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angerbot
Mar 23, 2004

plob

NLJP posted:

This looks really great but just a quick question, what's the best way to sift out the seeds in this case? I'm probably being dumb but either I separate the skin from the seed at the start or I end up with the occasional gritty bit later. Can you just pound them in a mortar? I'd assume a grinder would grind too much gritty stuff in with it all, which is basically what happened the first time I tried to use sichuan pepper since I didn't know about the grit and haven't used them much since.

Just wondering what the most convenient way to sort these buggers out is :)

If I remember the seeds are pretty hard and glassy, so when you toast the shells and grind them in a mortar and pestle, the seeds stay pretty much intact and you can sieve them out.

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Force de Fappe
Nov 7, 2008

I crush them in the pan, and shake the pan back and forth a little while. The round seeds roll, the crushed hulls stay mostly put. After a few shakes, the seeds gather up and you can pick them out easily. It's no crisis if one or two remain.

Also, of course, buy good quality stuff if you can find it. Less seeds and often more flavour.

Mr Gentleman
Apr 29, 2003

the Educated Villain of London

Sjurygg posted:

Zha jiang mian ("Fried sauce noodles")



zha jiang mian seriously owns and just looking at the oil/sauce on the noodles in the last photo makes my mouth water. I need to whip up some this week

Kritzkrieg Kop
Nov 4, 2009
To me, the best food in the world is northern Chinese food.

Here's some recipes from my girlfriend's food blog (which is mostly inactive, unfortunately)


Spicy Cold Noodles


Red-Cooked Spareribs (紅燒排骨 Hong Shao Pai Gu)


Green Onion Pancakes


Cumin Pork


Spicy eggplant


Tang Yuan 汤圆 (Glutinous Rice Balls)

RyceCube
Dec 22, 2003
Anyone have an egg tart recipe they would like to share?

GrAviTy84
Nov 25, 2004

Phiberoptik posted:

Anyone have an egg tart recipe they would like to share?

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3401971&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=3#post390492515

There is an index of recipes posted so far in the OP.

Aero737
Apr 30, 2006
It's time to get a REAL Chinese recipe in this thread. :china:

地三鲜 Di San Xian (Yes mother loving PINYIN not Jyutpingffffttttt or whatever pansy "Chinese" those other recipes are in)
Roughly means Three Fresh Earth.



I found this dish going to the local Chinese restaurant here in Beijing. It is a popular northern dish, and basically every local place will serve it. I thought it was simple enough to make, and loving amazing to eat so here is this post.

What you will need:
1 or 2 Eggplants (the eggplants are smaller here in China than in the USA, so you might get by with one)
2 or 3 large potatoes
2 green peppers
4 cloves of garlic
Cooking Oil (I use peanut oil because it has a high smoke point)
Soy sauce (I use dark *I think because I can't read the lable*)





Prepare your vegetables. I cut my potatoes thin to speed up cooking. I cut the eggplant length wise, and then length wise again and then cut into small pieces. Cut the green pepper however you like. Dice the garlic into thin slices that will cook quickly.



Pour about half an inch of oil in the bottom of your wok. Turn the fire on *surface of the sun* or as hot as it will go. Let your wok get to the point of smoking and throw in your potatoes.





I'm not too GWS, but I think this is referred to as shallow frying (opposed to deep frying?) but you want to cook them to a golden brown and tender throughout. Strain out the oil and set the cooked potatoes aside on a plate.



You should still have a quarter of an inch of oil in the pan, if not, add some more. Let it heat up again and throw in the eggplant. Keep the eggplant moving since it is naturally a little dry and likes to stick.



Once the eggplant is tender, add the cut up green pepper and diced garlic. If you're running low on oil in the pan, add a tad bit more. Keep tossing the green pepper, eggplant, and garlic in the pan. I use a spoon to keep as much vegetable in contact with the outside of the pan as possible.



Once the green pepper is starting to shrink and becomes tender, add the potato. Toss to mix well. Throw some soy sauce over top and toss to until the food is evenly coated. I put a lid on the wok at this point to keep some moisture in and stopping it from getting burnt.



