62 posts tagged “chinese”
The Chinese sure seem to know how to make dozens of starch variations using rice. Aside from white rice, there are rice noodles, rice noodle sheets, edible rice paper, rice milk, rice flour, glutinous rice and its various incarnations. One particular product, made from glutinous rice flour, you may have heard of - the nian gao. It's a sticky, chewy, popular dessert for celebrating Chinese New Year. A variation of the nian gao is a long log made out of glutinous rice flour and water, which is sliced on the diagonal to achieve thin oval slices, commonly known as "rice ovals" in English, but still called "nian gao" in Chinese. These rice ovals have no flavoring, but are an opaque white color and have a distinctive chew to them. They are usually sold pre-cut and either partially or completely dried, to be reconstituted in water before using.
Rice ovals are used in a variety of dishes and soups in Chinese cuisine. One of its most popular uses is in Shanghainese cuisine, where they are stir fried with sliced meats and vegetables in a clear sauce. My mom makes a lot of great authentic Shanghainese food at home, and she likes to make stir fried rice ovals with a brown sauce (which is called "red braised" in Chinese, even though they're not red nor braised in this dish haha). When cooked properly, rice ovals are uniquely chewy but also soft, which is an interesting way to vary the starch in the dish. The brown sauce is made thickly so that it coats the rice ovals generously, and gives them a lot of wonderful color and flavor. It's one of my favorite Shanghainese dishes, and it always reminds me of home when I think of it. Since today also happens to be Mother's Day, this recipe is my tribute to my mom's home cooking. She inspires me as a cook, and I am always amazed at how there is nothing that tastes quite like a mother's cooking, made with love and care. A woman who has made countless delicious dishes, who cannot write down a recipe for a single dish... that is a woman who knows how to cook with her heart, to harmonize ingredients rather than to follow a list of instructions.
This recipe is made with a package of partially dried rice ovals that I got from a Korean market, also available at most Asian markets. I made red braised rice ovals with beef and Shanghai bok choy (you don't get much more Shanghainese than that!). There is really no difference between using partially dried and fully dried rice ovals other than in preparation, so if you happen to get fully dried rice ovals (they'll be dry and hard, like little oval plastic chips), soak them in a container full of cold water overnight before using them. Otherwise, if using partially dried ovals, they just need to be boiled prior to stir frying.
Shanghainese Stir Fried Rice Ovals (上海红烧炒年糕) (serves 4-6)
Ingredients:
1 package of partially dried vacuum packed rice ovals (2 lbs) - see here for picture of what they look like
4 heads of Shanghai bok choy, washed and chopped into bite-sized pieces
8 oz. lean beef, sliced thinly
vegetable oil for stir frying
1 tbsp soy sauce
1/2 tbsp rice wine
1/2 tbsp cornstarch
dash of white pepper
soy sauce and oyster sauce to taste
Directions:
1. Marinate sliced beef in soy sauce, white pepper, rice wine, and cornstarch, for about 15 minutes.
2. Bring a pot of water to boil. Place rice ovals in water for 6-10 minutes, until soft and chewy. In my case, I dumped the whole 2 lbs into a small pot of water and it didn't really come back to a boil, but after about 10 minutes they were done. Rinse with cold water, drain, and toss with a little vegetable oil to prevent sticking. Set aside.
3. In a hot skillet with vegetable oil, stir fry bok choy with a few pinches of salt until soft but still a little bit crunchy, about 5 minutes. Remove from skillet.
4. Now sear the beef on each side until almost cooked through. Turn the heat down to medium.
5. Add the boiled rice ovals to the skillet, add soy sauce and oyster sauce (I can't tell you how much I ultimately used, but maybe start with 1/2 tbsp soy and 2 tbsp oyster sauce first, and add as needed), and stir around to coat rice ovals evenly. Try to separate the ovals that are stuck together.
6. Add the cooked bok choy back to the skillet and mix everything together. Heat through and adjust for taste by adding more oyster sauce as needed. The final sauce should be thick enough to stick to the rice ovals. Serve immediately, and store the rest in an airtight container, reheating in a microwave until it is hot all the way through before serving again to avoid hard rice ovals.
Enjoy and happy Mother's Day!
On a night when I was particularly busy trying to meet a submission deadline by midnight, I asked my boyfriend to make dinner for us (which I planned to shovel into my mouth at light speed before returning to work). He wanted to do something simple that could incorporate a bunch of ingredients and be a one-pot kind of dinner. Fried rice seemed to fit the bill! Neither of us particularly enjoys eating the soy sauce doused stuff that people pass for fried rice at greasy Chinese takeout spots. Instead we prefer Yang Chow style fried rice, which if you aren't familiar with, is a lighter and more savory fried rice that isn't flavored with dark soy sauce so the color is usually lighter, and contains certain usual ingredients including roast pork pieces, egg, shrimp, and scallions. Many times when I order Yang Chow fried rice in restaurants, they come looking pristine and white, which leads me to believe that they must be flavored with no soy sauce at all, though I'm not quite sure how to achieve that aside from using salt or fish sauce. In any case, my boyfriend decided to wing it based on skimming Wandering Chopstick's recipe (whose Asian blog I love), and thus was born his improvised version of Yang Chow fried rice:
He substituted Chinese sausage for the traditional roast pork, because it's what we have on hand and its sweet flavor is a very appropriate substitute for the roast bbq flavor of the pork. Shrimp and eggs were added, as well as diced carrots and onions for more body and flavor. For the greenery, he generously added chopped scallions and cilantro at the end of the stir frying, to keep them crisp and green. From what he tells me, he mainly flavored the rice with fish sauce and a little bit of soy sauce, as well as garlic and onion powders, salt, and sugar. He did manage to keep the rice relatively light colored though :)
I loved the cilantro here - it was so refreshingly good and crisp. To be honest, I used to hate cilantro when I was younger. In fact, I hated it up until maybe a year or two ago. But then one day something happened and I started to realize how much flavor it lent to certain dishes like Vietnamese summer rolls and Banh mi. And then it was just a matter of time before I started forcing myself to eat the cilantro that came with dishes, instead of picking them out like I normally would have. Just like that, I built up my tolerance and now I love cilantro in the right places. It perks this fried rice right up!
