dmreed

thanks for the details, much appreciated!

any idea how she made the blackened red pepper flakes?

the recipes on the link look very interesting...there are a couple that I will ask for at my favorite Thai restaurant!

Sure. sheetz: Hey Mom, since you're from Toisan, could you tell what you put in tsap sui? sheetz's mother: Don't be silly, you get whatever you have on hand, chop them up, and stir fry them together. Now get lost and stop bothering me! ← I am from Toisan and that would be the exact answer I would give, even though I am not your mother! As for that contentious word "authenticity", if I cook a "Chinese" dish it it IS authentic. I am Chinese dontcha know? Don't be too hidebound and purist over authenticity, to slavishly seek out authenticity and follow explicit directions in a recipe will kill any creativity that you have. Take mapo tofu as an example. I have eaten many versions of the dish; some use minced pork, others use minced beef, some use black beans, others omit it, some use mashed tofu, others use cubed firm tofu, some add scallions, others coriander, etc ad nauseam. Of all the combinations and permutations that could be derived, which one is "authentic"? In my estimation they all are, as long as each dish is toothsome and flavourful. Being Chinese is being pragmatic. The food reflects that characteristic because the rootstock of Chinese cuisine, the house wife, will use whatever is at hand to approximate a dish. Just don't tell her that it is not authentic. ← thanks, makes sense to me! I am sorry to hear that you cannot make an authentic hot dog or hamburger or apple pie...you know, ethnicity and all that! regarding mapo dofu, I use fermented black beans and fu ru...I saw both in separate recipes and it made sense to me to use both in the same dish! BTW I also like to add fermented black beans to American style baked beans!

thanks for the video link...most informative

These books sound very interesting. Who are the authors? ← Just click on the links in my post to see. They are both by Joanna Pruess and John Harney (of Harney & Sons Tea) and Tea Cuisine is actually an updated version of the first book. It was my error to post both of them. I meant to include Cooking With Tea by Robert Wemischner and Diana Rosen. It is out of print but available from ABE Books From Tea Cuisine one of my favorite recipes is Peach and Ginger-Glazed Chicken Legs. A favorite side dish is Curried Potatoes, Cauliflower, and Mushrooms, which is prepared with Lapsang souchong tea. And there is a Candied Ginger and Green Tea Bread that is very easy and very tasty whether made for breakfast, lunch, tea or an evening snack. And for hot weather, there is Buttermilk-Vanilla Tea Sherbet - which requires an ice cream freezer but even the small hand-cranked ones with the bowl that is chilled in the freezer, works very well. There is a Gravlax recipe that uses Lapsang souchong tea, however I'm allergic to many seafoods so have never tried it but one of the people on the tea list did and reported it was excellent. The recipes in the books gave me ideas on how tea could be incorporated into other recipes so I experimented and found several that worked for me. There are other books on cooking with tea, cooking with green tea, but I have not examined them. ← Thanks, so much for this information. I would love to know more about your experiments. ← I just ordered both books from Amazon.

they are not really pepper (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fagara) ...they have a distinct flavor and rather than spicy hot, they have a special numbing effect on the tongue. I do not know of an adequate substitute!

I also use a bit of Fu Yu...I also like to a a couple of cubes to Mapo Dofu...I knew that it provided a boost of flavor but not a fu yu flavor...last night I read that that boost is the fifth taste, umami!

I just finished cataloging most of my Asian and International cookbooks...the list may be found at: http://dmreed.com/cooking_stuff_asian_cookbooks.htm the total so far is 560! there are probably 20-40 more which I have to dig out or have not yet perused and there are more coming in the mail. I will attempt to keep the list up to date. my next catalogging project may be the rest of my cookbooks maybe 300+. I have notced multiple copies of several books which I will offer for sale on ebay. the list of books will help me avoid buying the same book more than once!

thanks, I look forward to trying these (maybe combining the recipes).

