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This may be considered "unChinese" for some... but I suggest that you may use Apricot Jam as a substitue for Plum Sauce. If you do, add more vinegar since Jam doesn't taste sour like the Plum Sauce does.

It depends on the ingredients. Some takes longer time than others. RE: Some people have told me to soak black beans, other people do not soak them. I assumed you were referring to the fermented black beans. If you can get some good ones, they are soft to the touch and can be smashed easily. Those you don't need soaking. If they are hard and dry, which is not recommended anyway, then they would need to be soaked maybe for 30 minutes or so. RE: Do you use the liquid from soaking dried scallops or other ingredients when cooking? Again, it depends on the ingredients. You can gradually build up your knowledge by trial-and-error. Dried scallops: Best soaked overnight. Or 4-5 hours minimum. Or else they remain hard. I use the soaking liquid. Dried black mushrooms: 2-3 hours soaking recommended. I don't use the soaking liquid though many people do. Dried fungi (e.g. cloud ear), dried Lily buds: 1-2 hours soaking. Don't use soaking liquid. Dried oysters: 1-2 hour soaking. Don't use soaking liquid. In general I don't use the soaking liquid. Dried scallop is pretty much my only exception.

herp17: You begin to sound like project! Just kidding, we love project. Hope he is still following this forum. Cooking is not scientific at all. Measurements in most recipes are just suggestions. Besides, everybody has different degrees of appreciation/toleration for sweetness, hotness, sourness, saltiness. You need to do trial-and-error to find your own balance. To help you get started... For every cup of water you add, I suggest to use about 1/4 of a stick of the sugar cane sugar (peen tong). And about 1/4 cup of the dried chrysanthemum flower. You try it out and adjust your amounts for the next round. Remember to filter off the chrysanthemum flower before you drink your Guk Fa Cha!

I am not sure. These in the pictures were sold in the refrigerated section. I presumed they were never dried and reconstitued. Their textures are quite bouncy, which typically only found in fresh seafood. Perhaps an expert can tell us. Making this in a clay pot is mostly for presentation and the functional purpose of keeping the ingredients warm at the dinner table. One may make this with a regular pan/pot.

#57, Sea Cucumber Dried Scallop Clay Pot (瑤柱海參煲)

Sea Cucumber Dried Scallop Clay Pot (瑤柱海參煲) Sea cucumber, anyone? These creatures don't look very appealing, but Chinese love them! Clay pot is a good way to cook them. Picture of the finished dish: Serving Suggestion: 2 to 3 Preparations: Main ingredients (from bottom-right, clockwise): - 1 to 1 1/2 lb of sea cucumber (already reconstituted from dried ones) - 10 dried black mushrooms - 5-6 dried oysters - 3 stalks of green onions - Dried shrimp, use about 2-3 tblsp - (Not shown) about 10 dried scallops - (Not shown) ginger, use about 2 inch in length - (Not shown) garlic, about 4-5 cloves Note: Sea cucumbers shrink quite a bit during cooking. These reconstituted sea cucumbers are pre-cleaned. Simply rinse them before cooking. Cut each sea cucumber into 1-inch pieces. Soak the dried black mushrooms at least 2 to 3 hours in warm water before cooking. (Not shown): soak the 10 dried scallops in a small bowl of water at least 4 to 5 hours before cooking. For best results, soak them overnight. Drain before cooking. Soak the dried oysters about 1 to 2 hours before cooking. Drain before cooking. Trim off the stems of the black mushrooms and discard. Cut each mushroom in half. Soak 2-3 tblsp of dried shrimp in warm water for about 15 minutes. Use a cleaver to finely chop the dried shrimp. Trim the ends of 3 stalks of green onions. Peel and mince 4-5 cloves of garlic. Cut about 8 to 10 thin slices of ginger. Grate about 1-2 inches of ginger. Take 2-3 tsp of fermented black beans, rinse and smash them. Use 1-2 tsp of Yank Sing Chili Pepper Sauce or Guilin Hot Chili Sauce. Cooking Instructions: Use a wok/pan, fill with 3 cups of water. Bring it to a boil. Boil the sea cucumbers with the ginger slices for about 3 to 5 minutes. Drain off the hot water and discard the ginger slices. Pre-heat the clay pot over medium heat for about 5 minutes. Add 2 tblsp of cooking oil First, add the minced dried shrimp. Fry for about 30 seconds. Drain the water off the dried scallops. Add to the pot. Fry for a minute or two. Stir well. Add the minced garlic, chopped green onions (only add the white portion), smashed fermented black beans, 2 tsp of Chili Pepper Sauce, and grated ginger. Dash in 2-3 tsp of ShaoHsing cooking wine. Add 2 tsp chili bean sauce, 2 tsp of oyster sauce, 2 tsp of hoisin sauce, 1 tsp of brown bean sauce and a pinch of salt (or to taste, suggest: 1/2 tsp). Stir well. Add 1/4 to 1/2 cup of chicken broth, 1/4 cup of water (you may use the soaking water from the dried scallop). Bring to an initial boil for the mixture then turn down the heat to a simmer. Add the black mushrooms and reconstituted dried oysters to the pot. Simmer the mixture with the lid on for about 30 to 40 minutes. This is what it looks like after 30-40 minutes of simmering. Finally, return the sea cucumbers. Sitr well. Continue to simmer for another 15 minutes. This is what it looks like afterwards. Ready. Finely chop the remaining green portion of green onions and sprinkle them on top. Bring to dinner table and serve. Picture of the finished dish.

