sheetz

Don't forget that the Beijing Olympics are just around the corner.

I wouldn't think squid was all that exotic even in most of the US. You can find it in the seafood section in my supermarket and I live in a smaller midwestern city.

Actually, I like the tanginess that the vinegar adds to the crust. But you don't need to use red vinegar if you coat the chicken with honey because the sugars will form a nice amber colored crust by itself. Regular white vinegar will do just fine. Eileen Yin Fei Lo's recipe in The Chinese Kitchen says to first simmer a 3-3 1/2 pound chicken in boiling water infused with seasonings. Then drain and brush all over with a mixture of 1 tsp maltose/honey 2 Tbl boiling water 1 tsp Shao Hsing wine 1 tsp white rice vinegar or distilled vinegar 1/2 tsp cornstarch. Air dry for 6 hours. Then deep fry at 375F for 4 minutes.

OK, that's just..... weird. It's not like shrinp chips are hard to find or anything. A lot of the recipes I've seen for this include maltose or honey in the coating, which gives the chicken a nice crust after the frying. Looks great, Ah Leung!

I bet this dish would be great just using wing segments. Sort of like a Sichuan version of Buffalo wings.

I was going to comment on this as well. I've used both a thai longer grain sticky rice and the Chinese style short grained. To me, the thai rice needed to boiled longer than the Chinese rice to achieve the right consistency. Even though the Chinese rice is more expensive I will stick to using that in the future. Love the pictorial Ah Leung!

I made salted chicken eggs for joong and they turned out fine. I made them as described above and they were ready in 3 weeks. The only things is that chicken egg yolks aren't the bright orange color of duck yolks, so if possible see if you can get duck yolks.

Gotcha!

Thanks for the update, Apicio! I get the feeling the crusts aren't blind baked at all, that they are baked either low and slow or at high temp then reduced to low.

I made a small batch yesterday, basically the same as Ah Leung's except no chestnuts (couldn't find any) and no soy sauce. Although I don't have a lot of experience making joong these were the best I've ever made. I definitely want to try one of Tepee's alternative versions now that I've essentially mastered the basic version.

I've also heard that using lye water (gan sui) will bleach the buns. I haven't experiemented with it to know, however.

For me, 3 leaves is fine for the regular joong. (Only 2 for the "Gan Sui" variety.)

I actually experimented with steamed bao a few years back and the problem I had with using only cake flour was that the dough lacked enough gluten and produced a "lumpy" looking surface after cooked. Blending in some AP flour provided enough gluten so that the skin was nice and smooth after steamed. If available, I recommend using a specialty flour like White Lily or Martha White, which are highly bleached flours with protein contents somewhere in between cake flour and regular AP flour.

Don't use yeast. The ones served in the restaurants only use baking powder for leavening. You should also use a low protein flour--a 50/50 blend of cake and all purpose flours works well from my experience.

Thanks for the very interesting recipes, Tepee! That Tumeric one with the 100g of dried chilies sounds a bit too spicy for me, however. I'll see what types of ingredients are available, and try out one of the recipes if possible. The green tea joong looks promising.

If you want to impress you can also add some conpoys. I'm planning to make them, too, although I'm still awaiting Tepee's recipes for "new wave" joong.

So from what I gather you're going to spend, what, 30 minutes, at the Getty gift shop and then leave?

One of the reasons I want to learn to make these isn't so much that I can't buy them close by(which I can't) but that I want to be able make tartlets with different flavorings and fillings.

Well, it's pointless to try the recipe as written because we all know it won't work. That said, IF the ingredient list is correct it provides enough clues to work with. For instance, using cake flour and an egg in the outer dough.

I think Westerners are most confused by the different types of Chinese noodles, but that's the subject of another discussion.

Thanks for the recipe, Ling. Just one question. Are you sure about the measurements for part 2? If you mixed 24g (about 1/4 cup) of cake flour with an egg and 15 ml of water you'd wind up with a batter, not a dough.

^I've heard of that deveining trick, too, using a straightened out paper clip to poke the hole thru the back of the shrimp.

I was thinking the same thing. Using more oil should also help keep the frying temperature up. I'll have to try this some time. Don't most restaurant dust the shrimp with cornstarch first?

This is why I like deep frying in cast iron. Enough heat gets stored up in the pan that the oil temp doesn't drop as much when you add the food.

Umm, go back and look at all of hzrt8w's recipe demos. This is why the velveting technique is important.