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Hi Everyone Anyone got good Scallop recipes they would like to share? I have 3/4lb of King Scallops -diver caught - but out of their shells. - If they were in the shells I'd steam with alittle soy and ginger.... a couple of weeks ago I had Scallops in XO sauce at aChinese restaurant in London and it was delicious - I have no XO or time to make it.... what else can you all suggest? Thanks - if it turns out okay I will photo and post! William

Phonetically it sounds like, "bod eye chee" or "bod eye go". It's a sweet white dessert, steamed in a tart shell. My mom used to make them and I never knew how she made it or what the ingredients were. Anyone know the recipe?

I went and purchased a giant iron wood chopping block. Made from one piece of wood - about 5 inches thick and 18 inches across. I love it! I've applied many layers of mineral oil and it is a suprisingly thirsty board. I was told that I should place a wet cloth over it of the first year or so of use, otherwise it is very prone to spliting. Sure enough, one night I did not have the wet cloth over it - and small cracks started forming, despite the many layers of mineral oil. I guess it will take a while for this block to fully cure. Does anyone else use this type of chopping block? Any thing I should be aware of? I would make me sad if it did split badly, but I want to use the board and not baby it. In the meantime, I will regularly oil it and keep it slightly damp.

I want to make lo mein as a side dish tonight, but with homemade noodles. Using regular wheat flour is there a difference to make Chinese style? No eggs I assume?

It used to be my favorite Chinese restaurant in the world....especially their Toffee Bananas, prepared table-side. I've tried Googling it but nothing comes up.

Welcome to the China Cooking forum, where we discuss all cooking and sourcing related topics specific to China for the benefit of both residents and visitors to the region. In this forum, you'll find topics about recipes, preparations, local markets, sourcing, farming and regional ingredients found in China. Not a Society member? You’re welcome to read the eG Forums to your heart’s content, but you will have to join the Society in order to post. You can apply to join the eGullet Society here. If you are new or need some refreshers, here is a quick start list of things you should know: You'll see blue text in many posts such as this: Some great reading material. These are links that take you to new pages when you click on them with your mouse. Indeed, most blue words in eG Forums have links connected to them. Move your mouse around this page to find out! If you want to talk to someone well versed concerning technical issues, visit our Technical Support forum. We ask all members to read the Membership Agreement carefully. You agree to it every time you log onto eGullet.org, and your volunteer staff look to it when making decisions. All topics in eG Forums are dedicated to the discussion of food and food only, which keeps things focused and interesting. All off-topic posts, those that do not discuss food, are subject to removal. So that you can better understand the other guidelines that keep discussions on track and the quality high, please read our eGullet Society Policies, Guidelines and Documents forum for guidance in understanding how we handle Copyright issues, external links, Member Organized Events, among other things. In the lower left hand corner of each post, you will see this button: If you see anything in a post that does not comply with the Membership Agreement, or spot something that appears to be a duplicate topic, or appears to be in the wrong eG Forum, click on the "!Report" button to send a message to the forum hosts; we'll take it from there. Please do not post on these matters in the topic you are reporting. Our members’ questions and comments make this forum interesting, exciting and useful – we look forward to your contributions. We urge you to Search before you post, for your question may have already been answered or a topic discussed before. It looks like this in the upper right hand side of your screen: Click on this link to go to an overview of searching options, including an Advanced Search Engine here. You can add a new post to the end of the topics you find, and if they aren't quite right, feel free to start a new topic. The eGullet Forums and other programs are made possible by contributions from society donors and sponsors. If you are not yet a donor, here are Ten Things You Can Do to Help the eGullet Society. In addition to the eG Forums that we all enjoy, we also have a Scholarship Program, publish a literary journal called The Daily Gullet, conduct classes in our culinary academy The eGullet Culinary Institute, and feature then archive exciting conversations with professionals in the Culinary Arts like this eGullet Spotlight Conversation with Dorie Greenspan. If you have any questions, click on the PM button on the bottom left side of any post by a volunteer in that forum. We'd love to hear from you! Remember, the eGullet Society is staffed by volunteers, who will get back to you as soon as they can. If you would like to post photos, they must be uploaded into ImageGullet. Click here for an in-depth tutorial on using ImageGullet. If you have an original recipe you’d like to post, we ask that you enter it into RecipeGullet rather than posting it in the forums. Remember that you can always link from the appropriate topic to the recipe in RecipeGullet (and from the recipe to the topic). All recipes should comply with the RecipeGullet copyright and use policy. Finally, relax and have fun! eG Forums has become the home away from home for many members, and we hope you will find your experience here enriching and gratifying!

