sheetz

FWIW, I believe one can learn a lot just from reading these boards, asking questions, and constantly practicing. It definitely helps to have a good cookbook, too.

I've used this recipe for siu yuk with success.

Looking at the recipe, I think 250C isn't a typo at all. It would have to be that high if you're baking it for only 8-10 min.

I don't think I could ever indenture myself out to a restaurant like that. I guess I have to settle for cookbooks.

Thanks for the recipe, Shiewie. I'll have to try it. A couple of comments/questions: 1. Can someone help me convert ml of oil to something I can measure? I don't have anything to measure ml, but I do have a scale that measures in grams. I know 1 ml of water is 1 gram, but I don't know what 1 ml of oil would be in grams. 2. 250C is a VERY high oven temperature. I've heard that dan tarts are best baked low and slow, but I suppose I'm willing to try it this way just to experiment.

Yes. Common English names: "Concubine's Cakes" or "Wife's Cakes" "Lao Po Bing" is actually more common to find regarding spelling winter melon filling (Dong gwa yung) Reports say the filling tends to be much better made in New York than in San Francisco. Really just looking for a recipe for the filling, not with additions such as candied citron, nuts, bean, etc. ← I've used Martin Yan's recipe for filling and I thought it was pretty good. Just subsitute candied winter melon for the stuff he uses. For the pastry I like the recipe Tepee suggested.

It's not worth it to get upset if someone is ignorant. Maybe I'd have to see this in action. Many people might know exactly what they're eating and simply prefer to eat it that way. ← Possibly, but I know that many Americans think Chinese food must by definition be drowned in soy sauce. More than once I've seen people tell their friends they are SUPPOSED to do that.

Here you go: http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en...2+molds&spell=1 Anyone have a recipe for winter melon moon cake? Been looking for a while... TIA ← Thanks. Check out those moon cookie molds! I'd love to make these for Xmas gifts. Sure beats fruitcake, that's for sure! Re: winter melon moon cakes, are you talking about Lo Pah Beng ("Wife Cakes")?

Wow, I've never heard of anyone making their own mooncakes. Is it difficult? Where do you get the mold?

I hope they can distinguish the 2 different tastes. ← Not always! Many Americans use soy sauce as an actual sauce -- meaning they pour it over whatever Chinese food they're eating (remember the scene in Joy Luck Club?). I've seen people do the same with black vinegar, in restaurants where both soy sauce and black vinegar are provided as condiments on the table (e.g., New Green Bo), and have no clue that they weren't using soy sauce. ← Whenever I see that I want to whack those idiots on the side of the head and scream at them! (Sorry, that's one of my pet peeves. )

No wonder black vinegar is optionally provided for sharks fin soup. ← I thought the vinegar for sharks fin soup was the red kind. I know it wasn't black.

I think the most common Cantonese desserts are the sweet dessert soups, especially the one made with red beans. Almond jelly is pretty popular too during the summer months.

I wrote this about their differences in a previous discussion: At first, the two dishes appear to be the more or less the same thing: glutinous rice wrapped by some sort of leaves. However, the difference between the two dishes becomes much more apparent when you look at their respective origins. Joong has always been pretty much what it is, i.e., glutinous rice boiled inside bamboo leaves. OTOH, the classic dish of Nor Mai Gai is nothing like the sticky rice wrapped in lotus leaves that you find in restaurants nowadays. True Nor Mai Gai, meaning "glutinous rice chicken," is an elaborate dish that requires hours if not days of preparation time. To make this dish, the bones and flesh of a whole chicken are removed from the bird while at the same time leaving the entire skin intact. Then, the meat is separated from the bones, stir-fried, and then combined with glutinous rice and other ingredients to form a stuffing. This stuffing is then placed into the chicken skin, and the whole thing is reshaped back into the form of a chicken. Finally, this "chicken" is deep fried until crisp. Obviously, this dish is extremely labor intensive, which is why you won't ever see it prepared in the traditional way in restaurants. Instead, what you will get is an approximation of the dish, and that is exactly what the glutinous rice wrapped with lotus leaves is supposed to be. It's the most common way of approximating true Nor Mai Gai but it certainly isn't the only way. Another way I've seen it done is by dipping balls of glutinous rice stuffing in a batter and deep frying them until crisp. I'm sure there are dozens of other ways, as well.

