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I love rice noodles too. I think in general, Cantonese people in Malaysia prefer rice noodles, e.g. hor fun, mai fun (beehoon) while the Hokkiens prefer wheat noodles e.g. tai-luk meen, wanton mee; at least it seems this way among my family and friends. Also Cantonese like the thinner type of noodles and Hokkiens like the thicker type; a good example is fish head beehoon, my Cantonese dad would go for the thin beehoon while my Hokkien mum would prefer the thick beehoon. Back to Ipoh style noodles... I think it is because the best versions seem to come from Ipoh. My dad thinks it is the water in Ipoh that contributes to a better tasting noodle, which makes it that little more slippery and smooth without addition of oil or other lubricants. The water theory may be right. Ipoh is full of limestone caves, maybe the alkalinity makes the noodles more toothsome? I don't know, just my own theory. The Penang version seems to be the most popular version found all over Malaysia. Penang style means it is fried in lard, with prawns (maybe add crabmeat for luxe version), beansprouts with optional extra of chilli sauce, Chinese sausage (lap-cheung) and semi-cooked mussels. The finished dish is a pale brown, which means little or no dark soy/ sweet sauce is used. Again, some argue that the best version is found in Penang. I've tasted really good Penang style CKT in KL as well as Penang. The critical part is the wok-hei fragrance imparted from a very hot wok by a skillful cook.

Do try asian greens. You can get a good variety of asian greens at the asian grocers / supermarkets in Australia, especially if you're in Melbourne or Sydney. I had the pak choy blanched last night with a bit of salt and sesame oil added to the water to blanch it for some flavour. We had it as a green on the side ... or rather as the green dish of a meal with rice. I was too lazy to stir-fry it in the cast iron wok last night so I just blanched it in the stainless steel wok that I was going to steam the fish in. You can have it blanched and dressed with oyster sauce, stir-fried with some minced/slices of garlic (and some slices of ginger if you like) or add some chicken slices, pork slices, chinese roast pork, char siu, uncooked shelled shrimp or dried shrimp when you stir-fry the pak choy. We sometimes poach some chicken and then blanch asian greens (sometimes broccoli or cauliflower) in the stock once you remove the chicken and there you have it, dinner is done all in one pot.

We've had some interesting Soy Sauce threads on the site before. http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?act=ST...ST&f=19&t=22120 http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?act=ST...T&f=19&t=17775& http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?act=ST...T&f=71&t=18720& Basically with soy sauce, the first ingredient should be soy beans, followed by wheat, and then water, and you should avoid ones with alcohol and salt as an ingredient. The more expensive organic soy sauces that are whole bean should be used as a condiment or dipping sauce only. The best advice is that you should buy a few soy sauces that are of good quality from different manufacturers and test them out, to find the one you like best. The bottom line is that you can make a very good home style fried rice, but its basically impossible to duplicate chinese restaurant cooking conditions in the home, even with a semi-pro range. Its all in the wok burner and in the restaurant-quality roast pork.

No : it looks like my tagine is not for stovetop use. So i'm thinking about Le Creuset. Speaking of Le Creuset, thanks for pointing to Karahi: looks great! And also their Tawa I also have recieved the Karahi and Tawa. The Karahi set looks great.. the shape is not really a Karahi shape. The tawa is not shaped like a tawa either.. wonder what they were thinking? But they are yet to be used by me... so I shall let you know what I think. I love the Lodge Wok. It has great weight to work as a good Indian karahi. You can keep stirring without having to worry about shifting the wok too much.

Matthew, in India we only deep fry in Woks. I have no fewer than a dozen woks of all shapes and kinds. Happy to know someone else uses woks for deep frying. I am buying this one to test for my recipes. I feel it is more familiar to Americans, and Lodge does great stuff, if the fryer works with my recipes, it would be a great alternative to the karahi (Indian wok) for deep frying. And yes, it hardly matters to get the Lodge Logic, but for a few extra bucks, it is worth getting the Lodge Logic fryer. I am happy giving the company a few extra bucks. They have great product and at such an affordable price. Lodge has given me and my friends and family much, much pleasure over the years. The Tarte Tatin's and the Corn Breads I bake using Lodge Cast Iron, get me far too many compliments and the least I feel I can do for Lodge is to spend a couple of extra dollars on their product. As it is, they last so well, that one hardly has to worry about buying them every few years.

It seems like there would be no advantage to the pre-seasoned cast iron for the deep-fryer, so you'd be better off saving a few bucks and getting the regular. It'll season up nicely while you fry. I tend to deep-fry in a wok, though.

jason, that looks fantastic. care to share the process? i made sloppy joes tonite. from Manwich ®. mmmmmm. Not much to it. Clear cellophane noodles are put in a bowl of warm water to open. Beef round is sliced and cut up into strips, wokked up in some oil with some soy and a shot of fish sauce, removed from wok. Veggies are sauteed up, then combined in with the beef and tossed up with the noodles with some PAD THAI SAUCE. 1 Egg is beaten and added, toss up, Eat.

