Milk used in Chinese cuisine?

[Dejah]

I've been buying an artisanal Gouda-style cheese here which is made by some mad chap out in Shanxi.

If you are referring to Yellow Valley Cheese, then I can assure you that it is very good.

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Yep - it was the Cumin Flavoured (but in Chinese 茴香味..it wasn't fennel, so that was a bit misleading...). Made by Shanxi Windmill Farmhouse Foodstuff Co.

It was really nice - a very young Gouda-type cheese with good flavour and the cumin seeds added a great zip to the flavour!

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I love Gouda with cumin seeds. A quarter of a 12" x 4" thick round costs me about $25.00 CDN. We enjoy it with apples, whole grain crackers, or shaved and melted over lentil soup, Hungarian mushroom soup, etc. Don't imagine it's work with jook.

[Ce'nedra]

Thanks for replying everybody! Really interesting indeed!

So some people are obviously not so familiar with this 'concept' (if it should be called that), while others declare it absolutely NORMAL in their part of China hmm...from what I can gather, it seems popular amongst the minority groups in China...interesting...that means that access to milk is obviously possible in China, yet the Han Chinese don't like to make use of it, while the non-Han do...why?

Btw, I've also heard of some traditoinal Guangxi cheese.

[liuzhou]

I'd love to hear more about Guangxi Cheese. I've lived here in Guangxi for a decade and never met it.

In Yunnan, I bought some lovely goat's cheese in a local market. Tibet has some cheeses as does Inner Mongolia.

access to milk is obviously possible in China

As I've said before, every supermarket in China is heaving with milk products. There are aisles and aisles of it.

Edited December 30, 2007 by liuzhou (log)

[Ptipois]

Here in Guangzhou, nobody seems to have any problems with fresh milk-based desserts like steamed "double-skin milk" and ginger milk, which is an interesting sort of junket where ginger juice is used as a milk curdler.

The one we often have with friends in a small noodle house is based on buffalo milk.

Milk tea products are popular too. Bottled milk tea, plain or osmanthus-flavored. One of my Cantonese friends loves ying de red tea with lots of fresh milk. It is indeed very good.

Coming to Guangzhou sure has made me reconsider my ready-made ideas about the Chinese diet...

[Ce'nedra]

I'd love to hear more about Guangxi Cheese. I've lived here in Guangxi for a decade and never met it.

In Yunnan, I bought some lovely goat's cheese in a local market. Tibet has some cheeses as does Inner Mongolia.

access to milk is obviously possible in China

As I've said before, every supermarket in China is heaving with milk products. There are aisles and aisles of it.

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Supermarket yes. But I'm referring to traditionally, not store bought stuff...

[liuzhou]

Traditionally bought milk?

There is a little old lady sells milk outside my window every morning. From the back of her barrow.

[Ce'nedra]

Traditionally bought milk?

There is a little old lady sells milk outside my window every morning. From the back of her barrow.

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Since you live in Guangxi, where they make a traditional Chinese cheese, would you say that milk is more common in this particular region?

Do you see alot of Guangxi residents drinking fresh milk/using it in their cooking?

[liuzhou]

Well, you keep saying that Guangxi makes cheese but, as I said before, I've never come across it and no one I know has any ideas. Please tell me more.

I live in Guangxi now, but I have lived in other parts of China too and travelled extensively. As I said before, and as others have pointed out, every supermarket has milk products. Lots of them. It is not confined to Guangxi. I am not aware that it is used in cooking. Drinking, yes.

Edited January 5, 2008 by liuzhou (log)

[jo-mel]

It was a Creamed Cabbage (napa) dish that sent me in search of my first Chinese cookbook, back in the 50s. I had been to a banquet and that dish intrigued me. Of course I never found the recipe in that first book or in many that followed. I forgot where I finally found it, but it is a special dish to me and I still still hold a fondness for it.