Throw it on a plate and serve.

So there you have it. One of the dishes that keeps REAL China moving. A meal fit for a communist-- no fancy spices and no stupid capitalistic ingredients. You could grow this meal in the garden and cook it up while you are not smelting steel in your fireplace at home. Hu Jintao is probably eating a plate of this right loving now.

共产主义中国是真正的中国!**

*Note, I know my kitchen is messy
*I didn't have enough eggplant when I took these photos
*I know I am not good at taking photos
**Just google translate

Aero737 fucked around with this message at 15:25 on Oct 26, 2011

GrAviTy84
Nov 25, 2004

I appreciate your contribution, but you realize you pretty much just stir fried vegetables with soy sauce. This is in no way unique or difficult, not only that but you were incredibly rude, which does not conform to whirled peas. Also, use or non use of Pinyin titles does not authenticate or negate the authenticity of a dish. Now, on to your recipe!

There is more that one variety of eggplant! I know it's shocking but its true. The variety you are referring to is an Asian cultivar, they do sell them here in America. The larger ones you are thinking are the same cultivar are actually Italian eggplants and need to be salted and sweated before cooking.

quote:



That is a really small knife. Are you sure this dish is authentic? A "REAL" Pinyin using Chinese person would use a gigantic cleaver.

quote:

Pour about half an inch of oil in the bottom of your wok. Turn the fire on *surface of the sun* or as hot as it will go.

The wok should be heated to "surface of the sun" temperature *empty,* Only adding the oil once hot. Heating a wok with oil in it to the temperature of the sun is a bad idea :supaburn:

quote:

I'm not too GWS, but I think this is referred to as shallow frying (opposed to deep frying?)
A REAL, Pinyin using, cleaver weilding, Chinese person would know that cooking such a dish in a wok is stir frying.

* is that a plastic handled wok? I can't tell if it's plastic or painted wood, but plastic handles with surface of the sun temperature woks is a bad idea.

Force de Fappe
Nov 7, 2008

Aero737 posted:

It's time to get a REAL Chinese recipe in this thread. :china:

地三鲜 Di San Xian (Yes mother loving PINYIN not Jyutpingffffttttt or whatever pansy "Chinese" those other recipes are in)


Dì sān xiān, shǎ bī :colbert:

porkypocky
Feb 11, 2009
Is it bad that I want to try this simply because I've never seen anyone stir fry a potato before?

GrAviTy84 posted:

There is more that one variety of eggplant! I know it's shocking but its true. The variety you are referring to is an Asian cultivar, they do sell them here in America. The larger ones you are thinking are the same cultivar are actually Italian eggplants and need to be salted and sweated before cooking.

When my mom first came to the States she had no idea about this and ended up cooking an Italian eggplant Chinese style. My dad told her it was like eating a shoe, she got pissed and tossed it. It was 20 years before she cooked eggplant again, and only because I had some at a restaurant and found it to be delicious.

GrAviTy84
Nov 25, 2004

porkypocky posted:

Is it bad that I want to try this simply because I've never seen anyone stir fry a potato before?

Not at all, my main gripe was that he came in here all smug and judgmental while only contributing the equivalent of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on wonderbread.

Editing to add content: I've had Chinese dishes with potatoes in them before, most were claypot style dishes, things like braised beef shanks with potatoes and nappa cabbage with black bean sauce. The potatoes are usually peeled, cubed, and deep fried before adding to the claypot. The stir fried potato dishes were prepped sort of like Aero's post, but would have a sauce with more than one dimension.

GrAviTy84 fucked around with this message at 21:19 on Oct 26, 2011

Hungry Gerbil
Jun 6, 2009

by angerbot

GrAviTy84 posted:

Not at all, my main gripe was that he came in here all smug and judgmental while only contributing the equivalent of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on wonderbread.

He was trying to be funny.

Casu Marzu
Oct 20, 2008

Hungry Gerbil posted:

He was trying to be funny.

Hilarious.

