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Hi fif! Caramelize your onions as usual. Then put them in a smoker. Thats it. I'm not familiar with a Weber, but I use a wok smoker and smoking pellets that I buy from Walmart or HEB, as I can't seem to locate a person locally in Texas that sells different woods for smoking. I do the same with leeks. If you intend on putting them in mashed potatoes, you can knock'em dead by adding white cheddar cheese, sour cream along with the other ingredients you would use for mashers. The onions get a strong, smoky flavor, so a little goes a long way. I also stuff prok with this alonf with thyme, cheese and other ingredients. The reduction is simple, 10# sweet onions to 2 gallons water, thyme, garlic and bay leaf. Sweat onions for 456 minutes on low heat until caramelized, add water and aromatics, and reduce to 2 cups. Hope this helps......

I found his personna very condescending. His food hit or miss. Hot Wok, cold oil..any Chinese chef with four words of English could say as prophetic a message.And there was one episode where he came THISSSSS CLLLLOSE to losing it that I just wrote him off.

Mock duck (made from pressed tofu skin) is actually pretty good but I wouldn't want to eat it constantly. You could also try hiyyakko tofu (chilled cubes of silken tofu, topped with slivered scallions, bonito flakes and a light sprinkle of soy on the side). This is absolutely divine served alongside soba noodles. The thing with tofu is to keep it as simple as possible. It's when you start to add things that the potential for gunkiness increases drastically. A dessert such as steamed tofu with honey is wonderful: steam a block of silken tofu in a wok or bamboo steamer and top with honey or honeycomb. Soba

I will never...never...never...again add chopped dried Thai chilis as the first ingredient to a hot wok...and I do not care what the recipe says...My family and I chuckle about it now that our eyes and lungs have healed..... Mark

Garlic and Black Pepper Pork Serves 4 as Main Dish. One of my favorite Thai dishes, Mu Kratiem Prik Thai. It's not authentic but I always add broccoli or snow peas to this. Serve with steamed jasmine rice. Add more garlic and black pepper for more heat. 3/4 lb pork tenderloin, sliced into thin pieces (cut when partially frozen this is easiest) 3 T peanut oil (or vegetable oil of choice) Seasoning Paste 20 large cloves garlic 1 T black peppercorns Sauce 1/4 c plus 1 tablespoon sweet black soy sauce 2 T palm sugar or light brown sugar 2 T nam pla (fish sauce) 1 head broccoli, cut into florets Seasoning Paste 1. Mash the garlic and peppercorns together in a mortar and pestle or chop the garlic and mash into a paste with the side of a knife and then mix with pepper ground in a spice mill. Cooking Method: 1. Place the garlic paste in a bowl. Place the sweet black soy in another bowl. Mix sugar and fish sauce in another bowl until sugar is mostly dissolved. Move all ingredients close to the stove. 2. Heat a wok or large pan on high heat. When hot add the oil. When oil is hot, add the garlic-pepper mixture and fry until garlic is golden and fragrant. Do not burn. 3. Add the pork. Fry about 1 minute, stirring constantly, until pork is about halfway done cooking. Add the broccoli. 4. Add the sweet back soy sauce. Cook about 30 seconds then add the nam pla and palm sugar mixture. 5. Cook just until the pork is done and broccoli is crisp-tender. Check seasonings for balance and adjust. Keywords: Main Dish, Easy, Pork, Dinner, Hot and Spicy, Thai ( RG959 )

Garlic and Black Pepper Pork Serves 4 as Main Dish. One of my favorite Thai dishes, Mu Kratiem Prik Thai. It's not authentic but I always add broccoli or snow peas to this. Serve with steamed jasmine rice. Add more garlic and black pepper for more heat. 3/4 lb pork tenderloin, sliced into thin pieces (cut when partially frozen this is easiest) 3 T peanut oil (or vegetable oil of choice) Seasoning Paste 20 large cloves garlic 1 T black peppercorns Sauce 1/4 c plus 1 tablespoon sweet black soy sauce 2 T palm sugar or light brown sugar 2 T nam pla (fish sauce) 1 head broccoli, cut into florets Seasoning Paste 1. Mash the garlic and peppercorns together in a mortar and pestle or chop the garlic and mash into a paste with the side of a knife and then mix with pepper ground in a spice mill. Cooking Method: 1. Place the garlic paste in a bowl. Place the sweet black soy in another bowl. Mix sugar and fish sauce in another bowl until sugar is mostly dissolved. Move all ingredients close to the stove. 2. Heat a wok or large pan on high heat. When hot add the oil. When oil is hot, add the garlic-pepper mixture and fry until garlic is golden and fragrant. Do not burn. 3. Add the pork. Fry about 1 minute, stirring constantly, until pork is about halfway done cooking. Add the broccoli. 4. Add the sweet back soy sauce. Cook about 30 seconds then add the nam pla and palm sugar mixture. 5. Cook just until the pork is done and broccoli is crisp-tender. Check seasonings for balance and adjust. Keywords: Main Dish, Easy, Pork, Dinner, Hot and Spicy, Thai ( RG959 )

