aprilmei
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Posts posted by aprilmei
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They're not supposed to be gathering faat choi anymore because as herbacidal says, it's causing erosion and the land is turning into desert. But it's still being sold at shops in Hong Kong. When I was in Shanghai last month, I saw some fresh faat choi. I couldn't identify it at first because I'm used to seeing it dried and black; this stuff was green.
Lotus root is good sliced thin, stuffed with a pork mixture (the usual minced pork and shrimp with seasonings) and then sandwiched together and fried.
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It's also really good in Chinese oxtail stew in place of the more usual loh bak. Really soaks up the juices.
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I've eaten these cream puffs before and they're excellent. The pastry cream is light but flavourful, and it has specks of vanilla bean in it.
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Laurie Colwin gave a recipe in one of her books (I think it was Home Cooking). Haven't tried it yet although I've been meaning to - I even bought the Passover wine (which she says is traditional) and all the dried fruits.
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Dejah, they're the same, but cookbook writers call them either sand pot or clay pot.
I've had my clay pot for quite a while - the top is cracked on the interior but it hasn't gone all the way through to the surface so it's still intact. When you buy a pot, they vendor should have a large bucket of water so you can immerse the pot in it and check it cracks (tiny bubbles show around the cracks). You're not supposed to put an empty pot on the heat or it will crack, you should start a filled pot on a low flame and gradually increase the heat and don't try to "chow" anything in the pot. I generally chow all the ingredients in a wok to give the meat a good colour then put it in the pot.
The exterior of the pots turns darker as they get a lot of use but it doesn't seem to affect the cooking in the same way as it does a well-seasoned wok.
Here in Hong Kong, bo jai fan is almost like street food in the winter. Small, inexpensive restaurants add it to their repertoire because it doesn't take up any precious kitchen space - they always cook the bo jai fan outdoors on the street so the passers-by can smell it cooking. The best places still cook it over charcoal, rather than gas, and it really adds to the flavour. And as you point out, the crusty rice on the bottom of the pot is the best part. They're only about HK$25 (about US$3) a pot, depending on what you choose for the topping.
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Susruta, bo zai fan is also sometimes spelled "bo jai fan" but most Chinese cookbooks probably have it listed simply under "clay pot rice" or "sand pot rice" because it's referring to the implement, rather than the ingredients (other than the rice - fan). The sand pot gives the rice a lovely smoky flavour, and as others have pointed out, you can use it to cook many other ingredients with the rice, not just the lop yuk. Although lop yuk and lop cheung are definitely the easiest things to use and all that lovely fat steams out of the meats and flavours the rice.
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Pine kernels are not completely out of place - they're harvested in China and if you buy pine kernels in a Chinese supermarket, they're much cheaper than in other grocery stores.
They're definitely not out of place. They are used in a number of northern Chinese dishes, notably in the sauce that tops "Squirrel Fish" (songshu guiyu).
Costco has pine nuts at a good price but they come in large bags (2.5 lbs., I think) and are likely to get stale before you can ever use them up.
I didn't mean they were out of place in Chinese cooking, but I've never seen them before in lion's head.
and Jo-Mel, I also freeze pine kernels and they seem fine.
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Another thing I've done when making these - I don't steam them, I shallow-fry the meatballs to "set" the outside then finish the cooking by simmering in the broth (and yes, as tissue says, I always cook it in a clay pot). I also like to add fried pine kernels (aka pine nuts) to give a little crunch. Pine kernels are not completely out of place - they're harvested in China and if you buy pine kernels in a Chinese supermarket, they're much cheaper than in other grocery stores.
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It's also important that the pork has a lot of fat. I've made lion's head before and used pork belly - I cut off the skin and some of the top layer of fat, then hand chopped the rest. It's a lot of work but the texture is so much better.
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I tasted that 1907 one, the one that had been salvaged from the ship. It had bubbles very briefly then it went flat. It was more interesting for its history than for the taste, although the flavour was actually surprisingly fresh.
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Those aren't Chinese leeks. I think they're spring onions (aka green onions), unless it's young garlic, which isn't in season now. Smell them and if they smell like garlic, they're young garlic.
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Yikes, this all sounds like scary stuff! Isn't lye what is used in those solutions used to unblock toilets?
Unfortunately, there's a serious lack of wood-burning fire places in Hong Kong (fire places of any kind, as a matter of fact), so can't get any wood ash.
I think I'll change my menu and make another type of soup and skip the posole.
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When I was in Bordeaux a few years ago, some of the winemakers said that they deliberately blended bottles to Parker's taste - they know the types of wine he likes so adjusted the blend accordingly. These were the bottles they gave him to sample.
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Many seafood restaurants here in Hong Kong have what's called lobster with cheese sauce. When I first heard of it several years ago, I thought it sounded disgusting but my (local) relatives insisted on ordering it. They were right - it's fab and we now always order it when we go out. It's a thick-ish sauce that coats the chopped-up lobster pieces, the sauce is quite subtly cheese flavoured so it doesn't overwhelm the sweetness of the lobster. It's always served over yee mien which are delicious with the sauce. When my mother back in the States (Monterey Park) asked me for some interesting dishes to order for a banquet for my father, I told her about this dish. She consulted with the chef and he cooked it for the banquet - my mother said it was delicious. It was the first time any of my family back home had tasted it.
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How about sliced pork belly or riblets steamed with plums in brine and brown bean sauce?