Hmmm... That is a difficult question to answer... there are so many things. For example, when I am making a very delicate emulsified sauce I find that pinpoint temperature control is very useful. Often times when I do this sort of thing I can regulate the temperature by holding the saucepot in the air over the flame and making minute adjustments in the height of the pan over the flame (obviously this is something I would do only with a small pot). I never use a double boiler for things like melting chocolate, making Hollandaise, etc. These are the sorts of things where the super high level responsiveness comes into play. In terms of other things... I have noticed that my copper pans come up to temperature way faster than my other pans. Also, because they are so heavy and have such a large thermal mass, they hold more heat than any other pans I own (I know that cast iron can technically hold more heat, but I have never seen a cast iron pan thick enough to hold more heat than my copper pans -- they really should make 5 mm or 7 mm thick cast iron skillets). As a result, I find that my copper pans are simply more effective than my cast iron and aluminum pans for things like searing steaks. There is also the trade-off between responsiveness and evenness of heat. In order for less conductive pans to provide even heat, they have to be thicker and therefore are all that much less responsive. So... let's say you are trying to deeply caramelize some onions and you are down to the very last bit. One minute more and you might start burning the onions. With a copper pan, you can simply remove the pan from the heat and the temperature will quickly start going down. An aluminum pan that was thick enough to provide a similar evenness of heat might start to burn the onoins before it cooled down. Of course, you can always take the onions out of the pan, but I am only making an example... It's also nice to know that you have a pan that can get screaming hot and hold enough heat to quickly brown off a bunch of chicken thighs, but that will quickly cool down to simmering temperature when the heat is lowered and a little white wine is added (along with juniper berries, garlic and rosemary if it's me doing the cooking) and will thereafter provide perfectly even heat for a braising. Oh, copper is definitely not for everyone, I agree. That said, I don't underdstand why you would be more worried about copper cookware sitting on the stove than anything else. What do you think would happen? Personally, I'd be a lot more worried about leaving that Calphalon Commercial nonstick fry pan or a Le Creuset French oven sitting on the stove. Those pieces can really be damaged if they get too hot. I have been known to leave my Falk saucière on the stove empty for 7 or 8 minutes so it gets screaming hot for stir frying (works infinitely better on my stove than any wok I have ever tried). The next time Falk has a sale or offers an introductory price on a fry pan or a sauté pan, you might think about picking one up. I know they seem expensive, but they last a lifetime and they are really no more expensive than a fancy dinner in Manhattan for two or a DVD player that will be obsolete in 3-5 years. And if you discover than you aren't into using it, you at least have something cool-looking hanging in the kitchen. Heck... I might be willing to buy it off you if you gave me a decent price.

One secret of keeping Pak-boong (in Thai) or On Choy (in Cantonese) from turning chewy is super hot wok. You must let your wok heat until super hot, then throw in the veggie with seasonings, the a couple of turns and immdediately off the heat. I never cook On Choy stir fry at home because I don't think I could ever get the wok to be hot enough in my kitchen. And chewy on choy is yucky in my opinion.