Yesterday (which was just an hour ago) was my 23rd birthday - the beginning of the age when we are expected to suddenly go from college students to being grownups. How intimidating! Things have been going quite smoothly in my work life, and in the next few weeks I will make my final decision about which medical school I will be going to this fall. Maybe the continued schooling will give me an excuse to be a "student" for another few years :)
I had a chance to celebrate my birthday early with my family this week. We had a cake freshly decorated for us from the only Chinatown bakery that was still open at 8pm on a Sunday night, so I'm quite grateful that I got a cake at all haha. The decorator made me a bull out of whipped cream on top of the cake, since I was born in the year of the Ox. It was done quite well if I do say so myself - I really liked the cute chocolate accents :) I was originally tempted to make my own cake, but you never make your own birthday cake heh. The cake had a mixed fruit filling, and the sponge cake layers were soft. I wasn't terribly fond of the whipped topping, as it was more fluffy and marshmallow-y than I would have liked, but the flavors came together pretty well. My family and I enjoyed the cake with some freshly brewed aromatic white tea that my dad brought back from China this past week, mmm.
That said, the meal I had tonight was still as amazing as Shino's has always been. I didn't really notice the flavor of the brown rice. It might have been slightly more chewy, but it definitely was a subtle difference (grr, not one I'd want to pay for), which is good because I was so worried that brown rice would ruin the sushi experience. I had a regular salmon roll, a crispy eel roll (eel, avocado, cucumbers, flying fish roe, and topped with mayo and crispy tempura bits drizzled in unagi bbq sauce), and one of their specials, the Boston lobster roll (avocado cucumber roll topped with warm baked lobster mixed with chopped raw red onions in a wasabi butter sauce). The rolls were all amazing, with fresh and fatty fish that melted in my mouth. The lobster roll is one of my favorites because it has such a unique flavor - the wasabi butter sauce really brings together everything in that roll, and it really is a monster to behold with all that lobster! My boyfriend also got a shrimp tempura roll which he said was really good too. Mmm I really wish I could go back to the days when Shino's was cheaper...
After dinner we went to Cheesecake Factory for some dessert - the Godiva chocolate brownie sundae :) Deliciously rich and a perfect end to a wonderful birthday dinner. I never knew this, but apparently Edy's makes a special vanilla ice cream specifically for Cheesecake Factory to use in their desserts. I wonder what exactly is different about it...
Thanks for a nice birthday dinner Greg! Gosh, I still can't believe I'm 23 already... time just passes so fast. There are so many things I'm looking forward to this year, and I'm also sad to be leaving Boston in just a few months. It really is a wonderful city filled with an endless array of amazing places for every taste. I am certain that the years I have spent here will be fond memories I carry with me forever.
I know, I know... nobody uses silken tofu to make pan fried tofu chunks because it falls apart too easily. But I had a dinner to whip up and what I had at hand was silken tofu. My boyfriend told me that his family sometimes makes a dish where they pan-sear slices of tofu and then top it with beef in a brown sauce. That sounded really good to me, but I was a bit skeptical about getting the silken tofu to sear without breaking it up into tiny chunks. I went ahead and tried it anyway though! I used pork instead of beef, and added a bunch of onions to the brown sauce. It was amazing! Seared silken tofu has this delightfully crunchy skin and a warm soft tofu center that just melts in your mouth... and topped with the pork and onion gravy, the flavor is just right! I had to experiment with a few pieces of tofu before I got going with the easiest searing method - but that means you won't have to! :) It takes a little bit of care to make sure you're not tearing the tofu up to shreds, but the result is so worth it.
Pan-seared Silken Tofu with Pork and Onion Gravy (serves 3-4)
Ingredients:
3 blocks of fresh silken tofu (3 inch cubes)
1/2 lb. pork tenderloin
1 1/2 medium onion, cut into thin strips
handful of cilantro, chopped up
2 tsp soy sauce
1 tsp rice wine
1 tsp sugar
dashes of garlic powder, onion powder, and white pepper powder
2 tsp cornstarch for the meat, plus more for the sauce as needed
1 1/2 tbsp teriyaki sauce (I used roasted garlic flavored)
3 tbsp oyster sauce
vegetable oil for searing
Directions:
1. Wash tofu blocks and cut into slices that are 1/2 x 1 x 2 inches in dimensions (about the length and thickness of your index finger), cutting it so that the "skin" side of the blocks are always along the thin edges of the slice - this helps hold the tofu together. To make this easy to figure out, just always place the skin side of the tofu down on the cutting board, and proceed to cut 1/2 inch slices from the top down.