<img src="http://forums.egullet.org/uploads/1205428244/gallery_29805_1195_6256.jpg" hspace="8" align="left">The Daily Gullet is proud to present an excerpt from eGullet Society member Arthur Schwartz's brand-new book Arthur Schwartz's Jewish Home Cooking: Yiddish Recipes Revisted. Here's an old joke about Jews, Chinese people, and food: Two Chinese men are walking out of Katz’s Delicatessen. One says to the other, "The problem with Jewish food is that two weeks later you’re hungry again." Here's another one: If, according to the Jewish calendar, the year is 5764, and, according to the Chinese calendar, the year is 5724, what did the Jews eat for forty years? That Jews have an affinity for Chinese food is no secret. The Jews know it. The Chinese know it. Everyone knows it. Until the dispersal of middle-class Jews to the New York suburbs was complete in the 1970s and 1980s, Chinese take-out shops opened on every corner of the city. It was said that you could tell how Jewish a neighborhood was by the number of Chinese restaurants. Going out "to eat Chinese" continues to be a Sunday ritual for many Jewish families; even kosher families know that there are many kosher Chinese restaurants. In Brooklyn, there’s one called Shang Chai, a play on the Hebrew word for "life," chai. Any Sunday at 6 p.m., step into Shun Lee West on West 64th Street, the Upper West Side’s upscale Chinese restaurant, and you’d think they were holding a bar mitzvah reception. Here's another joke, although it's no joke: What do Jews do on Christmas? They eat Chinese and go to the movies. Eat Chinese because those were the only restaurants open on Christmas. Go to the movies because all the Christians were home, and you could get into the theater without waiting on line. That the Chinese are not Christian is important to understanding the appeal of the Chinese restaurant to Jews. If you went to an Italian restaurant, which, aside from the coffee shop, the luncheonette, or the deli, was likely the only kind of restaurant in your neighborhood before the American food revolution, you might encounter a crucifix hanging over the cash register, or at least a picture of the Madonna or a saint. That was pretty intimidating to even a nonobservant Jew. The Chinese restaurant might have had a Buddha somewhere in sight, but Buddha was merely a rotund, smiling statue -- he looked like your fat Uncle Jack. He wasn't intimidating at all. Important, too, was that the Chinese were even lower on the social scale than the Jews. Jews didn't have to feel competitive with the Chinese, as they might with Italians. Indeed, they could feel superior. As Philip Roth points out in Portnoy's Complaint, to a Chinese waiter, a Jew was just another white guy. Italians didn't go out to eat as much as Jews. Italian-Americans spent Sunday afternoons gathering in large family groups, eating Italian food at home. The Italians and Jews continued to live together when they left their immigrant ghettos on the Lower East Side and started moving to the boroughs, along with the Chinese who wanted to leave the impoverished conditions of the Lower East Side as much as any other group. The Chinese that lived among the Jews and Italians in the boroughs were the owners of the restaurants and the hand laundries. So the Jews' proximity to Chinese restaurants was important, and let's not discount the fact that Chinese food tastes good and costs little. When I asked my parents why, when they were courting in the 1940s, their dates always ended with a Chinese meal, and why we continued to eat in Chinese restaurants as a family more often than at other kinds of restaurants, the answer was simple and obvious. They could afford it. In their youth, during and right after World War II, a classic combination plate of egg roll, fried rice, and usually chow mein cost 25 cents. The attraction of the forbidden aspects of Chinese food should not be underestimated, either. Eating forbidden foods validates your Americanness: it is an indication that you have "arrived." Although both Italian and Chinese cuisines feature many foods that are proscribed by the Jewish dietary laws, such as pork, shrimp, clams, and lobster, there are two big differences. The Chinese don't combine dairy and meat in the same dish, as Italians do -- in fact, the Chinese don't eat dairy products