There seems to be a lot of discussion on this board of regional Chinese cuisines. I think it might help if we had some "formalized" definitions. Here are some information about more well-known regions of food. These are taken directly from South China Morning Post: Sichuan: Sichuanese food is distinctively spicy and pepper hot. Little Sichuan peppercorns, which give an almost-numbing menthol tingle to the palate, are liberally used, along with fiery red chillis, garlic and ginger. Even soups are chilli hot. The famous hot and sour soup is as its name suggests. And a popular snack is a bowl of soup noodles with a dollop of chilli garlic sauce. Sichuan is landlocked, but freshwater carp is favoured, steamed or fried and smothered in a chilli sauce spiked with vinegar and hot bean paste. Sweet or hot bean pastes from fermented soy beans appear often as a flavouring. Sichuan's signature pork dish, usually mundanely described on the menu as sliced pork with chilli sauce, uses a double cooking process. The pork is steamed, sliced very thinly and then fried until almost crisp with a sauce of hot and sweet bean pastes. The most famous dish of the area is probably chilli minced pork with beancurd, better known as ma po dofu. Smoked duck appears as a Sichuan restaurant dish. The duck is marinated in aniseed, cinnamon and pepper, steamed and then smoked over camphor wood chips and tea. The food of nearby Hunan province is less well known but there are a number of interesting specialities including the minced chicken steamed in a bamboo tube. Cantonese: Cantonese food is the food of Hong Kong and the Guangdong province. Flavours are clean, subtle and refined and the triumvirate accent of ginger, spring onions and soy sauce are used in just about every dish. There is a preoccupation with freshness and top-quality ingredients - markets abound with live fish and fowl and leafy vegetables. Seafood is highly sought after. The preferred way to cook fish is to steam it whole, flavoured with ginger and spring onions and sizzled with hot oil and soy just before serving to emphasise its zheen or sea-fresh flavours. Almost in complete contradiction is the high esteem in which dried seafood is held. Exotica like dried shark's fin, sea cucumbers, scallops and abalone are of gourmet status and much appreciated for their textural qualities. The culinary habits of the Chinese are in no small part responsible for the endangering of many of these species, and the problem grows as China increases in affluence. Stir-fried dishes are popular and a good cook is said to have wok hay, literally "air of the wok". Soups, usually clear broths, are an essential part of a meal, and various combinations of ingredients are brewed for health-enhancing or preventative qualities. While most Chinese homes do not have ovens, roast pork and duck are popular foods. Specialist roast meat shops that serve as convenience takeaway outlets are common and provide an instant meal with a bowl of rice. Nearby in the Shantou area, the Chiu Chow people start their meals with tiny cups of strong Iron Buddha tea before beginning on their favourite starter of cold boiled crab or spiced goose, both served with a vinegary dipping sauce. Shanghainese: Shanghai has always been the most cosmopolitan and sophisticated city in China and you can expect food with savvy and style. A Shanghainese meal will usually start with a selection of small cold appetisers. These might include mock goose (beancurd sheets rolled and braised to resemble goose), drunken chicken, duck's tongue, crisp fried eel and pressed pork. Shanghainese food is rich, oily, sweet and luscious. Rich, velvety meat or fish dishes braised with soy, sugar and vinegar are a speciality, like their famous soya braised pork leg (yuan tai) which, after lengthy cooking is much appreciated for the gelatinous quality of the pork fat and skin and the depth of flavour of the soy braise. Shaoxing wine, fermented from glutinous rice, is drunk warm. It is also extensively used in cooking to produce "drunken dishes" where food, commonly chicken, is marinated in the wine. While the Cantonese prefer fish from the sea, the Shanghainese favour freshwater fish. Whole carp are usually fried or steamed and garnished with a piquant sweet and sour sauce. Tiny freshwater shrimps, usually plainly stir-fried, are popular. So too are eels which are often braised in a sweetish sauce pungent with garlic and ginger. In winter, freshwater crabs laden with roe, which come from the Yangtze delta, are a delicacy. Dumplings, fried, steamed or in soup, filled with meat and vegetables are a favourite snack. Little broad beans are included in a number of dishes and the Shanghainese way of twice-cooking long beans with seasoned oil is a triumph. Beijing: Imperial and peasant food of the north Beijing or northern food remains a hybrid cuisine. The lavish and refined dishes of the old imperial court are still evident, especially in restaurant banquet food, yet many Beijing dishes have their origins in the peasant food of the generally bleak countryside. Food away from the wealth of the big cities is fuel to keep one warm. Wheat is the staple grain and fried and steamed breads, all variety of dumplings, and noodles are popular. During the winter months, fresh vegetables are a luxury and pickled and dried vegetables are used along with the ubiquitous Tientsin cabbage, often cooked in a "milky" broth. Vinegar from Shanxi province is highly regarded and often splashed into dishes or used as a dipping sauce. Flavours tend to be intense with garlic, ginger and small leeks extensively used in dishes. The most famous restaurant dish, not only in Beijing but around the world, is Peking duck, which originated from the kitchens of the imperial court. The crisp skin is achieved by first inflating the skin from the flesh, scalding the duck in boiling water, airdrying it, coating it with maltose and then roasting. To the west of Beijing are vast stretches of Mongolian grassland. Here fatty sheep and goat are herded for meat and milk and favourite dishes include barbecues and hotpot stews. Yunnan: Yunnan, tucked away in southwest China, borders Burma, Laos and Vietnam and is home to a large number of ethnic minorities. The province is famous for salted and air-dried Yunnan ham which is much prized throughout China. Also from Yunnan comes Pu'er tea which is dark and earthy and is sold moulded into cakes. Aged teas command high prices. The area is also famous for its wild mushrooms and, come autumn, local markets are colourful with mushroom traders that range from international buyers to peasants with their foraged horde. The names of the mushrooms are exotic and have evocative names - sheep's stomach, monkey head, chicken fungus. Fresh goat's cheese, resembling mozzarella in texture and appearance, is made by rural holdings. The cheese is usually sliced and fried as a snack. Eaten everywhere as a meal or snack is the Yunnanese dish that translates as "rice noodles crossing the bridge". A big bowl of fine rice noodles in broth is kept hot by a thick slick of melted chicken fat. The broth remains so hot that thin slices of meat, fish, beancurd and vegetables added to the bowl are instantly cooked.

