Shiewie

The preserved mustard greens in the link are called "Ham Choy" (salted preseved vegetables) in Cantonese. . There is another preserved vegetable called "Char Choy" (similar to Zha Cai in Mandarin?) which is made from kohlrabi. The English translation for it is usually Szechuan preserved vegetable. It's used in Hot and Sour Soup - could this be Zha Cai? Yes, the hairy melon is peeled before slicing it. Yes, that looks like tung choy!

There are plenty of pictures online, it just depends on what name and methodology you use to find them. Here are some sources (click on the links): Use the Botanical Name (refers to the same plant everywhere in the world) "Ipomoea aquatica" Most common Asian names of "kangkong", "ung choy", the list goes on... Asian Vegetables Err...these are pictures of kangkong also know oong choy, toong sum choy, kong hsin chai meaning hollow / hollow stem vegetable. The toong choy (could be spelt tung choy - not sure how to spell it as I'm translating from Cantonese) I'm referring to here is preserved and it comes in little brown squares (or long strips). Think it is a preserved version of Napa cabbage. (Edit - Asked a friend who can read Chinese to help google toong choy in chinese - the Chinese characters read as winter vegetable and it's made from Napa / Tientsin cabbage.) It would be great if you could help me to find a picture of this preserved toong / tung choy as the little earthern jar hardly shows what it looks like.

Wow, your recipes sound really authentic -- the kind of stuff my Cantonese grandma used to make. I'm really intrigued with your description of stuffed hairy melon but I'm a little unclear as to the preparation. Do you first cut it in half lengthwise and then into thirds or fourths, making little "boats"? I'm also curious about your use of toong choy, which I guess would be tang cai in Mandarin. If we're talking about the same vegetable (dark green with waxy leaves; slightly rubbery texture reminiscent of a succulent), I've only used it in chicken broth-based soups. I love the way it tastes, but have never prepared it otherwise. Could you give some pointers as to the meat mixture? Here's how I envision it: 8 oz. ground pork 1 cp. toong choy, chopped 1/4 cp. dried shrimp, soaked in water and minced 2 slices ginger, minced 1 T light soy 1 T sherry or rice wine 1 T cornstarch 1 egg 1 generous pinch, white pepper (Dropping in some minced shitakes might be called for, but I'm afraid of overwhelming the toong choy, although the shrimp may do it as well). Steam the whole thing over a wok for 40 minutes. Oops think I didn't describe how it was cut well - should not have been described as lengthwise. The hairy gourd is cut into little blocks/ segments of a tube (like how you'd cut cucumber slices, but big fat slices). Hollow the middle bit out but not all the way through. The toong choy I mean is a preserved vegetable. It's commonly used to make a Cantonese homestyle steamed pork dish / meat patties of "jue yook jing toong choy". It was my sister's favourite dish when we were little and she had to have it just about every other day all mushed up with her rice. I tried looking for a picture of toong choy online - couldn't find a picture of the vegetable itself but the best I could find was a picture at the site of UK online grocer of the eartherware jar that it's usually sold in http://www.hoohing.com/acatalog/Products_P...etables_49.html . Smaller amounts would be sold in sealed plastic bag packages. It's usually pre-chopped in little squares, light brown in colour and quite salty. Think it's made with Napa cabbage but am not sure - will check with mum. The pork mixture recipe is somewhat like this (somewhat as I have never actually measured the amounts) 8 - 10 oz of minced pork 1 1/4 t toong choy (rinse it as it's quite salty) 1 t of light soya sauce 2 T of cornstarch salt - to taste white pepper - to taste 1/2 t sesame oil (optional) Mix the all the ingredients together. Coat the hollowed out bits of the hairy gourd with a little bit of cornflour (so that the meat mixture will stick to it) and fill the hollowed hairy gourd with the meat mixture. Place on a dish, add a 1/4 cup of water/stock to the dish and steam until the pork is cooked and gourd has changed to a translucent colour (about 30 minutes). You can also steam the meat mixture on its own as "jue yook jing toong choy". Add about a 1/4 cup of water to the meat mixture and steam the meat mixture until cooked. Another variation on the meat stuffing for the mo gua would be to substitute minced carrots, minced shitakes (dried ones that have been soaked), minced water chestnus and a dash of sesame oil instead of the toong choy in the pork mixture. This meat mixture is a bit more delicate and refined and not as earthy as the toong choy pork mixture. Yes, hairy gourd is also known as mo gua or jeet gua in Cantonese. We usually choose fat pale green bitter gourds), not the tiny little ones nor the darker green ones that are too old as these are more bitter. I don't soak the bitter gourd in a salt water or baking soda solution but have heard that sprinkling a teaspoon or so of salt on bitter gourd helps to remove the bitterness by. Leave the salt on the bitter gourd for about 10 minutes and then rinse before using. I remember the bitter melon that we used to get when we were little as being a lot more bitter than what we have nowadays. Not sure whether it's a change in my tastebuds or a different strain of bitter gourd. Quarter the bittler gourd lengthwise (and yes this time I do mean lengthwise) and remove the seeds. Cut each quarter at an angle into slices that are about half inch thick. Marinate some chicken pieces (cut Chinese style, into smaller pieces) with salt, pepper, light soya sauce, sesame oil and some sugar for about half hour. We usually use the boney bits of the chicken - ribs, wings, thighs. Heat oil in wok and fry minced garlic (2 -3 cloves), julienned ginger (2 inch segment) and minced black beans (1 T) till aromatic. Add chicken pieces and sliced bitter gourd. Stir-fry for a while and add 3/4 cup water to braise until chicken and bitter gourd are tender and gravy has thickened. Add water to continue braising if mixture gets dry. You can also use pork ribs as posted by tonkichi instead of chicken pieces. I also like bitter gourd fried with egg that tonckichi mentioned. This post is making me very hungry.

