jsager01

i believe mushrooms are included in vegetarian gravy recipes because of the umami kick that mushrooms impart, and all the previous posts point to ingredients with hefty umami. An alternative, and IMO, a better one, is to use Japanese konbu that is usually called for in dashi stock making. It is a kind of seaweed or kelp, and you should be able to find them in asian/japanese grocery stores. And yes, there is the chinese and korean version of the same seaweed, but are not as good as the konbu for stock/gravy making. a simpler solution is MSG

getting the stuffing to stick together: - i would agree with shar999 to use cornstarch - and Alex post has good suggestions. i dont use fresh mushrooms in these recipes, but if you do so, then slow cooking to dry them would be a solution. I use reconstituted dried mushrooms, because it has more flavor/umami, and i squeeze as much of the water out of it as possible. i dont just pat dry, i wring the hell out of the salted cabbage, like doing laundry by hand You could refine the salting process such that you do not have to add any additional salt,or use liquid seasoning for the salt content. If i need any seasoning, i usually only add MSG. - you may want to try chopping the ingredients for the stuffing into finer bits, and i do not recommend the use of a blender in this application. - and lastly, it would not bother me to have bits falling out of the jiaozi, YMMV To get the meat texture, Alex recommendation to freeze the tofu, not just squeeze the liquid out of the tofu block, is the easiest way to get meat texture into your Jiaozi. Freezing tofu is actually the preferred prep among quite a few northerners (in China that is). It turns the tofu into sponge like texture and absorbs flavors more readily. Such ' processed' tofu is one of the many techniques/ingredients in Chinese vegetarian cuisine to mimic meat/poultry/fish textures, and of course you have to add flavors to these textured vegetarian ingredients. There is quite a lot of information about chinese vegetarian cuisine on the internet. BTW, i usually add in some aromatics like garlic chives 韭菜 or garlic scapes or chinese celery when they are available,

I have a friend who runs a popular restaurant in a very popular tourist destination in China. You may even have been there. I won't name it for now. Every week the local police chief, his friends and various local government big shots turn up, eat the place out, get blind drunk and walk out without paying. There is nothing she can do. If she makes a fuss, she loses her licence to trade. End of story. Another friend was opening a restaurant in another city and needed a fire certificate. The entire fire department turned up (about 20 people), ate dinner and walked out. What could friend do? Nothing. She needs the fire certificate. tries agree it does happen, but as a good citizen perhaps you could use your hand/mobile/cell phone to record such events and post them on Weibo? This seems to be a popular form of ‘vigilante’ justice nowadays in china, and elsewhere. corruption exists in every country and sociiety. Go watch cbc.ca on your PC or whatever, and see corruption being exposed at various levels of the government, the number of mayors in Montreal that had to resign in the past year, the scandals of the current mayor in Toronto, and the ongoing scandals of the senators expense claims in the canadian political system. Sorry if this is totally out of topic, but may be relevant if you are attending official dinners involving public figures. In 3 words, there is ; no free lunch, as everyone on this forum would know.. yes the photos may not be very appealing and are terrible photos, but they do convey what i know of those 2 common and very popular street foods. They are actually better than what i have taken, and that is why i dont post photos in my postings here. There seems to be an obsession with photos of food porn quality in this forum

Yes, but what is the problem that you are alluding to? if you were at that dinner, you would know who is footing the bill, and if you dont then you should not have been there. Chinese etiquette when it comes to paying the bill at official or even families dinning out is quite different from the practice in the western countries, although it is changing. yes it is, although not in official government functions. I wish it would be less popular, because then it would be cheaper for those of us who do not see it any different from any other seafood, or foie gras, etc Better control to limit catches so that it is sustainable,yes, as in cod. anyways, this is getting off topic. BC: i wish i could have the patience and perseverance or whatever to produce such a blog or thread of my trips to china which are usually more personal than business. anyways, i look forward to reading more.

