Chinese Eats at Home (Part 2)

[XiaoLing]

LOL. I guess you have a point there Ah Leung.

I guess what I really mean is Sichuan natives that are recent to America. Fresh immigrant!

I wouldn't call myself a real Wuhan native. I was born there but only spent about 5 years of my life there. And plus my Dad's family is from Shang Dong.

Yes, I am a fraud...but...but my mom's family is real Wuhanese!! Hmm...but I do have a Hunan Uncle which makes my cousin half Hunanese....and then again, maybe some Sichuan relatives... Ahhh...now I'm all confused!!

[mizducky]

Chinese mothers give you guilt on everything except for the food that you eat.  That's an entirely different ball game.  They will complain about your weight but in the same sentence say "I made this soup for you because you like it, eat it all and then go on a diet." 

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Ahah! Another point of connection between Jewish and Chinese culture! Jewish mothers also excell at one moment going "Eat! I've slaved all day over a hot stove!" and the next "So when are you going to do something about your weight?"

Though Jewish mothers won't be tempting one off one's diet with pig's feet...

(So I have to do that kind of tempting myself ... )

Feeling under the weather, I made chicken jook last night.  I love the broken rice from the Vietnamese market for this.  Cooking it in my mini rice cooker, made for a creamy, thick jook in about an hour.  For flavor, I added the chicken head with the attacted head right before I pushed the button down to cook.  It was amusing to see the chicken head bubbling away in my jook but boy, did it make for a tasty meal!

I ate this with my fu yee (and yes, adding more rice wine and salt did improve the flavor but it's nothing like my mom's brand!) and some dried seaweed on top.  Jook.  It's a good thing!

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Cool tip about using the broken rice to make jook. I've seen broken rice in my local Asian grocery stores--I'll make a point of it to buy a bag next shopping trip.

I know we talked about brands of fu yu awhile back, but since then I've had an opportunity to try that brand with the picture of the mature woman on it (I think someone said the brand translated as "Honorable Elderly Woman" or something like that) and it was fantastic, the best fu yu I've yet tasted. Reading the ingredients list, I noticed part of the secret was MSG ... but I've pretty well lost my silly gweipo fear of MSG by now.

[C. sapidus]

Kinda quiet around here – is everyone still recovering from CNY?

Tonight we cooked our first meal from Fuchsia Dunlop’s Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook: Recipes from Hunan Province. The fish was delish – rainbow trout fried and then braised with chile bean paste, chile flakes, ginger, garlic, vinegar, dark soy and a cup of chicken stock, all cooked down to a glaze and finished with Thai basil, scallions, and sesame oil. Mrs. C would been satisfied with the stir-fried bell peppers, flavored with garlic, salted black beans, vinegar, chicken stock, and sesame oil.

While cooking dinner, I enjoyed the intoxicating aroma of beef braising slowly with ginger, cinnamon, star anise, and chiles. That will be Tuesday night’s dinner. The soup was delicious, but not Chinese.

Tangerine Island dry-braised fish (ju shou gan shao yu); stir-fried peppers with black beans and garlic (dou chi chao la jiao); beet, carrot, and turnip soup; and jasmine rice.

[snowangel]

Bruce, this looks wonderful. I am contemplating this book. Any immediate reactions after a good read-through and an initial meal (and I assume at least a taste of Tuesday night's dinner)?

[C. sapidus]

Bruce, this looks wonderful.  I am contemplating this book.  Any immediate reactions after a good read-through and an initial meal (and I assume at least a taste of Tuesday night's dinner)?

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Susan: Thanks! I like Ms. Dunlop's latest book a lot, and I also liked her previous book on Sichuan. The three recipes we have tried from the new book have turned out wonderfully. Yes, we tasted Tuesday’s dinner. I cooked the meat a bit too long, but the flavors of the sauce were amazing.

I like the way that Ms. Dunlop gives directions. Rather than giving cooking times, she typically gives endpoints like “stir-fry over medium heat until it smells wonderful”, or “cook over a high flame until the liquid is nearly gone”. The author also writes more freely in this cookbook. Most recipes have an associated story, many offer fascinating cultural background, and several are hilarious.