I haven't cooked with blood but have seen it being cooked. My paternal grandmother used to rear her own chickens and whenever a chicken was slaughtered the blood would usually be saved in a bowl and left to coagulate - it's probably took 1/2 hour or so - can't quite remember as this was many years ago. The coagulated blood would then be sliced and cooked in soup. Here are a couple of links to recipes which use blood and salt or vinegar is added to the blood to stop it from coagulating - Chicken Blood Rice Blood Pudding

Winter Melon One of my favourite soups is double-boiled whole winter melon soup that they serve at fancy dinners. The insides of the melon is scooped out and the whole winter melon is slowly boiled with chicken stock, chicken, yunan ham, mushrooms and scallops. Sometimes the sides of the melon are also prettily carved with an intricate design. At home, we sometimes have a similar soup but nothing as complicated. The winter melon is chopped up into pieces and boiled with chicken, pork and dried scallops. Another favourite preparation of winter melon is as sweet soup where it's boiled with arhan fruit (luohan guo) and longan - it's very soothing to drink this icy-cold when it's hot outside or if one has a itchy throat. Hairy Gourd Steamed hairy gourd with minced pork and toong choy. The gourd is cut into segments lengthwise and a little hollow made in each segment by scooping out the insides. The hollow bits are then filled with the minced pork and toong choy mixture. Julienned hairy gourd stir-fried with egg and bean thread noodles. Bitter Gourd I used hate bitter gourd as a child as anything bitter was associated with the bitter chinese herbal brews. I didn't understand why the adults would want to eat something that bitter voluntarily. Sigh, it must be a sign of old age as I actually like bitter gourd now. A favourite way with bitter gourd is to braise it with chicken, julienned ginger and preserved black beans. It's very comforting to eat this with a bowl of plain congee / jook.

What about sashimi? What is the proper / traditional way to eat it?

The idea of larb burgers is catching on! See Mark Bittman's article on Vietburgers and recipe for Lemon Grass Patties in the NY Times today.

Hi all I'm not an expert on Indian food and don't mean to stir this naan and cheese issue any further but thought I'd just add that we get Cheese Naan here in Malaysia! We have a sizable Indian and Sri Lankan community here (about 10% of the population) and cheese is hardly a local ingredient. Cheese Naan has popped up in the menus of many 'Mamak' (Indian Muslim) eateries here in the last 5 years (not in the posher Indian restaurants though). These are not fancy places but just simple everyday eateries that are found in almost every town in Malaysia. The cooks at these 'Mamak' eateries are usually from India. And the cheese used in these Cheese Naans ... I would think it would be processed cheddar slices as it's probably the only cheese that's commonly available here!

