aprilmei
-
Posts
535 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Store
Help Articles
Posts posted by aprilmei
-
-
My grandmother used to make that pig's feet/black vinegar for all my aunts who were having babies - there were lots of them (both aunts and babies). Unfortunately, they never let us eat very much of it because we were too young and the dish was considered too rich. So we (the little kids) would sneak in to the kitchen and steal all the small bits of meat and skin that had sunk to the bottom of the pot.
When I did become old enough to eat it, my aunts had stopped having babies! And my generation doesn't seem to be as ... fertile (or something). Since they're not having babies, nobody is making the pig's feet.
-
One of my Mom's specialties was stuffed large intestine of pig. She'd clean and soak them in salted water for an hour. Then she'd stuff them with rice and black beans. The ends are tied and the whole "coil" is steamed.
Mom would slice the coil into disks. We would dip them into soya, fresh ginger and chili oil. Food from memory always "taste" so good!
This sounds delicious! I've eaten something like this at a Taiwanese restaurant but they're deep-fried and cut into slices.
Hakka restaurants also make deep-fried intestines stuffed with a spring onion. Sometimes street hawkers make this but they're difficult to find now because the Hong Kong government is cracking down on the hawkers - what a pity.
One of the best "innards" dishes is also the simplest - blanched pork kidneys or livers. The kidneys have to be cleaned very well - all the core and white bits cut out then soaked in salted water then rinsed. The pork liver just needs to be washed and sliced. Cook the pieces very quickly in boiling water - doesn't take long; it's important not to overcook. Drain the pieces then top with lots of fine slivers of fresh ginger and spring onions. Pour hot oil on top to wilt the aromatics then drizzle with soy sauce. This is wonderful with congee or fried rice with salted fish.
This way of cooking also works well with goose intestines. They take just seconds to cook.
-
When I filet a whole, cooked fish at the table I never flip over the spine. My mom always said it was bad luck. I don't really believe it, but better to be safe...
I've also been told this. I think it comes from Chinese fishermen, who believe that if you flip the fish over, it will make their boat turn over.
And of course, every Chinese child hears that you have to eat every last grain of rice in your bowl or else your future spouse will have a pockmark on his/her face for every grain you left behind.
-
I wonder if the tiny clams you ate were cockles, instead? Did they have very ridged shells? and did they give off reddish juices?
-
I don't think it's ever too late to learn anything though. I've been trying to do it for awhile now, now that I'm old enough to have the wisdom to appreciate what I no longer have.
Though one thing that's made it more difficult is just the sheer number of white guys I've come across who try to lecture me about my background. Seems like each year it gets worse and worse on several orders of Oh. My. God. Shut. Up.This is so funny.... Gah... I've had the same experience too... hahahhahhahaah
At least they don't come up to you and say, "you know my ex girlfriend was Korean...."
I've had all of that (but "my ex-gf was Chinese" rather than Korean). It's so annoying. But what I really hate is when they say, "Hey, your English is pretty good, where did you learn?" They're practically patting me on the head, like, "what a clever little Chinese person you are!"
-
Fried carrot cake isn't realy made from carrots, it's from loh bak, or Chinese turnip. It's similar to the loh bak goh that we tradionally eat around Chinese New Year, except that it doesn't have all the meat, dried shrimp, mushrooms, etc - it's plain. Then it's stir-fried with that really dark, thick soy sauce, bean sprouts, shrimp etc. It's delish.
-
Yes, they are different but they're also delicious.
Actually, I've eaten quite a number of different breads and dumplings that have soup inside. Xiao long bao are not the only ones, although they seem to be the most popular.
-
Yeah, that's the recipe I used. I don't think the dough for xiao long bao calls for any leavening.
-
Kanga, what's the dough like? If I remember correctly, the dough from the ones I made was different from xiao long bao.
-
I've made Florence Lin's recipe before and it's fantastic. The ingredients are cooked together. I don't have the book in front of me but it seems that you're referring to a recipe that is NOT xiao long bao - the filling is different. What's the dough like?
Trust Florence - everything I"ve made from that book works.