at all. And the Chinese cut their food into small pieces before it is cooked, disguising the nonkosher foods. This last aspect seems silly, but it is a serious point. My late cousin Daniel, who kept kosher, along with many other otherwise observant people I have known, happily ate roast pork fried rice and egg foo yung. "What I can’t see won’t hurt me," was Danny’s attitude. Even Jews who maintained kosher homes often cheated by serving Chinese takeout on paper plates. I had one neighbor who would only let her family eat Chinese on paper plates in the basement, lest the neighbors across the alley that divided the houses only by about ten feet should look into her kitchen window and see those telltale white containers on the table. <div align="center">+ + +</div> Chinese Roast Meat on Garlic Bread with Duck Sauce This is an exquisite example of Jewish crossover food, "fusion food" these days. It was a dish that made first- and second-generation Jews of the 1950s, Jews who no longer abided by the kosher laws, feel like they were truly Americans as well as urbane and sophisticated. Imagine what a scandal it was to observant parents and grandparents, what a delicious act of defiant assimilation it was, to eat Chinese roast pork on Italian garlic bread. This was invented in the Catskills and brought back to Brooklyn where, today, substituting roasted veal for the trayf meat, the sandwich survives in kosher delicatessens in Brooklyn and Queens. (It is particularly well done at Adelman's, a delicatessen on King's Highway and Ocean Avenue in Brooklyn.) With pork, it is also a hot item in diners on the South Shore of Long Island, where Jews from Brooklyn and Queens moved decades ago. By all accounts, the sandwich was created sometime in the mid-1950s at Herbie's in Loch Sheldrake, New York. It was the most popular Jewish-style deli-restaurant in the area. According to Freddie Roman, the Borscht Belt comic who years later starred in the nostalgia show Catskills on Broadway, Herbie's was where all the entertainers would gather after their last shows at the hotel nightclubs. "Specifically for that sandwich," says Freddie. "And everyone else had to eat what the celebrities ate." Herbie's sandwich of Chinese Roast Pork on Italian Garlic Bread was so popular among the summer crowd in "The Mountains," that it was imitated back in "The City." I remember when it was introduced at Martin's and Senior's, two fabulously successful, middle-class family restaurants on Nostrand Avenue in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn. In just a few years, it seemed Chinese roast pork on garlic bread became so popular in the southern tier of Brooklyn communities -- from Canarsie through Mill Basin to Bay Ridge -- that every diner and coffee shop made it. The sandwich even made it to Manhattan in the 1960s, at a place called The Flick, an ice cream parlor and casual restaurant near the then-new movie houses on Third Avenue. Eventually, Herbie's, which closed in Loch Sheldrake only several years ago, opened Herbie's International on Avenue N in the Flatlands section of Brooklyn, where many of its Borscht Belt customers lived. It, too, was a well-priced family restaurant, serving, as its name was meant to imply, a little of this and a little of that from all over. But, as would be expected in this neck of the woods, "international" was really limited to red-sauced southern Italian, Cantonese-American Chinese, and a few specialties of the Yiddish kitchen. Maybe they served French crêpes, too. Herbie's original sandwich was undoubtedly made with something other than real butter. Who knows what grease Herbie used. And the garlic flavor may have come from garlic powder, not fresh garlic. There are garlic spreads available in some supermarkets that probably come pretty close to the original flavor. If making the sandwich with pork, you might as well use butter and chopped fresh garlic. Of course, to make it a kosher meat sandwich (using veal), the fat would have to be vegetable-oil based, like olive oil. If you are making a kosher sandwich with veal, using olive oil and chopped garlic not only makes it kosher but also more contemporary. In that case, leave off the Chinese duck sauce, too, and douse the meat with balsamic vinegar. There should be a certain "white bread" quality to the roll