I suspect what you had was Shrimp and Chinese chive dumplings ("Gou Choy Gow").

This is brilliant! Ginger is very complementary to sugar. It must have added another dimension to this dish!

Irwin: Thanks for filling in the history behind something that I have always taken for granted growing up. At the 60's/70's (back then there wasn't such customary 10% service charge in the food service industry) it was Red hot chili sauce and Yellow mustard bidding for waitstaff tips. Later it extended to, especially in non-Cantonese eateries, roasted peanuts, pickled mustard greens, pickled leek/garlic, etc.. I had only an one-time encounter having dim sum in a restaurant in San Diego and I saw a thirty-something caucasian lady conversing with the owner in fluent Cantonese. It was just so amazing and I couldn't believe my eyes. Later I learned that this lady grew up in Hong Kong and just moved back to the USA following her spouse. I still have a hard time to get used to having a blue-eye, blond hair lady in America speaking to me fluently in my native tongue, with slang and all...

That's a fasinating story, jo-mel. Tell us more when you have time. I wish I could do the same on other cultures. I found it particularly hard to learn from just reading cookbooks. Most of the cookbooks don't provide pictures. I cannot tell what the finished dish is supposed to look like, let alone what it tastes like. Did you see dried shrimp or dried ham in the Creamed Napa Cabbage? That's the common way of cooking napa cabbage, but it is typically not found in American-Chinese restaurants.

Harriy: I haven't decided yet. That would be my next step.

Yes there are. My favorite is Caspian in Irvine (Persian food): http://www.caspianrestaurant.com/home.html Caspian Restaurant Address: 14100 Culver Dr, Irvine, CA 92604 Phone: (949) 651-8454

Guk Fa Cha is very simply to make. All it takes is just to know how to boil water... Buy a pack of dried chrysanthemum flower (Guk Fa [Cantonese]) from the Asian markets. Boil a pot of water, add a few blocks of rock sugar or brown sugar cane sugar and some dried chrysanthemum flower for may be 30 minutes at reduced heat after the initial boil? I think that's about it.

