jtnippon1985

Hello all, just wanted to know a few things here before I try making this blood sausage recipe I found on ochef. The ingredients call for a number of things, and I have all of them save for a few. Obviously you need blood, pork blood preferably. I have only been able to find beef blood and pork blood at the local Asian markets, which come in frozen containers. They contain "pig's blood, water, salt product" Now I'm assuming this is still usable, but the water and salt product threw me off a bit. Is this probably a low percentage of the total liquid, mainly for preserving? I really have never worked with blood before, and I know that fresh is prefered, however that's nearly impossible for me to find so I have to do with this. Do you think I can still use this blood? The recipe also calls for leaf lard, the only way to get leaf lard is to mail order and it's going to be more than I'm willing to spend for only needing a 1/2lb of it. The question I have is this: for the purpose of sausage making, do you think they leaf lard they're calling for in this recipe is just ground pork fat, or rendered fat (lard) that you find in the tubs? I know lard is good for baking, but I have always thought that the ground up fat would be what you would need for making sausages, right? Last but not least, the recipe calls for breadcrumbs. Correct me if im wrong (and I usually am) but if a recipe states breadcrumbs, usually its the small granular DRY breadcrumbs, and not fresh ones (the recipe for this calls for 1/4 breadcrumbs) I don't think 1/4 of fresh breadcrumbs would do the trick to thicken the blood, so I'm assuming the regular dry breadcrumbs are what is needed. Thanks for anyone who looks or helps out, it's appreciated.

I'm assuming that fresh killed is best because the animal hasn't been dead long enough for virus' and bacteria do inhabit the animal's body, right? I mean any live animal could be diseased, but there are less chances of problems going with live, and then killed and eaten very shortly (within an hour) afterwords right? If that's the case I might go to the store, have them killed, and then rush back home, rinse them off with ice cold distilled water, and have my sauce already prepared. I would like the heart though but I don't think the butchers are skilled enough to seek out just the heart and bag it on ice so that it still is beating.. I don't know, I don't know.

How so? Please enlighten me.

It may (but probably wont) help to note that the owners of the restaurant are Mandarin speaking, so probably from Mainland China, and that these are all home-style dishes, NOT banquet fare. I doubt that'd be something that would narrow it down though... Again thanks for all the help and suggestions. I'm going to try stir frying muing bean noodles with soy sauce, corn starch noodles with soy sauce, and then buy sweet potato noodles with soy sauce and see how it comes out.

UPDATE Here are the pictures. I hope they help anyone that is trying to help me figure this out, with better determining what the names of these dishes might be. WARNING: THE LINKED PICTURES PICTURES ARE HIGH RESOLUTION WARNING #2: ImageShack does have a popup on their page, nothing malicious though. The tendon dish: The noodle dish: The whole package (includes spicy tofu and the obligatory rice buried underneath): Thanks again for looking.

Well, whenever I decide to do this, *gulp* I'll post pictures. Hopefully I don't die.

Actually, before I officially call it a night, I wanted to provide a quick follow up with something I found just a few seconds ago: Beef Tendon and Turnip Stew. I found a blog entry talking about Ken Hom and a variation of this recipe in one of his books. I'm sure that the peppers would thrown in about 5 minutes before serving unlike the turnip, which is put in about 30 minutes before serving. Link to blog article: http://baconpress.blogspot.com/2006/01/love-me-tendon.html Or it could be just Sichuan red cooked beef, using only tendon. Dunno...

I don't care about speed with this recipe. I'll put up the pictures tomorrow, I've been up since 1:00 AM this morning and I am too tired to do it now.

Shinjuku, it figures, hahahaha! Btw torakris, since you're here, can you answer this one question for me? I have heard that Fugu is often left with a miniscule amount of poison in the flesh so that the person eating it experiences a tingling sensation in their mouth and throat while eating it, but not enough to shut any vital systems down. Is this true? [EDIT] Found this on Wikipedia: Wow, that's pretty hardcore Wikipedia.org - Fugu

Gah, such hostility!! LOL! No, actually one of my quirks on cooking is to try and find ways to speed up traditional long recipes and such. Some you obviously can't do. By the way, I cooked some jook last night, overnight actually for this morning. I really don't mind the cooking time, it was more of wanting to see if the taste could be replicated by taking a shortcut. The cream of rice variation I made this afternoon didn't come out half bad though. Needs some tweaking... Also, I have some pictures of the tendons and noodle dish that I got from Joy Luck Club today, I'll post those as soon as I can. I also must have forgotten, but they always include red and green bell peppers in with the tendon dish.