-
Has anyone tried the joong in Taiwan? The rice is really different - it's still glutinous but very light and delicate. The first time I tried them I was shocked - I'm used to the Cantonese variety which is heavy (but also delish). The Taiwanese joong (at least the type I tried - there are probably lots of variations) had only fatty pork and peanuts.
As an alternative to steaming, you can also slice the joong and pan-fry slowly so it gets a nice crust.
-
I love the poetic names - things like "field chicken" (for frog) and phoenix claws (for chicken feet). The first one confused a friend - he ordered field chicken bo jai faan and was halfway thorugh with it when he pulled a webbed foot out of his mouth. He had a really confused look on his face and asked, what part of the chicken is this? I said, it's a frog foot. He stopped eating and had a rather sick look on his face.
-
Wow, what a poetic name. On most English menus, it's called something simple and prosaic, like "minced meat in lettuce leaves".
This is a really versatile dish. At home, my grandmother and parents made it with a mixture of dried oysters and pork - that's how I always ate it until I moved away from home, and it's still how I make it. Many restaurants - especially the more expensive ones - like to make it with minced pigeon, which is (IMHO) a huge waste of pigeon. I've never tried the version that you described - with Chinese sausage and carrots - but I can imagine that it would be a good alternative. I've never tasted it using the minced duck from Peking duck but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
In the best versions of this, the vegetables should all be hand-chopped to the same, small size. My uncle once tried using a food processor but the final dish was rough, not refined, and he never did it that way again. Use soaked dried Chinese mushrooms, bamboo shoots, celery, water chestnuts (it's worth seeking out fresh water chestnuts). We never used carrots but I suppose your restaurant used them to make the dish more colourful. If you're using dried oysters (not too many because they have a strong flavour) soak them and then hand-chop them to the same size of the veggies. The same goes with the laap cheung (Chinese sausage) although it doesn't need to be soaked.
Marinate the raw minced meats for about 15 minutes in soy sauce, rice wine, salt, a little sugar, white pepper, cornstarch and oil. Heat oil in a wok and stir-fry the meat until it loses its pink colour then remove from the wok. If you're using laap cheung, cook it now so it gets a little colour, then remove from the wok. Heat more oil and start cooking the vegetables, adding them to the wok starting with the ones that take longer to cook - celery and carrots (if using), ending with the mushrooms. Stir in the meat(s) and dried oysters, add oyster sauce and a little water or broth and let it simmer, stirring occasionally, for about 10 minutes to let the flavours blend. The sauce should thicken on its own (because of the cornstarch in the minced meat) but if it needs more, stir a little corntarch with water and stir it in at the end. It shouldn't be too "dry" but it also shouldn't be sloppily wet. Serve with iceberg lettuce (only iceberg will do) and hoisin sauce.
Oh, and if you want fried noodles, they should be very thin, dry rice noodles. Don't soak them - just fry them and they'll puff up. It's also good with fried pine nuts added in at the last minute.
-
I guess this is strange, but if I am going to substitute, I tend to do it the opposite way of what everybody else here seems to do - I use shallots instead of onions. If I'm cooking for just one or two and don't need a whole onion, I will just chop up a couple of shallots because we always have them on hand - this is Hong Kong and shallots cost only about HK$4 (about US 50 cents) per bag. I guess it would be cheaper to use a half- or quarter-onion but then the leftover portion always gets lost in the fridge and I hate the idea of it going to waste.
How much do shallots cost back in the States?
-
What perfect timing - I've just started testing recipes for financiers to try to get rid of a glut of egg whites. All the other recipes I've looked at didn't call for any leavening - just powdered almonds, icing sugar, flour (either cake or AP), melted butter and egg whites.
I'm working with the Lenotre recipe right now - they look fantastic and the crust is excellent, but they're too sweet. I'm working on reducing the sugar but when I do that, they peak (kind of like that little hump you get with a madeleine) instead of being nicely rounded.
This is the original recipe:
150 grams unsalted butter
250 grams icing sugar
125 grams almond powder
55 grams cake or plain flour
150ml egg whites
Sliced almonds
Melt the butter and let it cook until beurre noisette stage. Let it cool slightly.
Sift the icing sugar with the flour. Stir in the almond powder. Use a whisk to stir in the egg whites. Whisk in the beurre noisette and stir until smooth.
Preheat oven to 200 degrees Celsius.
