sheetz

We bought one of these for my mother and I think it's works fine for what it is. It holds heat pretty well and yet is not nearly as heavy as cast iron. Carbon steel is preferred for stir frying, but that works best with a powerful gas burner. I an have electric stove, and my carbon steel wok has difficulty holding its seasoning on the sides of the pan due to the the heat reaching only the bottom. Hence, I have to reseason more often than I would like. Stainless is also good for steaming and braising, which also tend to eat away at the seasoning. In my experience, wok hey is more a function of the intensity of heat and technique rather than type of pan. I know of many home cooks (including my mom) who produce excellent Chinese food using regular stainless.

If we're going to start counting crab cakes as cakes, then shouldn't we count Eskimo Pies as pies?

To continue playing devil's advicoate, isn't what's considered "traditional" dim sum slowly evolving? As Ah Leung mentioned earlier, "Zha Leung" is a pretty recent invention and is now considered a fairly standard item. Cookbook author Eileen Yin Fei Lo, who grew up in Guangdong Province, says the first time she ever ate baked "cha siu bao" was in Hong Kong. Prior to that she had only eaten steamed bao. Is that considered innovative? Or how about custard tarts, which were modeled after the Portuguese "pastéis-de-nata"?

Very impressive Kent! P.S. I also eat most pastas with chopsticks. It's so much easier!

Wouldn't it be funny if people didn't share at a Chinese banquet? Who would get the Shark's Fin Soup? Or the Beijing Duck? Or the whole steamed fish?

You can use a nonstick skillet for the velveting process, as you really don't need as high a flame for this step. I just use a regular carbon steel wok but give it a spray before adding the oil. Another solution is to place the meat in one of the large metal Chinese colander-strainers and dip that into the hot oil.

I don't know about that. It might seem odd to some people, but there are lots of Cantonese who have dim sum almost every single day. I don't care who you are, if you're having dim sum 3-4 days per week, you're going to get bored with the traditional selections sooner or later.

My mother has an older Martin Yan knife that's pretty good. It has a black handle and I think was made by Messermeister of Germany. It appears those have been discontinued, however. I recently bought a 7" Cooks Elite Santoku from JCPenney for $15 which has now become my favorite knife. It's hard to beat for the price and as good as knives costing three times as much.

Please do! Those sound really good!

Heehee. Gary thinks we put corn and Ball Park franks in our joong.

sheetz: Did you find salted chicken eggs very similar to duck eggs in taste? I am tempted to make my own salte eggs but may not have a good source for duck eggs. ← Duck eggs have a brighter orange color and maybe a richer flavor, but overall I think it's not a bad substitute, especially in joong when the flavors of all the filling ingredients are melded together. When I made the salted chicken eggs I was experimenting with homemade mooncakes. In those you can probably tell a bigger difference.

I made several large batches of joong over the winter for practice and I don't know if I'm all that much in the mood for making more joong this year! Oh well, I guess I can always give them away. I plan to use homemade salted chicken eggs. The only duck eggs I have access to are the cooked variety. Maybe I'll try making gan sui joong. I've never made those before.

Good catch by muichoi. I'm no pro, but seems like you would want to use thin soy instead of oyster sauce if you want to duplicate the restaurant dish. No need for sichuan pepper (this is Cantonese cuisine here) and no need for rock sugar (that's really used more for stewed dishes).

OK, this doesn't have anything to do with the recipe itself, but what exactly is the common Cantonese name for this dim sum dish? "Pai Gwat" is obviously Cantonese for spare riblets, and usually something cooked with black beans would either be "See Jup" or "Dau See." So I would probably look at this dish and call it "See Jup Pai Gwat." What the heck is this "Shu Mai" supposed to mean? The only "Shu Mai" I know of are the opened faced steamed pork dumplings, and that's not even the Cantonese pronunciation for them.

I think another reason for using a clay pot for these types of dishes is if you plan to add fresh seafood. You can add the seafood right when you take the pot off the stove and it will continue to cook as it makes its way to the table. Doing it this way will help keep the seafood from overcooking.

It's been brought to my attention that some places don't even include the fried noodles. In other words, the "chow mein" is just stir fried veggies, sometimes served over rice!

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One of my favorite things to order at the HK-Cantonese BBQ restaurants is curry beef stew over rice. Mmmmm.

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At Farmer's Market I really like Littlejohn's English Toffee. The english toffee is the best I've ever tasted and a great gift item to bring back home.

I also prefer to use lard as the seasoning fat as I feel it coats the metal better than cooking oil does.

Baking works well but I think you would have to remove the wooden handles first.

A bossy Chinese mother-in-law can come in very handy in these types of situations!

Chop Suey sloppy joes. I love it!!! lol

Dejah, how did you guys develop Gweilo Chinese recipes? Was it trial and error or would you exchange recipes with other restauranteurs? I bet you could make a million bucks publishing a Gweilo Chinese cookbook.