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hakimashou
Jul 15, 2002
Upset Trowel
I lived in China years ago and used to always eat something they called La Zi Ji "spicy chicken." It was the best thing at this lady's little tiny restaurant by where I lived.

It was Guangdong, and I mostly got into cooking Cantonese food afterwards, and I forgot about it. I looked it up at one point but it was covered in chilis and stuff, and the cheapass hole in the wall place I used to get it was basically just chicken with red stuff/oil, no chilis.

I got some doubanjiang and was messing around making dinner and decided to make "doubanjiang pork," and lo, it was exactly like that lady's chicken. All it was was chicken stir fried in doubanjiang. Now i'm addicted to it again.

I just have the Lee Kum Kee doubanjiang, but there are pretty well-stocked chinese groceries around here, is it worth looking for some special better kind?

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Grand Fromage
Jan 30, 2006

L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?


Real laziji is like 80% chili peppers with some bits of chicken mixed in occasionally. Chicken fried in douban sounds sad but also like what Cantonese would do to Sichuan food. :v:

I live in Sichuan so this may be hometown pride that's been told to me but look for doubanjiang from Pixian, 郫县. Supposedly it was invented there and it's where the best comes from.

Grand Fromage fucked around with this message at 11:30 on Nov 7, 2016

venus de lmao
Apr 30, 2007

Call me "pixeltits"

It is the best.

Speaking of regional things, there's a food truck I've seen a lot of lately that advertises 天津味煎饼 and I asked the guy what the difference was but his answer was kind of vague. So what is the difference between Tianjin style jianbing and others?

Also what is the difference between jianbing and jidanbing?

Ailumao
Nov 4, 2004

Bertrand Hustle posted:

It is the best.

Speaking of regional things, there's a food truck I've seen a lot of lately that advertises 天津味煎饼 and I asked the guy what the difference was but his answer was kind of vague. So what is the difference between Tianjin style jianbing and others?

Also what is the difference between jianbing and jidanbing?

Super depends where you are. In my experience, Jianbing is generally a fried pancake/crepe and may usually has egg but doesn't really need it. Like, if you're crazy, you can have jian bing guo zi without egg, I have seen Shandong natives order it!! The pancake itself is just fried batter.

Ji dan bing generally has egg as a more "integral" part but is really just any thin bread with egg. There are at least 3 things called ji dan bing at the 烤饼店s near my house. One is a thin pancake/crepe that is very obviously at least 50% fried egg, one is just a fried bread they slapped a fried egg on top of, and one is kinda like jian bing guo zi but they roll it up into a thinly fried egg omelette and then chop it into squares and serve it with a chili dipping sauce... and this is just one street in Sichuan. In Taipei, ji dan bing was something else entirely, like a thin crepe served with a garlic sauce.

Not been to Tianjin so I can't comment on that but sticking place names on normal stuff is par for the course here.

SSJ_naruto_2003
Oct 12, 2012



I just discovered Thai sweet chili oil and now I can't stop putting it on everything. Help.


Real question: what do you guys coat your chicken with to get a really crispy crust when frying it? I'm trying to make sweet and sour chicken and that's th hardest part

mariooncrack
Dec 27, 2008

hakimashou posted:

I lived in China years ago and used to always eat something they called La Zi Ji "spicy chicken." It was the best thing at this lady's little tiny restaurant by where I lived.

It was Guangdong, and I mostly got into cooking Cantonese food afterwards, and I forgot about it. I looked it up at one point but it was covered in chilis and stuff, and the cheapass hole in the wall place I used to get it was basically just chicken with red stuff/oil, no chilis.

I got some doubanjiang and was messing around making dinner and decided to make "doubanjiang pork," and lo, it was exactly like that lady's chicken. All it was was chicken stir fried in doubanjiang. Now i'm addicted to it again.

I just have the Lee Kum Kee doubanjiang, but there are pretty well-stocked chinese groceries around here, is it worth looking for some special better kind?

I've been ordering this spicy chili chicken this local Chinese place but I've never been able to figure out what it was called. I'm 90% sure now it's laziji.

Thank you so much!