Yeah, but it seems to me the fact that this was featured in a TV program goes to show its rarity. I currently live in middle America and I have yet to see a restaurant with tuna casserole on the menu. Now, I'm not saying that it doesn't exist, but it's just not something people generally go out to a restaurant for. I don't know if anyone has claimed chop suey doesn't have its origins in China because if you ask someone from Toisan about it they will be certainly familiar with the name. That said, if you ask that person for a recipe, or ask them to recommend a restaurant that serves good chop suey, you will get very funny looks. ← I did say diners not restaurants...I suspect that you will find various casseroles on the menus or daily specials list at many mom and pop and other diner style eateries. shucks, you can even find "chop suey sandwiches" at some places (Chinese and otherwise) on the northern East Coast! how about asking someone from Toisan what kinds of ingredients might appear in tsap sui (I recall reading that in the "old" days, Chinese "recipes" might mention the primary ingredients possibly including sauce(s) and maybe the cooking style but not the amounts of each ingredient)? any decent cook would know how to treat the cooking process and ingredients. how about seriously asking how one might go about sampling various versions or examples of tsap sui...maybe you would be invited to someone's home!

I really appreciate your argument/description. Regarding casseroles: there are cookbooks dedicated to casseroles and many famous cookbooks have casserole recipes...additionally, I recall seeing some diners on TV which feature American comfort food and their menus include casseroles including tuna casserole and folks do go to those diners for those dishes! As far as I know, there is no "Ameican Casserole". I can accept your argument but to say that the dish does not have its origin in China seems to me to be false...the notion that some Chinese cook in early California put together a casserole for some gringos and that he called it "tsap sui" when asked for the name seems extremely plausible to me. And that over time in the Western World, the dish may have become more or less standard (as did tuna casserole) is beside the point...and it can be ordered in many Chinese restaurants. I have a Chinese cookbook dedicated to Chinese casseroles and it seems to me that many "authentic" well-known Chinese dishes could be described as casseroles which have become somewhat standardized...it could well be that Mapo Dofu started out as a casserole of ingredients that were available and it was liked so much that it got a name and became a standard dish...it definitely has the characteristics of a stove-top casserole. To have chop suey included in Chinese cookbooks seems as authentic to me as having Tuna Fiesta and Patio Crab Casserole appear in "Family Favorites" by the Culinary Arts Institues and Tuna Noodle Casserole in the 1997 "The Joy of Cooking" by Irma S. Rombauer.

To clarify: There is no "traditional" chop suey in China. There is no "chop suey" in China. You won't find "chop suey" in menus among the restaurants in China. It is a North-American thing. In spirit it is the Chinese way - stir-frying local vegatables with bitsy little chunk of proteins. ← I am still not convinced. I have seen a couple of references similar to that found at http://quezi.com/720 ""There is a rural district south of Canton, China called Toisan. This was the point of origin for most of the early immigrants from China to California. There they make a dish of miscellaneous items called “tsap seui” which means “miscellaneous scraps.” It is also called “shap sui” in Cantonese. ""Mostly it is made of leftover vegetables, stir-fried together, often with noodles, and bean sprouts are almost universally included. The rest of the dish varies according to what ever is found in the kitchen. ""Now, one may hold any opinion one wants. But the “tsap seui,” “shap sui,” “chop suey,” connection is very difficult to ignore."" ← just another reference to Chinese "chop suey": in "The Chinese Kitchen - A Traditional Approach to Eating" by Yong Yap Cotterell (c. 1986) on page 9, she writes, "Opium spread to restaurants, where it was served with meals, especially in 'wine restaurants'. Poorer people found solace in humbler eating houses, and the very poor made do with boiled left-overs from restaurants, zacui - anglicized as 'chop-suey'. Until quite recently this was the diet of beggars and rickshaw pullers." I continue to find references to Chinese "chop suey" regardless of the various stories which claim that chop suey was invented in the USA...some say on the West Coast and others say on the East Coast.