Ah Jo-mel, you come through again. All I posted above was for homestyle stirfrying, assuming that the usage of an average gas burner of 12,000 BTUs or a typical electric burner on a home range. Blanching can be done both ways, by oil or water. Water is more amenable to homecooking, for a variety of reasons. Water blanching is rarely if ever, used for meats. Very little nutrients are lost due to water blanching, if done properly, ie; not "cooking" the veggies through. Omit the blanching done in a separate pot of water and do it in the covered wok with a bit of water or broth, of course the meat has to be out of the pan at this stage. Any restaurant serving 2 pound portions will go out of business soon, for one reason or another. I do believe that you meant one "pint", ie; two cups. Anyway, when I used to work in a restaurant, I could hardly wait to get home and cook "homestyle", which is markedly different than restaurant style. Contrary to a widely held belief, Chinese restaurant food is NOT better or worse for you than any other restaurant food. However, traditional home cooking is definitely good for you. Marinades are supposed to enhance the flavour of the meat, not mask it. There is a basic list of marinading ingredients: soy sauce, ginger, sugar, wine, vinegar, garlic, pepper. You can add cornstarch if you are "velveting". Marinades should be "targetted" as to the types of meat getting the treatment. 3-4 marinading ingredients are more than sufficient for any type of protein, any more and you get a cloudy taste. Eg; beef may only need soy sauce, garlic, tiny bit of sugar. You may want to add a little bit of ginger, wine, etc. Not absolutely necessary, but it may be to your preference and taste. Bind your marinading meats with cornstarch, tapioca flour, etc. and if the meat clumps up, mix in a few drops of oil to keep it separated. Above all, use marinade ingredients sparingly. Knowledge of harmony in Chinese cooking is that elusive quality that comes after much eating and cooking experience. Learn how to "read" a dish, then after eating many versions of a particular dish, learn or analyze why one is better than another. Describing harmony of ingredients in Chinese cooking is akin to ask an Afro-American to describe "soul". It incorporates at its base, the Yin and Yang of materials, various "humours" of ingredients and in some cases even feng shui, as in seasonal appropriateness of a dish, or where and when it is to be eaten. "Wok Hei" is the Chinese expression for describing that particular aroma that accompanys a superbly done dish. Literally it is "the breath of the wok". It comes at the juncture where all the ingredients, preparation, heat, cooking technique, and timing of the first mouthful come together in perfect HARMONY. Some professional cooks have the ablity to achieve this quality, most run of the mill takeout cooks do not. To attain this level of culinary achievement is almost reaching Nirvana. I am encouraged and extremely happy by the fact that there is so much genuine interest on this board for learning Chinese cuisine. Project, you must keep on experimenting and eating

Project " For "the hot wok is oiled only with enough oil to prevent food from sticking", okay, that's easy enough. But at times I thought that I have seen Chinese cooks use a lot of oil, maybe 3/4 C, to cook chunks of meat and then drain the meat." You are looking at two different cooking methods there. The minimal oil in the hot wok is for basic stir/frying. When you see the take-out cooks using larger amount of oil, and then draining the meat, you are looking at a form of 'velveting'. As you mentioned -- Tropp's book has the best description of this than any other I've seen. One thing to keep in mind. When you 'velvet', you can put a whole pound of meat into the 'poaching' oil, briefly cook, and then drain. HOWEVER -- when stir/frying, only put 1/3 to 1/2 a pound in the wok at one time. I'm not sure how your BTUs compare to a restaurant's BTUs, but on a normal range, a whole pound of meat in the wok at once, will cool the wok and you will not achieve the searing you wish. The wok cools waaay down, and the meat will stew in its own juice, rather than sear. Portioning may take more physical effort, but it really takes very little time, and the result is better. When you add the meat to the wok to sear/stir/fry, spread the meat out so that the meat surfaces are in contact with the hot wok. When they have seared, turn them over like a pancake and sear the other side. You want heat contact. Then stir them around to separate and mix with the oil. Stir/frying, in the sense that the meat is tossed and turned ---half in the air and half in the heat --- will not give you the piece of meat you are looking for. Trial and error. That is the way you learn. OH -- about cornstarch. Once it reaches its thickness, it will thin out if heated for a long time after thickening. Heating to the boiling point and stirring vigorously will bring on thickening. Letting the sauce cool and then reheating will break down the thickening also. That is why the thickening process comes just before serving. Harold McGees' "On Food and Cooking -The Science and Lore of the Kitchen" explains this process in depth, going into the amylopectins and starch molecules and heat and such.