Jhet
Jun 3, 2013
I keep finding more and more deep rabbit holes to lose myself in while in my kitchen. I should have known this thread was here earlier.

Either way, I made Gravity's shredded pork and garlic sauce from all the way back on the first page, and I'm pleasantly discovering a whole bunch of new ingredients and methods that I'd never thought of before. I didn't nail the balance of sweet to heat, but I wasn't too far away either. It makes me think that the editor of Cooks Illustrated just doesn't know how to use a wok properly or he'd never speak ill of them again.

vanity slug
Jul 20, 2010

SSJ_naruto_2003 posted:

I just discovered Thai sweet chili oil and now I can't stop putting it on everything. Help.


Real question: what do you guys coat your chicken with to get a really crispy crust when frying it? I'm trying to make sweet and sour chicken and that's th hardest part

Baking powder works well.

Thoht
Aug 3, 2006

Cornstarch or other starches will give you a crisper texture too.

Flash Gordon Ramsay
Sep 28, 2004

Grimey Drawer
When I do oven wings, I toss them in a mix of baking powder and corn starch

hakimashou
Jul 15, 2002
Upset Trowel

mariooncrack posted:

I've been ordering this spicy chili chicken this local Chinese place but I've never been able to figure out what it was called. I'm 90% sure now it's laziji.

Thank you so much!

辣子鸡 or 辣子雞 on a chinese menu. my chinese is by no means fluent but best i can tell it literally just means 'spicy chicken'

hakimashou
Jul 15, 2002
Upset Trowel

Grand Fromage posted:

Real laziji is like 80% chili peppers with some bits of chicken mixed in occasionally. Chicken fried in douban sounds sad but also like what Cantonese would do to Sichuan food. :v:

I live in Sichuan so this may be hometown pride that's been told to me but look for doubanjiang from Pixian, 郫县. Supposedly it was invented there and it's where the best comes from.

谢谢你啊

I sometimes regret not spending time in Sichuan but Canto food is the greatest cuisine on earth~

mariooncrack
Dec 27, 2008

hakimashou posted:

辣子鸡 or 辣子雞 on a chinese menu. my chinese is by no means fluent but best i can tell it literally just means 'spicy chicken'

Thanks! Your Chinese is better than mine these days. I am as they say 竹升. There's only two authentic Chinese restaurants that I'm willing to go to. One is mostly a dim sum place and the place that serves the chili chicken has pictures on the wall for everything so I tend to just point.

Just so I don't get too happy, this is what the dish in question:

Ailumao
Nov 4, 2004

mariooncrack posted:

Thanks! Your Chinese is better than mine these days. I am as they say 竹升. There's only two authentic Chinese restaurants that I'm willing to go to. One is mostly a dim sum place and the place that serves the chili chicken has pictures on the wall for everything so I tend to just point.

Just so I don't get too happy, this is what the dish in question:



That's way more chicken than I've ever seen in it here in Sichuan but that's not a problem. Also don't see any hua jiao which might be a problem.

Grand Fromage
Jan 30, 2006

L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?


Yeah that doesn't look anything like any laziji I've ever had but I'd eat it.

Spuckuk
Aug 11, 2009

Being a bastard works



Adult Sword Owner posted:

So re: Sichuan peppercorns, how do I get them to not be like, dry flakes in the dish? I have a big m+p that works just enough fine for everything else, but for some reason the peppercorns are noticeable big flakes

I got a bottle of peppercorn oil, personally. Seems to have a much better shelf life and a teaspoon is enough to no longer feel my lips.

Hopper
Dec 28, 2004

BOOING! BOOING!
Grimey Drawer
Tomorrow I will be making mapo tofu, Sichuan style stir fried beef, cauliflower and lotus root as well as cucumber salad and red potatoes from the page linked earlier. For 6 people. And I have no idea how this is supposed to taste but have a load of spices otherwise going to waste.

This will be fun... slightly numbed, potentially way too spicy time-to-order-pizza-cause-nobody-can-eat-that fun.

If it ends up halfway presentable I'll post pics.

Nickoten
Oct 16, 2005

Now there'll be some quiet in this town.

