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I want to get together with some friends who were on a trip to China with me and thought that a Chinese New Year banquet would be perfect. I have contacted Howard Seftel who referenced a banquet he attended a few years ago at China Chili--however, when I called the restaurant said maybe an additional seafood dish but no banquet this year. Other restaurants either had no banquet or indicated that their menus were robust and they would not do anything extra, eg Flo's,Golden Buddha, China King. The C Fu Gourmet has a banquet with tables of 10 at $30 per person which is a possibility. I hope that some of you might have some suggestions. The Philadelphia thread had a banquet that sounded delicious but I'm not prepared to fly there. This is my first post. I look forward to your input. Thanks. suegullet

I wanted I'd share this little nugget of information I learned yesterday from a ex-pat HK'er. She informed me that the cut of pork to use in congee is called "but geen tien"/"never saw the sky" cut. She told me it's essentially the armpit of the pig. Considering pigs don't have arms or armpits, I'm wondering if this is the same as pork shoulder/Boston butt. Also, you're supposed to salt whatever raw meat you're using for ten hours to overnight prior to cooking it in congee. This is very interesting for me and I wanted to pass it on in case anyone had the congee jones like I do. Sidebar: I thought this was a cut of bone & meat instead of just meat. When I asked for it at the butcher counter, I said, "but geen tien guot". The staff gave me a long winded lecture that it's "but geen tien YOOK" and not "but geen tien GUOT" (yook=meat; guot=bone). Actually, they were rather rude about the whole deal. So being the well raised American-born Chinese woman that I am, I told them alright, I was wrong, stop being so long-winded and give me the meat if you have it. Ah, Chinese service. Gotta love it.

Yes, you read the topic description correctly! This is going to be a week's undertaking with hopefully a crew of a dozen or more. This all began with the major influx of Chinese permit workers sponsored by Maple Leaf hog processing plant. To help them adjust to Canadian life, my brother and I were asked to form the WestMan Chinese Association. Then, one thing led to another! On January 31, Feb 1st. and 2nd, our city is holding it's 5th WinterFest with 13 countries hosting pavilions. This is the very first time for a Chinese pavilion as we now have enough volunteers! Six of the workers were chefs in China, and we've had several opportunities to taste their skills. Each pavilion will feature food and entertainment. Our menu is pork, pork and more pork: siu mai, jiaozi, char siu, and a sweet'n'sour pork (with red dates and chili peppers - a new one for me). As all of these newcomers are Maple Leaf employees, we requested a donation-in-kind from MP. We thought we would need 60 casesx 20 lbs = 1200 lbs of boneless pork butte, and whatever they would donate would be great, and we'd buy the rest at wholesale. Maple Leaf decided to donate ALL 60 cases, and each case = 20 KG! So, Happy Happy Joy Joy! A local meat processor/abattoir (a supplier from my restaurant days) has offered to grind 600 lbs for us - free! We have a vacant bakery at our venue (a downtown mall) for prep: walk-in coolers, walk-in freezers, huge work table, 2 commercial Hobart mixers. The Chinese fast food outlet has offered the use of their kitchen as normally after 6 pm, they are closed. We will have a 4 burner gas stove, 3 woks, and 2 deep fryers. In conversation with other pavilion organizers, we can anticipate an average of 1000 meals each of three days. Last year was the first time for the English pavilion and they had over 5000 visitors - altho' not everyone ate. Our $8.00 platter will include 3 siu mai, 3 jiaozi, Cantonese lo-mein, s'n's pork, char siu, and noodle cake for dessert. Otherwise, each "item" will be $2.00 (eg. 3 siu mai). There will be Tsingtao and Yanjing beer as well as a red wine called Great Wall - quite a nice red. Our entertainment includes amazing vocal stylings(Chinese opera, pop, folk), tai-chi, traditional dances, acrobats from China, weaponery, lion dancers, traditional instrumentalists, magic face-changing, etc. etc. It's been a busy two months of meetings, bookings, organizing, and chasing down people. It's much like restaurant logics, but at least it's short term! Spring Festival follows on the heel of this event. This is usually hosted by the university's Chinese students association. It's popularity has grown tremendously (from just students to 500 guests last year!), and will be especially busy this year because it will be a first time away from home for many of the newcomers. Because it is so close to WinterFest, it was postponed until Feb. 23. The students are particiapting in the community event, so we will help them. This is really the first time for full participation of all the Chinese community: Cantonese, Toisanese, Mandarin speakers. It's an exciting endeavour! For more details: www.westmanchinese.com

