Chinese Eats at Home (Part 3)

[liuzhou]

This looks superb - do you mind saying how you made it?

I'll try. I'm not a measurer so no exact quantities, sorry.

The pork is thinly sliced then marinaded in Shaoxing wine and a little corn starch. No need to add salt - the black beans are very salty.

Mince garlic and ginger. Finely chop one small red chilli. Rinse a handful of fermented black beans and chop.

Heat oil in a wok and add the garlic. ginger, chilli, and beans. Stir fry until fragrant. Add pork and continue stir frying until pork is just cooked.

Add soy sauce and chopped scallions or Chinese chives. When scallions are cooked, remove from heat and add a drizzle of sesame oil. Serve and eat immediately.

The lettuce is just what it says. Stir fry the lettuce until it wilts. It takes seconds. Add oyster sauce and a little salt.

(The whole garlic cloves were gently stir fried on a low heat for about ten minutes until soft.).

[Hassouni]

Excellent, thanks!

[C. sapidus]

Tai bai chicken (tai bai ji) – with a twist. Dried chiles, chile bean paste, scallions, chicken stock, Shaoxing wine, dark soy, Sichuan peppercorns, sugar, and white pepper, plus I accidentally added chopped garlic and ginger, all simmered down to concentrate the flavor and then finished with scallions and sesame oil. Wonderfully fragrant and very spicy!

Fish-fragrant eggplant (yu xiang qie zi) – Deep-fried Asian eggplant with scallions, simmered in a sauce of chile bean paste, ginger, garlic, chicken stock, sugar, soy sauce, Chinkiang vinegar, and sesame oil.

Jasmine rice

Edited January 28, 2013 by C. sapidus (log)

[liuzhou]

Thanks for reminding me to make this more often, especially when there's is no other veg. in the crisper or I am lazy.

That's exactly what happened. When I bought the lettuce it was intended for a cheese and salad sandwich, but then when dinner time rolled up I had no other veg, so...

Excellent, thanks!

You are welcome!

Edited January 28, 2013 by liuzhou (log)

[liuzhou]

Jade web soup with bamboo pith fungus and poached quail eggs. 玉网竹荪汤 (yù wǎng zhú sūn tāng)

from Fuchsia Dunlop's Sichuan book.

Edited January 28, 2013 by liuzhou (log)

[David Ross]

I'm working on another claypot dish using lamb, rose wine and dried tangerine peel. It was incredible last night, especially the fragrance, but the sauce was too thin. The liquid is rose wine and thick soy, but I added a bit of beef stock as it looked like it needed some more liquid. Unfortunately, the sauce was then too runny. Should I leave out the beef stock? Will the claypot create enough steam during cooking to add moisture to the sauce?

[liuzhou]

Rose wine in Chinese home cooking? Now I'm totally baffled.

You have too much liquid or not enough? The pot can't create steam. Only the liquids you introduce can do that.

[dcarch]

If the flavor is good, don't change. Just add starch to thicken.

Clay pot with the cover on adds less liquid to the sauce because of low conductivity. Moisture of a metal cover tends to condense more steam back into water and returns to the sauce.

dcarch

[liuzhou]

Clay pot with the cover on adds less liquid to the sauce

Where does this clay pot get the liquid it adds? To varying degrees.

Sorry, I'm not trying to be a smartass. I really don't understand.

Edited January 28, 2013 by liuzhou (log)

[huiray]

Just for info regarding cooking with Chinese rose wine...

http://www.asiansupe...e-p/hcrwejj.htm

http://www.foodista....s.aembpwtgqbiaa

http://whoscookingto...i-lu-chiew.html

http://lauskitchen.b...th-chinese.html

http://www.smokywok....ce-chicken.html

http://www.cooking-c..._rose_wine.html

etc

Edited January 28, 2013 by huiray (log)

[liuzhou]

So it's Hong Kong food.

A minority cuisine by far!

Thank you for expanding my knowledge, Mr Google.

