junehl

XiaoLing, I love the tofu puffs in hotpots too, I love how it soaks up all the broth and when you bite into it, all the juice just squirts out, so flavorful! It reminds me of an old movie, that I just watched again a few days ago. The god of cooking with Stephen Chow. They were making Lai Liu Beef meatballs (Peeing beef meatballs). When you bite into it, the essence of the shrimp will squirt out. I don't know the real name of the shrimp....Lai Liu Ha?

I am going back there this weekend to pick up stuff. so I can give you better description after that. But the parking lot in that mall is horrible. It just needs to be completely bulldozed over and redone, there are so many potholes and crud. I enjoyed Dragon Court. They're not great Chinese food, but they're probably one of the best authentic Chinese food you can get in Charlotte. The waiters I have had there have always been extremely polite to me. I may be slightly biased on the waiters, since they spoke Cantonese and I had not been able to find many Cantonese speakers in Charlotte. The markets I can comment on this weekend, since I will be swinging on by there. The one Vietnamese restaurant I tried in that mall. I can honestly say was the most horrible, nasty, disgusting Vietnamese food I had ever experienced. I'll get the name for it this weekend. It may have been an off day for them, but everything we ordered was horrible. From the spring roll (goi cuon) - shrimp was way past its prime, Bun bo hue (spicy beef noodle soup) - the bowl looked like slop, and the meat was sour, to the Noodle soup w/ pig feet (I forgot the Vietnamese name) - it looked like slop, and every piece of the pig feet had hair all over it. All in all a very horrible experience. Enough of the rant. I'll try to take some pictures this weekend of the mall, and post it.

I just got back from Chinatown in NYC. Was there on two different days. I was so excited when someone mentioned that they had found fresh mangosteen in Chinatown. The last time I had eaten fresh mangosteen was 15 years ago in Hong Kong, haven't been back to Asia since. I was so disappointed when all I could find were frozen mangosteen in yellow net bags that were being defrosted and sold. There may be fresh mangosteens somewhere in Chinatown, but I was not able to find it in the 9 hours I was there running round and round trying to find some Hong Kong TV series dvd and fresh mangosteens.

In Chinese, they are called Hung Zho [Cantonese], which loosely translates to red date. Dried ones: same name. ← Oh and we always used to call them Chinese dates. It caused me a world of confuse, when I first encountered the other dates.

I love fresh Jujube's. They do taste like mealy apples. I love it when you first bit into it, there is slight tang, and as you eat it, it gets a muted sweetness to them. I would enjoy growing them if they didn't have so much suckers, like joe blowe indicated. Wonder if they would do well in a pot. My grandmother has a jujube tree, she likes it, but whenever they start getting soft and slightly off, she just leaves them out in the sun and dries them. She mails them out to family every year.

Dejah with your talk about red braised beef short ribs, i had to try my hand at making it. I went to the market and found a nice piece of meat. The flavor was really good, but I had problems with the color of the meat and the liquid. After I was done cooking the sauce, it was nice and dark, but since I was trying to make noodle soup with it, I had to add more water to it. Also the sauce was very salty, so after adding more water it, the flavor came out great. But do you normally brown the beef in the sugar/soy sauce for longer, to give it a deeper red color? The recipe I used only utilized 2 tbsp soy sauce for the initial browning. That could explain why it didn't turn out as dark as I would have hoped. Do you normally add more soysauce to the stock? Also, one thing I found after it was done the meat was really tender, but so was the star anise, it pretty much broke into a lot of little pieces. I fished out what I could, but I was still crunching through chunks of star anise. Red braised Beef with noodle, bamboo shoot, and carrot. -- June

I'm afraid Casey has hit the glass ceiling. I clearly heard in the quickfire, her dish referred to as the best. Yet when it comes time to announce the winner, she gets the pat on the rear and Hung wins. I thought I had heard hers was the best by far during the Quickfire too. I did a double take when he announced it was Hung who won. Based on that, it would have been nice to know the reasoning behind the decision.

If they're salted, wouldn't the salt and brine, make the duck eggs an unsuitable environment for the avian flu? I am not sure, just wondering.

Ahhh, I remember my parents used to say that if you don't eat every piece of rice in your bowl, you'll marry someone w/ the same pockmarked complexion. Like you, my parents were always insistent that I finish everything on my plate and that nothing goes to waste. It's been a challenge as I grow up and the plates at restaurants keep getting bigger, sometimes there are not enough leftover to take home. So I end up eating way too much, but then I started conditioning myself to eat less so I have more to take home or just leave it there. The first few times were a weird experience, nowadays it's not as much as an issue, but I still do feel some guilt for leaving leftovers at the restaurant. I still try to adhere to the waste nothing mantra, but when you're traveling it's hard to do that. During those times I think it's actually ok to leave food even though they are just going to waste.