I usually red cook these (hong shao), by braising on high heat with soy sauce. However, the cartilage always ends up pretty tough. I've had much softer cartilage from several restaurants. What's the secret? I've braised for an hour and a half without making much progress. Should I try longer time, lower heat? This preparation I had at Metropole in Hong Kong is one of the best that I've had. The cartilage is soft and the ears are pressed together then sliced into sheets. How does one go about pressing them together? Do I need some industrial-level equipment?

Does anyone have a recipe for Glaceed Bananas? My mom used to make this when I was younger and I couldn't find a recipe online. Cheers, Yi

I just saw the episode of Anthony Bourdain's "No Reservations" on "Hong Kong", in which he visited a restaurant in Lan Kwai Fong (I think) where the owner/chef is a Chinese but he cooks/prepares the Chinese food ingredients in a anti-traditional way. Anthony described him as "taking the traditional Chinese ingredients or recipes but completely turning it upside down to create something new". One example is: (If I heard it correctly) he takes the Chinese sausage (laap cheung), grind it up, and mix it into ice cream? I think that's quite an idea. Has anybody eaten at that restaurant or something similar to it in Hong Kong (or elsewhere)? What is your impression of those traditional Chinese ingredients/recipes prepared in an anti-traditional way? Do you like it? I think running such a restaurant in Lan Kwai Fong makes sense because it is a place frequented by foreign visitors who may like innovative ideas. But I don't think such eateries would be easily accepted by the locals.

I swear I've asked this question on here before but for the life of me, I can't seem to find the thread. Those lamb skewers they sell that are ubiquitous around Beijing, what are the spices that they use for that? I've tried searching for it but there are scant few mentions of recipes. There's definately Chile and Cumin but I have no idea what else is in there.

I saw on a menu recently "Baked Silverfish with Egg". Unfortunately I didn't get a chance to go to that restaurant, and have since left the city. The restaurant servs all kinds of interesting stuff, Deep Fried Whole Squab, Geoduck, Maw etc. along with the usual congee and seafood fare. The only thing is, I don't even know what Silverfish is! The only actual fish I can find by that name lives in the antarctic and I doubt that is the one. Anyone know anything about this dish, or even a recipe?

This summer we will be taking overland-overnight trains in China ending in Shanghai. We are independent, budget travellers with two toddlers. How is the food served on the trains? We would be having all meals on board. Are their food vendors on the platforms for quick take a way? Any advice,comments or observations would be most appreciated. Thank you.

A few restaurants in our town serve the dish "Empress Chicken" ("Kwai Fai Gai" in Cantonese). Invariably, they serve the chicken chilled. Not in room temperature, but chilled in the refrigerator. To me it seems that Empress Chicken is just the same as White Boiled Chicken (Bak Jum Gai). Am I off? What is the difference? And why chilled? I can understand serving it in room temperature. But why deliberately refrigerate the chicken before serving?

I'm thinking of making green onion and ginger chicken like the ones at restaurants. It's a whole chicken cut up and tops with green onion and ginger and I think hot oil. The main question I have is how to cook the chicken. Is it steamed? Or is it boiled? I vaguely remembered from I don't know where that you can put the chicken in a pot, cover with water, let it come to a boil, put lid on, turn stove off and let the chicken sit for 2 or so hours and the chicken would be perfectly cooked. Anyone ever heard of something like that? Would that work for what I want to make? Any help is appreciated!