Ben Hong: Thanks again! To a novice like me trying to get something at least up to the level of an inexpensive Chinese carry-out, your advice sounds good. For "all seasonings should be used sparingly and harmoniously", the "sparingly" is easy; understanding "harmoniously" is challenging! Why a sauce made of oysters and sugar should be 'harmonious' with chicken and green beans escapes me. I know how to get stuff that tastes awful; how to get stuff that tastes good, from harmonious seasonings or otherwise, I'm still missing, really in the dark. Why lily buds, wood ears, Shitake mushrooms, eggs, and shredded pork with Hoisin sauce, scallions, and simple flour and water pancakes are 'harmonious' is one of the mysteries of the universe! For "the hot wok is oiled only with enough oil to prevent food from sticking", okay, that's easy enough. But at times I thought that I have seen Chinese cooks use a lot of oil, maybe 3/4 C, to cook chunks of meat and then drain the meat. For "liquids should be kept to an absolute minimum", that has been one of my biggest questions. This does seem to be the approach of the more authentic books on Chinese cooking, yet nearly all the Chinese restaurants I have been to in the US include a lot of sauce. The only real exception was the Northern Chinese restaurant, the Peking, opened in 1947 on the west side of Connecticut Avenue in DC just south of the Maryland line, but nearly everything they did was an exception. I ate there a few times a month for several years and yet don't have hardly a clue about what they did and only some rough guesses in a few cases: For one of the easiest ones, they took whole skinless boneless chicken breast, breaded it with some flavorful breading, fried it, cubed the result (the breading still stuck), and combined it with a cool salad of vegetables, sauce of mostly chicken broth, and served the whole in a bowl lined with large leaves of head lettuce. It was a nice contrast to nearly anything else in Chinese cooking. For another of the easiest ones, they did shrimp with a hot red sauce at one end of the plate and a mild white sauce at the other end of the plate with everything surrounded with either bean sprouts or spinach. There is something similar as 'Love Bird's Shrimp' or some such in Jason Lowe, Deh-Ta Hsiung, and Nina Simonds, 'The Food of China', ISBN 1-55285-227, Whitecap Books, Vancouver, 2001. For "above all, strive for that elusive, ephemeral essence called 'WOK HEI'", I don't have a clue about what that is and less of a clue about how to achieve it although I'm eager to learn. For "unless it's a meat based dish, such as scallion beef and ginger, the ratio of meat to veg. should be 1/4 by volume, such as chicken and green beans.", didn't know that and glad to learn. For the dish I'm working with, mostly I'm just interested in the meat. The green beans are in there just for some contrast. So, right: If have 16 ounces of green beans and enough meat that the green beans are just contrast, then might have three pounds of meat, and that's a large dish. It has occurred to me before to cut the green beans back to 8 ounces. The common US Chinese carry-out dish is one US quart, that is, about two pounds. When I did the dish here, I got about 1 1/2 quarts. Next trial, I intend to shoot for two quarts. I can do it in more than one pass through the wok, but if I am going to get out all the ingredients, do all the cutting and chopping, and clean up all the mess afterward, then I want to get a lot of food for the effort -- say, two quarts, four pounds. I can do four pounds in maybe only 10% more effort than two pounds. So, there are 'economies of scale'. I can do the dish where all the cooking except for the final assembly is a 'stir-fry' -- just work in small batches. For the meat for the last trial, I used four batches. Still, when I turn off the fire (outdoors) under the wok, I want to walk back into the house with a two quart glass casserole dish essentially full. My wok is not huge, has diameter only 14", but it is all steel, Chinese, with a round bottom. The wok is large enough to permit final assembly and adding corn starch for four pounds. Last, for "very high or extremely high sustained heat is a prerequisite (for speed)", uh, I, uh, did omit details of my heat source: It's claimed by the manufacturer to put out 170,000 BTUs per hour, and that may be more power than most of the restaurants. So far my eyebrows are still intact, but there is a risk!

Project: The regular method of preparing this dish at most restaurants is quite different. Generally the type of Beans utilized are "Runner Beans" for a standard serving about 8/10 ounces is satisfactory. Beans are often broken or cut into approximately 6 inch pieces. The amount of Chicken used for this portion of Beans should be about 6/7 ounces sliced diagonally. This Chicken Doesn't require brining, but may be coated with egg white. Ingredients follow: Runner Beans Chicken Egg White only enough to coat the Chicken 8 ounces rich Chicken Broth [reserve 2 ounces and mix with corn starch] Dark Soy 1 Tablespoon Light Soy 1/2 Tablespoon 1/2 Tablespoon Sugar Corn Starch 1 Tablespoon Sliced Hot Chili, about 8/10 very thin slivers. Shredded Ginger 1 Tablespoon Chopped Garlic 1 1/2 Tablespoon Fardue Wine or Dry Sherry 2 ounces Peanut Oil to cover bottom of whatever size Wok being used under highest heat. Vegetable or Canola Oil to Deep Fry the Runner Beans at about 350-375 degree's Some Oyster Sauce may be added for personal preference Cooking Method: Preheat Vegetable or Canola Oil in suitable Wok or Pot so as to be able to submerge the Runner Beans into the Hot Oil long enough to Blanch and become sizzling bright green. Preheat your Cooking Wok, add Peanut Oil till hot Put into oil Stirring constantly the Ginger and Garlic Place Chicken Pieces into the Oil and Stir until opaque, then drain, remove and set aside. Place Beans into oil and stir quickly until covered with Hot Oil Add the Soy Sauces and Chili Slices, keep stirring. Add Wine, still stirring Add Sugar, stir Then add the 6 ounces of Chicken Broth When everything comes to a Boil then add the Chicken Broth with Corn Starch Mixture being sure that it's stirred together first. Add Oyster Sauce option if preferred. Allow the mixture to Thicken and serve immediately. Results: Green Beans with Chicken Try it you'll like it, or order from your favorite Restaurant. Pork, Lamb, Shrimp, Fish, Beef, or Pickled Vegetables may be substituted or combined together with the Chicken as you prefer. Irwin