AriTheDog
Jul 29, 2003
Famously tasty.
It's actually a really good basic dish. But yeah, ultra basic. Novel, however, for the idea of eating potatoes on top of rice. Goes really well with spicy dishes.

I've been making ma-po tofu a lot lately, and it's really good! I often omit the meat from Fuschia Dunlop's recipe, and tend to add some ya cai/sichuan preserved vegetable. I also use chongqing chilies, and pixian toban djan, which is actually made with fava beans and no soybeans (or so the label claims) and it's significantly better than other brands I've tried. Comes in a big bag full of paste. For anyone in the SF Bay Area, try making the recipe with Hodo's medium firm tofu. Yummy.

porkypocky
Feb 11, 2009
Hey since I'm here I might as well ask:
I've made my own lu zi/braising soy sauce for making chicken, like this:
http://www.myasiankitchenny.com/2009/04/braised-chinatown-soy-sauce-chicken.html

I used a combination of light/dark soy, star anise, 5 spice and brown sugar and it tastes good...but not great. Will the taste get richer the longer I keep it or does anyone have any suggestions on what to add?

Also I've heard you shouldn't use the same lu zi for different animals. Is this true? I thought it was for safety but if you're boiling it shouldn't it be ok? My freezer space is limited but I want to eat all the animals.

Aero737
Apr 30, 2006
Obviously you've never heard of Chinese nationalism, nor the opinions of northern Chinese vs southern Chinese, and probably never read a Chinese blog/message board/chat room ever. SORRY!

And while I agree most is stir frying, cooking the potatoes is not, more like deep frying but not with so much oil.

Also, sorry, not pictured is my big gently caress off cleaver. I get it sharpened once a week for 1 RMB from some guy on a bicycle. I use that little one just to peel potatoes.

(USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)

porkypocky
Feb 11, 2009

Aero737 posted:

Obviously you've never heard of Chinese nationalism, nor the opinions of northern Chinese vs southern Chinese, and probably never read a Chinese blog/message board/chat room ever. SORRY!

Well can you keep your esteemed opinions out of the thread? There are people like me who just want to talk about food.

feelz good man
Jan 21, 2007

deal with it

Aero737 posted:

Obviously you've never heard of Chinese nationalism, nor the opinions of northern Chinese vs southern Chinese, and probably never read a Chinese blog/message board/chat room ever.
:hchatter:

Casu Marzu
Oct 20, 2008

Aero737 posted:

Obviously you've never heard of Chinese nationalism, nor the opinions of northern Chinese vs southern Chinese, and probably never read a Chinese blog/message board/chat room ever. SORRY!

And while I agree most is stir frying, cooking the potatoes is not, more like deep frying but not with so much oil.

Also, sorry, not pictured is my big gently caress off cleaver. I get it sharpened once a week for 1 RMB from some guy on a bicycle. I use that little one just to peel potatoes.

So edgy.

Fleta Mcgurn
Oct 5, 2003

Porpoise noise continues.

Aero737 posted:

Obviously you've never heard of Chinese nationalism, nor the opinions of northern Chinese vs southern Chinese, and probably never read a Chinese blog/message board/chat room ever. SORRY!

And while I agree most is stir frying, cooking the potatoes is not, more like deep frying but not with so much oil.

Also, sorry, not pictured is my big gently caress off cleaver. I get it sharpened once a week for 1 RMB from some guy on a bicycle. I use that little one just to peel potatoes.


You wrote "I found this dish going to the local Chinese restaurant here in Beijing." That was the funniest EVER.

LITERALLY MY FETISH
Nov 11, 2010


Raise Chris Coons' taxes so that we can have Medicare for All.

HELP, I'M DUMB:
Can anyone tell me how shanghai noodles are supposed to be prepared? I just completely ruined two packages of the stuff :bang:, following this recipe. I gather that the microwaving bit is a shortcut, but since I don't know how they're originally supposed to be prepared I don't know what it's a shortcut around. I can find plenty of resources on how the noodles are pulled which, while fascinating in and of itself, doesn't help me at all.