i think that is the best recommendation for the OPs quest in how to get consistent and repeatable chilli heat (scoville units?) in his/her soups/braises. I started a reply but dumped it when i read yours ;-)) The only thing i can add is to stay with one or 2 types of chillies until he/she gets to know them, and perhaps put the chillies in a tea bomb or cheesecloth bag for easy removal. that chilies do have actual flavour (and that their heat often masks flavour nuances, which are difficult to discern when your head is in flames), halved one of the eleventy-zillion arbol chilies from our insanely prolific plants, stripped out all the seeds and white membranes, and snipped it into small pieces. Although still distinctly hot, eating this is an entirely different experience than that of eating pieces of the whole chili. yes, chillies do have actual flavor, but in quite a lot of recipes, especially asian, it is seldom used on its own, but in combination with other highly aromatic herbs and spices. In thai curries for example, the use of galangal, lemon grass, garlic, even coconut milk is enough to mask any of the flavors chillies may have. .

i suppose freezing preserves more of the volatile oils/compounds than preground dried spices. for easy removal if you do not wish to eat the chopped lemongrass, perhaps you could put it in a ' tea bomb' or a cheesecloth bag, but this is more for stews/braises, and not sure if it will work for stir fries.

Wow! That's an amazing method. It obviously worked brilliantly. Now to examine my conscience and find out if I am willing to do the same! Have everything except the dehydrator and know where I can borrow one of those. So it's not the equipment, it's the commitment. Thank you so much for sharing.another method would be here http://forums.egullet.org/topic/108508-siu-yook-roast-pork-belly/page-4 it has not failed me, and the discussions/experiments by prawncrackers and origamicrane were, IMO, very interesting. there are similarities between the methods in this thread and those of prawn..., like poking a zillion holes in the skin, and a jaccard is indispensable in this context.

IMO, and i believe most would agree, fresh lemon grass (or any spice/herbs/ingredients) is best. They keep well in the fridge, and can be frozen. If fresh is not available then frozen whole lemon grass would be my next choice (or grow your own :-)) If frozen whole lemon grass is not available, then i guess you could settle for frozen chopped lemon grass I have not tried frozen chopped lemon grass, but i think it would be like buying ground spices instead of the whole spice (something like ground pepper instead of pepper corns). I usually cook with whole lemon grass, after trimming and bashing it to release the flavors, and if incorporated into a curry paste, then i grind them as fine as i can. I have no idea how big/small the chopped pieces of lemon grass are, but how do you remove it if you do not want to eat it or do you have to grind it further, in which case, if you are buying it for the convenience then i am not sure how convenient it is.

the pubs could then serve chicken crackling/scratchings, or tim sum style chicken feet, or deep fried fish/salmon skins :-))

Ah, calamansi. The one thing I never have trouble getting. Always have at least two or three trees full of fruit. Even when we lived in Alaska. Can't be without that. Want me to send you some? Thank you for the offer! While I'm pretty sure they could be imported to Canada (no citrus industry here, so not much worry about bugs and stuff that might destroy our non-existent citrus industry), it's so hot right now I'm not sure they'd survive the trip! I wonder if I can get a plant here. Our winters are so harsh, though, and I'm not sure it will be warm enough, even indoors. i dont think you need to import, i am quite sure they are available from nurseries in Canada, or quite often in chinese grocery stores around chinese new year, the thing about auspicious golden fruits,etc...at a price. If you keep them indoors, it does not really matter what the temperature outside is... they will survive at whatever temp you keep yourself alive :-)).

i have a calamansi plant grown in a pot for at least 3 years now, have a look at the pic in http://forums.egullet.org/topic/143588-indoor-herb-garden-suggestions/?hl=%2Bcalamansi#entry1935265 as already pointed out earlier, the calamansi is a multi purpose plant, especially when grown indoors, ie it supplies fruit ( much more than i can use or give away), looks fantastic with its shiny green leaves, and lemony fragrance that wafts across the room when in bloom. It is one of the easiest citrus to grow indoors. i keep all my plants in the living room/office of my apartment, and in winter that is usually kept between 12 to 20 C, no grow lights, they survive like i do. I used to put them out in the balcony in summer, but its too much trouble and for the past 2 years, they are indoors all year. as for the problems with keeping keffir limes alive, it could be that the plant was grown from seed, or cuttings. . Get a plant that has been grafted on virus resistant stock.

it just means that you are not living in the tropical/equatorial countries which have only 3 seasons, hot, hotter and hottest.:-)) i believe hot peppers/chillies need a hot (high temperature) period to produce consistently hot peppers. I have grown them from seeds of thai bird chillies that were labelled as product of thailand, and they lose their heat towards the end of summer, especially if there had been a cold spell. to get chillies of consistent heat, one solution would be to buy chillies imported from tropical countries, eg bird chillies. that are actually imported from thailand. For Jalapenos, perhaps imported from mexico?