Many thanks for the critique and ideas! JAZ: Thanks! I agree that thigh meat should be better. For a small point, a 10 pound bag of frozen skinless boneless chicken breast meat is convenient. For a larger point for me, I don't know how to work with thigh meat: When I take apart a chicken, either raw or poached, for the thigh and drumstick meat, all I get are irregular torn scraps. When I get Chinese carry-out with chicken, I get chunks of meat that came from I don't know where on a real chicken! I get the impression that some of the meat has been pounded. You are right about the corn starch ratio: For my 2 C of sauce, sounds like I should cut back to 1-2 T of corn starch. And, I should constrain my compulsion to have reproducible measurements for everything and, instead, at least for the corn starch, make a slurry and dribble in by teaspoons at the end only until I get an appropriate thickness. Thanks for suggesting the onion family. Sounds like I should include maybe 4 T of minced onion along with the 2 T of each of minced garlic, minced ginger, and red pepper flakes (chili sauce, etc.). Scallions are one of my favorites, but I resist buying them because they do not keep well. I like fresh chives, too, but see them only occasionally. I do have some nice shallots and yellow globe onions, and they should be a start. Jason: Thanks! The flavors I have are really uninteresting; with just my flavors, a Chinese carry-out would go out of business in a week! While I have included a sampling of the usual suspects, somewhere I'm missing a lot, in ingredients, technique, or both. For bottled sauces to try, have Sambal Oelek Ground Fresh Chili Paste Lee Kum Kee Black Bean Garlic Sauce Koon Chun Bean Sauce Lee Kum Kee Hoisin Sauce Hop Sing Lung Oyster Flavored Sauce Lee Kum Kee Premium Oyster Flavored Sauce Sounds like I need to try these -- one or two at a time. And thanks for suggesting the onion family. Singapore: Thanks for the suggestions! You also agree I should get some onion in there. Okay. It would be plenty easy for me to marinate the chicken in the sauce. I'll do that for the next trial. You are suggesting that I stir fry the green beans. I wondered about that. With my technique, I cook the aromatics, add the sauce, boil, add the green beans, and boil. So, I am 'poaching' the green beans but in the sauce. So, maybe the green beans are giving up some liquids with flavors that are hurting the flavor of my dish, and maybe stir frying the green beans causes these liquids to evaporate and/or cook on the wok surface and, thus, get better flavors. Also your sauce technique is different: You get the solids all stir-fried and hot together in the wok and then remove them all, make and thicken the sauce, and then add the solids back to the wok. I've seen this done by Chinese carry-out cooks. My concern has been that at times I got a 'broken' sauce where manipulations after the corn starch had thickened caused the corn starch to 'break' and leave the sauce thin again. My only solution was to add the corn starch slurry as the very last step, add it to the combination of hot solids and liquids. I got this suggestion here on eG, and so far it's worked. Still, I don't understand when corn starch thickened sauces break and when they don't. I have noticed that your technique can yield a more interesting final dish: Some of the solids remain uncoated and more distinct. E.g., in some dishes with chunks of meat heavily breaded and nicely fried to distinct nicely browned chunks with some nice vegetable chunks, say, broccoli florets, can put the sauce in the bottom of a casserole dish, put the chunks of meat in a mound in the center, and arrange the vegetables around the boundary. Then, the sauce is there but the chunks of meat and broccoli are not coated (hidden, masked, overwhelmed). Such nice things are some grade levels above my skills: I'm still in the grade trying to get the flavors up from the boring category. Thanks for the suggestion of Vietnamese chili paste. The Sambal Oelek Ground Fresh Chili Paste is from California but may be similar, may be by Vietnamese in CA. For "Lighten up on the sugar in the marinade. One teaspoon instead. And add 2 tsp salt." Thanks. Since I have brined the chicken and am using soy sauce, I'm reluctant to add more salt. But, for the sugar, having that in the marinade would tend to dry the meat. So, if I'm going to include sugar in the sauce, likely should delay that until the meat is out of the marinade. Thanks -- I would have missed that. "Welcome to the world of the Chinese Chop Suey Cook!" Yes, I'm a long way from being able to get flavors as good as in any successful Chinese carry-out. In my area of New York State, 70 miles north of Wall Street, there are more Chinese carry-outs than McDonald's, Wendy's, and Burger King places combined, and with my stack of books on Chinese cooking and dozens of trials I have only a few times done as well as they do. My improvised dumpling dipping sauce is passable, and otherwise the only candidate for a competitive trial was when I did Moo Shi Pork 20 years ago from: Joyce Chen, 'Joyce Chen Cook Book', J. B. Lippincott, Philadelphia, 1962. No kidding: I don't understand how to get good flavors in Chinese dishes. chengb02: Yes, you are correct on the corn starch. For my next trial, with 8 pieces of chicken instead of 6, for the sauce I may add water to make 3 C instead of just 2 C and then add corn starch slurry just as needed and then estimate the amount to use with a measurement the next time. Also, with so much water, maybe I should include some light chicken stock. I have some reduced and frozen I made in the French style with onions, carrots, celery, leeks, etc. I'm definitely a 'Western' person: I've frequently had decent successes with French cooking, and my Chinese efforts have rarely been better than poor. Thanks for the soy sauce suggestion: Just as a soy sauce, I do like the flavor of the soy sauce I used. I guess my surprise was that 1/3 C of that soy sauce in 2 C of sauce with 1 1/2 quarts of the final dish was too much soy sauce. Including 1 C of extra water or stock should help the situation. Else maybe I should cut back to 1/4 C and then keep cutting back 1 T at a time. Maybe what experienced Chinese cooks do with soy sauce is just add it by color -- once the sauce has enough color, stop. For "Finally, the savior of any Chinese dish is green onion and/or oyster sauce. If you are looking to add flavor, add one or the other or both!" Wow! I have thousands of pages of books on Chinese cooking, and you gave a big secret in two sentences! Sounds like I should get some green onions, even if they are quite perishable! jo-mel: Thanks for your praise! Careful planning? Yes. Good success? No! Yes, the frozen green beans are just a big compromise for the terrible sin of convenience! Thanks for the suggestion of velveting. I saw the discussions of velveting, in either oil or water, in: Barbara Tropp, 'The Modern Art of Chinese Cooking: Techniques and Recipes', ISBN 0-688-14611-2, William Morrow, New York, 2001. but I have never tried it, and the main reason is that I've been trying to get some decent flavors first and to minimize other labor on the way. Thanks for the confirmation that velveting works. For "Your ratio of sugar to vinegar is fine, if you looking for a sweet/sour dish? Were you?" Well, in part, yes. While I can like 100% 'savory' dishes with no sugar at all, here I was including some sugar, at least in the sense of the standard broad recommendation of having all of vinegar, sugar, salt, and pepper. Also I am beginning to suspect that ginger helps and works well with sugar. And I am suspecting that somehow some flavors that by themselves do not taste very good can, with sugar, be marvelous. While I wasn't looking for a sauce as sweet as candy, it is fair to say that I'm trying for sweet/sour in some sense. For "Too much dark soy, IMMHO." Yes, I have finally reluctantly concluded that. Again, my surprise, shock, was that 1/3 C of dark soy did so much and went so far. But, gee, if dark soy is so strong and needed in such small quantities, then it is just that much more of a bargain! But, one thing I have yet to understand is how a dumpling dipping sauce of 1/2 C Pearl River Bridge Light Soy Sauce, 5 T of Chinese Rice Vinegar, 1/4 C minced garlic, 2 t of dark sesame oil, and 2 t of Chinese style hot oil can taste so good with dumplings yet be way too strong and way too salty when used as the sauce for a stir-fry. More mysteries of the East! Thanks for the Hoisin sauce suggestion. I like Hoisin and can't ever understand how something with such simple ingredients could taste so good, so special, and so different from anything else. The people that mix up vats of Hoisin sauce understand much more about balancing flavors than I do, even understand more than I would guess is possible. Yes, Hoisin sauce might fix up this dish nicely. But, I've been regarding leaning on Hoisin sauce as cheating and been trying to avoid it. My best guess about Hoisin is that there is a lot of sugar in it and that somehow the sugar totally changes the effects of all the other ingredients and makes the total come out as something quite new and where even the sugar is not so obvious. For "On the red pepper -- I have a fondness for Chili Paste with Garlic. Always adds the zing I want." I thought I had a bottle but just checked and do not. I've seen it on the shelves but so far have neither bought nor used it. I guess one consideration is that in some goal of actually learning how to cook I've been trying to work by doing my own combinations of components that are 'elements', e.g., garlic alone, chili sauce alone, black beans alone, sugar alone, etc., and, thus, avoiding pre-mixed combinations. Ben Hong: Many thanks for the insight on what experienced Chinese cooks actually do! Thanks for the confirmation that such a cook would blanch the green beans in water! The nutritionists might scream about all the vitamins and minerals lost to the discarded blanching water, but my experience is that the blanching water commonly does not taste very good so that for a nicely flavored dish the blanching is important. You may notice that in my steps, I cooked the aromatics, added the sauce, boiled, added the green beans, boiled, etc. So, I did 'blanch' the green beans in 'water' but, also, did keep the 'blanching water' in the final dish! So, this blanching of the green beans in the sauce may have hurt the final flavor of the dish -- may have been the cause of much of the "uninteresting" flavor I'm concerned about. Maybe the standard practice for nearly all the vegetables -- carrots, celery, cabbage, green beans, bell peppers, water chestnuts, bamboo shoots, wood ears, snow mushrooms, baby corn, broccoli -- is to blanch and otherwise the dish will taste like some combination of leaves, grass, a cow pasture, canned flavors, etc. -- all flavors I seem to have obtained in many of my trials! So, maybe the idea is mostly just to blanch away the flavors of these vegetables and let the other flavors, the aromatics, soy sauce, oyster sauce, black beans, etc. dominate the dish. I have not read this anywhere, but I've been guessing it, and you seem to be confirming it. On marinating the meat with soy sauce, etc. and enough corn starch to soak up the loose liquid, I've tried that and can see some advantages, but my efforts tend to cause the pieces of meat to stick together during the stir-fry. Maybe I used too much corn starch. One question I have about your procedure is that it sounds like the dish would be drier than is common in Chinese carry-outs in the US where it is accepted that the customers like a lot of sauce to help flavor the rice. E.g., for a dish of maybe 2 quarts, I'm thinking of 3 C of sauce. That's a lot of sauce, much more than the 1-2 T you mentioned. Richard Kilgore: Thanks for the reminder that I should use fresh vegetables! The advice here is unanimous and uncompromising -- I should be severely chastised and brutally flagellated with a limp wet soggy defrosted freezer burned green bean, all for sin of frozen convenience! For "You also may be using too much oil, but I may not be picturing your procedure correctly. About 1T of oil in a very hot wok should be fine to start." Well, just to cook the pieces of chicken, I went ahead and put a lot of oil in the wok, about 3/4 C. For the 6 chicken breasts, defrosted, brined, drained, cubed, and drained, I cooked them in four batches. For one batch, I got the oil hot, dumped in the chicken, stirred, and dumped the wok contents into a colander set in a bowl, and returned the oil in the bowl to the wok and then did the next batch. I tried the drain the chicken thoroughly. For the oil in the actual dish, I just put about 2 T of the oil in the wok, got the oil hot, and added the aromatics. When I quit coughing from the outrageously strong aroma of the aromatics, I dumped in the nearly 2 C of sauce and continued. So, with all this oil, I'm nearly deep frying the chunks of chicken. I was thinking that this technique was common. But, sure, I can return to doing more of an ordinary 'stir-fry' of the chicken pieces with just 1-2 T of oil and still doing this in four batches and draining the chicken. Thanks for the suggestion of peanut oil. Next time I buy cooking oil, I will likely spring for my first batch of peanut oil. I can believe that it could help the flavor. Your garlic technique is much more civilized than my 2 T of minced garlic, 2 T of minced ginger, and 2 T of crushed red pepper flakes, dumped into 2 T of hot oil, that caused me to stagger back coughing! Thanks to all for the critique and ideas!

