Cooking Chinese

I decided I spend far too much time lamenting my inability to cook my favorite Western dishes due to the scarcity — or often high prices, when available — of many of the necessary ingredients. (I often muse that it’s actually much cheaper to buy Chinese food for lunch in China/Hong Kong than it is to cook at home and take something with me.) I’ve been caught in a rut of making the same three or four things all the time, and it’s time to break free.

Obviously, I love Chinese food. But I really only know how to cook one thing, my soy-soaked chicken rice cakes — which I’m pretty sure isn’t even authentically Chinese but Americanized Chinatown. But I live in China and I should be able to cook Chinese food easily and cheaply, if only I could learn how!

I’ve often been directed to Chinese cookbooks by well intentioned Chinese friends and teachers, but they’re always written in Chinese, which presents a big challenge. Reading a road sign is one thing; reading a recipe, quite another. Short of hiring a cook or adopting a Chinese grandmother, I’ve instead gone this route.

I downloaded on Kindle this book — Mrs. Chiang’s Szechwan Cookbook — which was a steal at just over $5! I’m also quite surprised it’s even available on Kindle (it was originally published in the ’70s, with a new edition in 1987), so many newer books I’d like to download aren’t there yet.

I’ve browsed through it and it seems to contain many legitimate staples of Sichuan cuisine, from what little I know of it, like mapo dofu (spicy tofu), gongbao jiding (kung pao chicken), ganbian sijidou (fried green beans with peppers and pork). So now I’m going to try to teach myself to cook Chinese food over the next few months. No idea how that will go, but I’ll be sure to keep you posted and share any success.

I’m also keen to get the books of Fuschia Dunlop — a British chef who trained in Sichuan and has written a book about its cuisine as well as one about Hunan’s. I read her first book, but have no idea where it has gone to, and the one time I’ve found the others here, they’ve been incredibly expensive (US$50 plus). So next time I go home, I’ll add those to my list as well — and hopefully will know how to cook a little by that time!

Update: I should also note that for more learning-to-cook-Chinese resources, the Speaking of China blog has a good Q&A with a Western woman who has learned to cook Chinese and blogs about it.

Asia’s Best: Its Food!

…of course, is the food! A trip to Hong Kong/China wouldn’t be complete without eating lots and lots of yummy Chinese food and taking photos of it all! While Joanna was here, I am fairly certain we didn’t eat Western food at all, excepting one quick morning McDonald’s breakfast at the ferry station (because no matter where you go, McD’s is still the fastest breakfast!). We had Chinese food several times and Indian twice (including a huge lunch curry set for $4.80!). Anyway, I hope you’ve had lunch. Otherwise you’ll probably be hungry soon:

Yu: Spicy Sichuan

I know. I like to post pictures of food. But I can’t help it. It’s food, therefore it must be interesting.

A spicy Sichuan feast

Tonight’s fare: From Yu restaurant (渝酸辣粉), a Sichuan (the province where Brian just finished studying known for its incredibly spicy food) in Causeway Bay. Featuring: chilled, marinated beef slices, potato noodles in spicy sauce, dan dan (regular white) noodles in spicy sauce with pork, slice potatoes fried with peppers, Chengdu style dumplings (sweet pork dumplings coated in spicy oil), and spicy marinated eggplant.

Notice a theme here? Yeah, still can’t feel my tongue yet. But it was delicious and only HK$240 for all this.

Want to check it out:
Yu Sichuan 渝酸辣粉
+852 2838 8198
4 Yiu Wa St., Causeway Bay 銅鑼灣耀華街4號

Sichuan Spice

My body is not so happy with last night’s dinner today. But man oh man, China has some really delicious – and really spicy, spicy – food. This, from the restaurant at the hotel in Beijing run by the Chongqing Provincial Government’s local offices (Chongqing Fangdian):

Sichuan pepper-and-chicken dish

Check it out:
Chongqing Provincial Government Restaurant
Chongqing Municiple Gov’t Office, 5 Xibahe Guangximen,
西坝河光熙门北里5号, 重庆市人民政府驻北京办事处 

Hot Pot!

I meant to write about this after having it, but it seems to have slipped my mind!

Anyway, a couple weeks ago, I had my first experience eating Chinese hot pot, an interesting eating adventure indeed. It’s a very popular type of dining, particularly in cold winter months. Here’s how it works:

Your table comes with a built in gas burner, and you order a pot full of different sauces, basically flavored waters or broths. We chose to get half spicy Sichuan-style pepper and half a lighter, mushroom sauce. Then you order the items you want to cook in the pot. We got beef, lamb, potatoes, noodles and some greens. All of these things are served to you raw, and you wait for the juices in the pot to start bubbling and boiling, then you just plunk your uncooked foods down in the broth and let them cook. Once they seem done, you just grab them out of the pot and eat! It’s really a novel idea (though I can understand why such things haven’t caught on in America; I can just see some foolish person spilling the pot on himself – these restaurants have lawsuit written all over them). I was quite terrible at attempting to grab the slippery noodles out of the pot with my chopsticks, but luckily my Chinese friend was able to assist (although not before I tried and dropped it, splashing the hot, peppery sauce in my eye!). This hot pot was probably the spiciest food I’ve ever eaten, but it was delicious! I’ll definitely be back for more.

Hot pot, surrounded by all the to-be-cooked goodies. The left side is the hot, peppery sauce, and the right is the milder, mushroom sauce. To the right are the beef and lamb, to the left are the slippery noodles, potatoes and greens.