That does sound good--one problem with frozen veggies is that they tend to be a little soggy, but greens are supposed to be soggy. Do you substitute chicken broth for the vegetable broth? I find canned vegetable broth too sweet and am usually too lazy to make homemade stock. Here's another of my favorite vegetable recipes. I posted it once to the grubshack mailing list, but I don't think I've posted it here. Roasted chile paste, or "nam prik pow" in Thai, is a pungent and spicy ingredient that despite the name is nothing like the common Chinese and Indonesian chile-garlic sauce. It's very thick and has a layer of hot oil over the top. The best brand (and luckily also the most common, at least in these parts) is Pantainorasingh. It's in a squat round jar with "Pantai" on the yellow lid and the label says "Chilli paste with soya bean oil." It's available in several levels of heat; get "hot" if you can find it. GAI LAN WITH BACON If you're not one for bacon, try substituting some soaked and shredded shiitake mushrooms--I'm betting it'll be great. 1 lb gai lan (Chinese broccoli), trimmed and cut into 1" lengths Salt 2 slices supermarket bacon (I like Oscar Meyer), cut crosswise into 1/2" pieces 1 garlic clove, crushed 1 tbsp nam prik pow 1 tbsp fish sauce 1/2 cup water 1. Bring a pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Toss in the gai lan, bring it back to a boil, and cook one minute. Drain, rinse with cold water, and dry. 2. While you are waiting for the water to boil, put the fish sauce and nam prik pow into a small bowl and stir to combine. 3. Heat a wok or skillet (you'll need a lid) over medium heat. When it is hot, add the bacon and cook until almost crisp. Remove the bacon and drain on paper towels. You should have about 1 tbsp of fat in the wok; if there's more, pour it off. If less, add a bit of peanut or vegetable oil. 4. Raise heat to medium-high. Add the garlic and stir-fry 20 seconds. 5. Add the gai lan and stir-fry 90 seconds. 6. Add the nam prik pow, fish sauce, and cooked bacon and stir-fry 30 seconds. 7. Add the water, cover, and let steam two minutes. Serve immediately with lots of jasmine rice and other stuff.

OK, had to jump in (briefly) on this one -- sorry it's a little OT from the original post. I don't know how the restaurants make their sauce, but my Mom (a Chinese immigrant) doesn't really make a separate thickened sauce. Her usual stir-fry "recipe" involves dusting chicken chunks with cornstarch, making a slurry of soy, sherry, broth or water, sesame oil, and a little more cornstarch, tossing the chicken with the wok with garlic, green onion, and ginger and veggies stir-fried in another pan, then stirring in the slurry at the last minute and stirring until it thickens a bit. I'll see if I can get more details from her if you'd like, although we all know that Mom's don't measure.

