hzrt8w

Sure. I have a camphor tree right outside my bedroom! I kind of like the smell. But these trees are surely very messy. They don't shed in the winter. But when the fruits (??) fall down, it is hard to clean up. I have been thinking: hey if I want to make smoke tea duck, I just need to peel off some really old barks from the trunk and use them to make smoke! Save a trip to the Indian grocery store!

Replacement burners I know not... They do have full frames (jackets?) to go with them. You can use them as stand-alone stoves. Fully functional. Just hook it up to a portable gas tank.

I plan to build more to the online help file. I want to incorporate my pictorial shopping guide on Chinese ingredients and pictures of Chinese dishes into the help file in future editions. Check periodically!

Is this the one that has no window outside and has a 2 big front doors with semi-circles on the top (golden dots on red color door)? And a fish tank (aquarium tank) right at the front door? If so, I agree that it has very good Chinese food (with some Vietnamese touch). I used to go there for lunches when I worked in that area. In Irvine, there is a "Sam Woo Seafood Restaurant" (949) 262-0688. They serve dim sum per order. Not a big variety but their dim sum and lunch/dinner entrees are quite decent. Service is very good.

Triangle and tortellini I can understand. Beggar's purse and nurse's hat... I need to use some imagination...

I have a Taiwanese made kitchen hood (designed for Chinese cooking - with extra powered exhaust fans) that I can install. Beyond that, I have the options to cook in the garage or in the backyard.

Thanks for your suggestion Ben Sook. I have visited Walmart and other stores to look at some turkey fryers before. Unfortunately I have to say I am not impressed with any of the models I have seen. They looked no better than the burners I have on my regular stove. All have only 1 ring of nozzles and at 3 inch diameter. I don't think they can deliver what I seek for.

Thanks sheetz and Dejah. That wok is probably carbon steel. I couldn't get my bearing straight to differentiate between carbon steel and stainless steel.

Hey Dejah Dai Ga Jeah: For a million bucks (or even just half of it) I am willing to bend my back! Would you like to get together and develop some Gweilo Chinese recipes?

I agree that the wok develops the flavor over time. But how does the brand new wok get the "wok hey"? The flavor has to come from somewhere originally. My belief is it's the accumulation of flames (ShaoHsing wine) burning oil. And perhaps washing the wok without soap would keep the grease on?

Cooking is all about timing. It takes a lot of practice to make perfect. So... keep cooking! Yes that step needs to be very quick, or else the soy sauce will dry up very quickly (especially that you have a high BTU rating burner). Thanks for your words of encouragement. I try to put down as much thoughts as I can think of in each pictorial. I even tell all how I cheat! Yeah... that's not in regular cookbooks.

My posts were in this thread: To be (Chinese), or Not to be (Chinese), That is the question Sadly the one who published the "sear strip steak and dap some oyster sauce on top" recipe is a renown Chinese cookbook author.

Yikes! I didn't know inflation has caught up with us so quickly. After the 2000 Dot-Com crash, I spoke to my brother and he said the real estate prices in HK dropped for a few years. And because of the bird flu, all restaurants needed to slash prices on their food. Maybe that only affects restaurants for the commons and not for the lords. I always eat at the restaurants for the commons.

The English naming of Sichuan peppercorn has been very inconsistent. I think that partly perhaps was related to the USA's ban a couple years earlier. I looked at the bottle of Sichuan peppercorn powder that I bought. The label said "Red Pepper Powder". How about that? I think the safest thing to do is to cut out jo-mel's Chinese characters in print and take them with you to the store and confirm by the Chinese label. So far I haven't seen any confusing label in Chinese.

Erik: You have brought up a very interesting question. For me, I use white pepper most of the time in marination because that's what my father taught me and I like the taste of it. I went out and visited some of the "outstanding recipe sites" that I had posted the links to and looked at how other people do it. I found that the result was half and half. Some people use white pepper, some don't. I think I am not alone in using white pepper in Chinese cooking. But you can have your personal adaptation: use black pepper or not use pepper at all.

You sure know how to make people feel like champions! Actually, you can use Sa Cha Sauce to make Satay: just mix (cook) it with some chopped onions, curry powder, salt and some ground peanuts (or I use peanut butter, yes cheating a little bit). And some coconut milk too. You can use it as a base for Satay Beef, Satay Chicken, etc.. Good to roll it up with pita bread, or a tortilla to make it a "burrito". Some Southeast Asian touch... if you are tired of your regular sandwiches.

That's some very interesting photos, Fengyi! They built a small pagoda out of cucumber bricks! How practical! Genius!

