Chinese Eats at Home (Part 2)

[sheetz]

I've been eating nonChinese stuff lately, but today made Habeas' recipe for black bean spareribs in a sandpot with a few minor adjustments. Added some minced ginger and cooked it in a 200F oven for 6 hours.

Here's one of my favorite "leftovers" soups. Since I bake quite often I usually have leftover egg whites, and it seems like I always have leftover cilantro. To those I added some marinated minced beef to make Westlake beef soup.

Edited February 4, 2007 by sheetz (log)

[Dejah]

Thursday's supper: Habeas' Szechuan Green Beans with Pork/Pork

Hubby was very happy with the pork/pork.

The plate is one of a set of three varying sizes that Superstore had on sale for $2.98! How could I resist?

Friday, as I mentioned in a previous post, was the International Students Banquet. There were some dishes made by the students, but they were long gone by the time our table got to the food line. Other food was catered to by a local Chinese restaurant. Not to be arrogant, but no wonder people miss Soo's! The other items came from our new East Indian restaurant. The butter chicken, curry shrimp, curry chickpeas, and vegetarian basmati rice was worth waiting for. Made me crave for more, and you'll see the results of that craving further down this post!

Saturday was bloody cold - windchill temps of -45, but we headed off to Winnipeg anyway to catch our son's gig at the Academy Eatery and Bar. Thru' various emails from the daughter and son, they were missing Soo's curry chicken - #36 on our menu.

For supper on Friday, we braved the cold (-40C as well) and had supper at the English Pavilion - part of our annual Winterfest . The choices were steak and kidney pie, English pasties, steak and stout stew. Dessert was Spotted Dick and Custard. It all went down well while listening to some of our buddies perform songs by the Beatles. By 9 PM, I was cooking #36 with six chicken breasts, 4 medium size onions, bulk curry powder from SERCA distributing (gotta have the old authentic Soo's taste, and it does have a good curry flavour), fresh red chili peppers. The chicken was marinated in seasonings, oil and cornstarch. I cooked it in 3 batches, resulting in 4 Ziplock sandwich-sized containers for the kids, and nice snack portions for hubby and myself - eaten at 10 PM!

What trip to Winnipeg, especially in this weather, would be complete without a visit to Chapters and Chinatown for groceries? After seeing c. sapidas' beauties from The Vietnamese Kitchen, I HAD to have that book! First stop - Chapters and the book jumped out at me. Beside it, to feed my craving for more curry, I found Curry Cuisine - Fragrant dishes from India, Thailand, Vietnam, and Indonesia. I've been browsing in both books and they were well worth the trip to Chapters.

Next on the agenda was Sun Wah Grocery in Chinatown. The parking lot is always a hazardous place. I was worried that all the BBQ meats would be gone by 2pm, but I was lucky as they were just bringing in a new batch from their kitchen. I picked out a duck (for my freezer for later use), lots of char siu and siu yuk for the kids, and 2 pig stomach for supper tonight. There were many displays of CNY candies, treats. I picked up packages for Mom, the students' treats, and ourselves. Now to keep our hands off until NY! For vegetables, I got dow miu, baby bok choi, baby Shanghai bok choi, leen gnow, fresh bak hap, Thai basil, Thai chilis, pomelo, as well as cheung fun, and a mango sponge cake for Mom.

Now, I've been watching you guys with your bellys - pork bellys, that is, and what I've found in our meat counters have been disappointing in quality abd price. What did I see in Sun Wah's fresh meat counter for a total of $3.78 but this 1.8 lb. beauty:

I was undecided on how to use this pork belly, but having enjoyed the beautiful crispy-skinned siu yuk from the BBQ specialists, I will probably braise this and attempt Tepee's with wutow, if I can find wutow at the store. If I had been able to buy two pieces of pork belly, I would have attempted sheetz's siu yuk. My main excuse is that I don't have a convection oven.

[C. sapidus]

Dejah: I can see why #36 was popular. Good luck with Into the Vietnamese Kitchen, and Curry Cuisine sounds like fun. Please post your thoughts after you get a chance to cook from your new books.

Looking forward to your pork belly, too!

[Habeas Brulee]

I really love seeing your interpretations of recipes I've posted. And all the inspiration!

Dejah, what a great find! I've never cooked pork belly, but looking at the photos here, now I want to.

The latest Chinese food we've made at home was Sweet and Sour Lotus Root. As usual, more information, including the recipe, is available at my blog, here.

[Dejah]

Lovely looking leen gnow, Habeas, as is the dish!

I bought a bag of "see goo" on the weekend. I can't remember the English name for this "corm"? The only way I've eaten this was steamed to accompany lap yoke.

Suggestions?

If no one can understand my Toisanese, I'll get a picture of them later and post for identification.

