Getting started with Chinese cooking

[Kobo-Daishi]

abcdefg wrote:

#18 -- Made the gailan 芥蓝菜 tonight. Delicious!

I always thought the characters for "gailan" were the characters for "mustard" and "orchid".

Now I see that it's also "mustard" and "blue".

At the Baidu Baike encyclopedia site they don't mention that "mustard" + "orchid" is a bieming (alternate name) for "mustard" + "blue" until near the end under herbal medicine even though they've recipes using the "mustard" + "orchid" much earlier without telling us.

Under the entry for "mustard" + "orchid", they mention that "mustard" + "blue" is the zhongwen xueming or Chinese scientific name for "mustard" + "orchid". Also, that the poet Su Dong Po wrote a poem about it.

Google has twice as many hits for "mustard" + "blue" than they do for the "mustard" + "orchid" combo.

Sorry about not typing out the characters but I'm on my Dell Mini netbook and it's not enabled for Chinese input.

You learn something new everyday.

Su Dong Po is known for a famous dish. Supposedly, he was cooking wu hua rou (5 flower meat). Really uncured bacon. When a friend came over to chat. He turned the heat down very low and got to conversing. When his friend left, he remembered the pork and felt sure that the dish was ruined. To his delight what resulted was a delicious treat.

Of course, it's very rich and very fattening. Nearly all pork fat.

Cholesterol city.

Over at the Palace Musuem on Taiwan, they've a carved rock that looks exactly like a slab of wu hua rou. It's one of the pride of their collection.

This reminds me of a famous Hakka Chinese dish made with wu hua rou and preserved mustard greens. Simply delish!

Enter any of the terms mentioned into a search engine and I'm sure you'll find many images and recipes.

Makes Kobo salivate just thinking of these dishes.

Kobo.

[abcdefg]

@xiaocai -- Where is your 老家？Is it 宜宾？

I made 四季豆 last Sunday, but just stir fried them in the wok, adding a little water near the end. Sometimes I make them with meat, as you suggested, but I don't like deep frying things. Partly because of the fat and partly because of the mess.

@Kobo-Daishi -- seems there are different names for vegetables in different parts of China. I think there was a thread on this before with many examples. I try to learn the ones that work best where I live.

Agree with you that food memories are a big part of what goes into liking a certain place.

[xiaocai]

Yes, born and raised.

I usually just boil it or steam it, too. I may try baking it will a bit of oil on next time and see how it will turn out.

[xiaocai]

Having read about another post in this forum about eggplant, I made some homestyle steamed eggplant on the weekend, garnished with some 白灼 toppings.

Slice long eggplants in halves longitudinally (in quarters if very thick) and place them in a plate. Steam until soft. Top with finely chopped 朝天椒, garlic, light soya sauce and vinegar (to taste). Heat about 20ml of canola oil until very hot and pour it on to the dish over the toppings. Garnish with finely chopped spring onion and toasted white sesame seeds and it will be ready to serve.

[skylee]

Try applying 腐乳 and chopped chili to the steamed eggplant, mix well and then cool it in the fridge and eat it cold. You can eat it hot but I like it cold.

[xiaocai]

Oh that sounds nice, will try this weekend. BTW, which 腐乳 should I use?

Another easy veggie dish which goes well with alcohol as well: pickled peanuts.

Mix 200g of peanuts with oil, make sure all the peanuts are evenly coated with oil, add salt to taste. Microwave on high power for 3 minutes (you may need to adjust the time according to the output of your own microwave), stir the peanuts well then microwave for another 2 minutes. Wait until it cools down, then add in finely diced onion and celery or cucumber, soy sauce, 镇江香醋 (I've tried using balsamic vinegar, which turned out to be surprising nice), sugar, finely chopped spring onion, toasted white sesame. Mix well and leave it in fridge over night, and it is done.

[skylee]

hmm 對腐乳真的沒研究。

[abcdefg]

I like those eggplant ideas.

The open market where I usually shop here in Kunming has an older man and woman sitting near the gate roasting eggplants and large red peppers on a charcoal grill. I buy one roasted eggplant and one pepper, then at home take off the charred skin. Cut them up, add some spring onion or garlic and make a spicy vinegar and oil dressing. Pretty good 火烧茄子 with very little work. Eat it at room temperature as a 凉拌 or tossed with 米线 as a simple meal. Refreshing in the summer.

