toisangirl

The first time we ate at Yasuda, we didn't realize we could request a specific person to make our sushi, so we ended up eating sushi made by the chef who eventually took over Yasuda's position. Being that it was the first time, our knees buckled after every bite; it was like tasting and falling in love with sushi for the first time all over again. We requested omakase and the chef did not fail to please. We didn't know sushi could be THIS good. The second time we went, we asked for Yasuda and his personality does add to the overall experience of eating there, but both experiences yielded superior sushi. The restaurant sets the bar high for their seafood and most diners who are serious about their sushi will find the quality uncompromised.

I second the comment about Chikalicious cupcakes. The heaviness of super-size cupcakes with almost equal proportions of frosting and cake can be overwhelming. Chikalicious cupcakes are about the size of cupcakes you might bake at home, and there's just enough frosting to give the cake a sugary kick. Simple flavors done well, without all the additional crumbled candy pieces, cookies, sprinkles, etc. If you're more of a purist when it comes to cupcakes, you'll enjoy Chikalicious.

I remember as a child eating some porridge-like concoction called "gwat fun" (or "goot foon", as my grandma used to say) and I have no idea what it is or where one could get it these days. It starts out as a white, starch-like powder. I'm not sure if grandma added those bars of Chinese brown sugar but eventually a bowl of light-brown, viscous-looking porridge would emerge that looked a lot like mucus. I know. Sounds appetizing. It didn't taste all that bad, but it wasn't a favorite dish of mine, either. My mother claims when she came to America she brought over a lot of the stuff in her luggage and we ate it in our childhood (I don't know how she managed to smuggle this stuff past airport security back then.) Any thoughts as to what this childhood mystery food might be? And do they sell it in stores these days?

My mom made this dish for dinner and it is just as good as I remembered it. She bought a piece of top round steak--a lean and cheaper cut of beef that she hand-chopped with her cleaver until she got the right consistency. I don't have exact measurements, but to the meat she added soy sauce, a bit of sesame oil, some pepper, a bit of salt, some Chinese cooking wine, and bit of sugar. She also added cornstarch, more than what you would normally think to use when you're marinating meat for Chinese cooking. Not sure why exactly, but something about how when the beef is steamed, there ends up being a lot of liquid. Maybe the cornstarch soaks it up??? Then she spread the meat in a glass plate, but it wasn't too packed in. She topped it with some slivered jah choy (preserved Chinese vegetable, I think it's a turnip or radish) and slivered ginger. I don't know what it is with my mom and sugar in Chinese cooking, but she also sprinkled a tad bit more over the meat, then steamed it for about 15-20 minutes. I guess she prefers her food to be more sweet than salty. Once it's done, you can enjoy it as is, but recently, she's taken to sprinkling some chopped cilantro and green onion over the top once it's steamed. It's really good with rice! Alas, my mom also made some "goh lai" for us kids to drink. Some bitter-tasting root that's simmered with chicken stock or something to that effect. We had to drink a lot of it growing up, and now that we're all back for the holidays, she brewed another pot for us! Right now, my mom is busy making sour pickled pigs feet with eggs and peanuts--the stuff ladies normally have after having a baby, but it's good anytime of the year!

I'm at my parents' home and have not had steamed beef cake, or ngau yuk beng, in ages. I'm going to ask my mom how to make it. What do you like to top your ngau yuk beng with before steaming it? My mom likes to put some kinda preserved vegetable on it (don't know what it's called in Chinese), along with some reconstituted dried mushrooms. I think she takes a piece of beef and hand chops it to the desired consistency necessary for yuk beng. You think running it through a food processor lightly would give the same results?

I've organized my small collection of cookbooks (by cuisine) and food magazines (by season)--but what do you do with individual recipes? These are recipes culminated from websites, cookbooks borrowed from the library, newspapers, etc. Some recipes were used in the kitchen, some recipes were saved to try out on another day. I've tinkered with the ideas of binders with dividers, file cabinets, a journal, and saving them onto the computer. I feel recipe cards, while visually more appealing, don't always give me the space I need to write out long recipes. I'd also like to keep track of when I used a certain recipe and how it turned out. Maybe include if it was a special occasion (kinda melding journaling with recipe collecting) and what was served with the dish, who was there, etc. So how do you organize recipes, and what categories do you include?

Hi, everyone. New to egullet and this forum. I wanted to ask if anyone knew about this Chinese vegetable called "gow gee" (in Toisan dialect, both g's are hard sounding, as in "girl") and where I could find it in New York's Chinatown. I'm not sure how widely available it is but I have not be able to find it. My grandma used to grow it in the backyard and make soup with it. She put in a little pork and cracked one or two whole eggs in it. The taste is kinda hard to describe, as I haven't had it in quite some time, but it's really good. Almost grassy in flavor.

I had been wanting to get a Le Creuset Dutch oven for a while to make soups and stews, but being on a limited budget, I couldn't bring myself to spend over $200 on something I would use maybe 4 or 5 times a year at most. The Mario Batali cast iron pot was a good compromise for me, and for only $100, I thought it was a good deal. It got mostly good reviews on amazon.com. If you plan on using a cast iron pot a lot, then I would probably go for the Le Creuset model if you can afford one; for occasional users like me, the Mario Batali has worked out well. It is quite heavy, so you need to be careful when washing it, and the metal handles get really hot. The underside of the domed lid has "spikes" on it to help baste food in the pot. Everything that I've cooked in it has turned out really well.