The Great Chinese Recipe Thread! (1 Viewer)

[Lew Crippen]

Some random food thoughts inspired by the above posts—you guys are really making me hungry.

I love Jung and always get it when it is on offer (but I did not know the name). I think that the leaf it is wrapped in is a lotus leaf.

I’m also a very big fan of cheung fan. In Singapore you would often find a stall that only served cheung fan. Those noodles are made with a cleaver—you can watch the cook just strip off a thin layer of noodle with the cleaver—pretty neat. Another filling I have had is scallops.

Dome, IIRC the proper way to eat moon cakes is while viewing the full, fall moon with a member of the opposite sex. That might change your opinion.

 

[Danny Tse]

Moon cake are eaten during the Mid Autumn Festival, which occurs on August 15th of every year on the lunar calender. Despite the many variation that are available nowadays (pineapple??), I still like the plain old lotus seed paste version the best. No egg yolks please.

Another kind of cheung fan is the kind with just green onion and parsley. No meat at all, yet surprising tasty. There's also the kind that has the "fan" wrapped around a fried dough....

Yes, it's lotus leaf that's wrapping the jung. It's also there to add flavor when the jung is steamed.

 

[Ted Lee]

i'm with danny - traditional mooncakes only.

although i rarely get a chance to celebrate the moon festival with my chinese family anymore, my aunt always sends me a reminder to get some moon cakes. i just have to figure out where the heck to get them up here...

Dome, IIRC the proper way to eat moon cakes is while viewing the full, fall moon with a member of the opposite sex. That might change your opinion.

 

[Lew Crippen]

i just have to figure out where the heck to get them up here...

I’m pretty sure that the major hotels and department stores in places like Hong Kong and Singapore will ship them internationally. Of course these are very upscale and priced accordingly. Lots of exotic ingredients such as durian—and many are even ‘double yolk’.

Which brings up another question: anybody else like durian?

 

[Ted Lee]

what's durian?

 

[Dome Vongvises]

anybody else like durian?

If it's what I'm thinking of, those things make better weapons than food.

 

[Danny Tse]

Yes they do make better weapons than food. And of course, they stink big time.



If you are interested in durian, here you go.

Lew, forget about the "double yolk" moon cakes....you can now get them in artery-busting "quad yolks" version.

Ted, can't you just drive down to Oakland's Chinatown and get some moon cakes?

 

[Dome Vongvises]

I was in the middle of a market in Thailand one time walking around, and I happened to trip. Needless to say, my hand landed on one of those..... :frowning:

 

[Ted Lee]

danny - yeah, i suppose i could go to oakland, but i don't really know my way around there. i suppose san francisco would also work - at least i know a couple of good hole-in-the wall restaurants there.

they take cash-only ... now *that's* the sign of an authentic asian restaurant!

those durian's sorta look familiar, but i'm not sure. are they a cantonese thing???

 

[Jason GT]

Ted, 100% you should be able to get mooncakes in SF Chinatown (and I've never been there).

Durian isn't a strictly Chinese thing. It's a phenomenon encountered across a great deal of SE Asia, AFAIK.

If you don't like it, the stuff smells and tastes funny (read: bad). I had a tiny bite once and was burping it for the next three hours!

I've heard a story that in one city or country, there are "international no" pictograms (circle with diagonal line thru) specifically for durian, right alongside the ones for no food, no smoking, etc.

And for completeness sake - white rice noodles are indeed "cheung fun" (roughly in Cantonese). That's a generic name and can be used to refer to the noodle by itself. If you want to be Mr or Mrs smartypants, order "ha cheung" (shrimp inside), "gnau cheung" (beef inside) or "jee cheung" (pork). With the Chinese donut inside, I believe it's "ja leung".

Cantonese doesn't romanize well so if you get strange looks for trying to order these, don't blame me

Quick Edit, on a HTF on-topic bit:
Eat Drink Man Woman has wonderful scenes of cooking. The opening sequence is simply stunning.

 

[Peter Kim]

Eat Drink Man Woman has wonderful scenes of cooking. The opening sequence is simply stunning.

Along with the actress who plays the middle daughter...wow! Plus, one of the best food movies of all time, along with Tampopo.

 

[Devin U]

You know what else rules? Shark Fin soup. I've never seen it offered in America yet.

I saw in a resturant review here in Phoenix a couple of years back for a resturant that served shark fin soup, at a consiterable price, I believe.

 

[Jay H]

I was in the middle of a market in Thailand one time walking around, and I happened to trip. Needless to say, my hand landed on one of those.....

There has to be some kind of Leslie Nelson comedy sketch here! Did you sue?

Had some "Yum Cha" this weekend. No offensive Durian though.