with either version. The duck sauce used to flavor the meat is an apricot-based, sweet condiment; Saucy Susan is a popular brand. Serves 4 4 tablespoons softened butter or extra virgin olive oil 8 cloves garlic, finely minced 4 (6- to 7-inch) French-style loaves, not too crusty nor too firm 1 pound Chinese-style red-roasted pork, or plain roast veal Duck sauce or balsamic vinegar, for drizzling Chinese mustard (optional) To prepare the bread, in a small bowl, make garlic butter by working the butter and minced garlic together with a fork until well combined. For an oil dressing, combine the olive oil and garlic. Let the spread stand at room temperature for 30 minutes or up to a few hours. Preheat the oven to 350˚F. Heat the bread directly on the middle rack of the oven for about 3 minutes, until hot. Leave the oven on. Remove the loaves from the oven; for each loaf, hold it with a potholder and halve it the long way with a serrated knife. Spread the cut sides of each loaf with garlic butter or drizzle with the garlic oil. Place the loaf halves, spread-side up, on the middle oven rack and toast until the edges are browned. To assemble the sandwiches, arrange a layer of sliced roast meat on the bottom half of each loaf. Drizzle the meat with about 2 tablespoons of duck sauce, and then very lightly with Chinese mustard. Serve open with the top half of the bread, spread-side up, alongside the meat-filled bottom. <div align="center">+ + +</div> Chinese-American Chow Mein There was absolutely nothing trayf about basic chow mein. The base was all vegetables. It could even be served in a dairy restaurant, and it was. Sure it could be topped with roast pork or shrimp, but it was just as Chinese topped with chicken or beef, or nothing. Chow mein became mainstream New York food in the 1930s. It was on the menus of kosher and nonkosher restaurants, and hardly a specialty of just Chinese restaurants. Even the chichi Stork Club had a whole list of different chow mein choices. At the other end of the spectrum entirely, Nathan’s, the hot dog emporium on Coney Island, featured chow mein on a hamburger bun garnished with crisp fried noodles. It still does. Serves 3 or 4 2 tablespoons peanut, canola, or corn oil 2 medium-large onions, peeled, cut in half through the root end, and thinly sliced (about 3 cups) 4 ribs celery, thinly cut on a sharp diagonal (about 2 cups) 1 large clove garlic, finely chopped 11/2 cups sliced white mushrooms (about 5 ounces) 11/4 cups chicken broth 2 tablespoons dry sherry 2 tablespoons soy sauce 4 teaspoons cornstarch 1 cup fresh bean sprouts 1/2 cup sliced fresh water chestnuts (optional) About 2 cups white meat chicken, cooked any way and cut into strips (or red-roasted Chinese pork or veal, or sliced steak or roast beef) Fried Chinese noodles, available at any supermarket In a large skillet over medium-high heat, heat the oil until very hot but not smoking. Add the onions and celery and stir-fry for 4 to 5 minutes, until the onions are slightly wilted. Add the garlic and mushrooms and stir-fry just 1 minute. Add 1 cup of the chicken broth, cover the pot, and simmer for 3 to 5 minutes, until the vegetables are tender. Meanwhile, in a small cup, with a fork, blend together the remaining 1/4 cup chicken broth and the sherry, soy sauce, and cornstarch. Uncover the pot and stir in the bean sprouts and water chestnuts. Give the cornstarch mixture a final stir to make sure the starch is dissolved. Add it to the pot and stir it until the liquid in the pot is thickened. Taste for seasoning. You may want to add more salt or soy sauce. Serve immediately, topped with the chicken, on a bed of fried Chinese noodles. It is best when eaten immediately, but you can reheat it, gently, if need be, adding a bit more liquid as necessary. <div align="center">* * *</div> Arthur Schwartz is a Brooklyn-based food critic, writer, and media personality. New York Times Magazine has called him "a walking Google of food and restaurant knowledge." His five previously published cookbooks include the IACP award-winning and James Beard award-nominated Arthur Schwartz's New York City Food. Read his 2004 eG Forums Q&A here. Excerpted from Arthur Schwartz's Jewish Home Cooking: Yiddish Recipes Revisted by Arthur Schwartz, copyright © 2008. Reprinted with permission by Ten Speed Press.