yes, you can make boiled peanuts from raw, shelled peanuts, but depending on individual preferences, it may not be exactly the same as boiled shell on peanuts. Raw shelled peanuts are commonly available in chinese/asian grocery stores. There are usually 2 kinds, one with the brownish skin (testa ?) still attached, and the other that is whitish as the skin has been removed. I dont know what process is involved in removing the skin, but i find that the skinless white ones are mealy when cooked, but not so with the skin ons. Those with skin-on will impart a brownish color and astringency that some may find undesirable in a soup or stew, in which case i will soak them in several changes of water, and/or rub the skin off from as many as i have the patience for it. Some chinese restaurants will serve boiled peanuts, with skin on, as a free appetiser. They are usually boiled with star anise, cinnamon, sugar and salt. I include peanuts in my soups, eg in Lotus root soup, with pork ribs, Goji berries, chinese red dates, etc

it is dangerous to eat, it is more dangerous to live

Those chicken feet look great and of professional or restaurant quality. The only comment i can make, and maybe redundant as you may have already been doing it, is that i denature the skin, something like having to denature the skin in siu yuk, with salt, vodka, etc; and also in Malaysian/Singaporean version of Hainanese Chicken. The intent is to increase the thickness and texture of the skin, and especially in chicken feet, the skin is what its all about, and yes, there maybe some tendons in there also, but its the skin and the added spices/aromatics are what its all about. What i do is that i wash the feet in free flowing water, cut off the ‘ toes’, then sprinkle them liberally with salt, whatever salt i have on hand. Depending on what else i have to do, i let them brine/marinate, and have known to let them marinate overnite, as i forgot. Then i blanch them, and then coat with honey or maltose, and let it dry as much as i can, ie air dry or preferably dry in the fridge, overnite or preferably for 1 or 2 days. Then dump them into as hot a deep fryer as i can get, and run as far away as i can ). Once they are browned, i scoop them up and dump into ice cold water. That’s how i denature or prep the feet before the simmering/braising/steaming and addition of flavors, ie the spices and aromatics. What i have found when i just deep fry them, without the above prep, is that the skin is just a thin film, and the aromatics /spices/stock become all important, as there is little left of the feet. IMO the perfect chicken feet is one that is plum-by and can hold the flavors within itself. Not sure if that makes any sense to anyone else

as i mentioned in my earlier post on this thread to the OP, it depends on how you use or will use the wok. If you use the wok as in 'Woking 9 to 5. :-)' then probably you would have gone thru various cooking techniques on that one wok, including steaming, stir fry, shallow fry deep fry, braising,etc, just like in the olden days in China when the wok was the only or main cooking utensil. Once you do stir fry, shallow fry, deep frying, you are re-seasoning the wok. Try this experiment, use your wok to steam something 2 or 3 times, and then braise something acidic on it for 2 to 3 hours and see what you have as seasoning on your wok No I am not. I use the wok for frying eggs for breakfast, make lunch and dinner, hence 9 to 5. A chef would be 8 to 11 p.m. :-) dcarch

this was what i was told when i wanted to develop my wok skills, a long time ago., Use uncooked rice, because it is cheap, and if you are worried about waste, you can buy broken rice, and then after your practice put it into a net to feed the birds, or cook it for your cat or dog if you have one. with uncooked rice, you can if you want look at each of the grains and see how they have been cooked, are they burnt on one side and still raw on the other? then you still have a way to go. with sand or salt, you have no way to tell how they have been cooked.