2. Cut pork into thin strips, and marinate in the soy sauce, rice wine, sugar, cornstarch, garlic powder, onion powder, and white pepper powder for 10 minutes.
3. In a hot nonstick skillet, sautee the onions until starting to turn translucent. Remove from pan and set aside. Sear pork slices until mostly cooked through on both sides, and add back onions. Pour in about 3 cups of water (adjust as desired to get amount of sauce).
4. To make the sauce, stir in teriyaki and oyster sauces to achieve desired saltiness. It should be a rounded flavor with some sweetness. Stir in a slurry of 2 tbsp cornstarch in 1/4 cup of cold water, and allow the sauce to come to a boil to thicken. Add more cornstarch slurry if needed - you want to get a sauce consistency that is somewhat thickened, so that it will sit nicely on top of the tofu later.
5. In a clean non-stick skillet coated with vegetable oil, heat to medium/medium-high (about 6 on a dial from 1-9). Carefully lay down 8 to 10 pieces of your tofu with the flat side down. Don't let the tofu touch each other or else they'll stick later. Close the lid of the pan, and allow to sear approx 5 minutes, removing lid occasionally to release steam and remove water collecting on the top of the lid (you don't want too much of that to drip back into your pan).
6. Using 2 spoons, carefully flip each piece of tofu onto its back. The seared side should be golden. Continue to sear the backsides of the tofu pieces for another 4-5 minutes before removing from heat. Repeat with remaining tofu slices, and clean the pan in-between each batch if there are lots of little bits in the pan (don't want them to burn).
7. To plate: lay tofu slices out flat and spoon pork and onion gravy on top (I had more than enough pork gravy for the tofu I used - I had about 1 piece of pork for each piece of tofu). Garnish with fresh cilantro and serve immediately. Enjoy!
I think dry fried beef chow fun is one of those Chinese restaurant dishes that you either try and love or you get unlucky with a badly done dish and hate it. For the most part, I think it's hard to mess up - the usual culprit in a bad beef chow fun dish would be hard noodles. Normally, there are soft sheets of noodles that have soaked up the flavors from the oyster-based sauce, slippery with the vegetable oil that helps prevent the noodles from sticking and intermingled with flavorful pieces of beef and onions... it's always so satisfying, even though you know it's pretty greasy.
After seeing my mom buy the premade steamed rice noodle sheets from the Asian market recently, I discovered that you could also use the same noodles to make dry fried beef chow fun! (Just get the plain noodles without dried shrimp and scallions). So when I got back to school, I bought a bag of refrigerated freshly made rice noodle sheets from Super88 in Boston - they come in bags of 1-2 lbs of noodles, all folded into neat squares or rectangles and bagged in clear plastic baggies with vegetable oil to prevent sticking (cost me about $2.75 or so for a 2 lb. bag). I found an easy recipe from About.com, and with a few improvised ingredients, everything came together pretty easily. Dry frying is really just a term for stir frying something without the use of a liquid sauce or oil to fry in. You use dry frying to get things cooked without making it soggy and saucy, or crunchy, and with a hot enough wok, you can make your foods with a nice and smoky flavor this way too. And since I was cooking the chow fun myself, I could add veggies and use a lot less oil to get a healthier version of the same dish, double yum!
Dry Fried Beef Chow Fun (serves 4-6) original recipe at About.com
Ingredients:
2 lbs. folded steamed rice noodle sheets
1 lb. beef flank steak
2 medium onions, sliced
1 bag of washed fresh spinach
2 stalks of scallions
3 cloves garlic, minced
5 tbsp dark soy sauce
1 tbsp rice wine
1/2 tsp sugar
few drops of sesame oil
1 tsp cornstarch
2-4 tbsp oyster sauce (use as needed)
vegetable oil as needed for stir frying
Directions:
1. Cut flank steak into thin strips about 1/4 inch in
thickness. Marinate with soy sauce, rice wine, sugar, sesame oil, and
cornstarch for 15 minutes at room temperature.
2. Rinse refrigerated rice noodles under warm water to loosen sheets, applying mild pressure to loosen the folds. Cut noodle blocks into 1 inch strips and peel apart the sheets. Set aside.
3. Heat a skillet with vegetable oil on medium high. Sear beef by laying each piece flat against the skillet, and flipping after a minute. Cook another minute on other side. Remove from pan and clean the pan.
4. Cook the onions until they are starting to turn translucent. In another pan, heat some vegetable oil and gently cook the spinach just until wilted. Drain and set aside.
5. Add some vegetable oil to the onion pan, and add in the rice noodles, stirring vigorously to prevent burning and sticking. Try to coat all the noodles with oil to prevent them from sticking (some will probably occur, that's okay). Mix in minced garlic, cooked spinach, and cooked beef.
6. Add oyster sauce to the noodles, and mix to allow the noodles to soak up the sauce (they will turn a light brown color). The noodles should soften as they are warmed up. When they are soft and they taste flavorful enough (add more oyster sauce if needed), stir in scallions briefly, then remove from heat and serve.
