sheetz

I do this when chicken roasting in the oven, but in this style of cooking I'm not convinced it really matters since the whole bird gets cooked through pretty uniformly in the end.

Great idea! I do have a probe thermometer. I stick that in the tight or breast? ← I just choose wherever it's thickest. It shouldn't really matter if the pot is large enough and you have enough water.

If you have one, just stick a digital probe thermometer in the chicken while it's poaching and cook until around 160F.

Thanks for the photos, canucklehead! This has nothing to do with the food, but it seems strange to me that the Chinese on the Fook Lam Moon sign would be written horizontally from right to left, especially with the English underneath written from left to right. Is it common to do this on signs in HK? Reading both languages will make one crosseyed.

I don't know if it's accurate to say there are no recipes in traditional home cooking, just that they are known instinctively rather than written on paper. And even though ingredients will vary depending on circumstances, the method of preparation is always exactly the same.

One of my favorites is foo juk (bean curd skin) soup. I remember Dejah showed a photo of her version, and the one my mother makes is very similar. I don't know her exact recipe, but it's contains chicken stock, foo juk, pork stomach, dried oysters, salted turnip, gingko nuts, and if it's around Chinese New Year she adds some hair seaweed.

We ended up having our Xmas dinner last night. The dishes I made were ham with honey mustard sauce, rolls, carrots, brussels sprouts, scalloped potatoes, and corn pudding. And despite my mother shadowing me the entire time I was cooking and complaining that 'everybody' would rather have Chinese food, she did end up admitting to me afterwards that it was pretty good.

Yes you are, but what the hay, dinner is dinner. It's Christmas Dinner too. ← HAHA! Well, I should add that even though I'm preparing an American style Xmas dinner, I'm also planning dishes with an eye towards appealing to parents with more traditional Cantonese tastebuds. Hence dishes like ham, potatoes, carrots, rolls, etc. In other words, fairly plain with simple flavors.

I think there are 2 main reasons: 1) The Chinese (who don't work in the restaurant business) have Christmas holiday off. Family gathering time. And Chinese customarily have large get togethers at restaurants more often than they do at home. Of course that means greater profits on Christmas and other holidays, so there's no way a Chinese restaurant would be closed!

Our big holiday dinner won't be until next week. At this point I'm thinking spiral ham, scalloped potatoes, baby carrots, homemade rolls. Not sure what else yet.

I've been doing it for a long time and don't even remember why I started because nobody ever told me to do it.

I've been to a lot of dim sum restaurants where they barely put a teaspoon of filling in their bao. I guess that's supposed to be more refined or something because if you go to the hole in the wall places where all the senior citizens eat you get a much higher proportion of filling to dough.

Even 2 of those big bao?

My understanding is that while Cantonese folks refer to the dishes served at tea as "dim sum," to Northerners "dim sum" has a meaning more akin to "snacks," hence the translation.

Did you try the recipe I posted near the top of the thread? The resulting daikon cakes come out the same as those found in dim sum restaurants. Those are tricky and I haven't had a chance to master them yet. The dough uses bakers ammonia, taro, and wheat starch. Here are a couple of recipes to try: http://lilyng2000.blogspot.com/2005/05/taro-puffwoo-kok.html http://www.globalchefs.com/recipe/dessert/web/des015woow.htm (sweet version) These were from a batch I made up using instant mashed potatoes in place of the taro

Hmm, haven't visited this thread in a few days from being so busy with my other projects that I missed the char siu bao! Can someone tell me what's the secret to this awesome char siu recipe? I'm always looking for a new way of making char siu, but I've yet to find one I like more than the one I currently use. Prasantrin, I've made baking power/yeast bao before, and it's more yeasty and less sweet than the baking powder only ones. I have a question about chicken bao for all of you. I grew up eating these chicken bao where the filling was a type of patty made of chopped chicken and cabbage topped with chunks of hard boiled egg, char siu, and lop cheung. Is this a common way of making chicken bao, or is it just something peculiar to the bao made in Los Angeles' chinatown? Offhand I don't remember seeing in other places, but that might be because it's a more homey style of cooking and not what you'd typically find in restaurants.

Hey, not bad for a first effort! I've come across some hom sui gok that were pale like yours before, so it's just the style of the recipe. Adding sugar would make them brown like the ones you get at dim sum restaurants. It's also common to add some mashed sweet potatoes to the dough, although that's more homestyle than restaurant style.

They'll be harder and hold their shape better if you mix some wheat starch in with the glutinous rice flour. Personally, I like the soft chewy ones made with only glutinous rice flour, especially when they're hot.

While they are frying you press them firmly against the side or bottom of the pan so that the dough stretches a little. As you do that the built up steam pressure inside will push against the dough and make them expand. But you only need to do that with geen dui, not hom sui gok.

Yummy looking chicken rice, prawncrackers. I especially admire your skill at chopping chicken!

^That one seems to be made for commercial rice cookers. The one for home use is only $60. http://auberins.com/index.php?main_page=pr...&products_id=43

There's this Zojirushi soup warmer, but I don't know if it meets the necessary thermal requirements or if it's all that much cheaper than a water bath. http://www.zojirushi.com/ourproducts/resta...cts/th_csc.html

Go to the hotel gym and do an hour (or more) on the treadmill so you'll be ready for meal.

Leaving so soon? Time really flies, doesn't it! Are they going to throw you a huge going away banquet before you leave?

I use this 7" santoku from JC Penney more than any other knife in my kitchen. Forged, comfortable, and well balanced. Great bang for the buck.