GrAviTy84
Nov 25, 2004

Bauxite posted:

HELP, I'M DUMB:
Can anyone tell me how shanghai noodles are supposed to be prepared? I just completely ruined two packages of the stuff :bang:, following this recipe. I gather that the microwaving bit is a shortcut, but since I don't know how they're originally supposed to be prepared I don't know what it's a shortcut around. I can find plenty of resources on how the noodles are pulled which, while fascinating in and of itself, doesn't help me at all.

depends, do you have fresh, parboiled, or dry noodles?

fresh noodles will often be covered in flour to keep them from sticking, they need to be boiled, drained, and oiled before stirfrying

dry noodles also need to be boiled, drained and oiled, but they need to be boiled longer.

parboiled noodles will be coated in oil, they can be directly stir fried.

ForkPat
Aug 5, 2003

All the food is poison

Bauxite posted:

HELP, I'M DUMB:
Can anyone tell me how shanghai noodles are supposed to be prepared? I just completely ruined two packages of the stuff :bang:, following this recipe. I gather that the microwaving bit is a shortcut, but since I don't know how they're originally supposed to be prepared I don't know what it's a shortcut around. I can find plenty of resources on how the noodles are pulled which, while fascinating in and of itself, doesn't help me at all.

When I use packaged parcooked noodles like that, I simply put them over whatever I'm cooking and cover for a minute to soften them. After they're softened and pliable use your spatula to separate them. I use a kind of vigorous wiggle that doesn't smash or break up the noodles. I've never microwaved them, but I don't see how doing it for the 45 seconds listed would ruin them; it's only used to soften and separate them.

What do you mean by "ruin?"

LITERALLY MY FETISH
Nov 11, 2010


Raise Chris Coons' taxes so that we can have Medicare for All.

Maybe I'm being too rough with them, but whenever I get them into the wok it's like trying to saute pizza dough, they stretch or stick together and turn into a wet ball of mess. Does boiling fix that, or are shanghai noodles just supposed to be like that?

GrAviTy84
Nov 25, 2004

Bauxite posted:

Maybe I'm being too rough with them, but whenever I get them into the wok it's like trying to saute pizza dough, they stretch or stick together and turn into a wet ball of mess. Does boiling fix that, or are shanghai noodles just supposed to be like that?

Were they coated in flour in the package or were they shiny, bouncy, and taut, and possibly coated in oil?

Assuming the former, you need to boil them.

Assuming the latter, you might just need to do what porkfat suggested cover and steam them a bit and allow them to loosen.

Any package instructions, by any chance? Can you take a picture of the package?

LITERALLY MY FETISH
Nov 11, 2010


Raise Chris Coons' taxes so that we can have Medicare for All.

So I go dig out one of the packages from the garbage. Right on the front:

Bring 6 quarts of water to boil. Place noodles in water, bring to second boil, cook until tender.

:suicide:

Maybe now I'll start reading packages instead of just recipes. In case you were genuinely curious, it said "Fresh Shanghai Noodles (Chinese Style)" on it, and I didn't notice any flour when I opened them. Thanks for the reply, I honestly never would have thought to look there for it, too used to cooking with either whole food or meat, neither of which really have instructions on them.

Mach420
Jun 22, 2002
Bandit at 6 'o clock - Pull my finger

Bauxite posted:

So I go dig out one of the packages from the garbage. Right on the front:

Bring 6 quarts of water to boil. Place noodles in water, bring to second boil, cook until tender.

:suicide:

Maybe now I'll start reading packages instead of just recipes. In case you were genuinely curious, it said "Fresh Shanghai Noodles (Chinese Style)" on it, and I didn't notice any flour when I opened them. Thanks for the reply, I honestly never would have thought to look there for it, too used to cooking with either whole food or meat, neither of which really have instructions on them.

Those noodles typically need to be rinsed well with cold water before they're stir fried. It gets rid of the starch and it stops the noodles from cooking more while sitting there. Put the entire pot into a strainer, run cold water until the noodles are cool to the touch, then optionally oil them.