Beef chow fun is best eaten fresh - if you have leftovers, sprinkle some water on top before microwaving. Rice noodles are hardened when they are cold, so make sure you microwave long enough to get them nice and hot. I really enjoyed this dish, even though I had some difficultly stirring the noodles around in the pan without too many casualties flinging outside the skillet (a big wok would have solved my problems). My boyfriend liked eating it with a bit of Sriracha sauce squirted on top, but I thought the flavor was great just the way it was. Best of all, it didn't taste or feel greasy, and the noodles didn't stick, so it was really nice. I would add some bean sprouts next time too, but the onions and scallions gave a nice crunch to contrast the soft chewy noodles also. Hah, not so tough after all!
Every baker has a comfort zone. I am no exception. But every once in a while, I feel the urge to challenge myself to try a difficult sounding recipe or a difficult to achieve baked good - if only to be able to say that yes, I did try making XYZ once. Not only that, but so often I find that the things we think are difficult may not be quite so bad after all. Although, other times we just lack the experienced hands of someone who has been baking for a lot longer, but that doesn't necessarily mean we should give up either. If I actually had the time and the resources to participate in the Daring Bakers monthly challenge, I would have joined long ago, as their mission resonates with me quite well. But since I am someone who mostly bakes with what I have available due to lack of shopping convenience, it would have been impossible for me to participate. Thus, you find me from time to time coming up with some difficult project to tackle on my own, which I find rather satisfying, since my personal growth as a baker and a cook depends largely on how much I can push myself to try new things.
Anyway, this week I was at home for spring break, thinking of things to bake, when my boyfriend suggested that I make some egg custard tarts - the popular palm-sized tarts that you can find in any Asian bakery. They're well-known for their tender flaky crust with lots of layers (somewhat like a denser version of puff pastry), and their bright yellow sweet custard centers that have a slight jello-like bite to them, like flan. Best of all, these tarts are relatively cheap (usually about 60 cents apiece), and pretty consistent between bakeries. But like all things baked, I always strive to make them fresh in my oven, as I find fresh-baked goods to be leaps and bounds above those that have been made in advance. Maybe things just taste better to you when you make them yourself :)
Still, I knew this would be a challenge before I even began. For one thing, I have made them before when I was in high school. I remember the first time I made them, the crust was soft but much too crumbly, leaving me with tarts that I could barely get out of the muffin pan. The second time I made these was also in high school, using a different recipe, and this time they came out with a hard, almost crunchy crust that was barely edible. I moved onto other baking projects and soon forgot about making egg tarts. That is, until this week.
I did a bit of recipe scouring and realized that in the past, I always made the tart crust from a single dough that included both lard and butter. But according to those in the know, to make a light flaky crust, you have to make it from a combination of two doughs - commonly referred to in the Chinese recipes as a "water dough" and an "oil dough". The two doughs have different compositions, and when rolled into alternating layers in the crust, separate during baking and form those wonderful flaky layers that are so coveted in the egg tart crust. I followed a forum thread on eGullet that discussed the search for the perfect egg tart recipe, and learned a great deal through everyone else's trials and tribulations. Although they ultimately did not come to a consensus on the best recipe, I did find one through that thread which I attempted - twice in three days. The first time my results were so-so, but the crust was a bit harder than desired, and not as flaky. With just a few tiny alterations and a slightly more experienced hand, the second attempt came out nearly perfect (at least for my standards of bakery style egg tarts). I used the crust from one recipe and the filling from another, as I was lacking a few ingredients. The custard filling of my tarts were smoother and creamier than the store-bought tarts, more like a custard/creme brulee rather than a flan. I personally liked it better this way, but your opinions may vary. All I know is that these were heavenly right out of the oven... and the crust resembled the bakery egg tarts very closely. Success! Finally!
Egg Custard Tarts - Hong Kong Style (港式酥皮蛋塔) (makes 24 regular-sized tarts)
crust recipe from Angie's Recipes - I made conversions from weight measurements to volume for this recipe
filling recipe from About.com
Ingredients:
Water dough:
2.5 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 egg, beaten
2 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp lard
about 10 tbsp water, or as needed
Oil dough:
10.5 tbsp butter, softened
1.1 cups lard, softened
2 cups AP flour
Filling:
2 eggs, at room temperature
1 1/2 cups milk (I used skim)
0.6 cups granulated sugar
1 tsp vanilla
Directions:
1. To prepare the water dough: place flour in a mixing bowl, make a well, add in sugar, beaten egg, and shortening. Mix well to get a crumbly mixture. Then stir water into the flour mixture until it just comes together to form a soft dough. DO NOT OVERWORK THE DOUGH (this is what made my crust tough in my first attempt). It's okay if the dough is a bit sticky, but don't stir it too much while you are adding water to form the dough.
2. To prepare the oil dough: place flour in a mixing bowl, make a well. Add softened butter and lard, mix well. Use your hands if necessary, as there is no liquid here to bind the dough. Just don't handle the dough for too long, otherwise you'll melt the fats.