Ms. Dunlop seems to like her veggies, and includes a wealth of varied vegetable dishes. Many of the meat recipes do involve a deep-frying step, though. If you are a big fan of Sichuan peppercorns, you may prefer Ms. Dunlop’s Sichuan cookbook because few of the Hunanese recipes use Sichuan peppercorns.

I highly recommend either of Ms. Dunlop’s cookbooks.

[insomniac]

Bruce, this looks wonderful.  I am contemplating this book.  Any immediate reactions after a good read-through and an initial meal (and I assume at least a taste of Tuesday night's dinner)?

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Susan: Thanks! I like Ms. Dunlop's latest book a lot, and I also liked her previous book on Sichuan. The three recipes we have tried from the new book have turned out wonderfully. Yes, we tasted Tuesday’s dinner. I cooked the meat a bit too long, but the flavors of the sauce were amazing.

I like the way that Ms. Dunlop gives directions. Rather than giving cooking times, she typically gives endpoints like “stir-fry over medium heat until it smells wonderful”, or “cook over a high flame until the liquid is nearly gone”. The author also writes more freely in this cookbook. Most recipes have an associated story, many offer fascinating cultural background, and several are hilarious.

Ms. Dunlop seems to like her veggies, and includes a wealth of varied vegetable dishes. Many of the meat recipes do involve a deep-frying step, though. If you are a big fan of Sichuan peppercorns, you may prefer Ms. Dunlop’s Sichuan cookbook because few of the Hunanese recipes use Sichuan peppercorns.

I highly recommend either of Ms. Dunlop’s cookbooks.

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Seconded, love both books....a friend is at the cooking school in Chengdu as we speak. Look forward to his report.

[C. sapidus]

More from Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook: slow-braised beef with potatoes (tu dou wei niu rou). I made this on Sunday, and heated it up for dinner tonight. Star anise, cassia sticks, and ginger provided a heady aroma, dried chiles and chile bean paste added a warm glow, and a little rice vinegar sharpened everything up. These fragrant and mildly spicy red braises have become family favorites.

The recipe called for braising in the oven at 300 F, but the liquid was bubbling too vigorously. Although I lowered the temperature to 275 F, the meat turned out a little dry. Next time I will probably start the oven around 250 F and adjust from there.

[snowangel]

Bruce, as we've discussed at length on the Braising with Molly topic, most braising recipes call for too high an oven temp. I think it was in a book of Paula Wolfert's that I read about braising at an oven temp equivalent to the internal temp you intend to take the meat to. If you want the meat to go to 200 degrees, cook it at that temp. I'll have to dig out the reference.

Edited to add: what cut of beef did you use, Bruce?

[C. sapidus]

Bruce, as we've discussed at length on the Braising with Molly topic, most braising recipes call for too high an oven temp.  I think it was in a book of Paula Wolfert's that I read about braising at an oven temp equivalent to the internal temp you intend to take the meat to.  If you want the meat to go to 200 degrees, cook it at that temp.  I'll have to dig out the reference.

Thank you, Susan. I have not done many oven braises, so I appreciate any information on internal and external temperatures. I thought that 300 F sounded high, but I usually follow the recipe fairly closely the first time. I do recall reading that braising temperatures should be lower than what Molly Stevens specifies in All About Braising, but the consensus(?) on what temperature to use slipped out of my brain.

Edited to add:  what cut of beef did you use, Bruce?

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The recipe called for "stew meat", so when Mrs. C went to the store and described what we were doing the meat guy went into the back and cut what looked like a well-marbled roast. I was expecting something more fatty and gristly, and probably should have a) dialed back the temperature and b) checked the braise more frequently. Ah, well, live and learn. Anyway, it didn't keep the three of us (Mrs. C is out of town for a few days) from consuming mass quantities.

[snowangel]

Bruce, if I were looking for "stew meat" for a braise, I'd get myself a chuck roast, and whack it up myself into appropriate sized chunks. Right amount of everything good, especially flavour!

[sheetz]

Sorry about being lazy with the photos. Here are a few dishes from the last couple of weeks:

Catfish with Tofu in a sand pot.

