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EVG posted:I suppose I'd need a cleaver for that though. I could use our regular knife, but I get the feeling it might be a bit abusive to the nice chef's knife. If you are butchering the chicken French style (removing things at joints and what i would say is the natural way you just need a sturdy paring knife) if you are doing it Korean or Chinese style of chopping it to bits then a cleaver is needed or just a lovely big knife.
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Oct 30, 2013 04:04
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My girlfriend just laughs at me for being a pansy when I eat fish. But then again, she's a monster and just rips crabs apart with her teeth and hands. But you know, deboned western fillet fish can be really bland. Maybe it's just the type of fish  DontAskKant posted:If you are butchering the chicken French style (removing things at joints and what i would say is the natural way you just need a sturdy paring knife) if you are doing it Korean or Chinese style of chopping it to bits then a cleaver is needed or just a lovely big knife. Nicer Chinese restaurants nowadays are doing it french style. Kant, Fromage come to HK again and let's eat Chinese food! I know a place that serves cripsy fried chicken 炸子雞 deboned. The skin, that pepper salt and lime zest is just perfect! mindphlux posted:I get good results by using mostly rice vinegar, and just a few splashes of soy sauce. then the sugar is easier to balance out, and it's not too salty. soy sauce loving destroys the flavor of everything else it touches if you use more than like a tablespoon. I rarely ever use more than a splash, even in marinades, just because it'd overwhelm the other components. Zhenjiang black vinegar is the bees knees. That stuff is like high quality balsamic vinegar. If you want to make a dip/sauce/marinades, mix it up with some dark soy sauce. Funny enough, dark soy sauce is more for coloring and sweeter taste than your generic soy sauce. Even if you go heavy handed and dump half a bottle into your cooking, your food just turns dark black/brown without being too savory. For gyoza dips, substitute light soy sauce with dark soy sauce. But if you want to gooon out just go all out with tabasco, lee and perrins and of course maggi  Millions posted:My friend is going to Hong Kong for a week. Any recommendations for 1-2 ingredients I could have her pick up for me while she's over there? Is your friend familiar with HK? PM me for dates if your friend wants a goon host. I can take her grocery shopping and dim sum. Most HK goons I know rather eat western food. There is a Singapore goon coming to town this Sunday and I'm trying to set up a dim sum meet a decent restaurant. But guest what? I got to throw in a subway sandwich to make that goon come out  Here's a quick list of things from the top of my head, some are liquids so pack carefully into your checked luggage.
So yeah, I really don't know what you or your friend likes/want to bring. Hopefully it's a decent primer. But the real treasures are actually in Macau and not Hong Kong. caberham fucked around with this message at 04:21 on Oct 30, 2013 |
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Oct 30, 2013 04:13
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Caberham knows all the proper old ladies to shake down in HK, I can confirm he can get you good stuff. All the hard to get stuff in my Chinese pantry is from him. 
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Oct 30, 2013 04:17
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Oh yeah, just cross posting some food pictures from my Beijing trip. Oh some photos from my Beijing trip! It was really fun meeting goons and all. The weather was initially pretty bad but turned out ok. Beijing goon meet was nice a turn up, but relatively tame.  Awesome fried pancakes, piping hot. Only 4rmb, that's like 66 cents.  Shout out to B-rad, and other Beijing goons, recommending me to this place for dumplings  Proportions were pricey for China standards considering it was 15rmb for 6 dumplings: They got all sorts of dumplings, like lotus roots and fennel, new year special (shrimp and pork and chicken) , really really good for my southerner tastes. They don't serve soy sauce, to my chagrin. Wish I brought my own vinegar.  Beijing gooooooon meet San Li Tun: Kro's next. I was kind of busy so props to the lurker goon for booking a table and all, maybe next time we can do go karting or  laser tag
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Oct 30, 2013 04:31
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caberham posted:[*] Sorry to be a dick but this one's not funny. Shark populations are plummeting to the extent that they may be gone within our lifetimes and it's the Chinese that are eating them. Or rather, eating tiny pieces of them which drives up the total kill compared to British people eating dogshark species. In my experience Chinese people are incredibly ignorant about this sort of issue. Please tell people not to eat shark fin soup.  Also tell them to stop buying ivory please ok thanks Chinese cultural ambassador. Arglebargle III fucked around with this message at 05:06 on Oct 30, 2013 |
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Oct 30, 2013 05:03
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Look, China is already pretty cyberpunk and shark fin is their way of giving back. Overfishing is resulting is massive depletion of our natural fishy resources. Fishy resources that sharks compete with us for. So by taking out the sharks, the Chinese are helping restore fish populations for other places like Japan. The added bonus is that shark fins are slimy and flavorless, which is pretty much the sine qua non of a base ingredient in Chinese cooking.