Grand Fromage posted:

Real laziji is like 80% chili peppers with some bits of chicken mixed in occasionally. Chicken fried in douban sounds sad but also like what Cantonese would do to Sichuan food. :v:

I can confirm, I recently had a Cantonese friend's "sichuan green beans" which were green beans stir fried with doubanjiang. I mean they still tasted good, but it was not quite what I was expecting.

Arglebargle III
Feb 21, 2006

Before I went to China I think I had only had raw or canned green beans. I did not like green beans.

Green beans are one of my favorite vegetables now.

All hail Chinese food.

venus de lmao
Apr 30, 2007

Call me "pixeltits"

Spuckuk posted:

I got a bottle of peppercorn oil, personally. Seems to have a much better shelf life and a teaspoon is enough to no longer feel my lips.

A tip for anyone buying this in the US and possibly other English-speaking countries: it might be rather vaguely labeled as "pepper oil" in English, so look for 花椒油 on the label to be sure you have the right stuff.

toplitzin
Jun 13, 2003


We went to our lcoal favorite Sichuan place here in Durham. (Happy China) We pretty much stick to the back 3 pages, being their actual Sichuan menu.

(click for huge)

From top around clockwise:

Dry Pot Chicken (behind that is Gen Tso b/c I had a craving)
Triple Pepper Chicken
Dry Fried Green Beans (with more than 3 adults we get a double order because they're crack)
Ma Po

toplitzin fucked around with this message at 03:51 on Nov 13, 2016

Stalizard
Aug 11, 2006

Have I got a headache!
I've been jonesing like some kind of crackhead for the turnip cakes you get at dim sum. I went to a couple Asian grocery stores here in Atlanta and I couldn't find anything refrigerated or frozen. I assumed they'd be readily available frozen, mostly because i don't have much faith in Atlanta's dim sum game.

Are frozen turnip cakes something I should expect to exist, or should I just start getting intimate with a big ol daikon?

venus de lmao
Apr 30, 2007

Call me "pixeltits"

Stalizard posted:

should I just start getting intimate with a big ol daikon?

:getin:

http://www.seriouseats.com/2015/02/how-to-make-chinese-turnip-cake-law-bock-gow.html

Spuckuk
Aug 11, 2009

Being a bastard works



Bertrand Hustle posted:

A tip for anyone buying this in the US and possibly other English-speaking countries: it might be rather vaguely labeled as "pepper oil" in English, so look for 花椒油 on the label to be sure you have the right stuff.

Mine is labelled rather cutely as 'Prickly Oil' in English.

El Grillo
Jan 3, 2008
Fun Shoe
Argh, my ocd new housemate has chucked half a bottle of Shaoxing rice wine. Does this stuff actually go off/go moldy? It was Silk Road brand, 14%. Probably a year and a half/2 years old to be fair. No use by date on the bottle.

remote control carnivore
May 7, 2009

El Grillo posted:

Argh, my ocd new housemate has chucked half a bottle of Shaoxing rice wine. Does this stuff actually go off/go moldy? It was Silk Road brand, 14%. Probably a year and a half/2 years old to be fair. No use by date on the bottle.

Sever

Arglebargle III
Feb 21, 2006

Does wine get moldy? No.

El Grillo
Jan 3, 2008
Fun Shoe

Arglebargle III posted:

Does wine get moldy? No.
Definitely seen mouldy wine in a glass, not a bottle but I'll see what the bastard says.

Jhet
Jun 3, 2013

El Grillo posted:

Argh, my ocd new housemate has chucked half a bottle of Shaoxing rice wine. Does this stuff actually go off/go moldy? It was Silk Road brand, 14%. Probably a year and a half/2 years old to be fair. No use by date on the bottle.

It won't get moldy unless you add something to it in the original bottle. It can turn to vinegar if you introduce acetobacter and oxygen, but the pH of wine and the sulfites make it inhospitable to mold. 2 years is definitely old enough for it to start to turn, but that wouldn't make it terrible for cooking necessarily, but it would change the flavor.

I still wouldn't have thrown it away.

emotive
Dec 26, 2006

I was going to try making mapo tofu this week, however I only have the non-spicy bean paste... Would mixing this with sambal achieve a similar effect? If so, any guesstimates on a ratio? I can't imagine it's 50/50.

