to wrap a joong with 2 leaves. I started by using 3, then I found using 4 was easier. Though I budgeted for 5. Looks like I will have some left-over bamboo leaves.

Keep in mind that it's customary for dim sum restaurants to charge for the tea. In today US prices, typically US$1.00 per person. When they see non-Asian customers come in, they assume you may not ask for specific tea so they will bring whatever they think you would accept (Jasmine, Oolong, etc.). If the restaurant does charge for their tea, be sure you specify what tea you want (Pu Erh - that Mandarin pronounication, in Cantonese that is "Boh Lei". Dim Sum (Cantonese specialty) restaurant workers are more in tune with Cantonese than Mandarin). Hong Kong Chinese also like to mix dried chrysanthemum flower ("Guk Fa" [Cantonese]) with "Boh Lei" tea leaves. If you want that, order it as "Guk Fa Boh Lei", or in short "Guk Boh".

Pu Erh is not as dark as "Teet Kwun Yum" [Cantonese] (鐵觀音) The "standard" Chinese restaurant tea - those dropped off at your table without being asked - is most likely Jasmine tea (because it's most inexpensive).

I found one exactly like that in a local grocery store. Only US$1.99. It worked very well. Now my burner can be set at max and the heat is acceptable. The wok is much hotter than before. It is adequate for regular dishes. I still would look into buying a higher power burner. This is the wire design wok ring. How the wok is holding up on the wire ring.

Frying lotus root chips. Interesting... I have fried sweet potato chips before. They were a little bit like what we had in "House of Nanking" (San Francisco). The upper right corner is the fried sweet potato chips. Soft, sweet, camaralized. Taste terrific. My favorite is fried taro chips. You need to slice them very thin (it's easy with a mandolin) so that the chips turn very crispy.

Tepee Mui: Your MIL's joong looks kind of dark. Do you know when and where she added soy sauce? Did she mix the "liu" with soy sauce, or sprinkle soy sauce on them separately? Was the soaked sticky rice mixed with soy sauce before wrapping? Cantonese (Hong Kong) wrap the stick rice and liu without soy sauce added. Soy sauce is drizzled on top of the cooked joong after unwrapping when served. My joong ingredients are all set. Tomorrow night I will start soaking the ingredients for wrapping on Saturday.

I found this web page on how to wrap a salty-pork joong (in Chinese, illustrated): http://www.sc.xinhuanet.com/content/2006-0...ent_7093229.htm There are a few good points: 1. After soaking the bamboo leaves in water overnight, pour in some hot water before wrapping. This will soften the leaves, make it easier to use them for wrapping. 2. The way the author started with a few bamboo leaves at the bottom to hold the ingredients. I am going to try that.

Fresh or unfresh (Sichuan peppercorn) I cannot tell. But the effect on the tongue when chewing on some is unmistakable. Even heat-treated, one peppercorn can make my tongue muscles jump. Powerful stuff.

In China, many merchants and restaurants pay tour companies, especially those wihch are based in Hong Kong, commissions per head for bringing in bus-load of patrons or potential customers (or somehow have contracts with the tour companies above or under the table). So it would not surprise me the "famous" mediocre restaurants have forever more longer lines.

#61, Roasted Peanuts with Nam Yu (南乳肉花生)

Pictorial Recipe Roasted Peanuts with Nam Yu (南乳肉花生) I grew up eating this style of roasted peanuts using Nam Yu (Fermented Red Beancurds). It is slightly sweet, slight salty and full of flavor. Occassionally I would find them in Asian grocery stores. To make this great snack at home is quite easy. Picture of the finished dish: Serving Suggestion: 20 Preparations: Main ingredients: - 5 packs of raw peanuts with skin, 12 oz each (total about 3.5 lb) - Nam Yu (Fermented red beancurds) It's important to use the raw peanuts with skin. Take 3 small cubes of nam yu. Place in a small bowl. Add 1/8 cup of water, 1/2 to 1 tsp of salt, 2 tsp of sugar. Smash the nam yu and mix with the salt/sugar/water well. Cooking Instructions: Start by pre-heating a wok with high stove burner setting. Add the raw peanuts. (No oil is needed. This is simply dry roasting.) Keep stirring and not let the peanuts get burnt. Pour the nam yu mixture onto the peanuts. Keep stirring and mix the nam yu flavoring in the peanuts. Dry roast using the wok for a few more minutes. Need to repeat this process. Add at least one more round of nam yu/salt/sugar mixture and roast for a few more minutes. If you have an adequate heat source, you may continue the roasting on the wok to finish. My stove burner is not strong enough. I transferred the peanuts to a baking pan and finished the roasting in the oven. Set the oven at 400'F. Roast the peanut for about 40 minutes. Every 10-15 minutes, stir the peanuts around so that the ones on the top will not get burnt. This is how they looked after 40 minutes of roasting. The snack is ready.