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Oct 30, 2013 06:12
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caberham posted:
I'm pretty sure you're not allowed to bring any animal products back to the States (at least not going through LAX). My family used to bring back all sorts of stuff on that list, but customs is getting tougher. In the last few years my mom has had her bags searched every time she's flown back. I think my dad got away with dried scallops once saying they were mushroom stems  I've also suggested throwing that stuff in my luggage (what 20-something is going to be carrying tree bark??) but they're too afraid to try anymore.Of all the things we can't bring back anymore, I think I miss cordyceps chicken soup and bird's nest the most. There's bird's nest here but..it's not the same.
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Oct 30, 2013 07:59
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Shbobdb posted:The added bonus is that shark fins are slimy and flavorless, which is pretty much the sine qua non of a luxury ingredient in Chinese cooking. Fixed that. See also: abalone (hm, kind of bland, vaguely pork-like slices in a bland gravy? Hells yeah!), sea cucumber (nom, I can't stop eating this water-flavoured sponge!) and swallows nests (oh god this soup is so good...wait, you say it's made with poultry and pork rib stock that is so rich it almost gelatinizes the moment it is poured? who'da thunk). The most delicious foods are, with few exceptions, the stuff that ordinary (that is, poor) people (used to) eat. Noodles, long-simmered tough pieces of meat, tofu (especially the one that had gone somewhat bad but you still had to eat because there literally was nothing else and you know what it's kind of better now nom nom nom) and so on.
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Oct 30, 2013 11:18
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caberham posted:
Mmmm street food
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Oct 30, 2013 14:26
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So...they render fat from animal corpses they find in dumpsters/the gutter/sewers...I'm not entirely sure how different boiling the hell out of random animal x fat is from boiling the hell out of a pigs fat.
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Oct 30, 2013 14:44
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Don't forget about the waste oil in grease traps (ask someone who's had to clean one out what they think of it) and sewer drains. The fats they're using are mostly rancid and filled with some pretty not nice stuff. It's kind of a little bit different from rendering fat from a fresh, non-rotten animal.
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Oct 30, 2013 18:20
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porkypocky posted:I'm pretty sure you're not allowed to bring any animal products back to the States (at least not going through LAX). My family used to bring back all sorts of stuff on that list, but customs is getting tougher. In the last few years my mom has had her bags searched every time she's flown back. I think my dad got away with dried scallops once saying they were mushroom stems In 2001 I managed to bring back a bottle of snake wine from my school trip to China. It sat on my family's shelf for years until my mom chucked it out, sadly.
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Oct 30, 2013 20:03
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I've been hearing a bit online about China's total lack of food safety/product manufacturing standards. How worried do I need to be about buying products (ie condiments, noodles etc) produced in China that are sold at my local generic Asian-mart? Am I going to get cancer and die of heavy metal poisoning if I cook regularly with stuff produced in China?
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Nov 2, 2013 02:33
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Short answer: drink hot water, it cures everything! As far as I know, most Chinese products in the Asian food isle are from Hong Kong and Singapore. Lee Kum Kee is Hong Kong, Yeo's is Singaporean. If you use Pearl Rive brand, you deserve to die. Major items made in the mainland I can think of are Chinkiang/zhenjiang black vinegar and lou gan ma chilli sauce. They should be fine. Anyways, the biggest food safety scandal is the baby milk powder scandal. Everything else is more along of the lines of sensationalism/exaggeration (but still true). And the stories cover niche/seasonal products like fresh bamboo shoots at super crazy discount prices, mouldy moon cakes, etc... **** I'm just a soy sauce snob. Pearl river is safe to eat (for now). caberham fucked around with this message at 03:50 on Nov 2, 2013 |
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Nov 2, 2013 02:57
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caberham posted:Short answer: drink hot water, it cures everything! Is the Pearl River brand terrible chemicals or just terrible tasting? Got a bottle of it to try yesterday but it's unopened, can throw it out of it's going to maim me. Other than that I'll stop worrying so much!