From your mention of "lo mein and Gen. Tso's chicken", by "Chinese food" it appears that you mean essentially the food served in the many inexpensive Chinese carryout restaurants in the US. And, my experience is that this food is curiously uniform as if somewhere there were one book on how to do Shredded Pork with Garlic Sauce Beef with Broccoli General Tso's Chicken Beef with Orange Flavor etc. This food also has some other advantages: o Cost. It does appear that the ingredients for this food are remarkably inexpensive. So, don't need many truffles or much 'foie gras'. o Popularity. These Chinese restaurants have had a good and stable business going for years. At lunch or dinner time, they commonly hand over sacks with 1-4 dishes for $5 to $35, one sack every minute or so. Although I live in a very rural area of Upstate NY, I can think of at least five of these restaurants close to me and several more not much farther away. Curiously, I believe I can think of more of these Chinese restaurants near me than McDonald's, Wendy's and Burger King restaurants combined. Interesting. o Ingredients. It does appear that nearly all the ingredients these restaurants use are not very difficult to get. These restaurants are doing a lot with yellow globe onions, carrots, celery, various forms of cabbage, broccoli, beef, chicken, pork, eggs, corn starch, soy sauce, garlic, ginger, white button mushrooms, bean sprouts, canned water chestnuts, canned bamboo shoots, canned straw mushrooms, chicken broth, hot peppers, cooking oil, and long grain white rice, and these ingredients are readily available in the US in high quality at low prices. o Novelty. The food in these restaurants really is quite different from other popular food in the US. Maybe the food is not authentically Chinese or the same as one would find in Taiwan or China, but it is quite different from what is in US or European cooking or in corresponding cookbooks. o Labor. It is easy to watch the cooks at these restaurants, and they do their work very quickly. Sure, there is prior preparation, but the effort is clearly not enormous. Net, the labor required is comparatively small. o Efficiency. And, beyond just what the restaurants do, there is more efficiency in the whole 'supply chain': Clearly the rice is easier than the McDonald's hamburger buns. And, the soy sauce is easier than the McDonald's mustard, pickle, or catsup. The efficiency is not uniform -- wood ears may be harder than pickles. But, generally, there is some good efficiency in this Chinese cooking. Net, this cooking is doing a lot efficiently. Sure, a suitable heat source would be good, but I believe that King Kooker Manufactured by Metal Fusion, Inc. 712 St. George Ave. Jefferson, LA 70121 (504) 736-0201 Model No. 88 PKP "FOR OUTDOOR USE ONLY". "170,000 BTU CAST IRON BURNER". I bought at Sam's Club a few years ago has power enough and is suitable -- outdoors. So, it would be good to have a good cookbook to show how to cook such food at home. And, this objective has been noticed: E.g., this objective is mentioned prominently in Linda Drachman, '365 Ways to Wok', ISBN 0-06-016643--6, HaprerCollins, New York, 1993. But, I don't believe that in this book the author does very well achieving this objective. If you find a cookbook that explains what these Chinese restaurants are doing, then by all means tell the world! I have been able to find no such book. The cookbooks want to be more authentic, and perhaps many of them are, or want to be simplified to provide 'fast, easy recipes you can prepare quickly and easily to feed your whole hungry family and that they will all love' or some such. Telling people how to do what the restaurants do seems to be lost somewhere between the woks and the bookstores. It is easy to suspect that the restaurants are in business based on what people think of the food being sold while the cookbook publishers are in business based on cover pictures, celebrity authors, various promises of getting love and approval from happy family members, etc., i.e., lots of things other than the food itself. For the next book signing ceremony, I believe I would like to pass up the signature and, instead, see the author work directly from recipes in the book; then I would like to taste the results. One of the differences is illustrated by the two dishes you mentioned "lo mein and Gen. Tso's chicken". The first has long been common in the US but is regarded as a terrible US distortion of some of Cantonese cooking and, therefore, not worthy of instruction. Still, "millions" of orders have been served to customers that return for more. For General Tso's chicken, that appears to be a speciality of the restaurants, and just how they do it has been regarded as too commercial or some such for the books. Still, the dish is darned popular in the restaurants. Broadly there are other differences: o Sauce Volume. The restaurants typically include a lot of sauce. For eating with rice the sauce is convenient as a way to flavor the rice. The cookbook recipes usually provide much less sauce. Possibly one reason for all the sauce from the restaurants is some requirement from their business liability insurance: To be protected, the rule seems to be that just before the dish comes from the wok the last time, all the solids will be fully submerged in boiling water-based sauce. There are some exceptions: E.g., maybe the chicken pieces in General Tso's chicken were deep fried and the sauce was boiling and then the two were combined. And, maybe the broccoli was also added separately -- but, in my watching the cooks, it appears that the broccoli was also parboiled separately before being combined. Also, we can begin to see that these restaurants seem to be moving away from fresh pork: So, they want to provide stir-fry dishes where the pork was previously roasted. Having the fresh pork stir-fried in some oil and then submerged in boiling sauce should be sufficient for all purposes except possibly for convincing a skeptical jury -- so, the pork gets cooked three times: (1) roasted, (2) stir-fried, and (3) boiled. So, the pork gets overcooked, beef and chicken become more popular, and Sam's Club is selling whole pork loins, very well trimmed, for 1.99 dollars a pound. Hmm? o Oil Content. The cookbooks commonly have us stir-frying vegetables in oil, lots of oil, even 1 C of oil just for a little broccoli, and including the oil in the dish. While the restaurants did get some bad publicity a few years ago from using far too much oil, my observation is that they have greatly reduced the amount of oil to reasonable levels and to far below what is in many of the cookbook recipes. o Poaching. Many of the cookbooks seem to ask us to stir-fry the vegetables, including broccoli, while my observation of the restaurants is that they usually parboil the main collection of vegetables. So, there is mystery here. Or, the question millions, or perhaps at least thousands, of US carryout customers are asking: "How'd they DO that?". For just some recipes, there is Joyce Chen, 'Joyce Chen Cook Book', J. B. Lippincott, Philadelphia, 1962. The Moo Shi Pork there is easy to do, tastes good, and is similar to, generally drier than, generally better tasting than, what is in the restaurants. But, mostly what the restaurants are doing is not in this book. Of course, could go to the people with a high interest in helping people cook such dishes. So, we should go to the Web site of, say, Kikkoman? Did that. Found lots of 'fast, easy tasty delicious recipes to perk-up the lagging appetites of your whole family', lots of roast ham with maple syrup and soy sauce, Fajitas and soy sauce, etc., but not a hint about anything that would keep one of these restaurants in business even for a week. Of course, it is easy just to take some soy sauce, chicken stock, dry sherry, rice vinegar, corn starch, etc., and start improvising stir-fry sauce. The cookbooks say to use dry sherry; it's tough to believe that the restaurants use any of it; but, I bought some. Hmm. My experience is that it is easy to get (1) far too much salt from the soy sauce, (2) a flavor that is comparable to but a less good than the average dishwater, (3) canned chicken broth that is not so good, and (4) a corn starch thickened sauce the 'breaks', that is, thins out, soon after the dish is assembled. The Web site for Argo gives a long list of reasons a corn starch sauce will 'break', but I have yet to find any discussion of sauces breaking or how to avoid it in the Chinese cookbooks. I am beginning to conclude that the restaurants are not using Argo corn starch! In my last experiment, my 'stir-fry' sauce thickened with Argo corn starch was fine in my stainless steel pot, for over 30 minutes -- no evidence of breaking at all. And, the sauce had nice color and was glossy. Then, when I combined with the stir-fried chicken and the poached broccoli, BOOM, the sauce leached color from the broccoli, turned a color a good match for dishwater, got cloudy, tasted awful, and 'broke' into cloudy thinness. Flush, slosh, slosh. The septic tank bugs ate well that night. Clearly, for an answer, one solution would be to get (1) someone good with both English and the Chinese spoken by the cooks, (2) some of the cooks, (3) a capable careful Westerner that wants to learn, and (4) a cookbook writer, and, then, with this crew, teach and practice over and over until the Westerner can reproduce the dishes and the writer can describe the work clearly enough for other Westerners to be able to reproduce the dishes just from the writing. Sounds like a book for the series 'Dummies'. And, maybe there is one. Or, maybe the main cookbook has already been written, by the insurance companies as in "This is what we are willing to write liability insurance on." which would help explain why the food is so similar.

