aprilmei
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Posts posted by aprilmei
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When I was growing up in California, my grandmother, who was a great cook, used to make these delicious Chinese pork sausages. The meat was quite coarse and they had a lot of fat - small but visible pieces, which made the sausages very succulent. They were slightly sweet. These weren't air-dried sausages like laap cheung and yuen cheung (although she made them, too). Unfortunately, she passed away before I could learn to make them.
I've never seen these sausages in Hong Kong and I don't know the provenance of the recipe. The only place I've ever seen them is in Chinese roast meat shops in Monterey Park but they're not as good. I'm interested in making them myself - does anybody have a recipe or some tips on how to get started?
Thanks.
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The only thing I've made other than candied peel are marrons glaces. I attempted them twice and they're very time consuming (although the work itself wasn't difficult) and the results were not that great - never again. No wonder they're so expensive. I'd rather leave it up to the experts.
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If you love seafood, you're in luck, sort of. Hong Kong has fabulous seafood but unfortunately, we're now in the middle of a mainland fish and eel scare - the fisheries in China have been found to be using a banned substance called malachite green. Fortunately, we also get a lot of fish from other countries so that should be fine - I would just stay away from eel at the moment because most of it is imported from China.
If you have time, go to one of the outlying areas for seafood. Lamma, Cheung Chau and Lei Yu Muen are all good but I prefer the latter. There are lots of seafood vendors there. You first find your restaurant (I always go to the very end one in Lei Yu Muen) and sit down at your table. Then you go find a seafood vendor, pick from all the fabulous stuff available, tell him how you want it cooked and where you're eating (oh, and better check the price, first! it can get expensive) then go back to the restaurant. You don't pay the seafood vendor, you pay it all at the end, at the restaurant. I recommend squilla (aka "pissing prawns" because they squirt water) - they're delicious and unusual - you won't find them everywhere. They look like prehistoric lobsters. Also the lobsters and crabs are excellent here. In Lamma and Cheung Chau, the restaurants have their own seafood tanks so it's a little easier. Oh, try the cuttlefish, too - they're these really cute little creatures and they taste delicious. All the seafood is fresh - in other words, alive. Some tourists get freaked out by that.
Oh, and if you have time, get over to Macau. Really excellent food at great prices. It's mostly Macanese/Portuguese food but you can also get good Chinese, including seafood. You don't need a visa but don't forget to bring your passport. And if you want a good French meal, go to Robuchon a Galera. The HK$288 three-course set lunch is a great deal for the quality of food. It's a luxurious experience and it has the best (and most reasonably priced) wine list in the region. It's in a hotel called the Hotel Lisboa, which is .... not very elegant. (to put it nicely).
I'm on deadline so gotta go now, but I can give you some names and phone numbers of private restaurants later. They're quite fun but at some of them you have to book way in advance.
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It might be that the mangosteens had started to ferment. It happens occasionally - when you open it, it will smell like alcohol. The flesh is sometimes pink-ish or even grayish-white.
btw, the best way to open mangosteens is to press it with the heels of both hands until it cracks open. And take care because the purple shell can stain material and other things.
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My favourite way of eating pork livers takes only a few minutes to cook. Thinly slice the liver. Heat a few tablespoons of oil (plain cooking oil) - keep it very hot. Thinly shred lots of spring onions and wash some fresh coriander (cilantro). Have soy sauce and sesame oil at hand.
Boil a pot of water then blanch the livers - don't overcook or they'll be awful. Drain them then put onto a platter or shallow bowl. Pile the spring onions and fresh coriander on top then pour on the oil - it should be hot enough that it sizzles and wilts the greens. Drizzle with soy sauce and sesame oil and serve immediately.
This also works very well with sliced pork kidneys - be sure to wash them well and remove the white core and veins.