This is the brand I have:

emotive fucked around with this message at 21:23 on Dec 12, 2016

Amergin
Jan 29, 2013

THE SOUND A WET FART MAKES

emotive posted:

I was going to try making mapo tofu this week, however I only have the non-spicy bean paste... Would mixing this with sambal achieve a similar effect? If so, any guesstimates on a ratio? I can't imagine it's 50/50.

This is the brand I have:



Depends on the sambal. I'd suggest taking some of the bean paste and the sambal and throw a few small spoons of each into a small bowl and taste until you get a ratio you like, obviously keeping track of how much of each you add.

But I think it would be fine. If the sambal doesn't have as much kick as you'd like, add some sriracha/chili paste/oil that you simmer dried chilies in for a bit.

EDIT: Also mapo tofu is one of those "everything goes in a pot" dishes so you could just add a bit of each and taste after you add stuff. It's a very "to taste" dish in my experience. But I also hate screwing up dishes beyond repair, hence the recommendation to mix the two in a separate bowl to experiment.

emotive
Dec 26, 2006

Amergin posted:

Depends on the sambal. I'd suggest taking some of the bean paste and the sambal and throw a few small spoons of each into a small bowl and taste until you get a ratio you like, obviously keeping track of how much of each you add.

But I think it would be fine. If the sambal doesn't have as much kick as you'd like, add some sriracha/chili paste/oil that you simmer dried chilies in for a bit.

EDIT: Also mapo tofu is one of those "everything goes in a pot" dishes so you could just add a bit of each and taste after you add stuff. It's a very "to taste" dish in my experience. But I also hate screwing up dishes beyond repair, hence the recommendation to mix the two in a separate bowl to experiment.

Yeah, that's a smart idea mixing it first. This bean paste is super pungent on its own.

I also have some Angry Lady chili oil which I could play around with.

Grand Fromage
Jan 30, 2006

L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?


Angry lady might work. Sriracha should mix into mapo tofu without standing out, both chili and garlic should be there anyway.

Rurutia
Jun 11, 2009
Where did sriracha come from lol, I think you didn't mean to write that.

coyo7e
Aug 23, 2007

by zen death robot
I just stumbled into two ideas which I'd never heard of before: smoking food using a wok, and smoking food with tea instead of wood. Does anyone in this thread have any experience with these? It sounds fascinating and I'm thinking a tea-smoked ginger soy salmon or something would be quick and easy and be pretty tasty.

http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/07/26/425635093/put-that-wok-to-work-a-trick-for-smoking-fish-indoors

Grand Fromage
Jan 30, 2006

L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?


I haven't done it myself but tea smoking is a thing in Sichuan and tea smoked duck and mushrooms is amazing.

4 inch cut no femmes
May 31, 2011
I've only ever smoked eggs but that link is pretty much how I do it.

emotive
Dec 26, 2006

Since you're all dying to know, I made Mapo Tofu.



Decided to just go buy real broad bean paste instead of messing with what I had.

Used Gravity's guide as a base but subbed mushrooms instead of pork (vegetarian)... I've never had it in a restaurant (or anywhere) before so I can't compare to anything but drat, it was good.

emotive fucked around with this message at 02:54 on Dec 14, 2016

Grand Fromage
Jan 30, 2006

L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?


Gravity's is good. Mapo tofu is also one of those things where every restaurant does it differently so there's no single particularly authentic recipe, go hog wild.

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emotive
Dec 26, 2006

Grand Fromage posted:

Gravity's is good. Mapo tofu is also one of those things where every restaurant does it differently so there's no single particularly authentic recipe, go hog wild.

Yeah, I can see that. I didn't have any dried chilis so I left them out and bumped the peppercorns to a full teaspoon, but there was still plenty of heat... which leads me to believe Kenji From SE is insane because his recipe calls for 2 tablespoons of peppercorns plus 1/4 cup of chili oil.

I went with this brand (Ming Teh) of doubanjiang... they had this and Lee Kum Kee but I saw a lot of favorable reviews for this.

emotive fucked around with this message at 03:18 on Dec 14, 2016

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