Re-reading the original thread starter message, I am again puzzled as to why everyone thinks that just because a meal is cooked in a wok, you can call it a stir fry. For quantities mentioned ,ie; the breast meat of 3 chickens (est.32 oz.) and 16 ounces of beans plus liquids and flavourings, those quantities would be much better served stewed in a pot. It should not, in the strictest sense, be called stirfrying or "chowing", which is the Chinese term. Just to soften the perception that I am a crotchety old curmudgeon, let me list a few guidelines for the neophyte cook, in a domestic setting with domestic sized utensils and appliances. Understand that I am speaking strictly of stir frying, not moist cooking, stewing, or large quantity cooking. ---when stir frying, any deep saute pan, pot or wok will do ---very high or extremely high sustained heat is a prerequisite ( for speed) ---the requirement for extremely high heat precludes the use of non stick pans, over the long run ---flat bottomed woks or saute pans are better suited to an electric burner. ---unless it's a meat based dish, such as scallion beef and ginger, the ratio of meat to veg. should be 1/4 by volume, such as chicken and green beans. ---no stirfried dish in a domestic sized wok or saute pan, should amount to more than dishful, about a pound total weight, a smaller portion is much better. ---all seasonings should be used sparingly and harmoniously. ---the hot wok is oiled only with enough oil to prevent food from sticking ---liquids should be kept to an absolute minimum ---above all, strive for that elusive, ephemeral essence called "WOK HEI".

