Dim Sum

John's dad (I call him TomDad) likes to eat out when traveling, so we had lots of fun joining him in that activity!  His one rule, though, is that the restaurant's got to be busy.  If the locals aren't going there, then he doesn't want to go there.

So in Chinatown we looked and looked and every restaurant was empty.  It was only 11:45 so maybe it was too early for lunch...then John walked in a door that led to stairs.  He didn't even have to go up them to know this was the place, as the roar of voices and clinking plates was so loud.

It was an authentic Dim Sum restaurant, which means women were walking around the tables pushing carts full of small plates of food.  They'd call out the food names & if you wanted it, you'd motion for them to put it on your table.

We, as obvious foreigners, caught their attention.  We'd hear "Hey!" and then a woman would be displaying her cart for us. It only took us a few minutes to realize that we shouldn't ask what the food was because that only led to a word we didn't understand and the food immediately being put on the table.  We just started saying "No, thank you" left and right, unless the food looked good. (Please note that the photo below only shows half of the table, thus showing only half of the food.)

Helena ate 2/3 of a shrimp roll and then focused on her Ritz peanut butter crackers.  Grandpa, however, helped her eat them Chinese style!

It really was quite a chaotic adventure of a meal.  Eating it was fun but not so fun that the Chinese bakery could be skipped afterwards.

And just in case you ever go out for Dim Sum, try the tofu skin rolls & the shrimp rolls.  They were our favorites.  (We figured these out by Googling dim sum afterwards!)

Maybe you all have a life...

...or I must have really fooled all of you, since no one made a guess as to what the flat stuff is on John's sandwich. (Thanks to Erinn, though, for her comment!)

Anyways, the current sandwich of choice for John is one that includes smoked tofu. That's right. TOFU. We've been eating it for awhile in stir-fries. But last week we went to a farmer's market where gourmet tofu was being sold. Many of you are probably thinking - gourmet tofu? How can anything like that be gourmet? But this stuff is different than what you buy at the grocery store.

(Ignore this paragraph if you have no interest in tofu.) Legend goes that tofu was accidentally made when a Chinese cook was seasoning pureed soybean with sea salt. Sea salt contains Nigari, a coagulant, and the Nigari made the soybean turn into a flavorful curd - tofu! Tofu became a staple in Chinese diets. But when tofu began to be made by machines rather than by hand, calcium sulphate and calcium chloride were replaced for the Nigari.

We can say firsthand that this gourmet tofu is SO MUCH BETTER! We got some that was marinated in sweet & sour sauce and had it in a stir-fry. Delicious. John also chose the smoked tofu variety, which has the taste of bacon. In his opinion, it's better fried than not. Below is his current favorite: the TST - Tofu, spinach, & tomato sandwich.


In my opinion, if I'm going to eat something that tastes like meat, might as well eat meat. So I'm avoiding the smoked tofu and eating one of my favorite sandwiches, a grilled cheese on cinnamon raisin bread.

The month is drawing to a close...

April is almost over, which means I've been scrambling the last few days to make my required number of recipes - 10! It doesn't sound like many, but for some reason this month's menu was difficult. We were gone for part of it, causing creativity to inspire the meal below - noodle bowls, which happen to be a frequent lunch for many of my Asian students:


I had said April would be focused on Chinese, Japanese, and Korean food. It turned into just the first two because, really, two entirely different types of cuisine were enough. The main reasons why the menu was difficult, though, I have decided were:

1) I had a really difficult time finding a variety of mushrooms around here - which was really quite surprising since mushrooms are very popular around here - and many recipes I wanted to try called for them.
2) I just wasn't willing to buy lots of bottles of new sauces. The new purchases I did end up with are oyster sauce, Chinese cooking wine, mirin, and dark soy sauce (yes, there are two kinds).

Here are the last two dishes from Asian April:

Spicy Shrimp with Udon Noodles

and

Hand-Hacked Pot Stickers.

You might notice that the potstickers are shaped more like egg rolls. One thing we learned this month is the roll-up method of egg rolls is the easiest to use when making anything with wrappers - wontons, pot stickers, egg rolls, you name it. But no matter how we rolled these, they tasted great!

Oyster Sauce

In my last post I recommended a vegetable and said it was great with an oyster sauce mixture on top. In case any of you are interested in making that dish or are inspired to make some Chinese food because of Asian April, I feel that I must provide you with a few warnings tonight.