[peony]

think they r called arrowroot.

you can slice thinly and deep fried them like potato chips.

arrowroot chips

[peony]

my favourite Chinese dessert

water-chestnut pudding / jelly

this is a cooling, sweet and crunchy Chinese sweet.

[Dejah]

think they r called arrowroot.

you can slice thinly and deep fried them like potato chips.

arrowroot chips

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Thanks, Peony. I thought that was the name, but when I did google on arrowroot, it showed me a different looking tuber.

Don't think I'll be deep frying them. If anyone has any other ideas, please post.

Edited to add:

That water chestnut cake looks so good! My s-i-l makes this, and after telling me how much muscle power one needs, I decided it's tradition for her to make it.

Edited February 5, 2007 by Dejah (log)

[Ben Hong]

think they r called arrowroot.

you can slice thinly and deep fried them like potato chips.

arrowroot chips

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The tuber/corm commonly referred to as the see koo, popular at CNY cooked with lup yuk is in fact of the "arrowhead" plant or sagittaria sagittiflora. The Algonquin Indians of North America made use of the tubers (wapato) of a similar plant. This latter plant is indigenous to North America.

[Dejah]

think they r called arrowroot.

you can slice thinly and deep fried them like potato chips.

arrowroot chips

←

The tuber/corm commonly referred to as the see koo, popular at CNY cooked with lup yuk is in fact of the "arrowhead" plant or sagittaria sagittiflora. The Algonquin Indians of North America made use of the tubers (wapato) of a similar plant. This latter plant is indigenous to North America.

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Ah....there we go! But, I still need suggestions besides pairing with lap yuk.

[hzrt8w]

Ah....there we go! But, I still need suggestions besides pairing with lap yuk.

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Well... this is one root vegetable that I am not too fond of since I was a kid. My father used to make it every now and then. Stir-fried with beef (slices), typically.

When I eat it, the strong after taste in my mouth often makes me a little dizzy. My wife loves it though. Maybe this is a Toisanese affection? I would cook it and leave >90% to her to consume.

[Ben Hong]

Ah....there we go! But, I still need suggestions besides pairing with lap yuk.

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Ya got me there, as that's the only way I've ever had it. I LOVE the stuff, not only for the taste, but for what it connotates... old village home, family, CNY...

[Dejah]

Here are some of the arrowheads I bought in Winnipeg, but haven't eaten yet. So pretty...maybe I should just plant them.

A couple of dishes we've enjoyed this week after my Winnipeg Chinatown shopping trip!

Monday night: Gai Choi ham dan tong (mustard greens and salted egg soup)

I thought I picked up dow miu, but it was gai lan miu. It was very good with char siu for hubby and pig stomach for moi. I made a thin sauce with oyster sauce for the blanched vegetables. The cheung fun was bought. It had ha mai and green onions - great microwaved with sweet soy, sesame oil, and ma la oil.

Tonight: Seaweed/siu choi tong

I made the kuo yuk a la Tepee - for tomorrow. Had some wutau left, so, a treat for the students' lunch tomorow. The fading daylight from the window gave a surreal colouring to the picture. Kinda pretty. I know. I know. So much lieu la!

For supper, we had curry shrimp, zuchinni, and onion over jasmine rice. It was pretty and delicious, but I was in too much of a hurry to eat and get to work. So, use your imaginations.

Finally, a treat hubby picked up while browsing down the candy aisle - sesame ginger shreds. This is packed shreds of ginger, topped with sesame seeds. It's hell trying to get a piece, but really, really good stuff. I've never seen this before. I want more!

[sheetz]

Today I tried making Eight Treasure Rice Pudding. For the topping I used dried cherries, candied pineapple, raisins, candied winter melon, lotus seeds, peanuts, almonds, and dried apricots. For the filling I used homemade red bean paste.

A peek inside:

[Seitch]

Ah....there we go! But, I still need suggestions besides pairing with lap yuk.

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Well... this is one root vegetable that I am not too fond of since I was a kid. My father used to make it every now and then. Stir-fried with beef (slices), typically.

When I eat it, the strong after taste in my mouth often makes me a little dizzy. My wife loves it though. Maybe this is a Toisanese affection? I would cook it and leave >90% to her to consume.

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It does have a strong, smack you in the head kind of vegetal flavor. I especially thought so when I was a kid. I wouldn't go out of the way to eat this but I don't avoid it.

I think we usually cook it with nam yu, sugar and pork. Not necessary the dried, cured pork belly but we use that sometimes too. Other times maybe with salt, sugar and celery.

[Habeas Brulee]

Dejah, thanks for posting photos of the arrowroot. I've seen those in markets, but I never knew what they were.

[Ben Hong]

Dejah, thanks for posting photos of the arrowroot. I've seen those in markets, but I never knew what they were.

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ARROWHEAD, not arrowroot.

Sheetz, that pudding looks scrummy yummy.