I thought it might be interesting to post some pictures of a Western New Year in China (just as a contrast to Chinese New Year in the West Pictures ) .... I was invited to my great-auntie's flat in Beijing for a celebration lunch.....at 10:00am!!! We managed to bargain it up to 11am though! It was very fun to celebrate as it was a sort of lower-key version of Chinese New Year and as it was a public holiday, they had invited the husband of the daughter of my mum's cousin (complex enough?) to cook as his job is a as chef for the People's Liberation Army. So yes, we had proper Liberation Army Food for the festivities Well, it started off with the Spring Roll rolling... The filling was very meat-based with lots of 韭菜 (Chinese chives) and the wrappers were all hand-made - very delicate and lacey and quite hard to wrap!! We also made ones with a filling of bean paste 豆沙 (urgh!) for those with a sweet tooth. You can see the bag in the middle of the table. Next came the jiaozi prep with my Dongbei countryside relatives doing most of the work: because the relatives are a mix of Manchu and Han and come from all over Dongbei - there was a lot of argument about the best jiaozi wrapping technique!!! But the filling was the same (pork and celery): Note the INCREDIBLY large bag of MSG from Tescos!!! They love this stuff - their bag of salt was only 200g, but the MSG bag was 900g and boy!! was it sprinkled on with a lavish hand. Having said that, the jiaozi were incredibly tasty - so it does work! During all this work - at the same time(!) in the MINUSCULE kitchen (about 3 square metres!), the Liberation Army cook was cooking up a storm and produced 8 cold dishes and a myriad of hot dishes out of the cubby hole.....and here is part of them: (with the pink thermos and toilet roll adding a particularly festive touch I felt ) The glasses held some Australian Shiraz (that we bought) which was quickly polished off in rounds of 'Gan Bei!' but enjoyed by all. The 'lunch' finally ended at 6pm and we were packed off with 20 springrolls, mounds of jiaozi in Tupperware and a bag of the springrolls wrapper with the cries of every relative's suggestion for fillings resounding in my ears. It was very happy - and noisy! and I was very glad that our New Year's Eve was quiet and decorous....it would have been hard to do a Chinese-style Western New Year with a hangover

Can anyone translate this? Cheers, JH 1、从超级市场买回新鲜的羊肉（可选购：鱼），竹签（可选种类：铁），调料：孜然粉，辣椒粉，盐，番茄酱等� �可根据自己口味选购） 2.然后就是把肉类切成小块，不要太大，要不然就不容易熟透。切好后拿竹签穿好，调料分好就可以了。 3.就是准备炭和烧烤的器具。（要是有可以用于烤煎炸的器具就省事多了） 4.就是烤的过程了（省略......） 5.吃完后记得把东西收好准备下次再用。（如果在郊外记得把垃圾带走保护环境） 注：如果比较懒得话，可以买商家直接做好调料的成品自己烤着吃，毕竟享受的是过程和结果嘛！

To follow Ce'nedra's thread about da pan ji, another Sinified Central Asian dish: 孜然羊肉. I've eaten a dozen versions of it: dry and crispy, onions and no onions, peppers and no peppers, spicy and bland. So, 怎么做, guys? Where have you eaten it? This is how I made it last night, trying to recreate a version with tomato I ate outside a trainstation in Luoyang: Lamb sliced up, put in a bowl with a bit of oil, covered in cumin, then thrown into a hot pan, followed by a handful of crushed up dried chili and some sliced in half cloves of garlic, some green onion, and a chopped up tomato. Done.

Am trying to work out the Chinese name for these boiled dumplings. The filling is generally made only of prawns and cloud ear funghi, and perhaps bamboo shoots - with a "fun gor" type wrapper; that is, a frilly wheat flour type, not rice pastry. And in yum cha restaurants where they serve from carts, these are always kept on a dedicated cart with boiling water, and a serving boiled to order at the cart - sometimes this is the same cart that serves the gai lan with oyster sauce. Dipping sauce is generally a mix of soy, sesame oil, sugar, sliced scallions, ginger and chilli. I simply cannot hold out till next yum cha visit to ask the trolley ladies, so please sally forth with your wisdom, dear eGulleteers!