3. Place both doughs in freezer until firm and solid.
4. While dough is chilling, stir together eggs for the filling in a bowl with a whisk until well-blended, but avoid creating bubbles. Stir in milk, sugar, and vanilla. Mix well and strain. Spoon off any remaining bubbles from the top.
5. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line a regular muffin pan with foil liners or make your own out of squares of foil.
6. You may choose to do this step in 2 batches, so that the rolling will be a big easier to do in a small space. On a floured surface (avoid using wax paper for rolling, since the dough will stick), roll out oil dough into a rectangle, and the water dough into a rectangle twice the length of the oil dough (about 1/4 inch thick). Place the oil dough in the center of the water dough. Fold over both sides of the water dough on top of the oil dough and touch just in the center, as if folding in the pages to make a book (this is called a book fold). Roll out the dough flat as large as possible, about 9 inches in diameter. Fold into quarters, roll flat again. Repeat twice more. Roll dough out into a big rectangle, about 1/4-1/5 inch thick.
7. Cut out circles from the dough using 3 inch cutters (or cups/bowls with thin rims). Lay circles into muffin pan and flatten against sides evenly. Using two fingers, pinch edges of crust into little A shapes along the rim, to give the final tart a slightly crimped appearance. Pour in egg custard into each tart crust until it is about 80% filled (do not over-fill, as they will bubble over).
8. Bake in oven for 25 minutes, or until the crust just started to turn golden, and the egg centers have puffed up slightly. Remove from oven and allow to cool briefly - these are best served warm!
I apologize for not having taken any pictures during the dough rolling process, which is probably the most confusing part. I had my hands in flour and dough, and wanted to roll them out quickly before they warmed up too much, so I couldn't whip out the camera. Plus my technique wasn't that great, I improvised a great deal when things didn't go smoothly hehe. All I can say is that you shouldn't worry about rolling the dough thin as you are rolling out the folds, and just envision that you are layering the oil dough and water dough into many many thin layers using this process, and it will make more sense. Look how beautiful the layers come out in the end... oh the fruits of your labor!
During my attempt I found that I had some extra custard filling left over, so I filled a few ramekins halfway with the custard and baked it for about half an hour in a water bath just like creme brulee. These came out great and had that velvety smooth texture, with just enough sweetness that it did not need a caramelized coating of sugar like creme brulee does. These are great chilled, and don't have a strong egg-y flavor. As you can see, this filling recipe has very little egg in it for the amount of filling it makes, so if you are using skim milk like I did, it's not even that bad for you :)
So to share a little bit from my first attempt with this recipe... I overworked the water dough when I was stirring it together, as the recipe from the website did not give enough water for the dough to come together. I kept trying to stir it and definitely over-developed the gluten in the flour. I also made them in a mini muffin baking pan, using a 1.5 inch dough cutter, since I thought that bite-sized ones would be cute, like the ones I often see at dim sum places. However, I realized afterwards that the crust to filling ratio is too high in these tiny tarts, so they don't taste as good as the regular sized ones in normal muffin pans. And of course, as I mentioned earlier, the crust was harder than expected, and a little bit crunchy, sort of like a shortbread (many of the simple one-dough recipes online call for you to make a shortcrust, so beware if you are searching for the authentic crust). So the first batch was a definite bust, although they were still tasty to eat as a treat - they just weren't like the ones in the bakery. I had actually made double the amount of oil dough during the first attempt, so I saved that in the refrigerator, along with half of the filling mixture, and re-made the water dough recipe with more water this time and less stirring of the dough. So I know for sure that the only thing that changed between the first and second attempt was the forming of the water dough, and potentially a better dough rolling process. The only difference in the second dough rolling was that I made sure to flour my surfaces, allowing for easier rolling. The first time, my doughs were not fully chilled, and I used sheets of wax paper which caused a lot of sticking that was painful to deal with. You can probably tell from the picture below that the crust is a bit overbaked and the small size of the tarts (about the size of a half dollar coin) meant too much crust in each bite compared to the filling.
In hind-sight, I was pretty disappointed about the recipe after my first attempt, but after I did my second attempt and saw how wonderfully they came out, I came to appreciate the fine subtleties in executing a recipe that can result in a very different product. Being able to tweak these methods as a baker is essential for achieving the desired results. So for sure, I learned a great deal in making this recipe, and really impressed my family with my handiwork. Of course, it was quite laborious the first time, and I was pretty sore after all that rolling. It's no wonder that most people don't make egg tarts at home, since it is so much easier to just go to the local Asian bakery and buy them whenever you want to eat them. That said though, my boyfriend told me that my crust had a special richness that the bakery crusts lack (he said the bakery tarts have a certain greasiness in their crust, but doesn't have a buttery richness that my crust has). He also said that he liked the smoothness of my custard filling better than the jello-like bite of the store-bought ones. So maybe there are some merits to making it on your own after all, as long as you are willing :)
I'm home for spring break right now. Every time I come home during breaks or long weekends, my family likes to celebrate by having something special for dinner. The thing is, we always celebrate by having the same thing - fresh crab or seafood hotpot. Chinese folks tend to see seafood as the ultimate celebration food, so it's always a special treat for when I come home. In fact, every time I go home, my boyfriend can predict that I'll be eating crab or hotpot at some point during my stay haha, and he's always right!