Civil
Apr 21, 2003

Do you see this? This means "Have a nice day".
I'm gonna drag this thread up with something I've been making lately and had a lot of success with. It's pretty common in American Chinese restaurants, and provided you can find the one key ingredient, it's always very good.

Chicken Chow Fun
Ingredients:
Noodles: Fresh, flat rice noodles - These were really hard for me to find, but they're worth the effort if you have a larger asian market available to you. I get them in 16oz packages, and they're awesome. Dried or thin noodles are easier to find, but do not give the same result. Here's what they should look like:
http://www.thaitable.com/thai/ingredient/fresh-flat-rice-noodles

Marinade:
1 1/2 cups chicken broth
1/4 - 1/3 cup oyster sauce
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 1/2 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp rice wine

Meat:
1/2 chicken breast, sliced very thinly (I'm sure beef or pork would work equally well - stick with about 8oz or so of meat)

Vegetables:
1 broccoli head, broken into very small florets
1 large bok choi head, chopped into 1" or smaller pieces. Break up or discard bulb at bottom
2 - 3 stalks of celery, chopped into 1" pieces. Split thick pieces near bottom.
1 package of mung bean sprouts, about a cup
1/4 lb snow peas
3 - 4 green onions, cut into 1" slices.
4 - 6 cloves of garlic, chopped finely
1 - 1 1/2" of fresh ginger, grated (use this.

Other:
Oil for wok cooking, your choice
1/2 tsp cornstarch mixed in water
Sesame oil

Cut chicken into very thin slices, and put in a bowl. Pour just enough marinade to cover/flavor the meat. Retain the rest for later. Let chicken marinade while you prepare your vegetables.

Slice flat noodles into 1" wide "stacks". Microwave for 2 minutes, and seperate what breaks apart, and put into another container. Microwave "stuck" noodles again for another minute, and break those apart. You'll want all the noodles seperated.

Once vegetables are sliced/chopped/collected, drain chicken, and quickly cook in a few tbsp of oil. It should take about 1 minute to cook, this will go very quick if you've got your wok hot. Scoop out chicken and drain on paper towels, we'll add it back in later.

Let your wok come back up to heat, add a bit of oil, and cook celery, bok choi, and broccoli for 2 - 3 minutes, until cooked through. Don't overcook, you still want your vegetables to be crisp.

Once vegetables have cooked well, add the noodles, toss, then add green onions and snow peas. Add your drained chicken back in. Cook until both turn a bit darker green, about 30 seconds, then add ginger and garlic, and mix well.

Pour in remainder of marinade, and mix thoroughly. Any noodle bits that may have stuck to the wok should start to break loose in the presence of the marinade. It will be soupy - don't worry! After a couple of minutes, your noodles will begin to absorb a lot of the liquid. Once the liquid starts boiling, add your starch slurry and cook another minute, the rest of the sauce will thicken up. Cut the heat, add the mung bean sprouts, and then drizzle with sesame oil to taste (about 2 tsp). Serve.

nonanone
Oct 25, 2007


Give me all your hotpot recipes! My family's Taiwanese, so that's how we do it, but I have a lot of friends from all over who do it different so I thought it might be cool to see how everyone else thinks the ONE TRUE HOTPOT should be done. There's a lot of variations.

It's also the best infinite dish when it starts to get cold and you want something cheap and easy and warm. You just eat everything out of it and store the stock for the next day. And then it only gets tastier! Until you forget that you left out one night and then it becomes a horrible mold pot.

Generally speaking, this is a dish best served with tons of people having fun and putting things into the pot. If you don't know, you should have lots of raw foods laid out nicely on the table, with some "cold" munchies for people to eat while waiting for the food to cook. You can get a special hot pot pot if you want, at the local asian grocer, but if you have a separate burner or whatever that works too.

This was just for 2 of us, you should get way more if you have lots of people.


This is what I do:
Boil pork bones/chicken feet (or just get chicken stock if I'm feeling lazy) in a bunch of water for awhile to make a starting soup.