Jay

 

[Lew Crippen]

If you don't like it, the stuff smells and tastes funny (read: bad). I had a tiny bite once and was burping it for the next three hours!

I've heard a story that in one city or country, there are "international no" pictograms (circle with diagonal line thru) specifically for durian, right alongside the ones for no food, no smoking, etc.

You see those signs in Singapore at some subway stops—notably ones close to wet markets. Also they are forbidden on buses and most taxi drivers won’t let you carry them. To satisfy more modern, antiseptic sensibilities, you can now buy just the inside ‘fruit’ portion, hermetically sealed so that no odor escapes in some upscale supermarkets on Orchard Road.

This is one of these things like ‘smelly’ cheese. The order is offensive and for those who do not care for the end result, why anyone would ever care for it is incomprehensible. IIRC, some used to say that eating Durian was like eating custard in a public toilet.

But there are other ways to sample Durian that avoid the smell. Durian flavored mooncakes are one example. In Sydney a specialty ice cream shop close to Chinatown sells Durian ice cream—there is an outlet in Darling Harbor as well.

 

[Peter Kim]

Lew, you are a true cosmopolitan, in the sense that you are not only well-travelled but really experience the vast array of cultures.

I enjoy reading and envy your experiences abroad.

 

[Lew Crippen]

:b

Thanks Peter, but being a bit older than most forum members, I’ve just had more chances for a wider range of experiences than younger members.

I do think that experiencing what any place has to offer (as much as an outsider can) is worth the effort. And eating Durian in an open air market is great fun. I had a party once where we tasted different (smelly) cheese and different Durians (aficionados can tell the difference in different varieties). Things on offer to confound both the expats and locals.

 

[Peter Kim]

I do think that experiencing what any place has to offer (as much as an outsider can) is worth the effort. And eating Durian in an open air market is great fun.

You cannot say this anymore true. Sounds corny, but somehow I can feel the history and culture course through my veins as I indulge in the country's cuisine, as though I'm swallowing a little bit of place.

When I last visited my native country of Korea in '84, I spent time at the base of a mountain near my mother's hometown of Taegu. Although it was 115 degrees Fahrenheit (but a dry heat), as I was eating mul naengmyun (traditional dish of cold buckwheat noodles in soup) overlooking the broad plains interrupted by the mountainline, it infused me with a quasi-native feeling.

I yearn to experience tradizionale balsamico while in the hills of Modena, sip on a nice Margaux in a Bordeaux vinyard, or quaff chicory coffee while eating beignets in a New Orleans cafe.

I've even enjoyed lutefisk in my current place of Minnesota. Food + place are inextricably evocative.

 

[Danny Tse]

In terms of "stinkiness", in my opinion, "stinky tofu" has durian beat by a mile. I've never eaten it because the smell would drive me back from across the street. My sister said it's sinfully good.

 

[Citizen87645]

My first experience with durian left a bit to be desired - I think it traumatized my nephew more though. It's now a great way to tease him!

My family took a road trip to L.A. and on the way back we stopped in S.F. where my mom has a cousin who owns a Chinatown grocery store. Among the many other fruits and vegetables she gave us was a durian. Imagine lugging that smelly thing all the way back from S.F. to Oregon! By the time we got back the thing was overripe, but we weren't experienced enough to know and we tasted it anyway. Visually it was not appetizing, reminding me of some kind of fleshy pod in a sci-fi movie. And I was burping the taste well into the next day and I only had like half a teaspoon! I am still curious about having a good durian though and have tried durian ice cream. I kind of like the flavor, but don't care for the "Return of the Durian" experience that comes with it.

As far as durian in films, the best has to be Supercop or Police Story III when Jackie Chan falls from the helicopter into the cargo bed of them. The message the things send out to the world aromatically and visually is "stay away" so I'm curious what possessed the first person to consider it for food.

I like the stinky tofu as well as the salted fish, which puts alot of people off. I lived in the dorms with several Korean-Americans and once the Kim Chee got busted out people wondered what the heck had died. The other offensive foodstuff was frying Spam from the people from Hawaii.

 

[Jay H]

One of my great moments of visiting Hong Kong and China was meeting all my uncles. We were in Lantau island and visiting a fishing village, well my oldest uncle took my sister and I into a small shop and in the back they had this huge food container with a lid and my Uncle is trying to explain to us what's in it, he calls it "soft tofu" and since neither my sister and I speak much Chinese, he's describing this to us in broken English. Well I see a bowl and immediately recognize it as "dow foo fah" (phoenetically) so we all get a bowl and enjoy...

Speaking of stinkiness, we saw vats full of so called "shrimp sauce" which are reddish in color but are made from basically fish carcasses stewing in some kind of reddish base that stunk like you wouldn't believe....

Jay