The whole 'milk question' is interesting. Aside from the physical intolerances, and the grassland problem, ---- from what I've read, Chinese in the past did not want to be dependent on 'foreign' imports -- or to be reminded of life under 'foreign' invaders. Of course, in modern times that is all changing. The food culture authors, Anderson and Chang write about milk and milk products and the reasons for pockets of its popularity.

[Bond Girl]

I read somewheres that Milk in china was widely consumed by nomadic tribes that roamed the grasslands. The Hans who populate the developed parts of China (I believe parts inside the great wall) did not want to include it in their diets because it was consider food of the "barbarians". That might just be fibs but I think that might be why many westerners carries misconceptions about milk in Chinese diets. Because westerners who arrived in China for trading purposes in those days dealt many with the Hans.

While we are on the subject, does anyone know what stir fried milk (a savory dish) is called in Chinese?

[Ce'nedra]

Bond Girl: Thanks for the insight It makes sense to me as the Han didn't have very friendly ties with their northern neighbours.

As for the stir fried milk, I only know of a fried milk dish which is sweet, not savoury.

[Ce'nedra]

Just thought I'd add this link I found from the Appetite for China blog:

http://appetiteforchina.com/yunnan-goat-ch...south-silk-road

Yunnan cheese! Looks absolutely gorgeous!

I wonder if it's sold outside of China (or whether it's even popular beyond Yunnan province)?

[liuzhou]

I wonder if it's sold outside of China (or whether it's even popular beyond Yunnan province)

It's not even easy to find in Yunnan.

But it is good.

[Ce'nedra]

I wonder if it's sold outside of China (or whether it's even popular beyond Yunnan province)

It's not even easy to find in Yunnan.

But it is good.

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Really? Why is that? I thought it was a local food?

Oh well...too bad...sigh..how did it taste?

[liuzhou]

Why is that?

Because, as your link shows, it is only made by the Bai and Sani minorities most of whom are subsistence farmers. They make it for their own consumption and very little reaches the market.

how did it taste?

Like goats' cheese.

Edited July 3, 2008 by liuzhou (log)

[v. gautam]

A bit off-topic, but taro ice cream is genius stuff, taste and texture-wise; loved even by some Westerners I have persuaded to try it. Regarding the texture, which has toothsome bits of 'Taro": is this really Colocasia or something else, like Dioscorea, Mountain Yam? Any ideas on when [datewise] this combination became incorporated as an icecream? At what point [datewise] did green tea icecream first appear? I am very interested in learning about the evolution of icecream in China or into Chinese!

Also that corn yoghurt, Fengyi! Not bleuch, but the Sinicization of flavored yoghurts: and there you are, a scholar, with the opportunity to study and record it all. Haven't Chinese scholars meticulously recorded such wondrous events throughout the ages? So no bleuch!

Like Japanese pizza with corn and Kewpie! Emerging new flavor combinations. Tell us more, please, about the corn: is it young corn left whole, at the bottom, or mixed in throughout? Or are they somewhat crushed and flavor the yoghurt as they do corn soup? Is the yoghurt sweetened, or salted after the manner ofthe nomads [also India]?

I am very curious if they have begun using supersweet corn in China, the various "shrunken" and "sugary enhanced" aleles so popular in the US: for yoghurt or ordinary corn. I know those types do not take well to the charcoal-roasted treatment, but they might be just the ticket for yoghurt! You should suggest the ida and become a consultant for "new and improved" corn yoghurt!!

I wonder also how real Indian lassis, salty, some versions with cream on top, would go down in Beijing summers? Maybe the mango lassi created for Western palates might be a better option?

Edited July 5, 2008 by v. gautam (log)

[Ce'nedra]

Taro icecream IS amazing stuff -actually, I love taro cream in Chinese-style sponge cakes too mmm...

Just discovered this on wiki (what can you say, wiki is amazing):

Nai lao (奶酪)

Beijng yogurt is a traditional dish of Beijing cuisine. The traditional culinary method of this dish begins with the preparation of the main ingredient by heating the milk first. Sugar is to the boiling milk, which is then allowed to cool in shades. Two types of nuts were needed with outer shell removed: walnuts are soaked in boiling water to remove the membrane, and then chopped into small pieces. Sunflower seeds, on the other hand, were stir fried. After nuts have been prepared, they were mixed with raisins and placed in fifty small bowls.