I have posted how I seasoned my brand new carbon-steel wok in a different thread, under: A Pictorial Guide To Seasoning a Brand New Wok to make future searches and references easier. How the wok looked after seasoning. I unsed the "Tane Chan's Oven Oil Method" as recommended by The Wok Shop. But it has a short-coming. Since the wok is placed motionless inside the oven, the pork fat just rains down to the rim and creates an uneven, "umbrella" look pattern on the wok surface. With the conventional open-fire burning method, you may continue to spread the pork fat around the surface so the oil is distributed evenly while burning and thus the browning is even. With my next wok, I think I will try the conventional "burning over open fire" method to see the difference.

I seasoned my wok a few days ago. I would like to post my experience to share with all of you. Preparation I did some research on this subject, and I really like reading the section of the book: "The Breath of a Wok : Unlocking the Spirit of Chinese Wok Cooking Through Recipes and Lore" by Grace Young. Page 47 to page 56. Section heading: "Recipes for Seasoning a Wok" The Breath of a Wok : Unlocking the Spirit of Chinese Wok Cooking Through Recipes and Lore There were different methods to season a wok presented in this book. Some methods are for cast iron woks, some for carbon-steel woks. I decided to try the "Tane Chan's Oven Oil Method" (Tane Chan is the owner of "The Wok Shop") because I like the even tan produced by this oven-baking method instead of the traditional burning-over-stove method. I also like the "Julie Tay's Chinese Chive and Pork Fat Stir-Fry Method", which uses chive to absorb the metallic taste of a new wok. So I take a hybrid approach. Here's how I did it. Though a new wok can be seasoned with vegetable oil, experiences of other fellow forum participants suggested that using animal fat produces the best results. Also, _john commented that "The lard you can buy in the store is refined and has almost no flavor". I decided to benefit from these experiences to make my own lard. I bought about 2 lb of pork belly. Trim away the meat portion. Save it to make Sichuan Dried Fried String Beans or Mapo Tofu. Also trim away the pork skin. Save it if you want to make some Chicharron. Cut the pure fat portion into 1/2 inch by 1/2 inch cubes (or smaller). Use a pot, set stove to high, add in all pork fatty cubes. Continue to heat for 10-15 minutes to extract the oil from pork fat. The pork fat sure produces good smell while heated. Strain off the remaining pork fatty cubes. They shrink quite a bit. Save them to make the Singaporean/Malaysian Char Quay Tiew if you like. The oil is what to use to season a wok. I bought about 6-8 oz of Chinese chive. They will be used to absorb the metallic taste from a brand new wok. Cut the chive into 2-inch length. Execution Since I bought a 16-inch wok with a long wooden handle and I planned to use the oven method to season it, I needed to unscrewed the wooden handle from the wok first. Use a stainless steel scrubber and liquid dishwashing soap to scrub off the thin layer of machine oil put on the wok surface by the factory. Scrub off the machine oil thoroughly under hot water, both outside... And inside. Since the side handle is made of wood also but it cannot be detached, wrap around the handle with a wet kitchen washcloth to prevent it from burning in the oven. Use a paper towel to wipe dry both the inside and outside of the wok. You can see that paper towel picked up the metallic grey color from the carbon steel. Don't be alarmed, this is to be expected. Place the clean wok over the stove - set at low heat. First dry it for 1 minute or so. Use a clean paper towel, dip into the pork fat. As you can see, the center of the wok already started turning brown even after only 1 minute of low heat burning. Use the paper towel to start smearing the pork fat evenly over the inside wok surface. As the pork fat gets heated, it produces a lot of smoke. Make sure you open all the windows in the kitchen, turn on the exhaust fan and set it to max. It also helps to set up a cooling fan to blow the air inside the kitchen to the outside. The wok bottom will turn darker and darker. Keep spreading the pork fat evenly until you have covered every inch of it. Pre-heat the oven at 450F for 5 minutes. Cover the wet kitchen cloth with a couple of layers of heavy aluminum foil to prevent it from catching fire. Line a couple of sheets of aluminum foil at the bottom of the oven to catch the oil drips during seasoning. Bake for 20 minutes at 450F. Some smokes will be produced during the baking process. Be sure to keep the exhaust fan and cooling fan on. This is how the wok looked after the first round of baking. One thing that I don't like this oven-baking method is that since the wok is placed motionless inside the oven, the pork fat just rains down to the rim and creates an uneven, "umbrella" look pattern on the wok surface. With the conventional open-fire burning method, you may continue to spread the pork fat around the surface so the oil is distributed evenly while burning and thus the browning is even. This method seems to have such a short-coming. After taking the wok from the oven, let it sit on the counter and cool off for at least 5 minutes. Then start washing it and scrubbing it with the stainless steel scrubber as if you are starting over. However, don't use any more soap while washing from this point on. After washing, wipe dry both the inside and outside of the wok with a paper towel. You will most likely see that the paper towel still picks up some metallic grey color from the metal. This is to be expected. The metallic color will fade after a few rounds of baking. Here is where I differed from the Tane Chan's method: Heat up the wok over slow heat on top of the stove. Use a new paper towel and spread another round of pork fat on the wok. Make sure you cover the entire surface evenly. Add in the chopped Chinese chive and stir-fry it. Use a spatula to move the chive around. As you cook the chive, supposedly the chive will absorb the metallic taste from a brand new wok. Tilt the wok at different angle over the burner. Try to spread the chive over every inch of the wok. Continue to cook the chive for 3 to 4 minutes, keep tilting the wok at different angles. Afterwards, discard the chive. Scrub the wok again under hot water. Wipe dry with more paper towels. Repeat the same process: Wipe dry the wok with paper towel. Use a clean paper towel to dip in the pork fat and spread it evenly over the wok. Bake it at 450F for 20 minutes. Let it cool on the counter for at least 5 minutes. Start over again. Repeate this process 3 to 4 more times total. With each cycle, remember to unwrap the aluminum foil and take out the kitchen washcloth. (Be careful as the washcloth is probably steaming hot.) Rinse it under cold water to cool it down and rewarp it for the next cycle with the aluminum foil on the outside. For every added cycle, the color of the wok get more and more brown. This is how my wok looked after the last round of baking. Even the bottom side of the wok got a grey-brownish color too. Finished! The wok has been seasoned, now ready to be used for cooking! Just a comparison: This is how the wok looked when bought brand new. This is how the wok looked after seasoning. It has a dark tan color and oil sheen on the top. With proper seasoning, food will not stick to a wok during frying. After each use, only use hot water and a bamboo brush to clean the wok. Do not use soap. A wok will continue to season and age to become better and better.