Adam, Thanks for the link to those notes. Reading them triggered memories, and I know that after reading about panelle and le vucciria I made a special effort to seek them out. In Cefalu we found a small bakery that made panelle panini, and I went back almost every day for the soft roll filled with several layers of the thin chick pea frittter. In le vucciria, Palermo's old market that Robb describes as having been completely altered since his first visit, we wandered around but kept coming back to the food sections. I had a sandwuch in the meat stalls that was incredible. The vendor had a crude wok-like pan (maybe an old hubcap) set on a propane burner at an angle. He'd pour a bit of olive into it, slide some thin slices of beef into the oil, cook for a few seconds, then squeeze half a lemon over it before sliding into a roll. We had several interesting conversations with Sicilians about the mafia. It's still a force but not nearly so obvious as in the 1980s, altho' caravans of carabinieri screaming through Palermo were a common sight. We went to Trapani to see the high-end shops frequented by the mafia wives that Robb described, and in a trattoria there watched a very large man be treated deferentially by the owner and speculated about his connections. But we always felt safe in Sicily, and it’s probably our favorite place in Italy. We’re planning to go back next spring. Jim

Dinner last night at Mirchi, 29 Seventh Avenue South (b/w Morton and Bedford) 212/414-0931. This was my second visit to this Indian restaurant and I liked it before, but it’s even better than it was a few months back. The prices have gone up (starters Ŭ to Ű, and mains ผ to ร). For 3 of us it came to 贬, so it’s a bit more than your run of the mill Indian. But it’s worth it! Chicken tak-a-tak. This is cooked in a tawa (a bit like a wok, I think) Succulent pieces of chicken in scrumptious spices, with a little vinegar-y flavor. It comes with a little bread roll. I learned (on chowhound when I posted about Mirchi following my first visit) that this dish is served as street food in India. The roll on my first visit had the consistency of a hamburger roll. This time, it had more texture, tho’ to be honest I’d prefer a naan. Palak Bhaja: Spinach battered and fried. This was fantastic and beats the usual onion variety. I went for Gosht Vindaloo. The lamb wasn’t the most tender I’ve tasted, but the flavors were deep and spicy hot. Our chum had Jaipuri lal maas: lamb with combination of 30 chilies (at least that’s what the menu says). He loves his food spicy (and having spent years in London seeking out the hottest Ceylonese curries he likes his heat) but at one point in the meal I thought he was going to go into anaphylactic shock. His face turned red and his eyes puffed up. Didn’t stop him finishing the lot. My husband was pleased with his Changeze Champe: Spiced lamb chops. Great thick raita, naan and daal. HUGE portions. Your main course comes all on the plate (as opposed to in little separate dishes), and my husband for one would prefer that they not do this. It’s a nice place. Clean design but cozy and comfy at same time. PS: For chile nuts like Jason. I quite from the menu: “Some like it real hot! India recently uncovered the hottest food on earth. The Tezpur chile…a fiery 855,000 on the scoville scale….the white-hot habenero chile rates only a cool 577,000”. http://www.mirchiny.com/ Cool web site.

30,000BTU professional wok burner (approx 񘧸) for the kitchen we are redoing. Dont have the space for it. Definitely over the top, but god do I want one. :)

Peanut oil and vegetable oils are fine, though they do leave a bit of a sticky residue that solid shortening doesn't. But certainly the Chinese have been seasoning their woks with peanut oil for awhile, and it seems to work. You'll be fine with any of the above. Just steer clear of fruit oils such as olive (though, again, it is the default oil in some cultures -- but it's not the most effective choice). Once you've created the initial seasoning coat, you can reinforce it with pretty much any fat. But it's best to build on a layer of shortening.