I found that the dried chili peppers did not seem to bring a lot of heat to the dish. Last round I used about 40 dried chilis. Even my wife, who cannot eat hot food, said the dish did not seem to be hot. Unless one add some chili sauce when making this dish, the dried chilis alone did not seem to bring a lot of heat to the taste. And no wonder I see restaurants use 200 to 400 chilis making it.

Well, Alta vista and NJ Star both give me "Big fungus food germ/ bacterium", but I have a feeling that they are being polite. ← Well... it is some silly "made up" terms by Hong Kongers. And we do it all the time! 細菌 does mean bacteria. 大菌 - not quite big fungus... it just implies human being... meaning that we are giants compared to bacteria, so eating a small amount of bacteria is no big deal. Just a self-comforting self-denial when we happen to eat something that is suspected unclean.

Hmmm... yours does look very good! Slurp! I can't guarantee that I will post pictures on mine...

Aw -- c'mon! At least give me the characters! ← Okay... you asked for it.... See if you can figure this one out! This is Hong Konger Cantonese! 大菌食細菌

Hmm... that looks pretty good. That might be what I needed.

Hmmm.... dried conpoy. Great idea! I have plenty from my last trip to San Francisco.

I have a few of my own food pictures from Koi Palace from my last trip. Circa March 2006. Front-door showcase of the most expensive ingredients... Shark fin, Abalone and such. It may not be easy to notice, there is actually a small koi pond inside the restaurant. When you go through the front entrance to the dining room, it is on the far right. There are a few small tables placed right next to the pond. To me they are the best seats of the house. But you have to go there early to get these spots (or wait a long time for them). This is something that I have not seen: a broze kettle with the tea that you ordered placed on top of a small sterno to keep it hot. Very nice touch. I know Koi Palace serves many items from dim sum, chow mein to seafood entrees and banquet dinner. I think I can get some of the stir-fried dishes and seafood entrees in other San Francisco who could make it just as good. Their dim sums, however, I would rank among the tops. When I go to Koi, I tend to just stick with dim sums. Har Gaw - shrimp dumplings. Typical 4 in an order. The wrappers are nice and transluscent, showing the pale pink color of the shrimp inside. In Hong Kong, there is an old saying which said: if you want to judge how good a dim sum restaurant is, you only need to order their Har Gaw and you will know. There are implications from this saying. Har Gaw is just one of the dim sum dishes that is very difficult to master - both in cooking it to a perfect taste and kneating the beautiful shape. Siu Mai - ground pork and shrimp dumplings. The wrappers are thin and yellow in color - thinner than the wrappers for Cantonese wonton. The bright orange dot on top is typically crab roe. An order of Siu Mai typically accompanying the Har Gow. Meen Fa Gai - "Cotton Chicken". 棉花雞 The literal translation is "cotton" chicken. The "cutton" is actually referring to fish maw whose color and texture slightly resemble those of cotton's. A couple of chopped pieces of chicken (with skin typically) steamed with black mushroom, fish maw and -- a small piece of abalone! Seen Zhuk Guon - Steamed Ground Pork Wrapped with Tofu Sheets. Typically 3 in each order. Ground pork mixed with black mushrooms, wood ear fungus, bamboo shoots and such in a small tofu sheet. First slightly deep-fried then steamed. Steamed Shrimp Cheung Fun - Steamed Rice Noodles with Shrimp. Typically 3 rolls and a couple of cross-cuts by a pair of scissors. Steamed rice noodles are common street food as breakfast and snacks. There are different fillings you may order: beef, BBQ pork and shrimp typically. A spoonful of diluted and sweetened soy sauce is scooped on top when served. Xiaolongbao - Shanghai style soup dumpling. Condiment: Chinese red vinegar and shredded ginger. A typical order of Xiaolongbao in a Shanghainese restaurant contains 10 dumplings. When served as dim sum (Cantonese), they typically serve 4 in an order. Supposed to have burning hot soup with ground pork inside the paper-thin wrapper with a small hole on top. This is the only regret I had at Koi Palace. Their Xiaolongbao was just okay. I had better ones before. And I have more disappointments than pleasant surprises ordering Xiaolongbao in Cantonese dim sum restaurants in general. (Why was I still suckered into ordering it often? Good question) Lesson learned: Don't order a Shanghai specialty in a Cantonese dim sum restaurant. Stick to what Cantonese do best: dim sum, BBQs, seafood stir-fries, chow mein/fun/fan. Save the crave for Xiaolongbao and stir-fried eel to Shanghai Dumpling King another time...

