What's new

The Great Chinese Recipe Thread! (1 Viewer)

Ted Lee

Senior HTF Member
Joined
May 8, 2001
Messages
8,390
i gotta admit i love kim-chee. i still put it in my saimen once in a while.

let's see...let's take some veggies, put them in a claypot, then bury it in the ground for a few months. man...wtf were they thinking? :)

stinky tofu? don't think i'm hip to that either....

lew reminds me of that tony bourdain guy from "a cook's tour" on foodtv... ;)
 

Citizen87645

Reviewer
Senior HTF Member
Joined
May 9, 2002
Messages
13,056
Real Name
Cameron Yee
I feel a little guilty for the thread hijacking so here is a simple/fast recipe that is a family favorite:

Catfish with Black Bean and Garlic Sauce
Buy a pound of catfish, whatever cut you prefer. Most Asians don't go for fillets, in the same way we tend to prefer dark meat over white. The most "treasured" part of the fish is the belly area where there is alot of soft, fatty meat (but it's fish fat, so that's a good thing). Cut the meat into pieces, about 1 x 3 inches.

Buy a jar of Lee Kum Kee's Black Bean and Garlic Sauce. My mom adores this stuff because it's good and it eliminates an amazing amount of prep time. You should be able to find this product and an incredible variety of sauces in any Asian food store.

Add about a tablespoon of sauce per pound of fish, maybe a little more. Go easy though as the sauce can really overpower the fish and there's no fun in eating something that just tastes like the sauce. Add extra garlic if you're a garlic lover, a splash of soy sauce, and teaspoon or so of corn starch. Mix it all together and put it into a shallow bowl appropriate for steaming.

As far as the steaming goes, there are various ways you can do this. If you have a wok and large bamboo steamer you can put the bowl in the steamer. My mom has always used a pot that is about 6" deep and wide enough to hold a bowl. The bowl is raised above the water by a metal or bamboo stand. Be sure to cover the pot to let the food actually steam.

Steam the fish for about 30 minutes. Garnish with shredded ginger and green onions.

This can basically be done with any type of meat and it's always good! It's taken me a bit to figure out the appropriate amount of black bean sauce to use. You may have to experiment and figure out how much is too much for you. Better to start off conservative. Oh and my mom always adds a bit of sugar to her concoctions.
 

Citizen87645

Reviewer
Senior HTF Member
Joined
May 9, 2002
Messages
13,056
Real Name
Cameron Yee
For those of you who like Congi or white rice porridge, I like to make the stuff using a crock pot. I think it takes longer but it can be left untended without concern about nasty boilovers. I use a cup of rice to 1.5 quarts of water and set the crock pot to "high" (YMMV). Add bones of choice for the flavoring (our favorite is turkey bones left over from holiday dinners) and leave it for several hours or until the rice is thoroughly demolished to a porridge consistency. Depending on the type of porridge you want to make additional ingredients vary in type and time added. But some of the more common are 100 year egg (added during the cooking or after depending on how strong you like the egg), raw peanuts (which need to be cooked with the porridge) and green onion (added more as a condiment). The common accompanying item with the porridge is the long Chinese doughnut - I have seen these as a frozen food item.
 

Lew Crippen

Senior HTF Member
Joined
May 19, 2002
Messages
12,060
I’ll try any food at least once. Actually two or three times, just in case I need to acclimatize myself. Or maybe the cook did not hit the mark on my first try.

I am also a kim-chee fan. But even I have a few things that just put me off. I am definitely do not like tripe soup (or stew). I’ve tried Tex Mex versions, Mexican ones and even in Venezuela, where I was assured that the only reason for my not liking Menudo, was that the Mexicans had no real clue as to how to do the dish properly (actually it is called by another name in Venezuela, but I can’t recall it right now).

But no matter, tripe stew is a pretty hard go for me.
 

Citizen87645

Reviewer
Senior HTF Member
Joined
May 9, 2002
Messages
13,056
Real Name
Cameron Yee
I've had Menudo and it didn't impress me and generally I like tripe. My impression was the tripe was overcooked, at least at that restaurant.

There is a Dim Sum dish of tripe which is pretty tasty. However it can be a toss up as far as the quality of the tripe. Ideally it should not be tough or chewy, but that is often the case. Another Cantonese tripe option would be to order it as one of the many varieties of noodle soups (e.g. tripe noodle soup). Basically it is just noodles in soup stock with cuts of tripe and vegetables added. If you don't like the tripe you can always eat the rest of the stuff.
 