Taste. The menu supplies the following definition; to have experience or enjoyment; savior. That is exactly what we did at this one week old restaurant. The Asian American cuisine is very good and Chef Jason Russo is a name to remember. Make a reservation here before the reviewers create a month long wait. The restaurant is located in a nondescript strip mall at 21 Belleville Ave, Bloomfield. The outside with a wall of block glass and large Asian pots creates an elegant mood before you even enter the restaurant. The interior is white on white with splashes of color. A Buddha surrounded by candles looks down on the restaurant and a red and black Oriental design creates a focal point on another wall. The restaurant is sleek with a wood floor and tables set far apart. The upstairs balcony is for smokers. Service was not up to par but hopefully as this establishment gets going minor mistakes will be corrected. The server did not know the menu but cheerfully went back into the kitchen to get the answers to every question I asked. For example, we were brought an amuse bouche of finely chopped "something" on pita bread. When we asked what it was we were told that it was chopped olives. It didn't taste like olives and eventually we learned that it was a mushroom/asparagus duxelles. When we asked what the soup of the day was the waiter didn't know and had to go back to the kitchen again to ask. We asked about an unknown wine on the small wine list. It took about 10 minutes for the waiter to bring back the information. The restaurant was empty with only one other table being occupied and a large staff with nothing to do. And please, when customers leave a restaurant and staff is standing by the door say "goodbye." But enough about the service problems which many people feel comes with the territory in a restaurant that is one week old. The food is attention grabbing and very good. For appetizers we had delicate steamed vegetable dumplings that didn't come with a spicy sesame oil that is listed on the menu but with a fabulous spicy homemade mayonnaise. We also had a wok seared, al dente, long beans and baby bok choy in a lip smackin' sweet chile sauce. Both were delicious. A plate for two or four people of the chef's daily selection of sushi, maki and sashimi is also available as well as salads and noodle dishes such as lo mein or pad Thai. For entrees I had an excellent salmon poached in yuzu (a Japanese citrus fruit) and soy broth served with baby carrots, squash, with rice. I took my spoon and finished all of the sauce. The fish was juicy and not overcooked as often happens in poaching. If you are looking for a light low calorie dish this one is for you. Lowell had a blue wasabi roasted chicken with a Fuji apple demi glace, baby vegetables and potato wedges. The chicken was also quite tasty and juicy but we expected it to be spicier because of the wasabi. Next time we would like to try the Szechwan pepper rack of lamb; Japanese eggplant stir fry with chicken; or the pork chop rubbed with cinnamon and five spice powder. We shared raspberry fruit filled fried wontons topped with crème fraiche for dessert. They were fabulous but the portion was too small. Please give me four wontons next time! Lowell had coffee which was awful. With four glasses of wine @ŭ each, tax and tip the bill was ๯, Be sure to read the other postings. Other posters beside myself have had problems here since this report. (Edited by Rosie at 7:03 am on Jan. 31, 2002)

Tofu is often deep-fried (to make it chewy and give it crisp edges) and then stir-fried (with or without other ingredients) in a sauce. This is a common technique in many Asian cuisines. You can make your tofu similarly chewy by freezing it, thawing it, pressing out the water, and then adding it to a stir-fry, but it isn't quite as tasty as the fried stuff. I know, tofu isn't regarded as a vegetable in most peoples' minds. Work with me here. :) I also recently had a tempura dish where coated, fried veggies and tofu were quickly tossed in a wok with a thin, clear spicy sauce. That was pretty tasty. But then, I like anything fried.

Thanks, BH! Let's all start referring to these as "Blue Heron's green beans." You've got to love a cookbook that includes the phrase, "If you have only one wok..." I love the Szechuan green beans at Wild Ginger, but I love all Szechuan green beans. This is what I always order if I see it on the menu at an iffy Chinese restaurant--even tired, tough supermarket green beans emerge from hot oil transformed.