My final exam is just over... Perfect! May 27 Saturday is my day of making joong this year. Would have time to meet the in-laws and pass on the gifts, just before the festival on May 31. Here is what's on my shopping list: - Sticky rice - Mung beans - Fatty pork? (hmmm... not sure how to slide this under the radar) - Salted eggs - Laap cheung (Chinese sausage) - Chestnuts - Raw peanuts - Black mushrooms - Dried shrimp - Bamboo leaves - enough to make 30 joong - Strings to tie the tetrahedrons Have I forgotten something? I am wondering if there is anybody else making joong this year.

Thanks for the XO sauce recipe JH. The dried conpoy and dried shrimp look familiar. But jinhua ham and salted fish is new to me. I am not really sure how the taste of salted fish would blend in to this. Would be good to experiment...

I think bok choy is the most confusing term not only among Chinese but among caucasians in North America too. I have met one American who kept calling every Chinese green in sight in a restaurant "bok choy".

A little translation: tui how [Toisanese] = tsui hou [Cantonese] = crispy [English] Yeah, I think deveining takes too much time too. Dai quan sik sii quan (and no, I am not going to translate this one... )

I did a small scientific investigation into this. I think the issue is related to using the wok ring. I normally set the stove setting at "5" for maximum heat. When I cook with a pan on the regular "pot stand", the heat was adequate for most of my cooking - stir-frying, pan-frying, boiling, deep-frying, etc.. With a round-bottom wok, since I cannot place the wok directly on top of the "pot stand", I need to remove the stand and replace it with a wok ring. Because of its "collar" design with only a few round holes for ventilation on the side, when I lay the wok on top the gas from the burner does not have adequate oxygen supply to keep it burning at full capacity. And the flames kind of flares intermittently. I needed to tune down a notch to the "4" setting. Though I would get a steady fire this way, I found that the heat produced at 4 is far less than when the burner is at 5. It seems what would improve my present situation is to forget about using the collar wok ring but go with something like a tripod wok stand design...

Thanks for the recipe, Ling. Are these measurements for 1 dan dart? For example, 20 g is less than 1 oz. Using one oz of flour to make the dough does not seem to be practical. Do we need to multiply the number of tarts to the actual weight to get the quantity we should use? In that case, 1 egg per tart for the second part seems a big much. I couldn't quite figure this out.

12- 燉 or 炖 Dun - Closed steaming. Typically this may be called "double boiling", or boiling within a pot of boiling water. The surround boiling water would keep the ingredients cooked at a constant temperature of 100'C. (212'F) Slow cooking. 干貝雞燉排翅, Double-boiled Shark-Fin Soup with Conpoy and Chicken Click through the Google image search page to view the picture: Sample 1: 干貝雞燉排翅, Double-boiled Shark-Fin Soup with Conpoy and Chicken 燕窩焦糖燉蛋, Double-boiled egg with Bird Nest Click through the Google image search page to view the picture: Sample 2: 燕窩焦糖燉蛋, Double-boiled egg with Bird Nest 首乌炖竹丝鸡, Double-boiled Chicken with Herbal Ingredients Click through the Google image search page to view the picture: (Picture is good but the link is slow) Sample 3: 首乌炖竹丝鸡, Double-boiled Chicken with Herbal Ingredients 炖排骨, Double-boiled Spareribs Click through the Google image search page to view the picture: Sample 4: 炖排骨, Double-boiled Spareribs