THIS PICTURE LINK There is a link to a picture. Thx

I often enjoy this: http://www.flickr.com/photos/foodiejenius/2307464772/ when eating out at local Chinese restaurants so I was wondering, does anyone have a fool-proof recipe for it? The version I prefer is tofu and seafood. Also, I'm pretty confident that I can taste the sesame oil in the smooth sauce. It's so good with white fluffy rice

Ordered the other evening from "Golden Chopstick" at 18th & Spring Garden. Very disappointed in all aspects, from soup to nuts (well, rather, soup to fortune cookies). Anyone know anywhere better for order-in Chinese? Doesn't need to be fancy, just decent and able to deliver the basics (soup, dumplings, General Tso's, etc.). Thanks.

So, greyelf just posted a picture of Shanghai Beef Roll (Five Spice Beef, sliced thinly dressed with hoisin and wrapped in a Scallion Pancake. ) that is so gorgeous it makes me want to cry. Instead, I think I will make Scallion Pancakes. I've made them in the past but never been totally happy with the texture....they aren't the crispy flaky pancakes that I get in a restaurant. I use a basic recipe but.... Any suggestions? I am really getting hungry.... BTW, HERE is the Chinese Food Picture Album thread with all the unbelievable pictures.

So, after a few months or so travelling around china, my housemates and I have a serious baozi addiction. Problem is, after returning to Melbourne, we cannot find them anywhere. I've asked everyone, even my chinese lecturer, who told me that he hadn't found anywhere locally that does them properly, and i should make my own. Now, the baozi I am talking about are the common street seller ones from shanghai, beijing, etc. The steamed chewy doughy balls with fillings like pork and gravy, green garlicky vegetable, pickled carrot, tofu and spinach. Locally I can find the cantonese and vietnamese style baozi, but these have a sweet dough that is fluffy and crumbly, i suspect the difference is that they use rice flour as opposed the wheat flour. Does anyone have recipes for this chewy delicious type of baozi? PS. I have done a search and came up with nothing.

Nowadays when you go to a dim sum restaurant, you can see all kinds of items carried out on dim sum carts. Many non-Chinese diners simply think that's part of the "dim sum" experience. But this is quite far from the truth. Many of the items you see sold in dim sum restaurants today are simply not real "traditional" dim sums. But if the patrons like them, why not? The restaurant operators would be happy to carry those items. They would sell you slices of cheese cakes or apple pies from a dim-sum cart if there is enough demand. I am judging from my own experiences - dating back to the 60's on what I ate and saw in dim-sum restaurants in Hong Kong and Guongzhou: two of the most populous cities in Canton. The traditional: Har gow (shrimp dumplings) Siu mai (pork dumplings) Steamed beef balls Steamed spareribs Cha Siu Bao (steamed BBQ pork bao) Nor Mai Gai (steamed sticky rice wrapped in lotus leaves) Steamed Chicken feet etc.. (the list is long) Those are traditional, "real" dim sums. Now... Suckling pigs, roast goose, roast pork, barbequed pork slices, jelly fish... no. These are traditionally items sold in Cantonese barbeque specialty shops. But because of popularity, they push them out on a dim-sum cart. Congee (jook), cheung fun (steamed rice noodles), zha leung (steamed rice noodles wrapping a deep-fried crueller)... well, these are traditionally items sold in "dai pei dong" specialized in making congee. For that matter, soy-sauce chow mein too. Beef organs: tripes, intestines in a big pot... these are traditionally sold in specialty noodle houses. For that matter: wonton (soup), boiled brocolli, boiled squid or tripe. Dan tarts (egg tarts), baked BBQ pork baos, cha siu so (BBQ pork pastry): these are sold in western style tea restaurants made by their bakers. Fried "stuffed" bell peppers, mushrooms, eggplants, tofo with fish paste: these used to be "street food" sold by hawkers. "Ma Lai Goh" (Malaysian steamed cakes) - imported from Malaysia. "Dou Fu Fa" (soyamilk custard sweet) - used to be sold only in tofu specialty shops or by hawkers. Xiaolongbao - sorry, that really is a Shanghainese small eat rather than Cantonese dim sum. Mango pudding - you think this is Chinese??? As you can see, the real traditional dim-sums have rather limited varieties. As time progresses, the society changed. Food once sold by specialty shops or hawkers on the street are now included in the "dim sum" umbrella. But... food is food, right? Who cares where it came from and what classification it has as long as you can conveniently point and order from the dim-sum cart and have it delivered right to your table, right?