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Nov 2, 2013 03:37
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He's just being a SSS: Soy Sauce Snob.
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Nov 2, 2013 09:01
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Don't diss on Pearl River or there'll be manual negotiations 
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Nov 2, 2013 09:46
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Pearl River tastes horrible, also turns any food deep brown like no other soy sauce.
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Nov 2, 2013 10:30
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eine dose socken posted:Pearl River tastes horrible, also turns any food deep brown like no other soy sauce. I've been using Pearl River since I was a baby, what is a better soy sauce to use?
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Nov 2, 2013 15:16
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This is probably an awful question, but is there any way to make nuo mi fan without pork? Or will it effect the flavor and texture?
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Nov 2, 2013 15:38
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You mean sticky rice steamed with pork and sausage and what not? Because, yeah, the porky fattiness is a pretty big deal in those dishes. Same goes for claypot rice, it's just made for pork.
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Nov 2, 2013 16:27
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Dogwood Fleet posted:I've been using Pearl River since I was a baby, what is a better soy sauce to use? We've always used Kikkoman. I don't know how legit that is but my parents have been buying it by the gallon ever since they came to the US as poor college students in the 80s.
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Nov 2, 2013 18:28
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Caberham, which soy sauce does the snob recommend? e: Forgot to add: This thread is awesome! Power Khan fucked around with this message at 21:44 on Nov 2, 2013 |
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Nov 2, 2013 20:52
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My parents bought kikkoman and I buy kikkoman too. My grandparents bought kimlan, but they were fighting a war against the japanese. kimlan is good too.
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Nov 2, 2013 21:09
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I can't speak for Chinese soy sauce but for Japanese, absolutely Yamasa instead of Kikkoman. I've used a lot of Kikkoman but read the label, there's a lot of unnecessary poo poo in there, hfcs etc. Yamasa is still naturally brewed, and is what they used at the sushi restaurant I used to work at.
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Nov 2, 2013 21:20
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Kikkoman doesn't have hfc in it. Ingredients just water, wheat, soybeans, salt and sodium benzoate (1/10 if 1%)
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Nov 2, 2013 21:26
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Grand Fromage posted:Same here in Korea, it's awful. I quickly figured out how to ask them not to cut up my meat for me to avoid having the butcher ruin it. I visited for the first time a couple months back, and was floored at how much I had to order to get a single "steak" worth of meat. I won't even discuss McDonalds.
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Nov 3, 2013 00:15
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Flash Gordon Ramsay posted:Kikkoman doesn't have hfc in it. Ingredients just water, wheat, soybeans, salt and sodium benzoate (1/10 if 1%) The big can I have here does. Edit: on second look... you're right, it doesn't. However their usukuchi does according to the label I have here. Sorry, I must be going insane. That said I still think yamasa tastes better. hallo spacedog fucked around with this message at 03:44 on Nov 3, 2013 |
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Nov 3, 2013 03:39
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Magna Kaser posted:He's just being a SSS: Soy Sauce Snob. I'm a Serious soy sauce snob : 4S  Shnooks posted:This is probably an awful question, but is there any way to make nuo mi fan without pork? Or will it effect the flavor and texture? You can try using duck fat and duck sausages, duck liver as a substitute. It's a clearer taste and not as greasy. Just add Maggi. Or be a serious soy sauce snob and.... InspectorBloor posted:Caberham, which soy sauce does the snob recommend? Well it depends on what you want your soy sauce for? Steamed fish? Soy sauce marinade? Dipping? Sitr Fry? Braise? I'm going to assume light soy sauce because dark soy sauce or double marinade is basically left over batches of soy sauce with lots of other additives. The best soy sauce I ever tasted was home brewed. An old co-worker use to make all sorts of ingredients from scratch and sold it to us at cost. It was 12USD for a measly bottle but drat it was good. But if you want to buy something from a super market I would heartily recommend Pat Chun first press. http://www.patchun.com/english/products_soysauce_supreme.html But using that for everyday cooking can get pretty expensive. So what are the more economical choices? Pearl River Delta is China town take out quality bad. Using that relies more on the Chef's skill than the quality of ingredients. Gam Lan is "Okay". Lee Kum Kee is the safest bet. But really though, good soy sauce is just a flavour enhancer, so you should always give it an extra treatment. For instance, adding oil and cooking it with scallions and ginger for steaming fish, braising it with mushrooms and save it for other meat dishes, etc... Or you can just skip Chinese soy sauce and add Usokuchi - I'm from Hong Kong and we worship everything from Japan, especially when it comes to Japan Agriculture food products.