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A lot of restaurants in Hong Kong don't offer the option tap water - it's only "sparkling or still" - and they look annoyed if you ask for it (although they usually will give it). At one place, I asked for tap and was told they don't have tap water
I asked them if they wash their dishes in sparkling or still but didn't get a response. -
I want to grow some vanilla planifolia orchid plants and have the perfect place to do it. However, I'm having difficulty finding anyone who can sell and ship me a starter vine.
Anyone here have any idea where I might get one, or several?
This is from the Australian site Aprilmei posted. clicky here
Try this instead:
https://bne078u.server-secure.com/vs1495_se...nillaorchid.htm
Besides selling vanilla plants, they also sell Australian grown vanilla beans (didn't know they did that, did you? I didn't either). Really good service and they DHL for free anywhere in the world (well, anywhere DHL goes to). I bought 500 grams of one type of vanilla bean and asked for a sample of another - they sent me about 20 extra beans. The beans are a little drier and smaller than what I've normally worked but they're reasonably priced.
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I live in Hong Kong where kitchens are extremely small. I use a DeLonghi toaster oven to bake cakes, tarts, breads, madeleines, chickens, lasagne; in other words, everything that can fit. My boyfriend has a microwave convection that I like for some things but the toaster oven is far superior for everything that needs good bottom heat. The DeLonghi is back at my flat and I"m thinking of bringing it to the boyfriend's flat - with both small ovens, we don't need a "standard" sized oven.
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I recall seeing dried straw mushrooms someplace on my shopping rounds, either in Chinatown, one of the big Asian supermarkets, or the gourmet dried mushroom section of a regular supermarket. Will make a mental note to look for them.
I've never seen fresh straw mushrooms. It seems to me they're not being cultivated fresh in the USA; don't know why. (More research, more research.... mutters.)
They're sold in Hong Kong wet markets. They don't look like the ones in the cans - they're soft, round balls. I didn't realise they were the same until I bit into it.
If I knew how to use my digital camera better, I'd take a pic and post it.
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Dave, you're a wimp! I can't believe six of you couldn't finish three crabs at No Signboard! There were three of us and we ordered three (two white pepper and one chilli - you're right, the chilli crab is too soupy and not spicy enough). We left only one claw.
Great post, though.
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I can't think of any Chinese restaurants here with "great" by the glass selections. In fact, it's rare even in Hong Kong Western restaurants to find really extensive wines by the glass (there are exceptions, however). For most Chinese restaurants - if they have a wine list at all - you have to buy by-the-bottle; if they do sell by-the-glass it's limited to one red and one white.
I don't know about the clubs, though, because when I go to dinners there, the whole meal with appropriate wines have already been selected. So I've never actually seen any of their wine lists.
Canucklehead is right that if a Chinese restaurant does serve wine, it will be expensive and mostly French bottles, primarily Bordeaux and Burgundies. And he's also right about Farm House being very good. It's in AIA Centre, Causeway Bay.
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They open the iron and pour batter on about half of the lower half of the iron (so there's batter in roughly about 1/4 of the total iron). Then they close it and turn it over and over several times which distributes the batter thinly. The excess oozes out of the sides and they scrape it off.
Where do you find the iron?
I don't have an iron - I just buy the gai dan jai from street vendors. They're quite common here.
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There isn't a server. The poon choi is put in the middle of the table and everybody helps themselves. It's a very casual way of eating - not formal at all.
Nobody really poked into it with their chopsticks - that would be very bad manners. There was a serving spoon, if I remember correctly, and people scooped out what they wanted with that.
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Some of the gai dan jai here taste of coconut - you might want to try substituting coconut milk for some of the liquid. You'd have to reduce the sugar even more.
I've often watched the vendors make it. They open the iron and pour batter on about half of the lower half of the iron (so there's batter in roughly about 1/4 of the total iron). Then they close it and turn it over and over several times which distributes the batter thinly. The excess oozes out of the sides and they scrape it off. You'll have to practice before you're able to pour in the right amount of batter.
Another thing is that the best gai dan jai is made over coals - they take on a smoky flavour. But that wouldn't be very feasible.
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Irwin is right; it is Hakka.