That's how my mother makes pig's feet; well, sort of. She braises the pig's feet, doesn't steam them. Yum.
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God, no wonder I haven't been able to find it - I've been looking in grocery stores. I'll check out a hardware store - as soon as I've figured out how to say "slaked lime" in Cantonese.
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Okay, I have dried corn then, and want to make it into hominy. If you don't use the slaked lime, does it change the texture, and will the corn become tender enough? Without the lime, will the skin on the corn come off?
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I bought some dried hominy when I was back in the States, and shipped it (along with 40+ pounds of other foods) to Hong Kong. My Mexican cookbooks say the hominy needs to be cooked with something called "slaked lime" which isn't (to my knowledge) available in Hong Kong. Is there anything else I can use? The cookbooks say the slaked lime increases the nutritional aspects of the hominy, which isn't really my concern - I just want to make sure the hominy becomes tender when I make posole a few days from now. Unfortunately, canned hominy isn't available here either - maybe I should make some other kind of soup?
Thanks in advance.
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Tong yuen are easy to make - just glutinous rice flour mixed with enough hot water to make a dough. It should be only slightly sticky but not annoyingly so. The sweet ones have the same type of dough but are just filled with sweetened sesame seed paste or whatever (crushed peanut brittle is fantastic if you're making your own). You just shape them into small balls and boil them. My favourite savoury tong yuen soup is similar to Dejahs - low bak and dried shrimp, but instead of lap cheung we used ground pork meatballs flavoured with preserved vegetable (ong choi). We always had it around the Winter Stolstice.
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I've become such a wuss since moving to Hong Kong. It's not really cold compared to living in New York, but as Irwin says, it feels cold because it's damp and there's no central heating. But I haven't become such a wuss that I start wearing heavy coats in September - Herbacidal is right about that! It's gorgeous right now - about 77 degrees Farenheit.
But back to cold weather food. I love mutton casserole served with fermented bean curd (fu yu), all varieties of hotpot (my current favourite is the Taiwanese version which has chillies and chunks of pig's blood in the broth), snake soup (considered very warming), bo jai fan (rice cooked in sandpots - which gives it a smoky flavour - and topped with chicken and mushrooms or minced pork and salted fish), oxtail stew with mushrooms, and sticky rice with preserved meats (you can buy this as "street food" although it's getting harder to find because the government is cracking down on illegal vendors). And Shanghai hairy crabs, of course - although they're considered cooling, so they must be eaten with lots of ginger. I'm going to Shanghai soon so plan on eating lots of hairy crabs.
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I made it once when we were catering a big party - I grabbed first "dibs" on the cotton candy station. We hired a machine that heats the sugar - the centre part of the machine spins really fast and flings the sugar in fine stands around the bowl. It is SO MUCH FUN to do - at least it was for a few hours (I wouldn't want to do it as a profession). Many of the guests kept coming up and asking if they could do it themselves - they didn't want to eat the cotton candy, they just wanted to make it. It's very messy though - my hair and clothes were sticky with sugar.
We bought the sugar from the same company we hired the machine from - it was pre-flavoured. Not sure how you could flavour it afterwards except with something dry - any liquid flavouring would melt the sugar stands because they're so delicate. I also can't see how it could be savoury; as Sinclair points out, it would still have the sugar base.
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The recipe for German Chocolate Cake from Germans unsweetened chocolate was the best. Haven't made it for years though - does anybody know if it is still on the packet?
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Are these like the candied apples that always shown in documentaries on Beijing?
Like the fruit in this link? I believe they are 'haw fruit' and if I remember correctly, they were sour.
http://members.aol.com/lumabner/china/grap...2000/hawboy.jpg
Yes, that's it!! You could buy these in big bags in Shanghai. But like I said, they don't really taste all that good; they just look pretty. Like Shiewei, I also thought they were crabapples.
Shiewei, one of my friends goes to Malaysia every Chinese New Year and always brings me back love letters. I love them. They make a big mess when you try to eat them though, because they're so crumbly and delicate - don't eat them over your computer keyboard!! It gets the keys stuck and the IT guys have to come and clean it out, which doesn't make them happy.
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In Hong Kong, they have some wonderful sweets that you can only get as street food - and sadly, the government is trying to get rid of street vendors so it's difficult to find them anymore. There's dragons beard candy - really fine, delicate sweet threads that the seller fills with sugar, nuts and sesame seeds. You have to eat them immediately or it becomes hard and chewy in the humidity. Also, a thin, rice paper pancake that the vendor wraps around a crunchy wafer and sugar, nuts and sesame seeds. Again, it must be eaten immediately.
And the other day near work, there was a vendor selling those candied fruits on a long, white stick - haven't seen that in ages. Almost bought some for nostalgia's sake but then I remembered they don't really taste that good, although they look pretty. I wish I had bought some anyway, if only to support the elderly vendor.
Making Dim Sum at Home
in China: Cooking & Baking
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Maybe what chengb02 means is stuff like xiao long bao and san cheen bao that are now being served at dim sum places, at least here in Hong Kong. I also had these types of things a few weeks ago when I was in Shanghai.
At the Shanghainese restaurants in Hong Kong, they've taken on dim sum in a big way. The better places like Victoria City and Xiao Nan Guo (which is a branch of the original in Shanghai) are very popular for weekend breakfast/lunch.