Roast Crispy Pork ( aka Chinese Siu Yook) I did an experiment using 8 different methods of making chinese crispy roast pork and this is the best recipe. If you like to read the thread please click here crispy roast pork experiment Equipment sharp knife pastry brush blowtorch wire rack spike hammer or a jaccard or craft knife paper towels chopping board Meat 2 kg Pork belly - try to find a dry and flat piece with a good layer of fat under the skin Marinade for meat 2 tsp salt 2 tsp five spice powder 2 tsp sugar or honey 2 tsp ground pepper 6 cloves of minced garlic 1 T hoisin sauce 1 T "meen see" chinese fermented bean paste or can use miso paste crackling preperation 2 T 40% vodka 4 l boiling water 4 tsp salt 1. Lay the pork belly on a chopping board and stretch the skin out so that it is taut. 2. Use a blow torch, singe off any bristles, pass the torch over the skin a few times at different angles. Try not to burn the skin you just removing the bristles 3. Take a sharp knife and scrap it along the skin to remove any burnt bristle ends and burnt debris. 4. Pierce the skin all over with a spiked hammer, a jaccard or a sharp fork. Or you can cut score lines all across the skin with a sharp knife at 5 mm intervals. Try to penetrate the skin into the fat layer but not to cut into the meat below. 5. Place the belly on a wire rack and place into a sink. Pour the boiling water on to the skin this will cause the skin to contract. 6. Pat dry the skin with paper towels and then rub 3 teaspoons of salt into the skin. 7. Using a pastry brush, lightly but evenly brush the skin with the 40% vodka. 8. Make the marinade, mix the salt with the pepper, five spice powder, minced garlic, hoisin sauce and meen see bean paste. 9. Turn the belly over and then cut the meat down to the first layer of fat at 1 inch intervals and rub in your marinade. 10. put into the fridge and leave over night uncovered to dry (you can leave in the fridge for up to 48 hours to dry) 11. Next day take the belly out of the fridge an hour before you cook it and sprinkle another teaspoon of salt evenly over the skin. 12. preheat your oven to 240C. Put the belly on the middle shelf of your oven and cook for 20 minutes. 13. Turn down the heat to 200C and cook a further 20 minutes. 14. Turn the heat back up to 240C and cook a further 10 minutes. 15. now place the belly under a grill and grill it for 5 minutes. Constantly monitor when this is grilling or you could end up with burnt crackling. 16. Remove from oven and allow to rest for 10-15 minutes uncovered. Keywords: Main Dish, Intermediate, Pork, Dinner, Chinese ( RG2100 )

I enjoyed this zhua fan at a party last weekend. The cook said it was not Chinese but is Asian. She sent me the recipe and it contains shredded carrot, lots of cumin, cubed lamb, onions and raisins. The whole thing was done in a roaster in the oven. It was very good. Anyone familiar with this?