What is texture of the congee that everyone likes? The smooth Cantonese style of congee that's been boiled longer or the more grainy type Hokkien (Fu Chien) and Teo Chiew (Chiu Chow) style that is sort of like soft rice with water? The Hokkien / Teo Chiew style is sometimes cooked with chunks of sweet potato (a legacy of WWII when rice was scarce). I like the smooth Cantonese style of congee / porridge but love myriad of dishes served with the Hokkien / Teo Chiew style of congee especially this dish of steamed Spanish mackerel with soy sauce and fermented soy beans.

browniebaker Is this the "Tang uh-a ts'ai" you're referring to which is known as "tong ho choy" in Cantonese (Chrysanthemum Greens)? I love it in soups, steamboats or just stir-fried with garlic.

Here's a link to a recipe for an pan http://starbulletin.com/2001/12/26/feature...es/request.html

Just made Vietnames summer rolls for dinner on Sunday! Served with a Nuoc Leo like sauce - hoisin sauce, peanut butter, crushed peanuts, tamarind juice, sugar, minced garlic, lemon juice and stirred in hot water till desired consistency.

I am so glad that you have arrived on this forum. It's just so good to have experts helping us to learn about the amazing depth of Asian food. Thank you for your kind words but I am hardly an expert. I merely like to eat... a lot! I'm probably just more familiar with some Asian foods since I have grown up on it and have lived here most of life.

Soup dumplings are also known as Xiao Long Bao (or Siu Loong Bao in Cantonese). They are little Shanghainese steamed pork (or pork and shrimp) dumplings filled with soup. The soup squirts out when you bite into them. They're usually eaten with julienned ginger and black vinegar.

It's usually cooked (double-boiled) as a sweet soup for dessert, with dried longan, red dates and sometimes with a type of ginseng (pao sum). It's jelly-like, somewhat like bird's nest soup.

Roger- how did you eat the tempoyak? As a sambal or cooked in a fish / chicken / vegetable dish? I must admit that I've not tried tempoyak myself (guess there would be no possibility of eating it without knowing it!). But then again I'm not a big fan of durian - I'll eat a couple of seeds if it's really good but I don't crave it. The rest of my family is crazy about durians though - they'd have durians for dinner, sometimes with rice, coconut milk and a sprinkling of sugar. My sister sometimes has a tub of it in the freezer for emergency cravings. Have you tried durian pengat? It's a durian dessert cooked with coconut milk, palm sugar and pandan leaves.

Hi Jango Yes, Uni Adelaide. Which year? I was there from 1987 to 1991. Hmmm, the Old Lion - from what I remember it would have been more of a pub crawl option than a dining one! We did have one of our college formal dinners there but then anything would have been good compared to college food. Perhaps they've refurbished it and put in a new bistro in like the Oxford. I was last in Adelaide in 95' and North Adelaide had changed considerably from when I lived there. I remember the Star of Siam from when I was in Adelaide. There was also another pretty good Thai place called Bangkok on Rundle Street. Rundle Street is also vastly different from when I lived there. Went for lunch at Universal Wine Bar on Rundle Street on my 95' visit - liked it but can't recall any details either.

I've experimented with something similar - was trying to recreate the pork patties in the Bun Cha I had in Hanoi. I used: - 800g to 1 kg (approx 2 lbs) of minced pork - minced garlic (5 to 6 cloves), minced shallots (3 to 4), minced fresh lemongrass (3 fat sticks) - these are then pounded in a mortar and pestle so that lemongrass oils are released - it's not as fragrant if a blender / food processor is used instead - honey (around 2 heaping tbsp), sesame oil (1 1/4 tsp), oyster sauce (1 tbsp), soya sauce, fish sauce (2 - 3 tbsp), salt (to taste) and ground black pepper (to taste) - cornflour (approx 2 tsp) to bind the mixture I grill them in the oven at 200C / 400F for about 30 - 40 minutes until they're well-browned. I also served them like how you did - with cucumbers, butterhead lettuce, thai basil plus some cilantro and a sweet chilli sauce. Some preferred to dip it in Nuoc Leo, the peanut dipping sauce for Goi Cuon, the Vietnamese fresh spring rolls. We also made them into little sausages to try as a filling for the fresh spring rolls.