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It's not that delicious, even my host said that; he said they have these a way of bringing people together (can't have poon choi just for one!). It wasn't really that big outside the villages until recently; in fact, I only noticed restaurants serving it within the last couple of years. I suppose that's why the restaurants make it only during the big festivals when families and friends are getting together. If you buy it for take-away, it's a lot less work than making steamboat at home.
Looked back at my notes again: William (my host) said that basin meals started about 900 years ago when the Chinese were fleeing Mongolian invaders (not too good at Chinese history so this may be wrong). They didn't have enough bowls to serve the food in so they piled the ingredients together. Obviously this isn't the case anymore but they still do it for tradition.
I wouldn't go out of my way to eat it (and certainly wouldn't serve it to my friends) although if I were invited again to the feast Ping Shan village, I'd go because the atmosphere was really nice.
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More details from my notes: the cooks made about 250 poon choi, each containing about five kilos of food. And they were cooking for about 2,000 people.
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I looked back at my notes for the poon choi feast. My notes say that the cooks (all men) started preparing the dish the day before. The kitchen area in the village hall was vast - no lack of space there. All the ingredients were fully cooked and then piled in the basin. Each basin contained (from the bottom up) Chinese radish (loh bok), bok choi, pork skin, squid, bean curd, sea cucumber and fatty pork. We also had (not in the basin) fried shrimp, "white cut" chicken and fish balls.
The guy I was with said the poon choi feast has been going on for hundreds of years, in that village anyway (like everyone else from there, his ancestors - Tangs - helped found the village).
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Several years ago, I was invited to reunion dinner in Ping Shan villlage near Yuen Long. It's a lovely old village with a large ancestral hall. All the villagers were there and many people who had left Ping Shan came back specifically for the poon choi feast - this village organises these meals several times a year. The basin meal (poon choi) was okay - even my host said it's not the best tasting dish in the world. He said the whole point of it wasn't the food, but just a way of bringing people together.
Now a lot of restaurants make poon choi during the big festivals here (such as the Lunar New Year). They are available for eating in the restaurant but other places make them specifically for take-away. Last year, though, there were some cases of food poisoning because people didn't heat the poon choi thoroughly - it wouldn't be easy to do because there are so many ingredients.
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Yeah, this is right. I've always thought of the one for pig's feet as black vinegar - it has spices and sugar in it, I believe - and the other one for dipping as brown vinegar. The brown vinegar is much thinner and it's what we use as a dipping sauce for hairy crabs.
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I've never heard of this as custom aprilmei, quite intersting. Is the black vinegar used as a dipping sauce?
It's not used as a dipping sauce: it's pig's feet, black vinegar and lots of ginger stewed together for ages. Sometimes whole eggs are added. It's a very rich dish and is supposed to be good for the new mother because she's so exhausted and has lost so much blood in giving birth. As a kid, I wasn't supposed to eat much of it because it's too rich but I used to sneak into the kitchen and eat it straight out of the pot.
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I'm most familiar with it in the dish of pig's feet with ginger that is traditionally fed to new mothers to help heat their bodies. Fortunately (or not), this delicious dish was never made specifically for me but I've eaten lots of it because all my aunties were having babies when I was growing up, and now my friends are.
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Here they're called jin doi or jin dui.
Yours might be the right Cantonese pinyin. I'm learning Mandarin pinyin but know only know what they're called in Cantonese.
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In Cantonese they would be geen dueh, although I'm not sure if this is the correct pinyin.
Chinese sausage
in China: Cooking & Baking
Posted
This sounds delicious - I'd love to try it. Can you give more details, please?
But no, my grandmother's sausages were stuffed in casings which gave them a lovely crackly crunch. I don't remember that there was anything else with the meat - no cilantro or water chestnuts but I might be wrong. I've e-mailed my mother to see if she remembers any more.
Muichoi (great name!), do you know how to make laap cheung? What about yuen cheung? My gung gung used to make that - and his were also delicious. Is it very difficult?