In Hong Kong, the typical condiment brought out by wait staff during dim sum lunch time is a "dual" of hot mustard and chili hot sauce (yellow and red). In quite a few New York / California American-Chinese restaurants, the wait staff would bring out a small condiment dish with the yellow and red on it for your fried egg-roll/wonton appetizers. The yellow is hot mustard all right. The red color is... ketchup.

So... what exactly triggered that? Was it the time you read the character 三 on a Chinese menu in a restaurant? What helped you to distinguish the American Chinese dishes from the Chinese Chinese dishes? Was it those trips you started making in China? How can one tell the difference if haven't been to that part of the world? There aren't too many TV programs on real Chinese food.

The typical ingredients include onion, bean sprouts, celery, cabbage, straw mushrooms (typically canned), carrot, water chestnut, maybe bamboo shoots (typically canned). You mix and match whatever you like (or is available). You picture does look like the "chicken chow mein" served in many American Chinese restaurants - San Diego and New York included - in both of which I worked as a waiter in Chinese restaurants. They typically lay the broken, deep-fried noodles on top to make the "mein" part. And the customers, of course... being that they are eating "Chinese"... would typically help themselves and pour plenty of soy sauce on top. This type of "chow mein", however, doesn't exist in Hong Kong or the many parts of China that I have been to.

Oh... okay... When I checked on Encarta, I didn't scroll down far enough... Thank you!