I'll agree with most of the above, with emphasis on fresh green beans and other produce used. You also may be using too much oil, but I may not be picturing your procedure correctly. About 1T of oil in a very hot wok should be fine to start. One approach is to then add a clove of garlic and stir it, spreading the oil up the side of the work, remove clove and then proceed. Also you might try using peanut oil, which will add a little flavor since it is not as neutral as canola.

This is not a critcism, but I find that your procedure is way too complicated by far. Here's a method that restaurant cooks use when they're inundated with orders: Slice meat and prep. veggies Marinate your sliced meat in a bowl with whatever you choose as flavouring (please use a light hand with the flavours), eg; garlic, soy sauce, salt, sugar, etc. Plus a scant tsp. of cornstarch to bind. Shouldn't be any liquid standing. Heat a large pot of water to a boil. Heat wok to smoking. Add oil to wok and swirl, dump green beans into boiling water to blanch, dump meat into wok, chow a few strokes. When water comes back to a boil, spider scoop the beans into wok with the meat, chow, adjust flavour with maybe a shot of oyster sauce. At this point, there may be enough cornstarch in the marinade to thicken, if not make a slurry with 1 tsp. cornstarch and ad drop by drop, stirring the while until the proper sauce is attained. If the contents are too dry add a couple tbsps. of hot water from the pot or chicken broth if that's you preference. Add green onions to flavour, a few drops of sesame oil for "shine", serve. Total cooking time 3-5 minutes, depending on wok heat. I don't recommend blanching for tender leafy greens, only for firm vegs. like peppers, green beans, bamboo shoots, asparagus, etc.

Project: Try marinating the chicken in your sauce. Drain very well, set the marinade aside. Stir fry the chicken, remove and drain. Pour in your oil, and add the ginger, garlic, and pepper. Might want to sub sliced shallots for garlic as well, or add them in. Swirl the oil around the wok, letting flavored oil coat evenly Add in your green beans, and stir fry until color turns bright green. Add in your chicken and toss with the green beans for around 20-30 seconds, until evenly mixed. Remove from wok and drain. Pour your marinade back in. Work the cornstarch slurry in until it just starts to thicken. Season with white pepper and a bit of salt if needed. Add your chicken and green beans back in the wok, and toss until evenly coated. Serve over a bed of white rice. I've never really liked dry red peppers in wok cooking. Doesn't feel like you have enough time to get it wet enough to impart the heat and flavor. Try Vietnamese chili paste instead. It's available in almost every Asian market I've ever seen. It comes in a clear jar, usually with a green lid. Nice flavor, and good heat. Start with a 1/4 teaspoon and see if you like it. BTW you add the chili paste where you added the red pepper, straight into the hot oil. Welcome to the world of the Chinese Chop Suey Cook! PS Lighten up on the sugar in the marinade. One teaspoon instead. And add 2 tsp salt.

Did a stir-fry with chicken and string beans with a sauce of garlic, ginger, crushed red pepper, soy sauce, vinegar, dry sherry, and sugar. Flavor is not very interesting and seek critique of what I did and ideas for improvements. For the chicken started with 6 pieces of skinless boneless chicken breast meat (from three chickens) and defrosted and marinated by placing in a Ziploc bag with a brine of 1/4 C table salt and 1 quart water. For the beans, used a 16 ounce net weight package of Hanover Gold Line frozen green beans. Defrosted, cut longer beans in half, rinsed, and drained. For spice, used 2 T of each of minced garlic, minced ginger, and crushed red pepper flakes. For the sauce used 1/3 C Pearl River Bridge Dark Soy Sauce, 1/3 C Chinese Rice Vinegar, 1/3 C dry sherry, 1/3 C sugar, and water to make 2 C. For corn starch for the sauce, took 1/3 C of the sauce mixture and combined it with 1/4 C corn starch to make a slurry. For the chicken, when defrosted, after about 2 hours in the brine, drained, cubed, and drained. For the cooking, in a Chinese steel wok over a high propane flame, with about 3/4 C Canola oil, at high temperature, in four batches, quickly stir fried chicken pieces, not enough to brown the pieces. Drained cooked pieces. Leaving about 2 T of oil in the wok, added the garlic, ginger, and pepper, heated (aroma very strong), added sauce mixture, boiled, added green beans, boiled, added chicken pieces, boiled, added corn starch slurry, boiled, dumped into a 2 quart casserole dish. Got about 1 1/2 quarts of finished product. Ate with steamed white rice. The sugar and ginger together left a curious candy on the end of the cooking spoon used in the stir fry. Sauce was quite dark. Flavor was not too salty, but such a dark sauce seems like overkill. Sauce was quite thick, gave the solids a thick glossy coating, and left little liquid sauce. With the 16 ounces of beans, could use more meat, maybe 8 pieces of chicken instead of 6. Flavor edible but not interesting.