Then, this is what I put in:
Thin sliced meat (goat, lamb, pork, beef all acceptable. Note: don't overcook it, it literally only takes 5 seconds to cook)
Quail eggs (first soft-boiled, then shelled, then you add them)
Napa Cabbage
Enoki mushrooms
Meat balls and fish balls
Tofu (soft, and fried sometimes)
Shrimp, squid, other assorted seafood
My mom likes to put taro in it, I don't
Dong Fen (cellophane noodles) for eating at the end of the hotpot, soaks up all the soup

And then, this is the other really important part, the (amazingly delicious best) sauce:

Take a raw egg yolk, and chili sauce (NOT sriracha, but the other smaller chili sauce jar), and sha-cha jiang (often labeled Taiwanese BBQ sauce), and soy sauce. You'll want to mix together the yolk and sha-cha sauce, about equal parts, then add chili sauce and soy sauce to taste. Don't skimp on the chili sauce though.

nonanone fucked around with this message at 05:06 on Nov 9, 2011

porkypocky
Feb 11, 2009
Gluten balls are great for soaking up soup at the end. For stock my mom starts with chicken stock and adds small red dates, some almonds and chinese herbs (I already forgot the name but it's the long white tree bark thing. Helpful I know)

Daikon is great too, since you'll be sitting around shooting the poo poo long enough for them to get buttery and soft. I recently went to a hotpot dinner party where they had potato but I didn't like it as much...

edit: oh and hotpot isn't the same without beer. You need beer.

Force de Fappe
Nov 7, 2008

Or red wine :gonk:

Don't ask, won't tell. (I have beer, like a normal person.)

Recipe: toss one of these in a pot.



Add more stock as required. Usually this means stock from chicken feet and spare rib stubs.

Shiitake (xianggu) mushrooms, soaked overnight, are usually the first to go in the pot to simmer for a good while as people arrive. These turn out ridiculously good. Same goes for winter melon (donggua), which is kinda expensive imported but a thick slice goes a long way, really really great stuff. You can get frozen thinly sliced lamb up here, usually it's meant for flash frying but it goes well in this, too. Enoki mushrooms aren't really that interesting, but they seem to be obligatory. Of course huge amounts of fish, this being Norway and all. Just thick slices of cleaned and scraped cod. Head goes in first, usually the women start bickering over it so we just leave it alone. Salmon too, of course. Sausages. Fish balls. Spinach leaf. For some reason my people don't seem too crazy about daikon radish which is weird, because it's delicious when it's cooked until buttery and soft. On the other hand, there's always somebody coming back from China with a bag full of doufu si :dance:

Basically, doufu si is thinly sliced flakes of tofu skin, which in turn is a by product of soy curd production. It looks like noodles, and I guess it must be a low-carbo dieter's wet dream. They look like noodles, they're a little chewy just like noodles. They're really good in hotpot, but tossed with lots of fresh coriander, chili, sesame oil and light soy it's so loving delicious. I think it's considered a Hunan dish prepared this way, but my FiL still loves it even if he's a solidly chauvinistic Shanghainese.

Made with Air
Jan 30, 2007

Sjurygg posted:

Recipe: toss one of these in a pot.





Maybe a bad question, but the soup base I usually use for hot pot is 小肥羊 (xiao fei yang) but it wasn't on any shelves at any of the grocery marts I usually go to. So I bought the brand you have pictured here, except instead of the 四川 (si chuan) one it's 重庆 (chong qing) 。 I was really hoping the 重庆 one isn't spicy at all but I really can't tell, there's nothing to indicate whether it's spicy or not. I've never used this brand before and I have some delicate palates coming over on Friday and want to know if I can feed this to them.

squigadoo
Mar 25, 2011

Sjurygg posted:

Basically, doufu si is thinly sliced flakes of tofu skin, which in turn is a by product of soy curd production. It looks like noodles, and I guess it must be a low-carbo dieter's wet dream. They look like noodles, they're a little chewy just like noodles. They're really good in hotpot, but tossed with lots of fresh coriander, chili, sesame oil and light soy it's so loving delicious. I think it's considered a Hunan dish prepared this way, but my FiL still loves it even if he's a solidly chauvinistic Shanghainese.



