Archive for the 'Appetizers' Category
Tuesday, October 17th, 2006
If you're from the Southern part of China, you will be very familiar with this dish. Made of freshly cut cucumber slices, thin layers of cold rice noodles ( I have no clue how to call this thing in English, the Chinese name is Liang Fen) and specially mixed sauce consisting of all sorts of oil ingredients as well as specks of hot peppers.
The picture you see above is the unmixed version with all the ingredients laid out, you're suppose to mix everything in, make sure the sauce is well blended before serving it. 
This is one of my favorite appetitzers, we grew the hot peppers ourselves~
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Wednesday, October 4th, 2006
Does anyone know how to call these things in English? They are called "Ling Jiao" in Chinese and I don't think I've ever seen them in American Supermarkets.
They grow in the wild under water, I saw their roots when I went fishing in the lake once.
Basically, these nuts have a thick shell, you buy them raw, boil them, then chop them open. The inside tastes almost like potato. To get the inside out, try using a tooth pick or something small and pointy
Not sure if they can be considered an exotic healthy food but try them if you ever see them. It's kind of neat to try these weird things.
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Wednesday, October 4th, 2006
The Chef made these from scratch. She mixed the dough through the mixer, prepared the fillings and then folded the dumplings.
Yes, the Chef is a genius.
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Friday, September 29th, 2006
Yummy~ We got 8 of them for $1 at a giant Asian supermarket! Super good deal! You typically have these salted duck eggs for side dishes. They are good with rice congee or buns. They are usually sold raw and you boil them yourself, if you can boil chicken eggs, you can boil these too!
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Tuesday, September 12th, 2006
Ummm….that picture of the sauce didn't exactly come out as glorious as I had hoped..oh well.
This dish is simple and delicious! The key is the preparation of the sauce, which is much easier to make than it sounds. Even I, the most clumsy kitchen-person I know, can make it!
The sauce is made of soysauce and egg. You want to mix one egg (both yolk and whites) together with soysauce. (portions: 1 egg, 1 cup of soysauce). Put oil in frying pan (2 tablespoons), heat up frying pan and pour mixture in. Keep the stove on medium heat. Keep stirring the mixture until it thickens. Once the mixture turns into a sauce/paste texture, pour it out into a bowl. (the entire process in the frying pan shouldn't take more than 5 minutes)
Wash the cucumber thoroughly! The best type of cucumber for this dish is the Japanese cucumbers, they're fairly expensive, about $1.49 to $1.99 each. (Available in almost all American supermarkets!)
Enjoy!
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Monday, September 11th, 2006
The most special part of this salad is the flavoring from our home grown oranges!
(No vinegar, dressing or any type of sauce were added, just pure juice squeezed from these exquisitely small and cute oranges)
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Monday, September 11th, 2006
Have a cob of steamed sweet corn! They're easy to make and so delicious!
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Sunday, September 10th, 2006
One of my favorite desserts. This one is made with sticky rice, dates, red bean and banana leaves. Every year at the Chinese autumn festival, everyone celebrates by making these delicious desserts. Here in North America though, this is probably one of those exotic desserts that you can purchase for $5 a piece.
While some people think the procedures to make them is quite complicated, Chef Jiang is actually a super expert at making this special dessert and has invented her very own method for preparing the sticky rice stuffing and wrapping the banana leaves.
Do you have the courage the give this recipe a try?
Below is a list of ingredients you will need:
-Sticky rice (they come in bags and are available in most Asian supermarkets)
-Dates (Dried ones come in bags, again, easily found in Asian supermarkets)
-Red Bean Paste (I've seen prepared red bean paste in supermarkets before, although the Chef makes them from dried beans, take a look in the Dessert section for the recipe on Sweet Red Bean Paste)
-Banana Leaves (Dried banana leaves come in batches, they may be hard to get and may be available only during certain seasons)
Good luck gathering the ingredients, Chef Jiang will be posting up the recipe procedures here shortly. Stay tuned!
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Sunday, September 10th, 2006
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