I would venture a guess that the dark dark brown color probably came from soy sauce. Being a Chinese cooking non-Chinese originated dishes, we always have to put in our touch... That's what Leisure Cat told me how people in Hong Kong make spaghetti sauce... ketchup with soy sauce...

Oh yeah? Fire away! I for one am anxiously waiting...

9- 叉 燒 Cha Shao - (Split Roasting) (I really hope that this is Split Roasting and not Spit Roasting. ) The famous Cantonese BBQ: Click through the Google image search page to view the picture: 蜜汁叉燒, BBQ Pork (Sample 1: 蜜汁叉燒, BBQ Pork ) There are many dishes and items that can be made with BBQ pork. It is very versatile. 叉燒酥, Puff Pastry with BBQ Pork Filling Click through the Google image search page to view the picture: (Sample 2: 叉燒酥, Puff pastry with BBQ pork inside ) 叉燒銀芽炒蛋, Stir-Fried Bean Sprout with Egg and BBQ Pork Click through the Google image search page to view the picture: (Sample 3: 叉燒銀芽炒蛋, Stir-Fried Bean Sprout with Egg and BBQ Pork ) 叉燒包, Steamed BBQ Pork Bao Click through the Google image search page to view the picture: (Sample 4: 叉燒包, Steamed BBQ Pork Bao ) 叉燒腸粉, Steamed Rice Noodle with BBQ Pork Filling Click through the Google image search page to view the picture: (Sample 5: 叉燒腸粉, Steamed Rice Noodle with BBQ Pork Filling )

I seasoned my wok last night! I used a hybrid method. It has some nice tan now, ready to be of service! I will have more of that story (and pictures) later. As what should be the first dish to cook on my new wok... I really like "fish". Because in Chinese (both Cantonese and Mandarin), fish (sounds "Yu" in Cantonese) has the same sound as the word that means "having extra" (money typically). It brings good luck. That's why in most Chinese banquets we got to have a fish dish. I don't have the mastery to handle a Squirrel Fish that jo-mel suggested at this point. But I really want to cook a whole fish on the new wok to: 1) Test out the wok versus pan (skillet) cooking 2) Continue to season my wok through frying/deep-frying while cooking 3) Have a first dish that would bring me good luck, symbolically at the very least. I will fry a whole flounder. The last time I tried to fry a flounder on my skillet, the result was dismal. When I flipped the fish to fry the top side, all fish meat fell apart. I am hoping with a wok: 1) I can tilt the wok at different angle to get an even frying on the fish. 2) I don't need to flip the fish. I just ladle the hot oil and pour on top repeatedly to cook the top side. We will see how it turns out...

Didn't know there is an interest in a Cantonese (Hong Kong) rendition of curry... it arose my interest... time to make this dish again and perhaps snap some pictures.

I grew up in Hong Kong. Many local restaurants serve curry dishes. I think I know what you mean by Cantonese curry. But there are many ways curry is made in Hong Kong too, depending on what kind of restaurant you walk into (the traditional Chinese (Cantonese) restaurants, or Hong Kong "Western" restaurants). Typically, the traditional Chinese restaurants in Hong Kong would make curry like this: Marinate the beef with soy, ground white pepper, ShaoHsing wine, corn starch and such. First velvet in oil til 50% cooked. As typical for Chinese stir-fries. Remove. Heat up the wok at high temperature, add cooking oil, add minced garlic and wedged onion, then add curry powder (usually Madras kind), salt and chicken broth or a bit of water. Add cubed potato (need to be cooked separately first because potatoes take longer to cook). Bring the ingredients to a boil, add wedged green bell peppers and use corn starch to thicken the sauce. At last return the beef and mix with the ingredients. For the curry in Hong Kong "Western" restaurants, then the curry recipes vary. Most would add coconut milk following the Southeast Asian style, or add lemon grass, lime juice and shallots following the Vietnamese style, or add shrimp paste, sa cha sauce, or other ingredients as well. All these are very different, of course, from the Indian styles of curry.