If you are still considering what type of wok to buy you may want to consider what you want to do with the wok, ie what are you going to cook in it, how often, and your skill level in wok cooking. Bottom line, a wok is cheap enough that if you are not satisfied with the wok that you bought, it would not be a big deal to try another. It is not the same as deciding on buying a set of All Clad, or its competition. In days gone by, the wok was the only cooking utensil, but i doubt if that is what you want. I would not use it as a steamer or do long acidic braises in it, as that will undo all the effort you would have made to season it, unless you want to re season it after each use. A regular chinese steamer is cheap enough that the only reason not to buy one is if you do not have the storage space for it, or if you do not steam cook. hzrt8w, who used to be a prolific poster, uses a regular skillet or fry pan, and if i remember correctly on an electric ring stove. What i find interesting is that with minimal equipment, he could, with his skills, turn out fantastic Cantonese cuisine, or looks fantastic as i never had a chance to taste any of it. With Cantonese stir fry there seems to be an obsession with mega BTUs. Of course a megaBTU heat source is important.... in a restaurant environment, or if you have the means to set it up in your home. Otherwise, i always say that you can get satisfactory wok hei even on the most anemic cook top, if, for example, you cook single portions or servings separately, and also add in each ingredient separately and not dump in all ingredients all at once; and some would say its a PITA if you are cooking for 4 or more. And i would not use a wok as the pot in hotpot cooking. If you have a wok that is 12 or 14 inches in diameter balanced on a flat bottom of 6 inches, how stable would that configuration be? Especially in a boisterous environment, as most of my hotpot dinners are. The rate of evaporation in a wok will be such that you will have to prepare lots of stock in advance and be replenishing it frequently as it evaporates and condenses on the walls, etc. And how much do those dedicated pots for hotpots cost anyways? With or without the central divider? And if you want a multi-use pot, why not buy a fondue pot and then you can have all the cheese fondues, fondue bourguignonne, chinese hotpot, etc. And if you want to know what kinds of woks are easily available in China, check out this search on taobao http://tinyurl.com/q2h8wsj , round bottoms are alive and well in China.

Inaccuracies? Perhaps not literal, but I wouldn't call not being literal 'inaccurate'. Ever heard of metaphors? And anyway it's a common language feature. The French for potatoes translates as 'apples of the earth". Another inaccuracy? perhaps we have a misunderstanding here. metaphors? yes, i do know what they are, but how does one translate metaphors? literally? each word on its own? and in chinese each character separately on it own? as in your earlier post, '' the last character is definitely 'fruit' would anyone translate pommes de terre as anything other than potatoes? yes, if you want to translate each word on its own, or what could happen if you use an automated/online translator.

literal translations of chinese names for foodstuff and ingredients is fraught with inaccuracies, and sometimes can be hilarious. eg in some regions of china potatoes are 土豆, which if translated literally and character by character, means earth beans, go figure. whatever it is that you bought seems to be expensive by local standards, so perhaps when you do cut it open, try to germinate the seeds, not sure if you will ever get rich... but could be a unique gift item.

There's very little room to nest a round bottomed wok on top of the gas rings. Thanks for your replies. not sure what you mean by 'very little room to rest a round bottomed'... the diameter of a wok, whether round or flat bottomed is measured at the topmost diameter. Nearly all domestic use woks on sale in China have flat bottoms these days. Why? To use on gas hobs and free standing induction heaters for hotpots. Round bottomed woks were designed for use with solid fuel stoves which are rarely seen now. I've been struggling to find round bottomed woks for two to three years. In a country as large and diverse as China, it is at best incorrect for anyone to say ' in china' to mean all of china, at worst? well.. If anyone, in China or anywhere else, really want round bottom woks, i know a friend of a friend who wholesales them, minimum 1000 pieces per order, and if you go thru me, my markup is 100% of delivered price. Its cheaper to go on alibaba. In China (ie the parts of China i am most familiar with), round bottomed carbon steel woks on gas stoves are the norm. i have never seen a wok being used for hotpots, because in those parts of China, the pots used in hotpots have a dividing partition in the middle - such that one half is for the fiery hot, spicy stock, and the other half is for the no chilli stock, the yin and yang if you want to be corny about it. I dont find heat retention an issue, wok stir fry, is essentially fast and quick, in minutes and not tens of minutes. One of the essential techniques in wok stir fry is to know when to introduce each of the ingredients separately - no one ever dumps all ingredients all at once, which will definitely cause a significant drop in temperature. Quick heat recovery (conductivity?) and wok stir fry techniques are what its all about. Cast iron is heavy, and another essential technique in stir fry, is actually being able to flip the contents of the wok, making it more like flip fry than stir fry. Unless they have strong arms, I bet most users of cast iron woks just push the contents around, .. and yes they may also turn the ingredients around with the spatula. I could be wrong, but i do not think that chinese restaurants in china or in the ' western' countries use cast iron woks, or flat bottomed woks, or induction cooking tops. I have a 14 inch carbon steel wok (round bottomed) usually cooking for 2, that i have used regularly for the last 10+ years and still going strong with no problems of durability. I also have a 12 inch carbon steel that i have had for more than 15+ years, but i use that less frequently now, as i find that the extra size of the 14 inch makes it easier to flip.