This is the recipe for one of my favorite restaurant veggie dishes, Wild Ginger's Sichuan Green Beans. The recipe comes from Best Places Seattle Cookbook by Cynthia C. Nims & Kathy Casey www.kathycasey.com , Sasquatch Publishing copyright 2001 www.sasquatchbooks.com. They gave me permission to post this recipe to www.egullet.com, and I've referenced this link back to them. Wild Ginger's Sichuan Green Beans At Wild Ginger, the green beans are first deep-fried and then stir-fried with the remaining ingredients, using 2 separate woks. If you have only 1 wok, use a saucepan for deep-frying. Simpler yet, stir-fry the green beans in the wok until they begin to turn brown and blister, then continue as directed. The double-whammy technique of deep-frying and stir-frying produces the best, most flavorful results, however. Note that the green beans must be fully dry before adding them to the hot oil for frying. If any water is clinging to the beans, they'll sputter violently when added to the oil. You'll want to rinse the preserved vegetable under cold running water before using, to wash away excess salt. Sichuan preserved vegetable is available in Asian markets and on well-stocked grocery shelves. Peanut or canola oil, for frying 2 T soy sauce 2 t rice wine vinegar 1 t sesame oil 1 t sugar 1 lb. tender green beans, trimmed & thoroughly dried 2 T minced lean pork 1 T minced Sichuan preserved vegetables 1 t dried red pepper flakes POUR THE OIL to a depth of 2-3 inches into a large, deep, heavy saucepan & heat over medium-high heat to 400 F degrees (the oil should come no more than halfway up the sides of the pan). WHILE THE OIL IS HEATING, whisk together the soy sauce, vinegar, sesame oil, and sugar in small bowl. Stir until the sugar is dissolved & set aside. WHEN THE OIL IS HOT, fry the green beans, in small batches, until lightly browned & blistered, 1-1/2 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, transfer the beans to paper towels to drain. Allow the oil to reheat as needed between batches. HEAT A WOK over high heat until very hot, then add 1 T oil (it will begin smoking right away). Add the pork, preserved vegetable, and red pepper flakes & stir-fry for 10 seconds. The pepper flakes will give off peppery fumes, so be prepared with an exhaust fan or nearby open window. Add the soy sauce mixture & heat, stirring, for about 15 seconds, being careful not to burn the sugar. Add the green beans & toss until most of the liquid is reduced & absorbed by the beans, about 30 seconds. TRANSFER THE BEANS to a warmed platter & serve.

1) I can't believe no one mentioned a wok. I use my wok several times a week, and not just for Asian food. It is also really good for preparing the sauteed part or sauce for pasta, because it is large enought to mix in the pasta after draining. Although done less frequently, it is also the pan I use most for deep frying (that or cast iron). Don't get a fancy brand name wok, and heaven forbid a non-stick one; these should preferably be bought at an Asian grocery or hardware store in any Chinatown. 2) Cast Iron Skillet, bought at a hardware store. I use it for anything that needs browning. 3) 2 qt pan, Revere stainless steel w/copper bottom (from newlywed set) mostly used for sauces or smaller portions of things, like warming soup. Gift alert: What I really need is a saucier or evasee like Steven's cause I hate it when I'm making a sauce and the wisk doesn't get in the corners. 4) Stock pot. I have a 6 and 8 qt Revere stock pot, but would ditch them both for one 12 qt. 5) Non-stick skillet. I primarily use a 6" Circulon and almost exclusively to make eggs. Jason ruined the larger non-stick Revere skillet I got with my set when he used a fork on it!!! :( So he is banned from using the Circulon. I have a lot of other pieces and sizes, but these are probably all "I can't live without."

I'm not sure what to say about you thinking Cathay 22 is "past its prime." It may not be cutting edge but you can eat well there and it's nearby -- aka Not in Bergen County/Hackensack/Englewood. Any restaurant 20 years old probably meets the definition of past its prime. Unless you want to travel then the choice -- between Cathay 22 and the 800 "hunan woks" in the area with the colorful photographs of General Tso's chicken above the counter -- is pretty easy.

Very interesting, Holly. I think I’ve been working intuitively. My fries are probably around the same size, but I cut them by hand, and if I’m using the plunge into hot oil (single or double) method, I test the temp of the oil by putting in one fry to see if it sizzles. Using a thermometer would be safer. Cooking times I do not have down pat. I go by color, tho I know some pots will not brown as much as others. I too go for Idaho. And I totally agree: shoestring fries are not fries. Whoever invented them needed their head examined! Quick question too. Plunging things into water or oil—are both considered blanching? This is an aside: Nigel Slater whom I much admire suggests par boiling pots before roasting and shaking the pan about when drained. They get beautifully flaky and come out terrifically crunchy when later roasted in goose fat. But roast pots probably deserve another thread. Final question on fries. Do you use a basket in the pan during the cooking process? Pros and cons? I haven’t in a few years and instead use a scoop (that I associate with Chinese cooking (very flat wired thing, ladle shaped)) to retrieve them when done. Jason, I've not used a wok for fries. I use my All-Clad pasta pan. It's deep. And you’re probably going to laugh and see me as a waster. I throw away oil after one use. Lard would be another matter. I’d use that again to fry my fries!

The best deep fryer in the world is a 25 dollar hand hammered wok purchased in chinatown. No home deep fryer unit comes close. Fill with peanut oil and fry up whatever you want. Just remember to reserve your frying oil using a strainer in a plastic vessel (those plastic deli soup or chinese soup containers work great) to get out the burnt bits floating around. You can probably reuse the oil half a dozen times before changing it.