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Nov 3, 2013 04:25
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I'm mostly doing stir frying, occasionally marinading stuff, but I'm also interested in soups. The names that you gave me will help alot. Maybe some asian supermarkets around here have some of that stuff, and if everything fails, I'll get some online.
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Nov 3, 2013 10:11
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I had no idea what soy sauce I have at home, turns out it's Pearl River Delta Forgive me, caberham.
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Nov 3, 2013 11:21
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Yamasa, while not Chinese, is pretty drat good and the three Asian restaurants I've worked at all got it in by the 5 gallon bucket.
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Nov 3, 2013 17:58
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Yes, Yamasa is good, but hard to get here for some reason. It seems that most supermarkets get their stuff from the same trader in the netherlands, so you'll find the same stuff over and over (with very little varation). I've been testing through the available brands for the last 2 years or so. One of the most surprising finds was a tamari sauce from the most unlikely source that turned out to be quite good for my white man's taste. A small local producer of organic foods. Who would have expected that this stuff brewed in Austria doesn't taste like tar?
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Nov 3, 2013 19:04
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Since we are talking Soy Sauce how does Trader Joe's measure up?
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Nov 3, 2013 19:26
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I just took a shot at dry-fried beef. While it may not really be "proper" dry-fried beef or whatever, it was drat tasty. The meat has a nice chewy texture without being too tough, and the spices really go together nicely. Ingredients
Cut the beef into strips.  Mix the dry spices.  Mix the soy sauce and shaoxing. I didn't really measure this out, I just poured some soy sauce into the bowl, then added what seemed like an equivalent amount of wine. YMMV etc.  Heat up the wok, add oil. I don't know how much I added, but it was pretty generous, more than just a coating on the pan. Maybe 1/8" or so on the bottom of the wok? Once the oil is hot, add the beef. Let it sit like that for a little while, maybe 30 seconds, then start stirring. After the meat browns up, it will release a bunch of water. Keep stirring until that water mostly boils away; eventually, it'll stop steaming so much and you're basically back to the oil you started with. Once the beef is a nice dark brown, drain whatever oil is still in there. At this point, I wanted to dry out the surface of the beef a bit, so I kept cooking it for about another minute. Add the soy sauce & shaoxing mixture. Stir it a few times to fully coat the meat, then grab the dry spices and shake them across the meat. Stir until it looks evenly distributed, then shut off the burner.  Serve over rice  Edit: This will make enough to serve 2 people pretty well. Add vegetables or something if you're lame and want to pollute the purity of beef, I guess. Second edit: I made it again tonight and measured better. I'm happy with the ingredients which are now listed. Pham Nuwen fucked around with this message at 04:18 on Nov 5, 2013 |
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Nov 3, 2013 20:29
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EVG posted:Thanks for the advice! Actually cooked the noodles separately and put them in. Not sure what noodles I used, just grabbed one of the packages of misc. chinese noodles I had in the cupboard. I think I do have thinner ones, will use those next time. Make Hu Tiew Mi, it's a Vietnamese pork soup or Tom Saap a hot and sour Thai soup. Both use a broth based on pork bits, I'd say the Tom Saap is easier to make if that matters.
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Nov 4, 2013 06:41
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Pham Nuwen posted:I just took a shot at dry-fried beef. Huh, thanks; my beef always turned out really tough. I'm realizing I probably added the sauce too early.
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Nov 4, 2013 07:34
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Sacrilage posted:Huh, thanks; my beef always turned out really tough. I'm realizing I probably added the sauce too early. No guarantees that it's the best way to cook it, I just got the general idea online and tried to make it work. I'm reasonably pleased with the outcome.
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Nov 4, 2013 08:23
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I found angry lady sauce today. It just took me a trip to 3 different supermarkets in 2 hours. This is a great day. Btw, a high powered induction stove is awesome. Now I just need a new wok that doesn't cost me a fortune. e: it seems I haven't seasoned old cast iron my wok properly. Power Khan fucked around with this message at 19:35 on Nov 4, 2013 |
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Nov 4, 2013 18:47
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Any tips for making a banging 炒白菜？ Is dried chili and Sichuan peppercorn the way to go?
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Nov 7, 2013 19:00
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