So what you're saying is, we can't make this at home unless we make dofu at home? This is one of my favorite things to eat, and I do not live in as Asian an area as I used to, so I cannot find it. And I want it.

What is dofu skin exactly? Is it the crusty stuff that happens if I use a dofu kit at home and don't stir it enough? Or can I buy a block of firm tofu and make attempts to make this?

Better yet, do you have a recipe?

With regards to the hotpot stuff, my family makes pork broth from neckbones and adds a ton of tong ho. I'm not sure if there's an English name for it, as my dad told me it was "crazy weed, because it grows like crazy." He had a very suspicious smile on his face when he told me that. Tong ho has a very strong taste though, so if someone doesn't like it, they're screwed.

Doctor Benway
Jun 30, 2007
Anybody made xioalongbao? I know it's kind of a street food but I'm a big fan and you can't really get good xiaolongbao in the US, even from Shanghainese restaurants. I've tried several times - made the wrapper, made the pork filling, made the gelatinous chicken broth/pork fat mixture that is supposed to melt into the soup. Basically along the lines of this: http://steamykitchen.com/88-xiao-long-bao-shanghai-steamed-soup-dumplings.html However I just can't make something soupy, it all disappears. Is it absorbed into the dough? It is a mystery.

I'd really appreciate any insights if anyone's gotten it to work.

And I just have to believe chongqing hot pot will be spicy, probably spicier than the sichuan variety.

Darval
Nov 20, 2007

Shiny.
In my family, we love Peking Duck. We usually just buy a already-spiced and cured duck from the local asian specialty store, but this time my mom wanted to try and make it from scratch, now that the weather has gotten cold enough to hang it outside. Read a few recipes on it online, anything special we should know?

dino.
Mar 28, 2010

Yip Yip, bitch.

squigadoo posted:

So what you're saying is, we can't make this at home unless we make dofu at home? This is one of my favorite things to eat, and I do not live in as Asian an area as I used to, so I cannot find it. And I want it.

What is dofu skin exactly? Is it the crusty stuff that happens if I use a dofu kit at home and don't stir it enough? Or can I buy a block of firm tofu and make attempts to make this?

Better yet, do you have a recipe?

With regards to the hotpot stuff, my family makes pork broth from neckbones and adds a ton of tong ho. I'm not sure if there's an English name for it, as my dad told me it was "crazy weed, because it grows like crazy." He had a very suspicious smile on his face when he told me that. Tong ho has a very strong taste though, so if someone doesn't like it, they're screwed.

They sell it as Yuba in the Japanese stores, and tofu skin in the Chinese tofu shops.

nonanone
Oct 25, 2007


Spiced, dried tofu skin strips is one of the tastiest snacks. Dunno how to make it though I'm sure it can't be that hard.

Mach420
Jun 22, 2002
Bandit at 6 'o clock - Pull my finger
I vaguely remember tofu skins being the product of tofu production. It's actually the stuff that floats up and forms a scum at the surface of the water or something.

ashgromnies
Jun 19, 2004

Sjurygg posted:

dòubànjiàng

How the heck do I pronounce that? I want to find some of that(I have done no 'real' Chinese cooking, just the usual stir fries and chow mein).

edit: actually that stuff was really easy to find but I couldn't find just plain fermented black beans. There were a ton of "fermented black bean sauce", "black bean sauce with garlic", etc. but no just "black beans"... I wound up finding a jar of fermented black bean paste(soybean, not mung bean, I know that sometimes "black bean paste" means mung bean paste) and used that. Seems okay.

Anyways, I made the ma po dofu, pretty much going off of your recipe, but with the addition of 1 Tbsp of black bean paste.

This is pretty awesome. The contrast in texture between the ground pork and silken tofu is really nice, as is the numbing burn on my tongue.

ashgromnies fucked around with this message at 22:31 on Nov 12, 2011

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Caitlin
Aug 18, 2006

When I die, if there is a heaven, I will spend eternity rolling around with a pile of kittens.
"doh-bahn-jahng" is the closest I can come to describing it.

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