In my hometown, there aren't any large Asian markets like there are in Boston, but there are lots of small Vietnamese grocery stores. My parents happen to know one of these stores gets new seafood stock every Thursday, so this Thursday we dropped by and had our pickings of the best and freshest blue crab in the store. They were live and kickin, always a good sign of freshness. Blue crab is probably my favorite crab variety, as they have the tenderest and finest meat of any crab I have ever eaten. While the crab itself is usually quite small (about the size of my hand) and does not have a lot of meat, the meat it does have is sweet and silky. In comparison, other larger crabs like the dungeoness, rock crab, and Alaskan king crab all have very thick fibrous meat, where the fibers are large and sometimes quite chewy. For the most delicate of crab meats, I always go to blue crab. They're nasty little suckers to try and dig into, but you are well-rewarded for your hard work! Right now also happens to be the breeding season for blue crab, as all the crab we bought this week were filled with bright orange crab roe (eggs) that are considered a delicacy.
My family prepares these crab by first giving them an hour or two to soak in a sink filled with tap water. This soaking allows the crab to sort of "wash" their gills with clean water, which helps get rid of any sand or grit that are in their gills. Blue crab are usually not farm raised, so when they are caught they tend to have sandy gills depending on where they were living. Then you simply place the crab in a pot to steam on top of some boiling water, until their shells turn a bright orange (about 15-25 minutes). We also prepare a soy and vinegar-based sauce to dip the crab meat in when we eat it. Delicious! We usually eat about two to three crab per person, and it can get messy just like eating lobster, but it's so much fun :)
We also usually prepare a starch on the side to eat, as the crab alone may not fill you up, or leave you hungry later in the evening. Dumplings are a popular choice, or something like a stir fried noodle dish. This time, my mom had picked up a few packages of freshly steamed flat rice noodle sheets rolled up with dried shrimp and scallions from the Vietnamese market. After just a nuke in the microwave, they were ready to be served with a dallop of hoisin sauce. These rice noodle sheets are delicious and soft, and are used to make the popular chow foon dishes (also called he fun in Mandarin).
Finally, my mom prepared a tasty soup of spinach, mushrooms, snow peas, and pork blood. That's right, I did say pork blood. Now don't freak out on me... pork blood isn't actually liquid blood. It's blood that's been solidified (by congealing I think) into a block whose texture resembles tofu. It's a pretty popular ingredient in Asia. You buy it in rectangular blocks, and then you dice it or cube it into small chunks to be cooked in soups or dishes. Pork blood has a very distinctive texture - something of a mix between firm tofu and liver. The flavor itself is pretty mild, I would say it's similar to a very mild liver. It sure makes for an interesting form of protein in soup. In China, one of the most popular variations is to use chicken or duck blood in soups. For some reason, chicken/duck blood has a very soft and delicate texture, very similar to silken tofu, and is therefore preferred by most people over pig's blood. I know this is probably grossing you out, but it tastes pretty good. Just don't think about liquid blood and you'll be okay... it's sorta like a pate!
Anyway, that was my dinner this Thursday, and it was a mighty delicious way to be welcomed home :)
One of my favorite meals while I was growing up was savory Chinese pancake wraps (面饼) that my dad would make for us for dinner. It was one of the few things my dad liked to cook, and I remember him showing me how to make the batter and cook the pancakes on multiple occasions. An interesting tidbit about my dad: he never cooks except on rare occasions, but it was he that taught my mom how to cook after they got married! So everything my mom makes is really from my dad's expertise, yet he never cooks around the house anymore. How oddball haha.
Anyway, Chinese pancakes are somewhat similar to crepes, except they are a bit thicker. The batter is very simple, made with just flour and water, along with some salt and sugar for a little bit of flavor. But for the most part, the flavor comes from the filling that you wrap into the pancakes - savory sauces and meats and crunchy vegetables. It's a lot like eating Peking duck rolls, except the wrap isn't dry like a tortilla. In my family, we make these pancake wraps for an easy dinner, and serve them with hot congee (rice porridge) on the side. We usually spread hoisin sauce on the pancakes, and then wrap in whatever meat that we feel like that day (often times we use pork sung, but also sometimes turkey ham or bologna... it really doesn't matter). For the pancakes I made last night, I seared up some Chinese sausage for the meat filling, and cut up fresh cucumbers and onions for the vegetable. I really liked the refreshing crunch from the veggies and the Chinese sausage is so delicious and savory it rounds out the whole wrap.
Savory Chinese Pancake Wraps (makes approximately 6 pancakes - serves 2)
Ingredients:
For the batter:
2 cups all-purpose flour
8-10 oz. water
generous pinch of salt and sugar
For the fillings:
1-2 Chinese sausages
1 cucumber
1/2 small onion
Hoisin sauce
Directions:
1. Place flour in a bowl, and make a small well in the middle. Pour in water all at once and stir quickly to dissolve flour. The batter should be liquid but slightly thick, like a cold heavy cream. Add water as necessary to get the right consistency. Try to minimize the number of lumps by crushing them to release the flour inside. Stir in salt and sugar.