You might want to try Yongsusan in Koreatown. Also, you should read Jonathan Gold's writeup of Koreatown joints to get an inkling of what's available.

I bought a bunch of silken tofu sight unseen with hopes of making much mapo, sadly I think it's the wrong kind. What other ideas do people have? I've pretty much run out after smoothies and dessert, neither of which appeal to my manly appetites. ← Why can't you use silken tofu? I use soft tofu for mapo tofu and the best way I've found to prevent the curds from breaking up is to make the meat sauce first, then gently slide the cubed tofu in and gently simmer for a few minutes.

I've heard the porous thing a few times before but never gave it much thought. But if you think about it, solid metal is clearly not porous. If it were, then the seasoning would go all the way through the metal pan. But it isn't, the carbon seasoning is only on the pan's surface.

^Thanks. I'll give that a try.

I made a batch with shitake mushrooms but used green onions because that's what I had in the house. It was great, but it was hard to discern any green onion taste. Next time I'll use vidalias. Dejah, what kind of seasoning, if any, do you add to your mushrooms and onions?

Ben, Gan sui is only used when you make the "sweet joong"...the ones with dow sah inside, and you have to dip in sugar before eating. I don't make these as I don't really care for them. Po-Po always make about 6 for "bai sun" on the festival date: the fifth day of the fifth month on the lunar calendar. ← Does anyone actually prefer gan sui joong over the regular ones? Most people I know barely tolerate them if that.

I have some leftover rice so maybe I'll try making some with mushrooms and onions. My parents say that you can tell how long people have been in the US by how much filling they put into their joong. When they first arrive, they usually have very little filling and use mostly rice. As the years go by the proportion of meat to rice gets larger and larger. My mom's joong is mostly filling with a little rice, so you can guess how long she's been here! My own first attempt at making joong was reasonably successful. My attempts at wrapping them weren't so awful, but I wiill definitely want to increase the proportion of filling in future tries. The rice had a somewhat fluffier texture compared to what I prefer, and I'm wondering exactly why that is. Maybe it was because I soaked the rice overnight, or maybe because I used Thai glutinous rice instead of the Chinese style. I sampled one boiled for 2 1/2 hrs and one boiled for 5 hrs and I found that I preferred the ones boiled for the full 5 hours. I felt that the flavors of the ingredients needed that extra boiling time to really meld together.

I might add some mushrooms next time, but I left them out this time because most of the joong that I grew up eating didn't contain any.

Today I picked up my supplies for joong from the local Chinese grocery store. Unfortunately, I couldn't located everything I wanted. I managed to get bamboo leaves, raw peanuts, and salted duck eggs (But no raw eggs, only cooked ones. What's up with that? ) No chestnuts, no yellow mung beans. They did have green mung beans, though. So my joong will contain lop cheong, fatty pork, peanuts, dried shrimp, and duck egg yolks. Am I missing anything?

Then perhaps there needs to be different names to distinguish between Chinese and Americanized Chinese styles of cuisine, similar to how Mexican and Tex-Mex distinguish between those two styles.

I don't think recall there being any traditional food to go along with joong. From what I know of Chinese students, I think they might be more appreciative of quantity over variety!

Even if I taught my Toisanese grandmother how to make fettuccine alfredo that wouldn't make it Chinese. ← Isn't that a bit limiting? I'm not Italian but I can make a mean minestrone invernale. What makes it Italian isn't necessarily the person behind the stove. Soba ← I think you misunderstood. I'm actually agreeing with you. My grandmother could make either fettuccine alfredo or crab rangoons and still neither dish would be Chinese.