Amazingly, when i walked into the Wah Nam Hong grocery store in Rotterdam yesterday, there was this display of a tray of Pandan plants and another of curry leaf plants (Murraya koenigii), right at the entrance. More amazingly, they were priced at 3.99€ each, and the pandan plants were of a decent size, about 20 cm from the soil level, and 3 stalks of lemon grass with good amount of root stub below the ‘ bulb’ at 80 euro cents. I have never seen such plants for sale in a chinese grocery store in Netherlands, hope this is not a one-off sales stunt. If you are interested, i could buy them, package them as best as i can and then mail them to you, at cost price, or for the bottle of Barolo you offered upthread. Not sure what the mailing charges would be, but i expect it will be more than the cost of the contents. If you are interested PM me, not sure how this works as i have not used PM on this forum.

fully agree that ' you really limit your possibilities in Thai cooking without lemon grass', and also galangal, kaffir lime, etc, especially if you cannot get the fresh stuff. What has me posting on this thread is that i believe you can get the fresh stuff in most of EU, and if not then grow your own... you already have your own kaffir lime tree, etc, so whats a few more :-)) I have gone thru the frustrations that you are going thru, but that was many, many moons ago, and nowadays, they are easily available fresh in asian/Chinese/vietnamese grocery stores, at least in Netherlands, France and the UK, where such ingredients are readily available, albeit only in the major cities. But, as you say, this is not the case in Italy. A quick check on the internet throws up online nurseries that sell pandan and lemon grass plants, and where the postage is as much as, if more than the cost of the plant itself. Check out http://www.tropika.it/shop-aromatiche.htm and http://tinyurl.com/lemongrass-IT ...they may be out of stock at this time of year, so its best to email or phone them first. I am sure there are others if you are persistent in your googling. Or check out the nurseries in and around where you live, they may be able to give you some tips on where to find them or, if you are lucky, they may order them on your behalf? If you are buying the plants on the internet or even in nurseries, make sure that lemon grass is Cymbopogon citratus, and that the pandan is Pandanus amaryllifolius, because, there are many different species or varieties, and a lot of them are grown and sold as ornamental plants, and they may not mention that its not the edible variety/species. If you have already received the lemon grass that you ordered online, you could try sticking them in a glass of water and hope that they will root, and if so you can then plant them in regular pot of soil/dirt. If you buy fresh pandan in a grocery store/website, they are normally from the aerial suckers (as different from the inground suckers) and i have not had success in propagating from aerial suckers. and if you are into the Thai bird chillies, and if you can find the dried chillies, you could keep the seeds and try to grow them. i have had success with growing chilli plants from store bought dried chillies, and they include Thai bird chillies and Sichuan chillies (the so-called heaven facing chillies).

While i had not gone hunting for lemon grass, etc, while in Italy (usually short business trips), i am surprised that you cannot find fresh ones. I do know for certain that you can find all the fresh lemon grass, galangal, etc, in Paris, London and Amsterdam that you would want and more. Since you are in Torino, and if you do make a trip to Grenoble, i am also quite sure that you can find what you want there also. There is quite a significant Vietnamese presence in France. Do a google search to be certain, so you do not have to search every ethnic store, although that could be an adventure in itself. BTW,there are no phyto sanitary checks between EU countries and i have bought on the internet, kaffir lemon plants, etc from a nursery in Germany for delivery in Amsterdam. To have access to such ingredients on a long term basis, i would suggest that you grow them yourself, and buy the plants on the internet. The downside is that the postage can cost as much as the plant itself. To answer the specific questions in your posting, ... are the tree ear mushrooms also what is known as cloud ear fungus, or worse still, black fungus? Auricularia polytricha ? If so, and if they are dried, then there is no need to freeze them, and keep them just as you would any dried mushrooms. I have not seen them packaged like a supermarket steak - they are usually packaged ' free flowing' in plastic sachets or bags. yes you can freeze the rest, and they are even sold as cleaned and frozen. I second Baselerd's suggestion to use fresh ingredients wherever possible.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbT3RnP9fLA this is a better link, and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5iW8PhNvEo ETA; to add links