Chinese Food (the way we eat it in China)
Firstly, I am in no way qualified to write intelligently about Chinese cuisine. There is simply a huge variety of food, ingredients, and ways of preparation. All I can write about is the everyday food that Ayi prepares for us and the common dishes we like to eat at restaurants. I don't think we have once eaten deep fried chicken balls. At least not in the shape we think of. Ayi makes us a dish with fried chicken pieces that's even better. I'm going to post the recipe, and hopefully some more recipes will follow through the summer. I'm planning to spend time in the kitchen with her. Come on, let's go see what's cooking.
Ayi is scurrying around, whisking this and that together, giving the wok on the stove a quick stir, then quickly chopping the last vegetables to be added. In the dining room the rice cooker is finished cooking. Yes, we eat lots of rice, and not the fried variety. We set the table with rice bowls, chopsticks, and because we're North American, cups of water or tea. With ICE!
"Chi fan le!!!" Ayi calls. Lunch is ready. We dish steaming rice into everyone's bowls. Rice is the base for all these meals of fried dishes. Except when you're at a classy restaurant or someone's guest, then you might be offered rice at the end of the meal unless you ask for it first. Ayi brings the plates of food from the oven where they were keeping warm. Usually 6 or 8 plates of food for the 5 of us. The rule of thumb is one fried dish per person. But she's like that, always ready to feed us til we almost burst. I also think she has learned to 'Americanize' her cooking a bit.
We say our Chinese prayer out loud together, Maddy the most enthusiastic of all. Then we all dig in with chopsticks. We usually don't use serving spoons unless the pieces are very small. And it's not like Western meals where you fill your plate full then eat. Your rice bowl is full of rice, and so you keep taking little bits and piling it on top. It's perfectly acceptable to hold your rice bowl in your hand. It is also not unmannerly to slurp, put the bowl up to your mouth, and talk with your mouth full!!!
And the food? Fried pork shreds with broccoli or cauliflower, Kung Pao chicken with peanuts, eggplant with herbs, cucumber soup, fried potatoes in any shape, stewed potato and meat, wontons, dumplings, fried egg and tomato, fried cabbage, corn on the cob, steamed fish with tofu, fried green pepper with meat shreds, noodles with spicy vinegary sauce on them, boiled Chinese white radish with sauce to dip it in, beef shreds with a spicy crumb coating, fried lettuce or other dark green vegetable, fried canola greens, stewed potato with cucumber and tomato, ribs, different kinds of peas, sweet and sour chicken, twice cooked pork, and many more. In fact after having Ayi cook for us 3 or 4 meals a week for almost a year, she's still trying new foods on us! At the restaurants our favorites are fried green beans, sweet and sour pork, egg and tomato, fried greens or cabbage, sweet and sour fish (think whole fish served upright on a platter, very pretty), fried meat and mushroom, and GongBaoJiDing (KungPao Chicken). Once we learn the names of more stuff we can branch out more. Ordering just anything can be a little scary, once we ended up with a dish that I'm quite sure contained liver and kidney!
Common seasonings for Sichuan cooking are the hot pepper spice (la jiao) and the numbing pepper spice (hua jiao). Also chili pepper paste (douban) and lots of ginger and garlic and dried chilies. Oops, almost forgot the all important soy sauce, though here it's a cooking ingredient and I've never seen it served at the table. Not saying it never happens, but not here I guess. Some people would use the spices that we know of in 5 spice seasoning.
And really we like most of it. Really! The girls are learning to eat veggies, and frankly, it think these veggies are way better than the boiled ones with salt and butter that we grew up with. (Sorry, mom, it's not your fault!) I'm hoping to write down some of these recipes and I'm hoping to try some of them on my own someday. Hmm... now I'm getting hungry!
Ayi is scurrying around, whisking this and that together, giving the wok on the stove a quick stir, then quickly chopping the last vegetables to be added. In the dining room the rice cooker is finished cooking. Yes, we eat lots of rice, and not the fried variety. We set the table with rice bowls, chopsticks, and because we're North American, cups of water or tea. With ICE!
"Chi fan le!!!" Ayi calls. Lunch is ready. We dish steaming rice into everyone's bowls. Rice is the base for all these meals of fried dishes. Except when you're at a classy restaurant or someone's guest, then you might be offered rice at the end of the meal unless you ask for it first. Ayi brings the plates of food from the oven where they were keeping warm. Usually 6 or 8 plates of food for the 5 of us. The rule of thumb is one fried dish per person. But she's like that, always ready to feed us til we almost burst. I also think she has learned to 'Americanize' her cooking a bit.
We say our Chinese prayer out loud together, Maddy the most enthusiastic of all. Then we all dig in with chopsticks. We usually don't use serving spoons unless the pieces are very small. And it's not like Western meals where you fill your plate full then eat. Your rice bowl is full of rice, and so you keep taking little bits and piling it on top. It's perfectly acceptable to hold your rice bowl in your hand. It is also not unmannerly to slurp, put the bowl up to your mouth, and talk with your mouth full!!!
And the food? Fried pork shreds with broccoli or cauliflower, Kung Pao chicken with peanuts, eggplant with herbs, cucumber soup, fried potatoes in any shape, stewed potato and meat, wontons, dumplings, fried egg and tomato, fried cabbage, corn on the cob, steamed fish with tofu, fried green pepper with meat shreds, noodles with spicy vinegary sauce on them, boiled Chinese white radish with sauce to dip it in, beef shreds with a spicy crumb coating, fried lettuce or other dark green vegetable, fried canola greens, stewed potato with cucumber and tomato, ribs, different kinds of peas, sweet and sour chicken, twice cooked pork, and many more. In fact after having Ayi cook for us 3 or 4 meals a week for almost a year, she's still trying new foods on us! At the restaurants our favorites are fried green beans, sweet and sour pork, egg and tomato, fried greens or cabbage, sweet and sour fish (think whole fish served upright on a platter, very pretty), fried meat and mushroom, and GongBaoJiDing (KungPao Chicken). Once we learn the names of more stuff we can branch out more. Ordering just anything can be a little scary, once we ended up with a dish that I'm quite sure contained liver and kidney!
Common seasonings for Sichuan cooking are the hot pepper spice (la jiao) and the numbing pepper spice (hua jiao). Also chili pepper paste (douban) and lots of ginger and garlic and dried chilies. Oops, almost forgot the all important soy sauce, though here it's a cooking ingredient and I've never seen it served at the table. Not saying it never happens, but not here I guess. Some people would use the spices that we know of in 5 spice seasoning.
And really we like most of it. Really! The girls are learning to eat veggies, and frankly, it think these veggies are way better than the boiled ones with salt and butter that we grew up with. (Sorry, mom, it's not your fault!) I'm hoping to write down some of these recipes and I'm hoping to try some of them on my own someday. Hmm... now I'm getting hungry!
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