Erik: What are you using the Sa Cha BBQ Sauce for? A dip for your Subway sandwich? (Which may not be a bad idea...)

ash123: Thank you for your kind words and welcome to eGullet! I enjoy doing these pictorials. I figure that even if only one person can benefit from the post, that would worth the efforts. I enjoy reading comments and other people sharing their techniques. Learning from their experiences I constantly improve my own cooking skills. For anybody who is interested, I have put together all my pictorials (52+ so far and growing) in a single Windows help file. You may download it to your own computer and read all the pictorials locally. The benefit is you can look up some recipes easily with the search function. Just follow the downloading instructions on this page: http://www.freewebs.com/hzrt8w/LeungPictorials.htm It is also marked on my signature line. This file will be updated periodically. You asked about some Americanized Chinese recipes. That's a challenge to me. I only cook what I eat. And I don't usually eat Americanized Chinese dishes. No I don't sear strip steaks and dap oyster sauce on top and call it Chinese. I think you knew how I felt on this subject matter from my other postings. I have made my version of General Tso's Chicken before and have taken pictures. It is a recipe adapted and slightly modified from Maria Lee's (she is one of my idols). I can publish that as a pictorial in a couple of weeks. Though I am not sure if my version is something that you were looking for. For one thing I don't batter and deep-fry the chicken first. In most of the traditional Chinese chicken dishes, you would not find the chicken nuggets battered and deep-fried... though this practice is so common in the USA (e.g. Pickup Stix, Panda Express, etc.) for Sweet and Sour Chicken, Orange Chicken, General Tso's Chicken, etc.. You may make it that way if you like. The sauce that these restaurants make... use a mix of red and white vinegar and heavy in sugar. I don't know... the purpose of my posts... my principle is to advocate Chinese food as how Chinese make them. I don't plan to publish a book to band to the popular demand. Not yet anyway. May be a million dollar would change my mind... So I don't sear strip steaks and dap oyster sauce on top in my pictorials. (By the way have I told you how I really felt? ) The second question: Chow fun... smokey flavor. I think what you were describing was generally considered "wok hey" (the illusive "breath of a wok"). It's much easier to achieve when you have a high BTU rating burner, which you said you have. Most of the time, it's all about heating the wok real hot, add cooking oil, add aromatics (onion/garlic/etc) and sauces, and dash in some ShaoHsing cooking wine on a hot wok. Tilt the wok a bit. The alcohol instantly vaporizes, catches on fire... the flame surrounds the wok for maybe a second. The smokey flavor is the residue of the camaralized ShaoHsing wine (minus the alcohol). And no... not from sesame oil. I use sesame oil in a lot of things, but I never drop it on a hot wok. The fume from sesame oil (relatively low boiling point) is actually unpleasant. Always drip sesame oil in room temperature, either on the finished dish or for marination.

Pein: I didn't make my own wonton broth when I made this dish. Making broth takes a long time. I cheated. I only used canned chicken broth. From what I understand, in Hong Kong the noodle houses put charred dried fish (called "Dai Day Yu" (Big Ground Fish) in Cantonese) to make the broth. That makes the characteristic Cantonese wonton broth one tastes in Hong Kong. I have never tried it. Too much work.

I am glad that you gave this a try, jo-mel. I see fried shallots used very often in Vietnamese dishes. They sure know how to bring the best out of shallots. Sweet, camaralized taste... in pho, curry, sandwiches... everything. Uh-oh... what am I doing promoting Vietnamese food in a Chinese forum?

I resonate whole-heartedly. That would be my kind of trip... munching on street food from one corner to another in Hong Kong. You can find an amazing variety of different food, just the Chinese styles alone. And for a budget of HKD 650, it can last you street food munching for a whole week! But with a HKD 650 per dinner budget and on a business trip, it looks like Rick is looking for some 5 star restaurants with top notch service, wine and the whole nine yard.

Yes. I think the best wontons should contain 2 different textures in the filling: The soft, bouncy meat (ground pork or other ground meat) and the relatively crunchy shrimp. Sad to say, many of the Chinese restaurants in the USA would only use ground pork to make wontons. Or that they grind the shrimp along with the pork where you cannot taste 2 different textures.

I made my last comment over 18 months ago. I regret that I was blunt and direct. Apparently that might have offended some of Chung King Mansions fans. However, my impression on Chung King Mansions has not changed. If you have stayed in Chung King Mansions for over ten times through out the years and did not have a single unpleasant experience, I am happy for you. But suppose someone were to tell me that he’s been to Harlem over ten times and has never been robbed, would it lead me to conclude that Harlem is a safe place? I think not necessarily. My advice came from my own experience. I did not read about Chung King Mansions in a website on the Internet where anybody can modify the content. Where do you find accountability on the accuracy of the information posted? Just by an Internet online name and an IP address along with a modification date? I used to live only 1 block away from Chung King Mansions for over 10 years. I had my share of seeing police cars and ambulances parked outside the building with flashing sirens and reading about robberies and homicides that happened inside the building on local newspapers. And I was chased down the corridor inside the building once by 2 guys who tried to rob me. Maybe things have changed for the better over the years. Or maybe not. I heard from a friend who told me, from her personal account, that only as recent as a year ago that she had seen some guy dropped dead (well, presumably dead) at a side entrance of Chung King Mansions with a needle still stuck to his forearm. Back to the spirit of this thread, it all comes down to what the readers want to do while they come to Hong Kong. For those who would visit Hong Kong, the capital city of all kinds of great Chinese food, for only a few days, and would have a strong urge to get some Indian food “to die for” (and this term may take a literal meaning) in a dirty building which is well known for crime and drug problems, please don’t let my comments stop you!

I don't see why not. For the meat and sauces, definitely no problem. If you were to freeze tofu, you probably want to cook this dish with firm tofu which would stand the freezing process a bit better than the soft or silken tofu. The tofu texture would be changed just a little bit, but I don't think it's a big deal.