2. Heat a skillet to medium high. Add a little bit of vegetable oil to prevent sticking. Lift pan away from heating element and ladle about 1/2 cup of batter into the pan, tilting pan to rotate batter into a round shape (this takes practice, but it doesn't matter if it's misshapen, I promise :)
3. Cook pancake until the topside has lost most of its raw white color, and bottom is starting to just get a little bit golden in a few spots. Flip pancake and cook for a minute more - the bottom should have a bunch of round spots browning (see picture below for what the spots look like on the pancake). Flip again and cook the first side for another minute. Repeat with rest of the batter.
4. Slice up the Chinese sausage into short strips, and toss around in a clean skillet for a few minutes on medium heat until they start to release their oils and darken slightly in color. Slice the cucumber and onions into small strips as well, and place all the filling ingredients in separate plates for serving.
To serve: Take one pancake at a time, spread a teaspoon or two of hoisin sauce down the middle of the pancake in a long strip. Then lay a few strips of sausage, cucumbers, and onions down the pancake on the hoisin sauce. Roll up and eat :)
So my boyfriend's mother gave us this old cookbook that she's had lying around since the 70s. We jokingly call it the Communist propaganda cookbook. I mean... just look at it! I also find it silly that "The People's Republic of China Cookbook" would be written by a Japanese author, in English. Oh, and pretty much every other recipe in the book uses a generous portion of MSG for flavor...
Admittedly, it didn't come out bright orange like many ma po tofu dishes tend to be, but that's probably because I was missing a lot of the spicy ingredients it called for, and I was fine with that since I'm not fond of spicy anyway. The dish was nice and flavorful nonetheless, and although it could have used a bit more salt, I am trying hard to eat less salt whenever possible these days. I figure, if the food already has the salt in it, then I can't do anything about it... but if I'm cooking something that's slightly under-salted but bearable, I am fine with just eating it as is. As important as taste is to me, and as much as salt makes everything taste better, I want to avoid becoming dependent on salt for flavor. I see it happening at home with my parents, because my dad likes everything to have a strong flavor, so the dishes are usually saltier than I would need them to be. They taste great of course, just like salt laden restaurant food tastes great, but my dad has high blood pressure, and it worries me that he indulges in salt despite that, knowingly. That scenario is one that I'd like to avoid in my future. But I digress.
Ma po tofu has an interesting story of origin. Nobody can verify its claims, but supposedly there was an old woman with a pockmarked face that lived in a humble home outside the Imperial city way way back during the dynasty era. A father and son were stranded outside the city one night during a rainstorm, and went to her house for shelter. She served them this dish and they liked it so much that they kept coming back to visit her for it and soon other people heard about it and came to visit too, often bringing the ingredients with them so as not to burden her. Ma po, in Chinese, means old woman with pockmarks. So that's the little tale about this dish hehe. Another theory is that the "ma" in ma po refers to the numbness you feel after eating this normally spicy dish. Who knows where the name really came from?
Ma Po Tofu
Ingredients:
3 squares of tofu (approx 3x3" each)
1 large garlic clove
2 green onions
2/3 cup chicken stock
3 tbsp vegetable oil
1/3 lb. ground beef (I used 1/2 lb.)
1 tsp Szechuan hot bean paste (I substituted with black bean and garlic paste)
pinch of cayenne (I didn't have cayenne)
3/4 tsp sesame oil
1/2 tsp MSG (I omitted this)
1/4 tsp crushed flower pepper (don't have this either)
1 tbsp water mixed with 1/2 tbsp cornstarch
Directions:
1. Cut the tofu into 1/2 inch cubes. Place them in a pan and cover with boiling water for about 30 seconds to make them slightly firm (this is also called poaching the tofu - it brings out a brighter flavor and better texture). Drain in a colander.
2. Peel and mince the garlic. Cur the green onions in half lengthwise and slice diagonally into 1/2 inch sections. Heat the stock until it is just starting to boil.
3. Put oil in a wok or skillet over medium heat. When oil begins to smoke, add the ground beef and stir fry vigorously until browned. Add salt and stir. Turn down the heat and add hot bean paste and cayenne.
4. Add the hot stock and tofu to the meat. Simmer for 4 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add garlic and green onions, followed by sesame oil and MSG. Finally, stir in cornstarch mixture and boil until sauce is thickened.
5. Serve with a sprinkle of flower pepper on top, if desired.
A few weekends ago I had to go into work on the weekend (which is one of the things that I dread most), so I dragged my boyfriend along to grab lunch afterwards. Hehe the 30 minute walk to work in the cold weather is a bit more bearable when there's someone with you, and a hot lunch afterwards is great incentive for both parties :) Unfortunately when we were leaving my workplace and making the 10 minute walk to the Indian restaurant for lunch, the weather reared its ugly head. It was cloudy as I left my work, and then a minute later it began to rain, just a few droplets at first, then a little more, with the wind picking up dramatically. I was getting blown over, when next thing I knew, there was a gust of small snowflakes, which then turned back into rain. But no, the sky couldn't make up its mind, and in the next minute, the rain became a wall of little tiny ice pellets, flying sideways with the strong wind. Within literally a few minutes, I could no longer see ahead of me... the icy rain was coming down so hard and dense that it was completely white-out conditions. I was caught right in the midst of it all, and the icy rain came pelting down so hard that my face felt like it was being battered with needles, and I had to take cover next to a building before running the rest of the way to the restaurant yelling "ow ow ow!" the whole way there. Crazy weather I tell you! Of course, minutes after I was seated, the icy rain turned to a falling blanket of giant snowflakes, and another few minutes after that, bright sun. What a storm!