Torakris, there is a certain type of restaurant in Japan called Getamono bars which basically means "exotic and wierd things" bar. One is called the Asadachi, or something like that which means....Morning Erection. No I am not kidding and it was featured on Travel Channel's Bizzare Foods with Andrew Zimmern. Actually, here is a link (youtube) to a video from the episode:

As another request, and not to take any more real estate on the main forum, I was wondering if anyone knew about this: There is another dish at the Joy Luck Club that is a noodle dish. The noodles are different, I can't tell exactly what they're made of but they are very sticky, and usually have large masses clumped together (lack of oil perhaps) and they kind of have this cornstarchy, gelatinous (very subtle) texture. They are made in some kind of sauce, which dyes them brown, perhaps such a simple sauce made from soy sauce and other seasonings. The sauce is near non-existant in the final dish, it doesn't pool in excess or anything. I don't remember any other major ingredients, maybe some onions, but that's about it...not vegetables, no meat, no tofu, no fungus, etc etc.. It's all dumped in a hot-bar pan to keep warm so I dont know if their stir-fried or perhaps, steamed in a commercial steamer, though I doubt that. Any takers? [EDIT] I'm almost positive the noodles are rice vermicelli, because the noodles had the same texture and color of the rice vermicelli commonly found in Vietnamese spring rolls (not the fried variety)

I have decided to try and kick my "let's eat some far out stuff" mode to the next level. I want to try the fabled frog sashimi. I have Chinese market nearby that sells live frogs for food, along with turtles (which actually happens to be illegal in this state, don't ask how they get away with it) And I wanted to wade into the deep end of the culinary adventurists pool by attempting to prepare this fascinating dish. I understand that the frog needs to be alive, up until you've messed around with it enough so that it wouldn't be capable of staying alive. Anyone have a clue on the steps needed to prepare it? Do you knock the frog out? Freeze it to make it fall asleep? Just hold it down and skin it while it wriggles around? Rinse or no rinse? Any serious medical dangers when eating raw frog (I'm sure that's probably the most stupid question asked on here) Perhaps anyone with sashimi preparation experience could lend a helping hand. And no, this is not a joke, not a trolling, this is serious, I really want to know. I just hope it doesn't count as animal cruelty in the US.

After watching some episodes of Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern, I'm now on a quest to either find, or prepare the most foriegn, and exotic foods available within the United States. The two I want to try? Beef hearts stuffed with rice and currants, then grilled (and marinated?) And K'lia, which is some kind of meat that is preserved in it's own fat. If anyone has any experience with these recipes, please share!!

Every saturday I go to what is probably the most authentic, homestyle Chinese joint in all of North Carolina. It's called the Joy Luck Club, and it's a small diner located in the fron of the most popular Chinese supermarket in this state, Grand Asia Market. If they sell congee, you know they're legit... Whenever they have the tendon dish, I always get it, and every time I eat it, I wish that I could recreate it at home. Most of my searches have led me to either Ma La Beef Tendon, or some Chinese or Vietnamese variation of a tendon noodle dish. Both of these are NOT what I'm looking for. Its basically tendons, in a dark, thick, oily, somewhat spicy, brown sauce, with onions in it. Nothing else. It's served HOT. I did however, find this site tonight (or morning really, at least here) that looks almost exactly what I've been looking for, except this recipe uses spring onions instead of what I think are just regular yellow onions at the Joy Luck Club. Problem is, the recipe isn't too specific, using "some stock", "1 bowl cornstarch water" and so forth to describe the ingredients. Not very helpful. The cooking times are also, unfortunatly, absent.... I know that tendons, because of their purpose for existance, need to be cooked for a while (which may be a slight understatement) to make them edible. I think this could be converted into a GREAT crockpot recipe, but then again, what do I know? So here's the deal, I really need this recipe, more than you might think. I'm actually in love with this recipe, and it kills me to not be able to make it when I want. The lack of information on the web (shocking, isn't it?) and one potential, yet poorly worded recipe that taunts me is only making my dillema that much worse. [EDIT] Link to the site (with picture) is here: http://www.chinatown-online.com/recipe/tendon.htm