I lived in Adelaide for 5 years in the late 80s - early 90s. Unfortunately the majority of my Adelaide food experiences would have been college food where I was introduced to the horrors of chop suey with leftover roast beef from the previous night's 'tea' - I usually had vegemite on toast for dinner if they were serving chop suey. By my final year there, a couple of friends and I thought that we could not leave Adelaide and not try some of the restaurants there as Adelaide restaurants were consistently voted as the best restaurants in Australia. We decided that we would try to eat our way through as many places as we could afford that were listed in the Advertiser Good Food Guide. Magill Estate had yet to open at that time nor was Cheong Liew at the Grange - think he was teaching at the Regency Park College then (I finally managed to try Cheong Liew's amazing cooking when he did a short stint at the KL Hilton with Mount Adam winery in 1998). I remember wonderful meals at : - Jasmin (a cousin of the family that runs Jasmin has a restaurant in KL called Saffron) - Imperial Peking - I loved the 'king toh kuat' (ribs) there - Ayers House restaurant - Chloe's - Alphutte - Oxford Hotel bistro - Stoneyfell Winery (I think it's down the road from Magill Estate) There was also the wonderful tasting portions served at the Barossa Food and Wine festival where various Adelaide restaurants would pair up with wineries for the festival... but I forget which ones - must have been too much wine . I would love to visit Adelaide again and eat my way through the Advertiser Good Food Guide again now that I'm no longer on a student's budget.

It's durian season now.

The pre-roasting of belacan is usually done to bring out the aromas (as mentioned by SG-) and to get rid of of the raw taste in an uncooked sambal using belacan. Here the belacan will be fried slowly ('tumis' in Malay) with the other spices. As such, pre-roasting is unecessary. However, the prawn and spice mixture needs to be 'tumis' for quite a while in order for the flavours to meld together and to get rid of the raw taste - note the change in smell and colour - the spice mixture will also sort of separate from the oil. It would be a very good idea to open your kitchen windows when cooking anything with belacan. The smell can be quite pungent to all noses and not just untamed American ones! I can always smell it if the neighbours are cooking something with belacan.

Think they do franchise. We used to have one here in Kuala Lumpur. It was all the rage when it opened - there was a queue to get into the shop. Unfortunately, business slowed to a trickle once the rage died down and they eventually closed it.

Hi sacre_bleu and welcome! Here's a recipe for kangkung belacan. You can also use green beans, long beans, four-angled winged beans or asparagus in place of the kangkung. Stir-fried Vegetables with Belacan Ingredients 10-12 oz of kangkung / grean beans / long beans / four-angled winged beans / asparagus 1 tbsp dried prawns (look for this in an Asian Grocery) 4 shallots 2-3 cloves of garlic 1 1/2 tsp of belacan (shrimp paste) 4 red chillies (adjust this to the level of spiciness you are comfortable with, remove the seeds if you want it less spicy) 3 tbsp oil 1/2 tsp salt (or adjust to taste) 1/2 tsp sugar (or adjust to taste) Instructions 1) Soak the dried prawns for 1/2 hour to 1 hour till softened. Drain. 2) Pound the drained dried prawns, shallots, garlic, belacan and chillies with a mortar and pestle until fine. Alternatively, blend the mixture in a blender or food processor with a little bit of the oil. 3) Heat the wok/pan until it is very hot, then add the oil. Add the pounded / blended dried prawn and spice mixture. Stir-fry the mixture quickly over high-heat and then turn the heat down to medium-low. Slowly stir-fry the prawn and spice mixture until fragrant - the colour of mixture will change from a bright red to a dark reddish-brown. 4) Add the vegetables, salt and sugar. Stir-fry for another 2-3 minutes until the vegetables are cooked. Hope this fulfills your need!

I have Chinese breakfasts mainly on weekends. I like - jook with salted egg, ham choy (preserved salted vegetables) and fried anchovies - char siu pau - pei tan sau yook jook - yau char kwai (yu tiao / fried dough) dunked in sweetened black coffee - chee cheong fun (rolled flat rice noodles with teem cheong and a sprinkling of sesame seeds). - ban chang kueh (a huge chinese pancake with a filling of crushed peanuts and sugar that is folded in two and cut into segments) - "chinese-style" soft boiled eggs (soft-boiled eggs eaten with soya sauce and a sprinkling of pepper)

Hi Roger Another eating trip to Bangkok - yumm! I had a wonderful eating trip there some years back. There is a very good simmered pork hock stall at the food court at the basement of Narayana Phand building (the government handicraft centre) on Ratchadamri Road (near the junction with Sukhumvit Road) opposite the World Trade Centre. I remember the pork hock as meltingly tender and infused with the fragrance of the various spices. It's served with blanched choy sum and either rice or noodles. Unfortunately, we only discovered it on our last day there and were quite concerned that we wouldn't be able to savour it again before going home. There was only one solution for this - we bought take-away simmered pock-hock and rice (plus some som tam too) to eat on the plane! Am looking forward to a report of your eating trip to Bangkok.