Anyway, we were getting lunch buffet at the Indian restaurant, which is called Royal Bengal. They serve mostly Northern Indian and Bengali cuisine, even though I don't really know what that really means hehe. Indian buffet is always a good time, because well first it's all you can eat, and that's always exciting for students living on a budget, but also because I don't eat Indian food often and it's fun to have something different every once in a while. The prices uses to be great, with the lunch buffet costing about $6 on weekdays and $7 on weekends (more meat dishes), and over the years it has risen gradually, to the point where weekend lunch is now $9.50 per person, which is at the threshold where I would not be willing to pay for it if it went any higher. Luckily MIT and Harvard students get a 10% discount, but honestly that's like less than $1 off, so it's not that much of a difference. So that particular weekend they were serving goat curry, fish tikka masala, and fish curry as their specials. The usual fare includes chicken tandoori, aloo gohbi (cauliflower and potatoes cooked with tomatoes, onions, herbs and spices), vegetables curry, daal (a creamy lentils dish), samosas, vegetable pakoras (battered and fried pieces of cauliflower usually), and some fresh vegetable salad with chutney and pita bread available on the side. Yum, here's my first platter of goodies. I try to get a little of everything, but I have to admit I'm not very good with spicy food, so I try to stick with less spicy stuff or else I'd be drinking water like crazy. I usually get a generous portion of the lentils, and some masala item, as they are mild and help give a little buffer to the spicy curries :)
Other things I've had lately include a good deal of homecooked meals. On the day that I got back from my latest NYC visit, my boyfriend had prepared dinner for us, which I thought was a really nice gesture especially after my long bus ride back. He pan fried together some onions and a bunch of garlic marinated pork chop medallions, which were thin and juicy with a slightly crispy layer of thin cornstarch. We ate them with rice and a side of garlic stir fried broccoli, and it was a great satisfying meal to come home to after a long day traveling. It's really nice to have someone there who can pick up the cooking when you just don't have the time for it (I had been thinking of getting fast food for dinner when he called me on the phone to let me know he was making dinner - good timing!).
There's so much personality in each dish, so much room for variation, that I honestly believe no two dishes I ever make come out the same. Which is fun for me, but I guess difficult for many Westerners to manage, since so often Western cooking is governed by recipes (even when they don't really need to be). That said, I believe cooking is a very intimate thing, and one that you can really only improve on with experience and a flair for experimenting. Whenever I ask my mom how to cook the dishes she likes to make at home, she can never spit out a recipe for me. Never. She'll just insist that I come and watch her cook, and she'll be able to rattle off the general steps, just never the amounts of the ingredients used. And now that I've done a bit of cooking myself, I know just how true that is. When you're just adding and adding an ingredient until you get that satisfactory taste, you definitely lose track of how much is going into the dish. Anyway... heh tangent.
So that night I made a simple cabbage and bacon dish, which is one of my go-to dishes for fast and fool-proof cooking. First off, cabbage must be the world's easiest vegetable to cut. All I do is rinse it, peel off the outer layer, cut the head in half. Then I cut out the stem and proceed to cut the half-head horizontally and vertically in just a few fell swoops before the entire thing is cut into a bunch of small rectangles, since the head holds together so well. So fast! Then I sizzle up some bacon until it's a little bit crispy, and I set that aside. I leave the oil from the bacon in the pan to cook the cabbage with, until the leaves are nice and soft and a bright light green color (the parts closer to the stem will stay a light yellow color). A dash of salt goes in, and then I throw the bacon pieces back into the pan for a quick twirl and it's ready to serve. I personally think cabbage is just as tasty without the bacon, but my boyfriend really likes it with bacon, so I throw some in to humor him. Cabbage just has a great mild but slightly sweet flavor that makes for a nice refreshing vegetable side for most dishes I think.
You know... it boggles my mind, but how DO people come up with names for their dishes? Like the one I improvised above, I wouldn't know the first thing to call it other than just describing what it is. Who came up with the names like scallopini and casserole? Pad thai? General Gau's? I'm going to call this... hoisin chicken... even though the translation into Chinese makes it mean seafood chicken lol. What, I'm not good at making up names! :P
For Chinese New Year, which I apologize for not having had any interesting entries about despite being Chinese and enjoying its cuisine (I just don't have the ingredients to make those special new year's dishes), I spent the day eating something pretty normal. Greg had the chance to grab a big family dinner in Chinatown though, and brought back some leftovers for me which included a beef clay pot dish, some taro fried duck, beef with tofu, and Cantonese style chicken. He also brought back some dessert that one of his relatives picked up at an Italian bakery... some mini cannolis! Mmm I love cannoli... it has the most interesting texture combination - crunchy outer shell with a creamy but gritty ricotta-like filling. The big cannolis can be a big daunting to handle in one sitting, but the mini ones are great for a bite-sized dessert :)
My Groups
-
Foodies Updated: 36 minutes ago
-
Food Photography Updated: 43 minutes ago
-
What's For Dinner? Updated: 9 hours ago