Spray the tins with pan coating then dust with flour. Invert the pans and tap them firmly to remove excess flour. Fill the pans halfway with the mixture then decorate with sliced almonds. Bake for about 15 minutes or until done.
I reduced the sugar to 200 grams and increased almond powder and flour. They taste great but as I said, they get that little hump. I'm hoping to eventually get both the look and the flavour right.
-
Why do you HAVE to cut the noodles into the water? I know that's how professional noodle makers do it, but they've had lots of practice. Why don't you practice cutting the noodles over a board then dump them all into the water at once - that way they'll all be cooked at the same time.
Anyway, I've watched these noodle makers and the "secret" seems to be in the wrist action - a curving motion that looks easy but I'm sure is hard to do at first. Plus, using a very sharp knife.
-
I eat the white, it's good with rice. A boiled salted egg drizzled with a little sesame oil and served with white rice can be very good if you want something simple.
-
The "Swiss, honey-base chocolate" sounds suspiciously like Toblerone to me...
-
There is a shanghai dish of tofu braised with crab roe.
Yeah, this is good - it's made with hairy crab roe. They also make pea shoots (dau miu) with hairy crab roe and fun pei (mung bean sheets) with hairy crab roe. Actually, they've created many dishes to utilise the roe; the crabs don't have much meat. Hairy crabs are good but it's a lot of work to extract the best parts - but with this type of dish, the cooks do all the work.
I love Dungeness crabs but since I'm rarely in the States when they're in season, I don't eat them much anymore. In Asia we get really good Sri Lankan crabs (they call them mud crabs in Australia) - they're huge, sweet and meaty. I had them last night cooked with a pile of minced garlic and chillies at a place called "under the bridge crab" in Wan Chai (Hong Kong). In Singapore they're cooked into chilli crabs and pepper crabs - fabulous.
Another good crab that's best simply steamed and served with dipping sauce is "flower crabs". Chiu Chow restaurants serve them as a cold dish.
-
Other things to do with Chinese sausages - in Hong Kong you can get something called Lap Mei Fan. Lap Mei is the category of hams and sausages and other dried meats (duck, pork, gizzards, etc.) that are all preserved in a similar fasion to the Chinese sausages. Just get a selection of these and steam them on top of rice. Serve with a side of slightly sweetened dark soy sauce and veggies. *sigh* One of my most favorite meal memories is of my grandfather picking us up from my first day of school in Hong Kong and driving us to a restaurant to celebrate with a huge casserole of its signature lap mei fan.
This is wonderful winter food. It's best in a sandpot (bo jai) so the rice gets that lovely burnt crust. This is easy to make at home but for some reason it's never as good as when eating it at a roadside stall when it's cold outside.
-
I'm living in Hong Kong now but grew up in the States eating laap cheung and yuen cheung (liver sausage) from North America. The sausages here are much less sweet and also not as fatty - they're meatier tasting. They're very very different but I like both types. I often bring North American laap cheung and yuen cheung back to Hong Kong but it's difficult to do it the other way around - my cousin was caught and the US Customs people made her toss the lot (fortunately they didn't fine her). I'm not sure if we can bring them into to the States if they're vacuum-sealed but they're not sold that way.
-
Weka, was the jellyfish you found in North Carolina fresh or dried? I think for Chinese preparations (and like Herbacidal, I've only ever had it as part of a cold platter) the jellyfish has been salted and dried.
-
Has anybody tried Chinese fried chicken? It's the type usually sold at Chinese barbecue meat shops. Not all of them have it, though. It's very different - marinated, dipped in a batter and fried. It can be awful if it's been sitting around for a long time - heavy and oily. But when it's freshly fried, it's delish.
-
My first thought was the same as Irwin's, that it's duck giblet. If it is, then it's been salted and dried. It's really good in soups - can be used whole or diced up. Either way, after it gives up all its flavour to the soup, it's good to chew on after dippping in a little soy sauce.
"Parts"
in Elsewhere in Asia/Pacific: Cooking & Baking
Posted
Haven't ever tried it with frozen liver. It works fine with frozen kidneys though.
SG - haggis is delicious. I was surprised at how peppery it is. Everything is finely minced so you don't really notice that it's offal at all.