I found a site which sells .pdf and other formats and has Kasma's "Dancing Shrimp" for about $17...I tried to buy it and got an error message but I have contacted the site to see what is to be done. But I thought I'd post the link just in case someone is interested. http://www.ebooksabouteverything.com/ebook...or-Seafood.html

is there any where to find this recipe online? or can someone send it to me? Kasma's book is around $45 USD used!

I just ran across another Chinese ingredient of which I have no idea what it is and I cannot find anything online??? What is "starched shrimp meat"?

the suggestions are greatly appreciated. I have some of the books and I will look into the others. BTW I recently made chili oil with the world's hottest chili, i.e., Indian Ghost Chili (over a million Scoville units!)...it is tasty and definitely picante! I should revise my definition of "authentic" and call it "traditional-authentic"...many authentic recipes came come from Hong Kong and other places and would qualify as "new-authentic", e.g., I recently saw a recipe from a cookbook with "authentic" in the title and the recipe uses asparagus which is a relatively new ingredient for Chinese cooking. I suspect that the recipe is definitely delicious and I would be happy to try it. I am not quite sure what the cutoff date for "traditional" would be but, for my interests, I would place it sometime after the introduction of New World chilis. what is unusal about Mrs. Chiang?

I am interested in compiling a list of Chinese (or other Asian) Cookbooks with "authentic" recipes. By "authentic", I mean "as cooked in China" (or other Asian countries) with limited exceptions such as Smithfield ham substituted for Yunnan ham (Xuanwei ham). There ae many decent cookbooks but I am interested in those by real Chinese (or other Asian) cooks or by those who have studied authentic cooking in China (or other Asian country).

my recipe submission: - take an ordinary mapo dofu recipe (probably enough to serve 3 or 4 as a main dish) - add 2 cubes of dofuru (fermented/stinky dofu) (no noticeable taste or smell in the finished dish but it makes the flavor "bigger") - add 1-2 Tbls mashed fermented black beans according to individual taste Serve over soft wheat/egg noodles (I use regular spaghetti when I don't have chinese noodles).

add 15 more for me...mainly Asian cookbooks.

I like The Thousand Recipe Chinese Cookbook but her recipes call for CELERY! (yucky face here). Not cooked celery in my Chinese food, dammit. It's too easy to find Bok Choy! Maybe this is just a factor of when it was published, but it's just WRONG! ← maybe she meant Chinese celery???

Chinese Fish Sauce? Does anyone here have a source for Chiu Chow (other names: Sitchow, Teochow) fish sauce? How does it differ from Thai and other Asian fish sauces?

I currently live in the Midwest, but I grew up in LA and regularly visit my family there. Restaurant recommendations--all the best Chinese places are to the East in the San Gabriel Valley. We're Cantonese, so that's the stuff I'm most familiar with. NBC in Monterey Park is an old reliable standby HK/Cantonese restaurant, serving dim sum for lunch and specializing in seafood for dinner. Sea Harbour in nearby Rosemead is a local branch of an upscale Vancouver chain and serves more innovative Cantonese dishes. They do dim sum for lunch as well. In Arcadia there's a branch of the famed Din Tai Fung chain of Taiwanese restaurants specializing in Shanghai style Xiao Long Bao (soup buns). There's a place in Monterey Park specializing in Beijing Duck, appropriately called The Duck House. China Islamic in Rosemead specializes in Halal style Chinese food. Little Fat Sheep in Monterey Park is famous for their Mongolian hot pots. That ought to be enough to get you started! ← thanks, greatly appreciated...now I have to get up to L.A. and then travel East :>)

Chinese burritos? Chinese pancakes? Not spring rolls - as those are deep-fried. ← yes...runbing or baobing or popia (popiah)...fresh (not deep fried) spring roll...see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popiah http://www.wowzio.com/pulse/95455_popiah some consider the spring roll to be the deep fried version of popia: http://www.chiliwonders.com/spring.roll.Chinese.htm

the poster of the photos says the following: "zhejiang. mountain village food. thin flour pancake aka flour tortilla prepared in a wood-fired wok." I have sent an email to the poster asking the the actual name of these "pancakes".