Still doesn't explain the hot pots, though

Edited January 28, 2013 by liuzhou (log)

[dcarch]

Clay pot with the cover on adds less liquid to the sauce

Where does this clay pot get the liquid it adds? To varying degrees.

Sorry, I'm not trying to be a smartass. I really don't understand.

Suppose you have two pots, one clay and one metal with identical food to be cooked.

Further, assuming you adjust the fire to supply the same BTUs to the pots to compensate difference in thermal conductivity.

Steam from cooking will escape out more from the clay pot than the metal pot because steam from cooking will condense more under the metal pot's cover and return back to the food. The metal cover is cooler because of higher conductivity.

dcarch

[liuzhou]

Suppose you have two pots, one clay and one metal with identical food to be cooked.

Steam from cooking will escape out more from the clay pot than the metal pot because steam from cooking will condense more under the metal pot's cover and return back to the food. The metal cover is cooler because of higher conductivity.

dcarch

Well, that make more sense, thanks.

The various pots are not allowing more or less liquid to be added as claimed, but are merely retaining the pre-existing liquids. So the OP should add liquids close to his/her desired end result (allowing for some evaporation).

The metal cover is cooler because of higher conductivity.

I'll let you touch test that!

[dcarch]

The metal cover is cooler because of higher conductivity.

I'll let you touch test that!

The exact condiction is this: If you touch the metal cover, it will be much hotter, because it is giving up more heat, but to the steam inside, it is extracting more BTU therefore it cools down the steam quicker.

Here is something you may like to try out:

Steamed fish -

If you steam fish in a bamboo steamer it will be less watery with the fish than if you steam the fish in a metal pot.

In a metal pot, the steam condenses under the cover and drops down on the fish.

dcarch

[liuzhou]

If you steam fish in a bamboo steamer it will be less watery with the fish than if you steam the fish in a metal pot.

In a metal pot, the steam condenses under the cover and drops down on the fish.

Yes. We call those steam escape routes 'holes'.

I've totally lost the plot now.

[liuzhou]

By the way. I've never met anyone in China who possesses a bamboo steamer tray in a domestic kitchen.

They are only used in roadside breakfast dives and morning tea houses.

[huiray]

So it's Hong Kong food.

A minority cuisine by far!

Thank you for expanding my knowledge, Mr Google.

Still doesn't explain the hot pots, though

You're welcome. Anyone is welcome to search for info on the www nowadays (and to read it with due diligence, of course).

Umm, I thought people in Hong Kong cooked Chinese food, and do it at home too? Or that food that has Hong Kong roots is also Chinese food, so long as it is in the Chinese vernacular? Millions of people worldwide would appear to think so...

Anyway, that last link I gave (http://www.cooking-c..._rose_wine.html) is to a website written by a lady chef who appears to operate restaurants in Hangzhou, Zhejiang - which isn't Hong Kong, I think?

http://www.cooking-china.com/#

As for hot pots - well, even this thread has contained posts from folks cooking Chinese food in hot pots in their home kitchens...

Edited January 28, 2013 by huiray (log)

[Keith_W]

By the way. I've never met anyone in China who possesses a bamboo steamer tray in a domestic kitchen.

They are only used in roadside breakfast dives and morning tea houses.

Well, as dcarch says ... if you steam fish in a bamboo steamer, the result is less watery. If you steam anything in a bamboo steamer, it is less watery. Pork buns have a nice slightly moist skin instead of the soggy mess that you get from a metal steamer.

I have a bamboo steamer. So does my mother, and most of my aunts. Not my sister, she doesn't cook

[rotuts]

I think the steamer issue is not the bamboo per se, but the fact that the top is fairly porous, steam might not condense as much and dribble back down to wet the 'items' with hot water.

I cant imagine the bamboo imparts a flavor, 'well aged flavor' from a bazillion steams?

