Chinese cooking

CJhaughey

So seeing as it is Chinese New year soon and what other excuse do you need to eat chinese food, anyone doing anything foodwise to celebrate it?
I am having a steamboat (charity shop) and making popiah which are a kind of fresh spring roll which are a lot bigger then the little fried ones you get in the shops.
They are made with shredded veg, usually carrot, cabbage, bean sprouts and some of the little dried shrimp.
Thats the main filling, in addition you also have small pieces of crispy fried fish, shredd omelette,fresh coriander,fried onion/shallot, crushed peanuts or in our case cashews (peanut allergy with one family member). lettuce and the sweet soya sauce known as Kecap manis.
These are all wrapped in a very light thin wrapper and eaten fresh.
less is more with these bad boys as overfilled ones tend to burst with bad consequences for the eater!

The steamboat is basically a type of broth kept warm in a burner and small pieces of seafood and meat and veg is cooked in it like a fondue, everyone has their own tiny wire ladle and some skewers and just cooks the food in the hot broth and eats it.
Have to see how this goes but I got a seafood fondue from an oriental market yesterday to make life easier.

Minder

CJhaughey wrote: »

So seeing as it is Chinese New year soon and what other excuse do you need to eat chinese food, anyone doing anything foodwise to celebrate it?

I was watching Rhodes across China and he was in Hong Kong. The chefs were making shrimp in XO chilli sauce. I've wanted to try this sauce since reading about it in Neil Perry's book Balance & Harmony. Neil Perry gives a recipe which includes dried scallops - about as rare as horse feathers. But This year I managed to find an online seller.

So if the sauce arrives on time it will be Stir fried Prawns in XO Sauce

Supercell

I will be celebrating the New Year with my girlfriends family in Guangzhou in the south of China this weekend
I am partial to dumplings (jiaozi), steamed and fried in particular and they are traditional, so mu qing (mother) will be making extra for me
I have no idea what other dishes will be prepared but I am very much looking forward to the experience.
Luckily for me the girlfriend loves to cook Chinese food, because I love to eat it

Supercell

Here are some home made dumplings I help make last time before being steamed (the messy looking ones might have been mine ..*ahem*

CJhaughey

Have you tried Bao? The steamed buns with fillings like roast pork, Red and yellowbean paste and peanuts?

Supercell

CJhaughey wrote: »

Have you tried Bao? The steamed buns with fillings like roast pork, Red and yellowbean paste and peanuts?

Do you mean Baozi?



They come with a variety of fillings and are popular in Tianjin area in particular (i think they came from there originally, though not sure how reliable that info is) but are on sale everywhere ..I have indeed had them though haven't tried making them. I have also have had vegetarian ones, street sellers in Tianjin sell them for about 3RMB each (about 35 cents) and are delicious.

CJhaughey

Thems the ones. Tasty feckers. Baozi is the plural I think, Bao is like saying burger.
I really like them, something about steamed bread is kind of fascinating.

Sparks

CJhaughey wrote: »

I really like them, something about steamed bread is kind of fascinating.

Is it not god-awfully wet and slimy?
Steaming dough... never got my head round that idea.

CJhaughey

Sparks wrote: »

Is it not god-awfully wet and slimy?
Steaming dough... never got my head round that idea.

Actually it's not slimy at all, The filling is precooked and the dough rises and cooks in the steamer.
The texture is kind of.... hard to describe, the surface is almost like the par-cooked baguettes that you buy but the whole thing is much softer.
They sell them here in the oriental markets sometimes.
Worth a try especially if you get the roast pork Char-siu ones.

Sparks

CJhaughey wrote: »

Worth a try especially if you get the roast pork Char-siu ones.

Well, try anything once I suppose. Is there anywhere that serves them properly in the city centre?

CJhaughey

Sparks wrote: »

Well, try anything once I suppose. Is there anywhere that serves them properly in the city centre?

I haven't been up to Dublin in Months, I really wouldn't have a clue.
Given the Chinese population there really must be somewhere that has them.

Supercell

The Asian Emporium beside Jervis sells frozen ones that are passable.
Not a patch in buying them freshly steamed, but better than none

the beer revolu

Supercell wrote: »

The Asian Emporium beside Jervis sells frozen ones that are passable.
Not a patch in buying them freshly steamed, but better than none

Thinking of doing sticky rice in lotus leaf for the occasion

Minder

Long shot but has anyone ever seen a Chinese Master Stock - anyone ever tried to keep one at home?

Chinese flavour meat stock that is kept indefinitely, the stock is used to poach meats - each addition of meats adds flavour to the masterstock - it is replenished with soy and flavouring ingredients each time it's used. The masterstock is strained of bits after each use and can apparently be boiled each week to kill any microbes, or frozen for a longer storage.

Problems as I see it. A domestic masterstock will be cooked with a lot less regularly than a restaurant kitchen masterstock. In China, a masterstock could be used 3 or 4 times a week in a domestic kitchen as the range of foods cooked will be relatively narrow. Similarly in a restaurant kitchen, the range of dishes is limited and a masterstock could be in regular use.

Getting a masterstock wrong could easily be a food poisoning event. Now maybe a spoilt masterstock will be obviously sour to taste, or maybe not. I just don't to find out the hard way. Mostly coming from Australian restaurants, the masterstocks in these places are 7 to 8 years old - a mere junior to some of the chinese masterstocks that are reportedly 100+ years old.