Roast pork shoulder seasoned with salt, sugar, five spice, and red fermented bean curd:

Curried Chicken Stew with taro root

Low Carb vegetarian spring rolls using bean curd skins for wrappers.

[Prawncrackers]

Hi all, i've lurking here for a couple of months now and wanted to share with you my first attempt at Xiao Long Bao today:

I'm pretty chuffed with them, though they could obviously do with some refinement. I've enjoyed reading your posts and hope that you will enjoy some of my contributions.

[insomniac]

no wonder you are chuffed....they are gorgeous...soup inside??

[Prawncrackers]

no wonder you are chuffed....they are gorgeous...soup inside??

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Oh yeah there's got to be soup! Though one of them did burst as i was lifting it

Kinda got stuck to the paper - very frustrating. Next time i'll use lettuce or maybe a slice of cucumber.

[C. sapidus]

Sheetz: Nice dinners, the pork shoulder looks particularly scrumptious (I am on a five-spice jag at present).

Prawncrackers: Welcome, and thanks for sharing your xiao long bao.

Tonight’s dinner was hot and numbing chicken (ma la zi ji), from Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook. Marinating the chicken, deep-frying it twice, and then stir-frying it took a long time. Unfortunately, the results did not justify the effort. The crunch of the bell peppers contrasted nicely with the plush texture of the chicken, but the flavors were underwhelming.

[C. sapidus]

Last night Mrs. C requested Tangerine Island dry-braised fish (ju zhou gan shao yu) with skin-on steelhead trout fillets. We made this once before with rainbow trout. We enjoyed the dish both times, but I preferred the rainbow trout version (steelhead tastes like salmon, which is not my favorite). I want to try this recipe with whole fish but our local selection is pretty limited.

[sheetz]

I had a sudden craven for taro puffs (woo gok) but didn't have any taro, so I improved using instant mashed potato flakes. The results weren't bad.

I still haven't gotten these down to a science. These were the first batch I fried and they came out pretty good, but the second batch wasn't quite as nice looking. I'm not sure what I did differently the second time and will have to experiment some more to figure out what happened.

[hzrt8w]

Sheetz!!! Those look awesome! :-b...

I thought you bought them from dim-sum places. So beautiful! Second batch didn't work out as well... would it have something to do with the oil temperature not hot enough (yet) in the second round?

[sheetz]

  would it have something to do with the oil temperature not hot enough (yet) in the second round?

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I think it may be that the oil was too hot the second time. These dim sum are pretty finicky and it seems like you need to have the oil at the exact temperature or else you have problems.

[XiaoLing]

Sheetz! Like Ah Leung, I thought you purchased those puffs. Very professional looking and tasting (i'm sure!)

I love those fried taro puffs!! Did you have a filling inside?

[sheetz]

I love those fried taro puffs!!  Did you have a filling inside?

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Yes, pork, black mushrooms, and dried shrimp.

[C. sapidus]

Tonight we made (with a few substitutions) Fuchsia Dunlop’s farmhouse stir-fried pork with green peppers. We marinated lean pork in Shaoxing wine, dark soy, and light soy, and stir-fried the pork with Poblano and Anaheim chiles, bacon ends, sliced garlic, and salted black beans. Quick and easy, popular with the family, and I am developing a fondness for salted black beans.

Farmhouse stir-fried pork with green peppers (nong jia chao rou)

[Domestic Goddess]

Lunch for today was Vegetable soup with ham and tendons...

Served with my homemade pork and shrimp dumplings.

Look at the porky/shrimpy goodness inside...

[infernooo]

Forgot to post this a while ago!

Pork spare ribs (as they are called here in Australia - the belly sliced up into rectangular pieces, each with a bit of cartilage but no bones), master stocked, then wok fried served with steamed baby bok choy and rice.

Whilst braising:

Whilst wok-frying:

Whilst glazing:

Finished:

Of course the final plating picture had to come out blurry

Edited April 19, 2007 by infernooo (log)

[C. sapidus]

Liuyang black bean chicken (liu yang dou chi ji), from Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook. More information on the Dinner! thread, post #19725 (clickety).