[skylee]

Sounds italian.

[abcdefg]

#29 -- You are right. I had the same thought. With slightly different seasonings it would be very Mediterranean.

[xiaocai]

Alright, I'm just going to experiment the 腐乳 I have one by one, 哈哈.

The grilled eggplants, we have it here as well. It is normally sliced and placed on a bamboo skewer.I like it with sesame oil, roasted and crushed peanuts and heaps of chilli flakes.

[xiaocai]

Cooked 干煸四季豆 with baked green beans today, which turned out to be not bad. Just blanch the green beans in boiling water briefly, drain well, and then brush to coat with a thin layer of cooking oil, put it in the oven and bake until soft. The rest is just the same as #20. I felt that the natural sweet taste of the green beans is stronger when cooked this way. The only downside is that the colour is as green as the deep-fried one.

So today's dinner menu:

干煸四季豆

Bulgogi style beef stir-fry

Kelp, mung bean and pork rib soup

Sweet and sour Sichuan pickles (新繁泡菜)

Home-made plain yoghurt with diced lychee fruit for dessert.

Oh and of course steamed rice. Friend gave me some really good 无锡大米. One of the best I have ever had in my life.

[abcdefg]

Sounds delicious. No oven for baking things in my Kunming kitchen.

[xiaocai]

I bought one of this a while ago. I do have a built-in oven in the kitchen but I found myself using this one more often.

[roddy]

Came across this topic while looking for something else, and I've been meaning to start a similar one so giving this a bump. 

 

I never bothered learning to cook Chinese food in China, as it was so cheap and easy to eat out. I think if I was back there again I would, just to have a bit more control about what's going into my food. 

 

Anyway, now back in the UK, I figured it was time to figure out a few Chinese dishes. Bearing in mind I'm not much of a cook in any language I went looking for something basic and ended up with Ching He-huang's Chinese Food in Minutes. 

 

It's pretty good for beginners. All the recipes are, as you'd expect, quick and fairly easy, and you get a list of ten store-cupboard ingredients which you have to add a bit of fresh meat or veg to. I've been pleasantly surprised by how authentic some of the dishes tasted - the hot and sour soup is a particular favourite. 

[grawrt]

I really enjoyed reading this thread! Does anyone know of any popular chinese food blogs? Now that I'm in China I'm not sure what sorts of things are readily available in recipes vs. things that aren't, what is in season etc. Just the other day I found out lemons are more expensive here... or should I say 'a lemon'.

[abcdefg]

The open market near my Kunming home, which was always such a vibrant and friendly place to buy ingredients and get cooking ideas, has been torn down in the name of progress and 经济发展. A new, more modern and bigger market has been built, but it's quite a bit farther from where I live, so I go there less often.

 

This has put a crimp in my amateur home chef hobby and is why I've been posting less about cooking.

 

I've bought one of those small two-wheeled pull baskets for transporting heavy produce back from the market, but I hate using it because it makes me feel ancient, plays havoc with my self image.

 

[abcdefg]

#36 -- @grawrt -- What's available and in season depends on where you are in China. What is your location?

[grawrt]

I'm in Harbin right now. I love visiting the 夜市 just a few blocks from my apartment but my chinese isn't that good to ask for some cooking suggestions from the locals. Also I'm not really familiar with most of the leafy greens.

[abcdefg]

What I did when I was in a similar situation, before my Chinese was conversationally fluent, was to rope a bilingual friend or off duty teacher into going to the market with me. He or she would help me ask vendors, "What's the name of this vegetable and how can I cook it at home?" I'd snap a photo so I could use it when looking for more of the same on my own later.

 

I've even hired people to do that with me, usually college students. I've also found people by posting an ad for a language exchange partner and letting them know the language I wanted to learn was the language of shopping for fresh cooking ingredients.

 

The people I located were very receptive to that notion and it sometimes also led to an informal cooking lesson. They found it less boring than their usual tutoring assignments.

 

This kind of thing can vastly improve the quality of your life here in China and teach you something of immediate practical value while you study academic subjects that will probably prove more important in the long run.