Blanching is done in Chinese cooking for cleaning and/or par-cooking. Meat was (and is, in much of the world) traditionally bought fresh-killed and not necessarily refrigerated. Blanching removes any dirt, bone fragments, and surface blood, and par-cooking means your wok timings are shorter. If your meat's clean, your recipe doesn't need par-cooking and you aren't making a clear stock, then I wouldn't bother with blanching. Browning is different - the purpose is to make a crust on the outside so that that the meat doesn't fall part in braising, or else just for the delicious beefy flavour. In most spicy beef noodle soups I've had here in China, the meat wasn't browned, just braised, but you could get a good result either way. Never tried the spice packets, but easy to do this without. Brisket vs chuck - if your brisket has a nice thick fat cap, I'd use the brisket, sliced so each piece has a little fat. If the brisket has no fat, I'd use chuck, cubed. Gotta be some fat for flavour. Yum. - Hong Kong Dave

We also, while in the city, had some less expensive, more casual, food experiences. We did a food oriented self-tour of the Lower East Side. Visited Schimmels Knishes, Russ and Daughters, Guss’ Pickles, Economy Candy, Katz’s Deli and the Doughnut Factory. The only places we ate in the LES walking tour were Katz’s and the Doughnut Factory. Katz’s pastrami more than lived up to my high expectations. It definitely helped that I had gotten a feel for the process on eGullet. We went up to the counter, in the pastrami area, and the counterman shot a slice of pastrami our way. I sampled and tipped. It was a little dry. Me-- “do you have something with a little more fat?” Him-- “you want more fat?” and he went over to the steam table, pulled out a fresh brisket of pastrami and started slicing off of the small end. A huge stack of beautifully moist, black with spice and smoke, intensely flavorful, thick-sliced pastrami on rye with a slathering of mustard. I was in heaven as I split this with my wife and ate some of her chopped liver sandwich as well. After another mile or 2 of meandering around the neighborhood, we finished it off with a coconut donut and a Valrhona donut. The coconut especially was yummy. Another day we took the commuter train up to Fordham road in the Bronx (we wanted to stop at Grand Central Oyster Bar on the way, but due to lefty upbringing was unable to cross the picketline). Walked over to Arthur Avenue (this was Thursday, which was a gorgeous spring day, unlike the rest of the week), and we planned to eat at Roberto’s first thing as we had early dinner reserves. When we walked into Roberto’s at 11:40 or so, it was a little early for them, they would have seated us but we said we’d walk around a few minutes and return. We never made it back. After a little browsing in a couple of bakeries and Tetel Brothers (sp?), the originally jewish owned Italian dry goods store, we found the open market and couldn’t resist the sandwiches at Mike’s Deli. I don’t remember the combination of ingredients on the sandwich we ordered, but he grilled it a few minutes and it was great. I loved the European market atmosphere of the place, I loved that broccoli rabe and baby artichokes and cardoons were not being sold as exotic gourmet produce, but were just out with the rest of the produce, priced reasonably. Great energy among the vendors and customers. There were a few tourists from Manhattan there, none that seemed like they were from further away than that except us. I was afraid ahead of time that the whole area might either be too precious or feel like it was in it’s death throes, but it seemed alive and thriving, with local area workers stopping in for lunch, and communal tables to eat at. We finished with a couple of spare ribs braised in tomato sauce for dessert—melting off the bone, warm, greasy and delicious. Oh, I forgot, a quick cappuccino around the way at the other deli/pizza place. My wife started pricing real estate in the neighborhood as we walked past the several fishmongers, butchers with far better and less expensive meats than in Denver, fresh produce, bakeries etc. I figure the Bronx has got to be the most affordable housing in New York, right? My mother grew up in the Bronx and never knew of the existence of the Arthur Avenue italian shops. It was not her ‘hood. She would probably dis-own me if I really moved to the Bronx. I don’t seem to be able to find my notes on chinese food, but I’ll fake it. , The Bahn Mi sandwiches from Bahn Mi So 1 (Mott and Broome) were so good for breakfast one day, that we went back for another a couple of days later. Vietnamese grilled pork, lettuce, pickled carrots, sauce on a lightweight, but very fresh thin crusted baguette. We also stopped at a place a few blocks east (Allen St maybe?) which was a small counter with very little besides dumplings, we had steamed pork dumplings and then saw them pulling this 12” diameter disc of dough out of the deep oil in the wok and had to order a wedge of the sesame pancake, which was quite tasty, a few scallions mixed in the dough, sesame seeds on the outside, fryed and it comes out looking like a big round of focaccia. All of .50 for the pancake and 1.00 for the dumplings. Both good, liked the pancake a little better. Yeah Shanghai Deluxe for lunch that same day, had the cold dish of chopped greens with the latin name—very nice, the other item we had was the crispy fried eel, which we really liked at first, but it became somewhat cloyingly sweet after a while. We had lunch at Grand Sichuan, on 9th Ave at 50th st. one day. Had the Kung Bao chicken from the fresh killed section—much better than any Kung Bao I’ve ever had. I think of it as a pedestrian dish to be avoided on most menus, but this was very good, the chicken itself was moist and tasty and the peanuts, bamboo shoots, celery and red peppers all in nice chunks, a pretty subtle dish but we enjoyed it. I just remembered it was also full of szechuan peppercorns which my wife found unpleasant, but which were really starting to grow on me towards the end. Really liked the “Growing Grass in Spring Must be Like Green and Threaded Silk”, a salad of celery julienned with green peppers (which I suspected were actually poblanos or something similar), scallions, ginger and bamboo shoots. All tossed in hot oil, soy sauce and a little vinegar. Crispy, hot!, gingery, an intense flavor experience. Also had a roast pork bun—quite good, and some dumplings, not as good. The people next to us had the string beans with pork which looked good, and they enquired about the celery salad that we had. We offered them some of it, hoping that we might arrange a trade for some beans, but they declined. Our last day in town we took the train down to Carroll Gardens in Brooklyn, and walked around the neighborhood, through Boerum Hill and visited the Middle eastern market on Atlantic Ave (Sawadi?). Which was teeming with activity on Saturday, definitely not just Middle Eastern anymore, but had a good selection of groceries. Then we stopped at a place called Joe’s Perette (also called a Latticini or something like that, is that a cheese maker?) and had him put together a huge hoagie (I don’t think he called it that) of soppressata, salami, cappacolla, provolone, lettuce, tomato and hot red cherry peppers to eat on the plane. Only half of it made it to the plane. The place looks like it hasn’t changed in 30 years at least. Not a lot on décor. The sandwich and it’s maker were full of character. In a dry way. The maker that is, not the sandwich, which was moist with vinegar and oil and delicious. Nice quiet neighborhood, more like where a Denver transplant would feel comfortable than Manhattan. We aren’t actually thinking of moving to New York, but part of traveling for us is often fantasizing and imagining what it would be like to live there. Edited to add the hot peppers to our hoagie.