This was our most successful Chinese New Year banquet yet, with eight people in attendance. Photos by yimay. Jellyfish. Everyone liked it! Kao fu. Wheat gluten, mushrooms, bamboo, etc. Traditionally, a Shanghai breakfast dish. Pork and soy sprout soup. Dumplings with pork, shrimp and scallops. Very interesting, I've never had a dumpling with scallops before. They might have been dried scallops as there was a more pronounced briney taste. Quail. "Lion's head", giant meatballs, extremely tender and fluffy. Peking duck. Ti pang, braised ham hock. Thick layer of skin and fat. Probably my favorite dish. Me, my friend Pete. Whole flounder with roe. A fish with roe is considered an auspicious sign. Mustard greens covered in "black hair" seaweed sauce. Black moss or black hair seaweed is actually an algae and is eaten on Chinese New Year because its chinese name "fa cai" (hair vegetable) is a play on words that means prosperity, as in "gong xi fa cai", which is a greeting exchanged during Chinese New Year meaning good luck and prosperity. The seaweed is mild in flavor but added a thick texture to the sauce. Eight treasure rice. The most important Chinese New Year dish, composed of eight different "treasures" in sweet, glutinous rice, similar to a rice pudding. I can't remember all eight of the treasures but they included dates, raisins, gingko nuts, peanuts and prunes. We all have iPhones! Pao's is a really terrific restaurant. If it was more conveniently located I would come out all the time. We raised $32 for the Society at this event. Thank you everyone for coming out. The Year of the Rat is shaping up to be a delicious one.

Tarantino, you did it again! It was a fabulous Chinese new year Banquet at Joe Poon's studio. Pics to follow. Anyone else take pics beside me? I think I missed some of the courses! I am a poor food pornographer. Damn near 70 of us (and about 20 newbies) partied, laughed and ate and just devoured the heck out of Joe Poon's hospitality. What a great DDC night. Kudos, Jim!

I want to grind up my own five spice powder. Does anyone have an idea on the proportions of the spices? Thanks.

I purchased a rather large (and expensive) sea cucumber for a Chinese New Year's eve dinner party I'm throwing. Everything about the sea cucumber turned out fabulously - except there is a horribly bitter aftertaste in the sea cucumber. I rehydrated it, scooped out the insides, and cooked it in water for 4 hours. Then I soaked it in cold water overnight, changing water frequently. Should I have cooked it in water with vinegar? Salt? What takes the bitterness away?

Like, say, chicken guts guts, intestines. Pig intestines strike me as sort of aggressive, something to take serious, something to boil in a clay pot with fermented tofu and cabbage. But chicken guts are just sort of silly and improbable. They're a bit soft and a bit chewy and a bit chicken-y. The chicken guts are hanging out under the quail egg, everything covered in eye-brightening, esophagus numbing soup, set on a plastic bag-wrapped plate. Anyways, what do y'all like to cook and eat from inside chickens?

One more question about Xi'an food: what makes the famous black noodles....black? thanks in anticipation, Marlena

i was reading a description about this lamb broth, Yangrou Paomo, in which the flat bread is broken up and thrown in, and there is a bowl of raw garlic to spoon in as well. i must admit that anything with a bowl of raw garlic to spoon in will catch my attention, also i love lamb. so its a cold day here in britain, we're all down with colds and flu, and i'm thinking: this is the soup for me. today. recipe anyone? thanks, marlena

潮州小吃 -- Wandering Fujian raw markets, eating street food and crazy seafood banquets, mostly in Cantonese. 鸭血粉丝汤 -- Making duck blood soup. 河南拉面美眉 -- Henan girl whipping the dough. 西安小吃中地回民街 -- Hui Chinese street food in Xi'an. 鱼香肉丝 -- Cooking Yu Xiang Rou Si. etc.

I am craving clay pot rice with cured meats... and would like to try to make it at home. I had always assumed that you cook the rice as per a normal pot (high heat to bring to a boil and then very low heat to cook through). But I've seen pictures of clay pots with jet engine burners at very high heat for claypot rice. I want to have a good amout of crunchy bits on the outside - so is high heat necessary? When do you turn down the heat?

I went to chinatown in London today and came back with just a few items. A 1Kg packet of frozen mixed seafood. A squeezy bottle of hot chilli sauce Tin of Wasabi peas Bottle of Saki What do you always pick up from oriental food shops?