I was semi-amazed that Hung won the elimination challenge as well as the quickfire challenge. It seemed in both instances they had enjoyed Casey's dish more, but I guess Hung won based on technique.

Trikko - those buns were steamed, I've fried, but have yet to try and bake the buns using this recipe. I've baked bao before, but I was using another dough that had yeast in it. Ce'nedra - The claypot chicken rice looks good, reminds me i need to go get lap cheung. We used to make something like that with black mushroom, chicken, and lap cheung, but we get lazy and just throw it all into the rice cooker. Dejah - Of course. A word of caution on it, my dad used to make the bao for the restaurant, and he's an oldtimer, so he never subscribed to using concrete measurements (cups, tsps, etc). He used the serving bowls. So when I first got the recipe, it was 3 large serving bowl of this, 2 large serving bowl of this, and 4 chinese soup spoon of that. I've started to put better measurements around it. If it's not light enough for you, you can add some more milk or baking powder. Or even use some pastry flour. 4lb all purpose flour 1lb sugar 2.2 lb milk 10.7 tsp baking powder 4 tbsp oil -- June

The markets around me don't really have those cuts of meat, the beef short ribs they have some, but it's not always in good supply. I can't even find a blade roast! I guess they're going for the precut boneless pieces of meat now. My first batch, I had forgotten to turn all the heat up high, so the first batch were pretty flat and the dough was pretty chewy, but after I cranked up the heat it turned out a lot better. Both the dumpling and bao dough are homemade it's from my dad's recipe. The fiance really likes his baos fluffy, so next time i may try more milk or maybe use a combination of cake flour and all purpose flour to make it even fluffier. your baos look great, i think my mom would like your filling a lot. She loves mushrooms and lap cheung, We used to make the dai bao. with pork, lap cheung, and egg. or the gai yze bao? Egg custard with coconut milk which I love. We used to spread that egg custard over sticky rice. and sometimes sprinkle some toasted coconut and sesame seed on top.

Dejah, I think i'll try and make your red cooked beef short ribs, I have everything around the house, but it's been hard trying to find a market around here to get some of the cuts of meat to cook. They're usually prepackaged stuff. And the closest Asian market around here is about 30 minutes away. -- June

made some char siu. Had my mother's recipe for the marinade, but was feeling lazy and used the flavor packets from the store. It didn't come out right, had to call my mom to see what I needed to add to the flavor packet to make it taste better. Thanks to mommy everything seemed to look and tasted pretty good. Charsiu and Gai Lan Char Siu Bao Inside Char Siu Bao Char Siu Fried Rice (had to use up the remainder of the char siu) Dumplings -- June

Some more food Lotus root soup with carrot, chicken, and black mushroom (I normally make it with pork and dried octopus, but the man does not like the smell or taste of the dried octopus, so had to lighten it up) Ma Po Dofu -- June

I'm just taking a stab at a couple potential problems (texture and amount of time in pan). Hopefully it's helpful. 1. For an easy stirfry, use a firmer tofu and not the silken tofu. Firm tofus tend to have less of a chance to break up. Fried tofu is great because it also has a firm texture. If silken tofu is required you can dust the tofu pieces in flour, and pan fry it. It will give it a nice coating on the outside, and make it just a tad firmer. 2. Add tofu near the end, this will lower the amount of time it's in the pan and you won't jostle it as much and the tofu will have a better chance of staying together 3. If you're afraid of the tofu being cold since it's added at a later stage, you can dunk the tofu in boiling water or pan fry it ahead of time to warm up the tofu.

I had taken a baking course once, and the instructor said that if you over cream your sugar and butter it will make your cookies spread a lot. Maybe you can try to cream your butter and sugar less to make them thicker?

Just a musing.... But I wonder what would happen if save some of the miso from the first time you make soysauce and mix it in w/ the soy cakes from the next batch. Wonder if it would give the soysauce a better/stronger (?) flavor? And if it would accelerate the process. It would be equivalent of using a pate fermente when baking bread. -- June

I love the flavor of gow gay! I think their flavors are quite different. My family has always grown the kind that has thorns on it, but my mother recently had gotten some seeds from a friend that didn't have any thorns. Is the one w/ thorns the wolfberry bush? Because I prefer that one more, the bitterness and flavor is more pronounced and i try to put a handful of it in my ramen noodles on those lazy days.