Edited February 7, 2007 by Ben Hong (log)

[C. sapidus]

Dejah: Wow, you should go to Winnipeg more often (for our viewing pleasure, of course ).

Tonight’s dinner was stir-fried tangy beef with carrots and yard-long beans, our first recipe from Barbara Tropp’s Modern Art of Chinese Cooking. I like the clarity of Ms. Tropp’s instructions. We doubled the recipe and substituted top sirloin and palm sugar for flank steak and brown sugar.

Prepping the veggies took a while, but the beef was very tender and I loved the mixture of soy sauce, hoisin sauce, palm sugar, rice wine, and sesame oil. A spoonful of sambal oleek gave my serving a little more kick. A definite make-again.

[Dejah]

Dejah: Wow, you should go to Winnipeg more often (for our viewing pleasure, of course ).

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Bruce,

Hubby says the trips to Wpg. are too expensive - on his wallet and on his waistline.

I think I'll forgo anymore shopping trips, save his $, and go live at your house. That will at least save his waistline...

Lovely looking supper. The beef looks very inviting, especially with that mix of flavours. What cut do you use?

I'm going to have to ask you to refrain from listing the books you cook from! THAT'S why my trips to Wpg are expensive! I have Barbara Tropp's China Moon book, and was so excited by it I went looking for her restaurant when we were in San Francisco in the '90s. We found the location; it was all boarded up. I found out just a couple of years ago that she had died before we made the trip.

Does anyone else have cravings for curry? What is it about curry? I go through spells where I crave it! We've had curry something 4 nights now: chicken, shrimp, lamb, then beef and cauliflower tonight. It all started at the International students dinner last Wed with butter chicken.

[C. sapidus]

Hubby says the trips to Wpg. are too expensive - on his wallet and on his waistline.   I think I'll forgo anymore shopping trips, save his $, and go live at your house. That will at least save his waistline...

Sure, come on over – as long as you share in the cooking.

Lovely looking supper. The beef looks very inviting, especially with that mix of flavours. What cut do you use?

Thank you! We found top sirloin on sale, so that's what we used. I'm, um, frugal when it comes to meat.

I'm going to have to ask you to refrain from listing the books you cook from! THAT'S why my trips to Wpg are expensive!  

I found Modern Art of Chinese Cooking on Amazon for $10 USD – used hardcover in good shape. Just think how much gas $$ you would save shopping online, compared with a trip to Winnipeg.

I have Barbara Tropp's China Moon book, and was so excited by it I went looking for her restaurant when we were in San Francisco in the '90s. We found the location; it was all boarded up. I found out just a couple of years ago that she had died before we made the trip.

I read about Barbara Tropp's death when I was researching Chinese cookbooks on eGullet. It seemed sad at the time, but the loss seems even sharper now that I have a greater appreciation for her work.

Does anyone else have cravings for curry? What is it about curry? I go through spells where I crave it! We've had curry something 4 nights now: chicken, shrimp, lamb, then beef and cauliflower tonight. It all started at the International students dinner last Wed with butter chicken.

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Oh, I definitely crave curry – usually Thai or Indian, but the boys seem to do better with the more gently-flavored Vietnamese curries. If I had the time and the calories to burn, we would eat a lot of curries.

[peony]

oh yes, love curries ...

here's my fish curry.

and to cool off after the hot, spicy curry

pineapple tarts

[peony]

chicken curry with potatoes eaten with naan

[sheetz]

Yes, it's just so cold here that you want to eat curries and sichuanese food. Favorite curries include curry beef stew, curried stir fried rice noodles, and curried beef turnovers.

[Gastro888]

I made braised doong goo last night. Well, I think I did. I'll post pictures tonight. I soaked the mushrooms while I was at work & when I got home, I trimmed them and strained the soaking liquid. I brought the liquid to a boil and added a bit of salt, mushroom soy sauce (I swear, I do use other types), oyster sauce and a pinch of white pepper along with a bit of scallion. The mushrooms were added and then they braised for 30 minutes. I did a cornstarch slurry and made a thick gravy and added cilantro. Which may have been a mistake. I dunno. I'll see later on.

Chinese New Year's is next week! Chinese New Year's is next week! Chinese New Year's is next week! YAY! (BRING ON THE RED ENVELOPES!)

Edited February 8, 2007 by Gastro888 (log)

[hzrt8w]

Oh, sure, now you have all fuelled my cravings for more curry!  

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Congratulations! This thread has achieved page 30 now! Would you like to celebrate it with:

Indian curry (so many to choose from)

Malaysian curry (coconut milk!)

Vietnamese curry (lemon grass and lime juice and fried shallot)

Chinese curry (the green pepper, onion, patoto stuff)

Thai curry (red, green or yellow?)

Japanese curry (MSG!)

English curry

???