Ted Lee

Senior HTF Member
Joined
May 8, 2001
Messages
8,390
i've had the noodle-soup variety of that tripe stuff.

i thought it was okay....until my uncle told me what i was eating. haven't eaten it since...'nuff said. :)
 

Jay H

Senior HTF Member
Joined
Mar 22, 1999
Messages
5,654
Location
Pittsfield, MA
Real Name
Jay
I like the Dim Sum variety of Tripe and I know what it is. :)

I also have cooked the Congi or "Joke" as we call it almost exactly like the way Cameron_Y writes, down to the raw Peanuts and the "Green onion" and exactly what we do after Thanksgiving where in our family is a mixture of western and Chinese cooking. Western as far as the Turkey goes (plus you get free turkey at the local grocery stores, you can't get free Beef Chow Fun anyway ;) ) but everything else is fairly Chinese as much as we have pig's feet, Sticky (Sweet) Rice, the black "hair" as we call it and we always make "Joke" afterwards. Oh, we do have cranberry sauce because my sister and I love it too much.

Oh, Cameron-Y, you're not thread hijacking, the thread is actually on Chinese recipes but since I do not know of any, most of the "recipes" that have been passed down from my grandparents have mostly been verbal and even then, not set in stone. My father who likes to cook (as much as I like to eat it) doesn't follow recipes, it's just knowledge and its all improvised.

Jay
 

Peter Kim

Screenwriter
Joined
Jun 18, 2001
Messages
1,577
I've had Menudo and it didn't impress me...
I seriously got confused momentarily as I thought I really walked into a parallel universe where Mexican boy bands and dim sum were enjoyed as delicacies.

Also, tripe - a.k.a. intestine?

Kim Chee...never thought it was too offensive until I stored the bottle out of its normal doublewrap and put back in the fridge. The following day, I took a sip from the half full Dr. Pepper left open in the fridge and it tasted more like Dr. Garlic and Red Pepper with Dried Shrimp!
 

Ted Lee

Senior HTF Member
Joined
May 8, 2001
Messages
8,390
Most Asians don't go for fillets, in the same way we tend to prefer dark meat over white.
true that!

i never knew dark-meat preference was an asian-thang? :laugh: ftr, both me and my sis (not genetically related, but both asian) also prefer dark meat. trippy...
 

Jay H

Senior HTF Member
Joined
Mar 22, 1999
Messages
5,654
Location
Pittsfield, MA
Real Name
Jay
Menudo... I thought the same thing, never having tripe stew before. I like just plain tripe with seasoning and some white pepper. Kind of like being at an Italian restaurant and seeing how they serve squid. They deep fry it and bread up the ring part and have a few tenticles lying around. Damm it, I want it plain with lots of tenticles and none of the breaded stuff! :)

Tripe is the lining of the stomach, which is part of the intestinal system but not truly the intestines. At least the tripe that I've had.

Have you folks tried pig's ear? At least what I think is the ear, it's cut into long thin brown slices and there is the sort of cartilage crunch outer layer with some kind of darker brown inner layer. Usually found at the BBQ aisle in a Chinese food market, not really a Dim Sum dish.

Jay
 

Citizen87645

Reviewer
Senior HTF Member
Joined
May 9, 2002
Messages
13,056
Real Name
Cameron Yee
The dark meat preference over white meat thing is interesting. To my knowledge African Americans share in this. Can anyone else comment on other cultures?
 

Yee-Ming

Senior HTF Member
Joined
Apr 4, 2002
Messages
4,502
Location
"on a little street in Singapore"
Real Name
Yee Ming Lim
Once again, Lew is spot-on. One of the very few who will knw what "D24" means...

Durians? Man I can't stand the smell of those. I'm not adventurous enough to try them yet -- I grew up in Europe and only returned here at age 9, so in many ways my tastebuds are "westernised". E.g. unlike many South-East Asians, I was never a big fan of chili, but due to my wife's influence I'm "getting into it" more.

As an aside, Singapore's "Theatres On The Bay" -- supposedly our answer to the Sydney Opera House (yeah, right:rolleyes:) -- is said to look like a pair of durians :D Now let me see if I can find a link somewhere...

Edit:-
http://www.esplanade.com/
 

David Lawson

Screenwriter
Joined
Sep 11, 2000
Messages
1,365
Location
Cincinnati, OH
Real Name
David Lawson
You know what else rules? Shark Fin soup. I've never seen it offered in America yet.
Dome, if you ever make the relatively short drive north to Cincinnati, Shanghai Mama's downtown has offered it as a seasonal item in the past. I don't believe it's currently on the menu, however, and it isn't cheap...somewhere between $15 and $20 for a bowl, if I remember correctly. I'm there at least once a month, so I can let you know the next time they offer it, if you want it that badly. :D
 

Ted Lee

Senior HTF Member
Joined
May 8, 2001
Messages
8,390
shark-fin soup is yummy. i haven't had it in quite some time, but i definitely remember lovin' it.

i wonder, in this politically correct climate, if sales have gone down? ;)

what the heck is d24?
 

Jay H

Senior HTF Member
Joined
Mar 22, 1999
Messages
5,654
Location
Pittsfield, MA
Real Name
Jay
A 24 sided dice? Ooohh, the AD&D in me rises...:)

I think they are refering to D24 Durian... Not that I knew what the hell it is, but a google search cured that, I think.

Jay
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Top