Oyster sauce - it's been an ingredient that I have stayed far far away from because of the first word in its name. However, it is a very popular ingredient for Chinese dishes, so after much careful thought (and self persuasion), I bought it. It has now been used four times in our kitchen and I feel that there are three crucial pieces of information about oyster sauce that you need to know:

1) It is like ketchup in a glass jar - ridiculously difficult to get out. In addition, its consistency is thicker than ketchup. In other words, do not plan on just pulling it out of the fridge - yes, it needs to be refrigerated - and pouring some in your wok like you would soy sauce. This will not happen. Here's how I propose you do it: keep it in the fridge upside down. When getting ready to cook, put it in a glass - still upside down - of hot water. After a few minutes, start the long task of getting it out with a utensil. Do this long before you need to use the oyster sauce.

This brings me to the second piece of information. When using the utensil to get it out of the jar, you will undoubtedly get oyster sauce on your fingers. 2) Do not lick any tiny amount of oyster sauce off your fingers. To say it more strongly, never eat oyster sauce on its own in any amount. If you do, this will surely destroy any pleasure you have in cooking with oyster sauce for the rest of your life.

Now that I've completely scared you away from oyster sauce, let me get to number three. 3) You will enjoy food that you have made with oyster sauce, as it tastes like you expect Chinese food to taste. Without it, the food just won't be right. Even if you have accidentally tasted oyster sauce on its own, once it is mixed with other ingredients, you will like it. So do not stay away from it out of fear.

Attention Broccoli Lovers

Here's a new vegetable for you: Gai Lan, also known as kai-lan, Chinese broccoli or Chinese kale. It's really quite delicious! The flower sections are kind of sweet, the leaves are a bit bitter, and the stalks reminded us of something between broccoli and asparagus.


We recently had it in the recipe "Gai Lan with Vegetarian Oyster Sauce" (we used non-vegetarian), from the magazine Vegetarian Times, on top of sesame noodles. Wonderful. The recipe called for boiling it, which you do with a slighted salted and baking soda-ed pot of water in order to help with the bitterness of the leaves.


Another great way to eat gai lan is stir-fried with ginger and garlic.

By the way, if you are one who truly loves broccoli - like everyone in my immediate family - and have been wondering about the magazine Vegetarian Times, April is the issue to buy and try out. They have an entire section of recipes that center around broccoli. Or the recipes will be available on VT's website in May.

Chinese Comfort Food

Asian April is coming along well. I am taking it a bit easier than Mexican March, with us having only tried five recipes so far. We ate this Lo Mein recipe last week. As we were eating it, John commented on how it tasted like Chinese comfort food and I have to agree. I also know I've been craving it since that night. Interested in trying it?

1/2 pound fresh Chinese egg noodles
peanut or corn oil
2 Tbsp. soy sauce
1 large onion, thinly sliced
1 1/2 pounds broccoli, tops only, cut into bite-sized florets
1 red bell pepper, cut into thin strips
1 Tbsp. minced garlic
2 tsp. minced fresh ginger
1/2 cup chicken stock or water
1/2 cup unsalted cashews, optional

Cook noodles according to package directions and set aside. Put 1 Tbsp. oil in skillet and turn on high heat. Add onion and cook until brown, about 5 minutes. Add broccoli and red pepper, cooking until broc is crisp-tender, about 5-8 minutes. Add garlic and ginger, cook for 1 minute, stirring almost constantly. Add noodles, soy sauce, cashews, and chicken stock. Toss to mix and reheat, then serve.


Recipe "Beef Lo Mein" from The Best Recipes in the World, by Mark Bittman

Easter Egg...rolls

No traditional ham & potato meal for us today; instead it was (Chinese) stir-fried pork with asparagus and homemade egg rolls. Believe it or not, egg rolls are not difficult to make.

First, you need your inner ingredients - mixed and sauted.


Next, roll the mix in an egg roll wrapper - can be homemade OR purchased at a grocery store near you.

John adds, "If you have worked at any fast food joint and thus wrapped any type of fast food, roll the egg rolls in the same way you'd wrap a fast food sandwich."

Finally, fry them in the hot oil for 2-4 minutes and voila!

For those of you who have Fry Daddies sitting in some lost closet of your house, you now have a great reason to pull them out.