After the milk has been cooled, rice wine made of glutinous rice is poured in and thoroughly stirred. A special device called a yogurt barrel (laotong, 酪桶) is needed for further production processes and this is basically a barrel with heat chamber in the center, where fire continuously burns, providing the heat needed for baking. The milk mixed with rice wine and sugar is rapidly poured into the fifty small bowls filled with crushed nuts and raisins, and immediately covered with flat wooden cap. The bowls are then be stacked along inner wall of the yogurt barrel and heated for twenty to thirty minutes, after which they are cooled in a chamber filled with ice for three to four hours. When the cooling is complete, Beijing yogurt is ready to be served.

Would love to try!

[aaronwd]

Long time lurker, first time poster....

It's not even easy to find in Yunnan.

Maybe in parts of Yunnan, but it's pretty easy to find Yunnan cheese here in Kunming. I can get it at the market down the street, and they even sell it at Carrefour. And of course at plenty of restaurants.

I'm not a huge fan, but sometime it's good. The Dali style restaurant in the Yunnan provincial library does a tasty version with Yunnan ham and pea shoots.

Doesn't seem to be everyday food, though. Only times I've seen in served it in a home is on holidays, when it's great for sucking up the alcohol. Usually fried and dipped in dried ground chiles.

There's also 乳扇/rushan, which is flattened out and I guess supposed to resemble a fan. It's sold on the streets in Dali grilled on a stick (as well as a few places in Kunming), and I've also had it deep fried at home and in restaurants. I like this stuff!

[prasantrin]

Did anyone notice the article in the New York Times a week or so ago about fried milk? One of the recipes was for garlic fried milk, based on "the snack found in Hong Kong sweet shops."

The article, by the way, was written by Ya-Roo Yang, aka Bond Girl! (I think Bond Girl, but I could be wrong.)

[butterscotch]

It's not even easy to find in Yunnan.

But it is good.

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The article says it's very easy to find un Yunnan:

"South Silk Road is by no means the only restaurant that serves r?b?ng, since it is as much a Yunnan restaurant staple as cross-the-bridge noodles"

[butterscotch]

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.

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I used to work with a great deal of Chinese born from the south of China, old school, all retired now. Without exception they all hated dairy, totally skeeved it.

One told me that they'd use an expression "butter smelling people" for westerners. She claimed she could smell the dairy coming out of my pores. It wasn't a compliment, either. LOL.

[Ce'nedra]

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.

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I used to work with a great deal of Chinese born from the south of China, old school, all retired now. Without exception they all hated dairy, totally skeeved it.

One told me that they'd use an expression "butter smelling people" for westerners. She claimed she could smell the dairy coming out of my pores. It wasn't a compliment, either. LOL.

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Hahha love her expression (I would consider it a complement though as to me, butter is sexy, smooth and sensual LOL).

Speaking of milk, does anyone know a reliable recipe for this?

Chinese Steamed Egg with Milk

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ilyana/2404054593/

It's a dessert, is it not?

[liuzhou]

Not so many people in Chinese using milk since the melamine scandal broke.

[Fengyi]

What's it like down your way, Liuzhou?

Here in BJ, the only milk really available is the SanYuan aka the Milk of the Great Hall of the People. Same with yoghurt - it's really all SanYuan now.

We've always bought SanYuan - not because of its government links, but we thought it tasted best and wasn't obscenely expensive (as some of the local organic ones are).

But is Sanyuan on sale in the South? What are you doing for milk?

[liuzhou]

I never drink milk, so I haven't really noticed.

I do occasionally eat yoghurt. After having been withdrawn, Mengniu 蒙牛 brand is back on the shelves complete with little stickers telling us that it has supposedly been tested.

I did see inspectors taking stuff away from two of the local supermarkets.