Chinese Cooking Lab

Paige & Peggy's Chinese Cooking Lab

We've been trying to get together since our return from China in May to experiment with Chinese dishes. Finally, on the last day of summer we spent a lovely afternoon in Paige's kitchen slicing, dicing, chopping, tasting, cooking, and brainstorming ideas for articles and presentations related to our excellent Chinese adventure.

By now you all know how much Paige likes to take food pictures. Although we didn't use the zucchini or brussel sprouts, they do add  nicely to the vegetable composition.

We finally found the time to try some of the recipes (or approximations) we enjoyed on our China trip!

Our menu consisted of: Szechwan Eggplant Stir-Fry, Fried Rice, and Dry-fried Green Beans.

Szechwan Eggplant Stir-Fry - an adaptation of a recipe Paige found on the Food Network web site

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/tyler-florence/szechwan-eggplant-stir-fry-recipe/index.html

This is what five Asian eggplants look like when halved and sliced. But don't be alarmed. They cook down quite a bit.

Our modifications to the Szechwan Eggplant Stir-Fry:

We made some substitutions when we couldn't find exact ingredients called for. For this recipe we used toasted sesame oil, not dark. Rather than red chilis, a combination of a modest teaspoon of dried habanero chilis and three tablespoons of an unidentified red (Bell?) pepper -- see photo below,  "mystery red pepper." A bunch (10 to be specific) of green onions, not two. Three tablespoons of the sesame oil was not nearly enough to sauté the heaps of eggplant wedges that the five vegetables yielded. Instead we added more oil to each batch we sautéed. As you can see from the photo above, this recipe serves a LOT of people. We had enough for both Paige's family and mine to enjoy.


Dry-fried Green Beans I & II (both recipes combined)
"gan Brian si Jim dou"
From "Land of Plenty" by Fuschia Dunlop





Instead of ground pork we used cubed pork chop. We couldn't find the Tianjin preserved vegetable. Maybe someone can tell us where to purchase it in Mobile...We also nixed the elusive Shaoxing rice wine. No Sichuanese chilies or peppers, so we substituted the dried habanero chilies again.

Paige displays appropriately "puckered and wrinkled" green beans.

Mystery Red Pepper

Paige's Free-style Fried Rice

Long grain white rice

Cubed pork

Frozen green peas

Soy sauce

Here's our take on the dishes. The eggplant, which the Chinese seem to prepare a thousand delicious ways, was quite good, but not quite what Paige had in mind. I thought the peanut oil gave the dish a more peanutty flavor than I would have liked. We will continue looking for other eggplant recipes. The beans were fresh and toothsome, but the tiny amount of habenero pepper we added (the same amount as was added to the eggplant) packed more heat than either of us liked with our beans. We suggest toning down the pepper, or finding a milder variety, but otherwise this dish definitely rates a repeat. The rice was a  nice accompaniment, especially with the small chunks of pork, but Paige wants to include teriyaki sauce next time.

Until then, don't be a hungry ghost :) Indulge your craving for Chinese food.

- Peggy

Two Fab Ladies

The title of this post is an homage to one of my all-time favorite cooking shows, "Two Fat Ladies," which unfortunately is no longer in production (alas one of the ladies has passed on). The two cooks were mature, generously proportioned  British ladies who rode around on a Triumph motorcycle and sidecar to picturesque locations in the UK where they cooked high calorie, high carb, highly comforting food with a heavy side of to-hell-with-it-all attitude.

Not that there are any similarities between the beloved "Fat Ladies," and Paige and myself. None really. Although the idea of the Triumph is very appealing.

Our growing collection of Chinese food ingredients. 

Yesterday we ventured back into the Chinese cooking lab (aka Paige's comfy kitchen), for a wholly enjoyable afternoon of noodles, cucumbers, and pancakes. In preparation I had the good sense to seek out an Asian market in order to find authentic ingredients for our menu. My Hoa Oriental Food Market on Azalea Road is fantastic! I could have spent hours perusing the aisles. Who knew there were so many varieties of rice and noodles?