Anyone ever tried this dish? http://www.flickr.com/photos/jin_lee/426541484/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/d_flat/112708015/ It's supposed to be a chicken and potato 'stew' (ish) and you add wide noodles to it afterwards to soak up the sauce. I've never tried it myeslf but it looks absolutely delish! A specialty from Xinjiang (apparently). If anyone is able to offer their experience/taste sensation with this dish or even better, a recipe, I'd be really grateful!

Chinese style baby backs I have a rack of baby backs and want to make them for tomorrow night-NYE. Would you share a favorite recipe? Thanks!

Re- thread on "favourite Chinese cookbook": There is much discussion on what is authentic, recipes that are not found in any of today's Chinese cookbooks. Muichoi suggested starting a collection in eGullet. This may be a way for all of us to start actually recording recipes that have been passed down through generations. Muichoi requested a recipe for dried bak choi soup. I am sure there are many "recipes" for this favourite. I can recount the different ingredients, but not the amounts - just a bunch of this, a few of those, etc. Start your engines, folks, and let's get posting!

Can anyone suggest a few good ones? I searched through this forum and only saw a few mentioned. Is there a Diana Kennedy type authority on Chinese food?

I'm at my parents' home and have not had steamed beef cake, or ngau yuk beng, in ages. I'm going to ask my mom how to make it. What do you like to top your ngau yuk beng with before steaming it? My mom likes to put some kinda preserved vegetable on it (don't know what it's called in Chinese), along with some reconstituted dried mushrooms. I think she takes a piece of beef and hand chops it to the desired consistency necessary for yuk beng. You think running it through a food processor lightly would give the same results?

Scored! Elder sister has sent out cooked beef tendons from Vancouver -dim sum style. Elder brother found frozen beef tendons in Winnipeg's Asian market - Sun Wah. Happy Happy Joy Joy! Now, how to duplicate the dim sum style, and try out new recipes. Please help!

I remember coming across one recipe in a Chinese cookbook (I believe it was a noodle dish) which incorporated fresh milk and it struck me as odd. Why? Mainly because I've never heard of milk in Chinese cuisine before. But that's purely because I'm admittedly (and ashamedly) quite ignorant to alot of Chinese traditions So what other Chinese dishes make use of milk and how common is this practice (I'm guessing not very?)? Which brings me to another question, I don't really hear about Chinese people (in China) drinking fresh milk (comparatively to other countries anyway), until recent years. I've heard it was common practice once upon a time but no idea what happened there...soooooooooooooo, enlighten me please!

Prasatin had mentioned she had her best ratio of dough to filling (haam) in her baos. This got me thinking, when making your baos how much filling to dough do you like? I LOVE a slightly sweet dough, so when I make my baos for myself I love having really fluffy dough with a little filling that has a strong flavored sauce. So of course my favorite is char siu bao with thick dough and a little filling. But when I make it for other people I go for a thinner dough and more meat. Which is why I like to make dai bao for other people, but I don't personally like it myself. Too much meat for me. Now bao wrapped around lap cheung like a pig in the blanket and steamed....mmmmm that is comfort food to me, and at some points even better than char siu bao. It's easy, it's meaty, it's got a high ratio of dough to meat. The only bao I like a lot of filling in is one made with ground pork, lots of chopped cabbage, mushroom and vermicelli, because it doesn't have a lot of meat in it. edited to protect the innocent.

I want to try making tripe dim sum style. I've eaten lots, but have never made it at home. I bought some yesterday, and it had a nice beige/white appearance. I assume these have been prepared for cooking at home. Do I still need to "clean" it in some way before using? One recipe said to braise it like Chinese beef stew: with star anise, hoisin sauce, peppercorns, garlic, etc. Anyone make this at home or have a recipe? I'm STILL looking for curried baby octopus recipe too!

Can anyone recommend a good Chinese cooking class in Beijing, Chengdu or Hong Kong? My wife and I are going to travel to China on vacation and have enjoyed these types of classes in other countries and thought there must be something similiar in China. We are looking for a half-day or full-day class. Thanks for your help.