sheetz

Welcome, ash! Is it possible for you to take some a few photos of the dishes you're wanting to duplicate. I think it might help. For the Gen Tso chicken, definitely use dark meat. For the batter you might try using baking powder, self rising flour, or oil and see if that helps. For the chow fun, I wonder if that smoky flavor is from fermented black beans.

Since it's off a menu, the weekday offerings are identical to what's available on the weekends. There's a Northern style hot pot restaurant called Little Sheep in Monterey Park. Specializes in lamb. Never eaten there myself but it might be something you would like to try if you've never had it before. blogger review of Little Sheep

I agree the second wok appears to be carbon steel and looks like the one I have when it was new. Mine was covered with a glossy, rest-proof coating that had to be washed off before it could be seasoned. The first one does look like statinless.

I always felt this was the great thing about the show. Being gratious in defeat is just as important as celebrating in victory. It's kind of like Battle, for Battle's sake. SB (seems very Japanese to me) ← Graciousness is one thing. What I see on ICA is indifference.

Personally, I thought it was supposed to be a cure for insomnia. Maybe I might watch ICA if I thought anyone in the studio, either the chefs or the audience, actually CARED who won the battle.

How big was your crab? I had Alaskan king crab over the holidays. It wasn't terribly large, only 6 pounds at US$24/lb cooked 2 ways.

Also, take a look at this list of recommended restaurants from Jonathan Gold, a number of which are in the San Gabriel Valley. They are: Capital Seafood Giang Nan Lu Din Gee Malan Noodle Oriental Pearl Sin Ba La Triumphal Palace Tung Lai Shun

I think nouveau Cantonese dim sum hasn't made its way to NYC yet. And for this you might try New Concept (Monterey Park), Sea Harbour (Rosemead), or Mission 261 (San Gabriel). They are probably listed in Carl Chu's book. Tung Lai Shun (San Gabriel) is a popular restaurant serving Islamic Chinese cuisine, which last I checked was also pretty rare in NYC. Any Cantonese place will specialize in seafood for dinner. For a slight Chiu Chow twist on Cantonese you might like 888 Seafood in Rosemead.

I know we're talking pie crusts here, but by "baked good" do you mean anything? I wouldn't use lard in the sweet department for anything that calls for vegetable shortening, like gingerbreads or cookies. Best to use butter in place of crisco for those type of things. ← I disagree. Lard works very well in place of shortening in sweet things like cookies.

If you're on a tight budget, Aldi is great for staple items. The produce can be iffy, however.

sheetz: If I remember it correctly you live in or near San Gabriel Valley (good access to Chinese grocery stores)? Somehow I got that impression. I grew up in LA and go back for visits but i now live in Indiana.

I'm not talking only about rolls. Just for any type of general cooking, be it soups, stews, or stir fries. The fresh ones are soooooo good I could eat a pound of it in one sitting! BTW, has anyone tried making their own using the technique described here ? If I can make my own seen jook using this method I will certainly try it.

Here's a question for you all. I really like the fresh seen jook but those aren't available where I live. Is there a way to soften the foo jook so that they as soft as the seen jook, like boiling the heck out of them or using a pressure cooker?

If you can, I'd suggest going out to Monterey Park and environs for dim sum. The places in chinatown are ok, but the ones in MP are a cut above. The place that's getting a lot of buzz now is Capital Seafood at the corner of Atlantic and Garvey in Monterey Park. And unlike most of the other higher end dim sum joints which are menu-style, this one is carts. Jonathan Gold's review.

I did a search and found this restaurant in HK which serves "Modern Chinese" cuisine and offers several different tasting menus. http://www.boinnoseki.com/

My reaction exactly! What did we get that cost so much?? Well, everything cost a lot, even dumplings and vegetable dishes. Instead of plates that were $2, $3, $4, they were ~$10 each. ← I thought maybe you ordered some of the pricier stuff I've seen at some of the fancy dim sum joints. Things like foie gras wontons, lobster congee, or sharks fin dumplings. But it sounds like Yank Sing is just ridiculously overpriced.

Somewhere along the way, this meal seems to have morphed from "Making hamburgers for Grandma" to preparing an elaborate multicourse banquet for 15. I would tend to agree that if your goal is to impress a bunch of jaded Chinese relatives, you're not going to do so by serviing miso soup. raw vegatables, and rice. I should add, however, that although many banquet dishes are noted for using costly ingredients, other special occasion dishes are prized due to the large amount of labor involved in their preparations. So for instance in this case I'm sure the relatives would be quite impressed if they knew several dozen crabs had to be killed and their meat extracted by hand in order to make the crab cakes. Whatever you decide, Kent, I'll truly enjoy cooking vicariously through you.

Just a thought. Do they sell cooked lump crab meat in Shanghai? If not, I wonder how many Shanghai crabs you'll have to kill to make crab cakes for 15.

Wow, that's a very ambitious project you'rve assigned yourself. Make sure to find out how many burners you will have available to use. You will be greatly limited if you only have one burner. To be safe you should probably choose dishes that can be served either cold or at room temperature. I say shoot for eight courses, eight being an auspicious number for Chinese.

Any kind of pudding--rice, banana, tapioca, or even lemon curd. If you're ambitious you could try a chocolate mousse, although that could be a chore if you don't have an electric mixer. My parents love rice crispy treats, which would be easy to make if you had access to the ingredients. They're almost like an American version of Sai Keh Mah (Cantonese pronunciation), the Chinese snacks made of deep fried dough strips mixed with syrup and pressed into blocks.

90% is the number I've heard as well. http://www.intelihealth.com/IH/ihtIH/WSIHW...9339/10239.html Lactose intolerance usually is genetic (inherited). In many people of African or Asian descent, the body begins making less lactase around age 5. As many as 90% of Asian-Americans, 80 percent of American Indians, 65% of African-Americans and 50% of Hispanics have some degree of lactose intolerance. In contrast, most Caucasians (80%) have a gene that preserves the ability to produce lactase into adulthood.

Of course if innards are eaten in Europe that's considered "Haute Cuisine" but if it's eaten in China it's considered animal feed.

Chinese do eat tomatoes, but most Chinese I know don't like Italian style tomato sauces.

I highly recommend neutral flavors. Crab cakes sound like they would be fine. Also Clam Chowder. Shanghai is known for its crab and clam preparations, so these two dishes would be perfect. Chinese aren't exactly known for their sweet tooths, however, and I think pecan pie may be too sweet for her. Perhaps something like an American rice pudding would make an interesting contrast to the traditional Chinese Eight Treasure rice pudding. (It's also good if she's missing a few teeth!)

Interesting. The reason why I was wondering if it could be done is that whole wheat flour can't be completely substituted for regular wheat flour in certain recipes and must be blended in with the regular flour. I wonder if that is the case here, too.