[huiray]

Well, as dcarch says ... if you steam fish in a bamboo steamer, the result is less watery. If you steam anything in a bamboo steamer, it is less watery. Pork buns have a nice slightly moist skin instead of the soggy mess that you get from a metal steamer.

I have a bamboo steamer. So does my mother, and most of my aunts. Not my sister, she doesn't cook

So do I, and I use it at home.

They're sold in Chinese/Asian groceries and kitchen supply stores all over the place here and bought by folks to use at home.

It's very useful for steaming stuff without getting a soggy mess, as you and dcarch say. Often I'll lay my stuff on top of some parchment paper or a big "wong nga pak" leaf or two as the situation suggests - siu mai, har gow etc, for example; Char siu bao on their own little squares of paper I might lay directly on top of the bamboo "grates". Other stuff in suitably sized plates go right on top of the "grates".

Sure, I'll use a shallow metal plate propped on a tuna can with both ends removed, in a deep frying pan (with metal cover) with water bubbling away in the pan for steaming suitable things (like short-cut pork spare ribs w/ julienned ginger & chili black bean sauce, for example) or when I really don't feel like cleaning the bamboo steamer afterwards but the bamboo steamer, stacked or otherwise, shares equal time in my kitchen.

ETA: Actually, those metal steamers with the tall "peaked" cover is useful for making "dun tong" (steamed soups/Cantonese "double boiled" soups) where the soup components are in that heavy glazed porcelain or stoneware bowl with the heavy knobbed lid - it sits nicely on the steamer stack under/within that "peaked cover".

Edited January 28, 2013 by huiray (log)

[David Ross]

I wasn't familiar with Rose Wine and the Claypot recipe I found online specifically said it was an ingredient for the home cook. I'm glad I paired it with lamb, (the recipe called for beef), and dried tangerine peel because the flavor and aroma was amazing. Next time if I think the sauce is too runny, I'll revert to the technique of tightening it up with a cornstarch slurry. I'm grateful for entering the discussion as I have been expanding my Chinese cooking experiences over the past few years and this has been very helpful.

[liuzhou]

I have a bamboo steamer. So does my mother, and most of my aunts. Not my sister, she doesn't cook

My sister does have bamboo steamers. But she is in the UK.

My point was that I have never seen them in a domestic kitchen in China. I wouldn't even know where to buy one here. Kitchen supply shops certainly don't have them. Nor do the local markets.

[Dejah]

I have both bamboo steamers and steel pot steamers. My Causasian s-i-l uses the bamboo ones. I think may be he thinks it's the thing to do...Bamboo = Chinese . I use them for decor.

I've always used my steel steamer because of the sheer volume whenever I cook. Inspite of having retired from being a restauranteur, I can't get away from cooking for 2. I DO have students who appreciate the extras.

I steam a dozen baos at a time, and these are not small ones. I am careful to take the lid off and wipe away the condensation at the half way point, so the baos are never soggy.

But, I DO agree that there is more moisture delivered onto the food being steamed in a metal pot. That has happened a couple of times when I've forgotten to reduce the liquid in the dish before steaming, as with black bean garlic ribs, fish, etc. If there is lots of rice, no one complains.

[liuzhou]

Many of the baozi shops in town have switched from bamboo to metal steamers - I think for hygiene reasons. A lot of the locals complain that the taste is no longer the same.

But I did see one place which was using metal steamers lined inside with bamboo. Sort of like a metal clad bamboo steam pot.

[liuzhou]

I was thinking about the bamboo lined steamers this noon, so I took a stroll past the shop in question. It's a real hole-in-the-wall place, but very popular.

Here is a picture of the bamboo inside the metal steamer. It appears to be some sort of woven bamboo mat which sits in the bottom of the metal steamer.

Sorry, it's not so clear as I would like, but I had to fight through crowds to get close enough and snapped this over someone's shoulder. Then felt obliged to buy some 肉包. They were good.

 

 

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Edited September 14, 2016 by lesliec
Added hosts' note (log)