Here are the recipes for what we cooked and comments on each dish:

Scallion Pancakes (frankly I chose this recipe because it was one of the less intimidating ones in Paige's Chinese cookbook collection). The recipe called for me to make a well in the flour and to add the water a bit at a time. Paige made fun of my flour volcano, then said it called to mind that creepy rock formation (Devil's Tower?) in "Close Encounters," which then turned into a revelation that as a middle-schooler she had been an extra in the evacuation scene in the movie, which was filmed in Bay Minette and at Brookley. Imagine that! The pancakes turned out to be tasty little morsels, though I would certainly roll them a bit thinner next time for more of a crunch.

Peggy's "Close Encounters" flour volcano.

Scallion Pancakes

Spicy Cucumber Salad. This was my favorite recipe. It is very simple, requiring the briefest of introductions between cucumber and hot peanut oil. The chile peppers give the dish a nice zing. This is a novel way to serve cucumbers.

Cucumbers seeded and
"cut evenly into batons the size of french-fried potatoes."

Cucumbers, peanut & sesame oils, and dried chiles.

Cold Spicy Chinese Noodles with Slivered Chicken (Paige's favorite). Probably the most fun dish because it required the spreading of cooked noodles on a surface to cool and the massaging of said noodles with peanut oil to keep them from sticking to each other. In other words, we got to play with our food. The very spicy sauce for this dish was deliciously flavorful and the sesame paste in it reminded Paige and me both of Thai food.

 

AND, lest anyone think this was all fun and games, while the noodles cooled and the pancake dough rested, we outlined articles and presentations based on our two wonderful weeks in China.

Then it was time to tuck into our excellent Chinese meal, eaten properly with chopsticks, I might add.

For our next foray into Chinese cooking we will tackle the wonderful world of dumplings!



Day of the Dumpling

Green Beans with Wild Mushrooms

Didn't have wild mushrooms, so we used "tame" mushrooms.

Fresh green beans

Green Beans with Wild Mushrooms Recipe

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/saras-secrets/green-beans-with-wild-mushrooms-recipe/index.html

Stir Fry Spinach with Garlic

Baby Spinach

Stir-fry Spinach with Garlic

Stir-fry Spinach with Garlic Recipe

http://chinesefood.about.com/od/vegetablesrecipes/r/spinach-garlic.htm

Napa Cabbage and Pork Steamed Dumplings

Napa Cabbage

Dumpling production

Voila...a dumpling

Steaming Dumplings

Dumpling Recipes

http://chinesedumplingrecipes.com/napa-cabbage-and-pork-steamed-dumplings.html

http://chinesedumplingrecipes.com/beef-potstickers-a-chinese-fried-dumpling-recipe.html

http://chinesedumplingrecipes.com/how-to-make-chinese-dumpling-wrappers.html

http://www.asiandumplingtips.com/ tips on how to make dumplings

http://www.kingofchinesedumpling.com/english/index.htm traditions of the dumpling

The dumplings were delicious, Peggy gets 5 stars ***** for the recipe selection and dumpling production. After steaming a batch of dumplings, we used the pot-sticker technique and fried, then steamed the second batch - even better! 

Peggy made the wrappers, which was quite a process, so she will try the store-bought wrappers tomorrow with the left-over filling - stay tuned for the report on these. Rolling the home-made wrappers thin enough to avoid chewiness was a challenge, nevertheless, they were good enough for me to consume at least a dozen.

The green beans with wild mushrooms were good, but we agreed not as good as the green bean recipe we made previously. I chose it because I wanted to try a dish with the oyster sauce I purchased for our last Chinese Cooking Lab. I found it not to be as flavorful as expected - maybe because the mushrooms we used weren't "wild."

The simple stir-fry spinach with garlic was a keeper. I will certainly make that again. My secret ingredient was chile oil (instead of paste) because that is what we had and LOTS of fresh garlic - how could we go wrong?

We did revisit our practitioner manuscripts on the art of calligraphy and Terra Cotta Warriors. We organized, delegated and set deadlines. 

Time to write... Chinese proverb: "Talk Doesn't Cook Rice."