We went to The Producers which we enjoyed very much. We also went to see the Blue Man group and the Korean production, Cookin', at the Minetta Lane theatre. Those 2 had a lot of similarities, both being combinations of humor, music, dance, audience interaction etc. Cookin' was pretty fun--they actually are chopping cabbage and carrots on stage as well as throwing a few things in a wok so that the smell wafts out through the audience. It is a hammy show, but the infectiousnous of the cast won us over. We are more stupid korean humor people than opera people--what can I say?!? And there may well have been hard boiled eggs in the sauce. I was assuming that the quail eggs, which I'm pretty sure were billed as poached, were intended to have soft, runny yolks. Which would have made it a much better dish, sort of a take off on the traditional french salad of bitter greens, bacon and croutons with a poached egg.

probably repeating some of the previous, but here's my short list of places that deliver for free to my 'hood (Columbia Heights). Some are good, some are not so good: Jyoti Taste of India Polo India Club Tono Wok 'n' Roll Astor TGI Thai Spices Alberto's Jandara Mr. Chen's Organic Chinese Las Marias Saigonnais Meskerem Fasikas 24-7 Taste of Marrakesh Lahore Kebab Mount Everest Pines of Florence North Sea (bad chinese, but delivers beer and wine) City Lights Penang Pan Asian Noodles George's Kantouri Tamarindo Spaghetti Garden And I saw recently that there's a place in Adam's Morgan called East meets West that delivers foot long hot dogs and sushi.

Had to get some fish to obtain nematode parasites for my student. Good haul of worms from the Mackeral and Horse Mackeral, only one worm from the Gurnard, so marinated the fillets of this fish in Chinese wine, chilli bean paste and potato flour. Wok fried with ginger, chilli, sichuan peppercorns, yellow beans and veg.

I'm sure NYC had to have black pepper sauce and mayonnaise shrimp before 1997. When we had our Chinese restaurant in Philly, we got our chef from NYC. And that was back in 1991. That's when I started eating stuff like that. How long before 1997 did the chefs start to leave HK? I would guess it would be long before and because of the changeover. A couple of HK banks opened up early in the 90s in NYC's Chinatown, but they fizzled out. Do you have any idea how the Black Pepper dishes started? Not as the black pepper in H&S soup and Northern dishes, but as in sauces over sizzling platters, and over beef fillets? Actually, I think I misunderstood your previous statement. I thought you were saying you started seeing black pepper sauce and mayonnaise scallops in NYC in 1997. Anyway, I do understand how black pepper filet is cooked. Actually, it's even better if you can find a good butcher with short ribs. Short ribs in black pepper sauce isn't available anymore in Philly Chinatown, but there's this old Jewish butcher we used to use for short ribs. I liked and still do like short ribs in black pepper sauce better than the filets. Too bad it's not available. The filets aren't bad, mind you. Very tender and they carry the sauce pretty well. Just better with the short ribs. Traditionally we used to stir fry the short ribs/filets in with sliced onions, sliced green peppers and the black pepper sauce in the wok. (At least I think we had onions. It's been a while since I've had it.) The hot plate is heated on the stove over the burners. When the dish is done, it's scooped out onto the waiting hot plate, which is itself sitting on a wooden board cut to size. It always made a nice loud sizzle as you walked through the dining room. Many customers turned their head and asked what that was. It did inspire many a copycat order. Ah, a trip down memory lane.

I'm not from New York but have been, and have had the street vendor food. Good stuff, but nothing memeorable (I'll try and really savor it next time). But I can tell you the absolute best pad thai I've ever had came from a street vendor at a nightmarket when I was in Bangkok. The lady just called it "fried noodles," and she looked about 65 years old, been cooking on the streets all her life, and had enough gunk on her old wok to prove it. It took her all of 2 minutes to stir fry the ingredients and dump it into tin foil, and man, it was awesome!

Try making fried rice (should work with brown rice just as well as white): leftover rice garlic minced scallions peanut oil light or mushroom soy toasted sesame seeds/sprinkle of sesame oil beaten egg (optional) Heat oil in wok or saute pan. Stir-fry garlic, add rice. Stir fry, add soy and minced scallions towards end. Remove from heat. Add egg to heated pan or wok. Cook until egg sets, then break up into egg shreds with chopsticks or wooden spoon. Toss with rice mixture; add toasted sesame seeds or sesame oil and serve IMMEDIATELY. Soba

Noticed this very cheap scale. I know nothing about it but it looks like it has a lot the features one wants for only $15. (Also check out the $4.49 12" carbon steel wok and the in my opinion not hideous $5 set of espresso cups) -michael