You can buy the honey walnuts from any halfway decent Chinese supermarket. My wife’s got a couple of cans in the cupboard right now.
Hairy Crab (the best are from yenchenghu lake) steamed is simply devine.
Xiaolongbao has been mentioned before. Just highlight it’s got to be real Shanghaiese xiaolongbao. Plain ones are awesome. Hairy crab ones superb. Go to Chenghuamiao for the best ones in the world.
Any fish steamed to perfection by the cantonese. Dang, just about any soup made by the Cantonese as well.
Vegetarian fish at the wenshuyuan temple in Chengdu is without compare. The best veggie restaurant in China is at a Nunnery in Guiyang, Guizhou province.
In parts of tibet one can find a goat cheese that is awesome.
Sounds like you are describing duk sauce (I have also seen it spelled “duck” sauce)
Unfortunately, this is food of the Calgary gods. It’s not an actual Chinese dish, but created by a chef in a Calgary Chinese restaurant. I make my own, and while it’s pretty damned good, it’s a lot of work. I get my fill when I go home in the summer - the best I have ever had is at a hole-in-the-wall place in Nobleford, Alberta (15 minutes out of Lethbridge), 10 minutes from Mom’s.
I was wondering why I couldn’t find it anywhere around here. I thought it was because of the Chinese food wasteland that is Mississippi.
Damn you, Calgary Gods. Damn You!!
If it’s good, it’ll make its way across the hemisphere like General Tso’s
Oh, it’s good. It’s damned good. However, Albertans tend to stay put. I would be the obvious exception (she said from her desk in Baltimore).
Duck sauce, in my experience, is always plum sauce.
Dammit, I knew I shouldn’t have opened this thread. I’m craving me some Hot Sour Soup and egg rolls now. I could seriously hurt myself on those alone. I really love Moo Goo Gai Pan and Sesame Chicken, too. Or any all veggie dish… And Lo Mein… And Beef with Snow Peas… And Egg Foo Yung… Oh, the list goes on.
Hmmm… Maybe I’ll have to ditch the gargantuan pot of chili I made yesterday for some cheap Chinese from the grocery store for lunch today.
Incidentally, we call the stir-fried green beans “squeaky beans.” Man, those are good.
I’m very surprised not to see more duck and fish on this list. While many take-out places don’t do much with this stuff, sit-down resturants usually have some incredible duck and fish courses. As for fish, try getting any kind of whole fish fried on the bone. Heaven.
General Tso’s chicken (or tofu) is super easy to make on the cheap. This is my quick fix fave:
tofu or chicken:
for tofu, dry on paper towels, cut the block into inch by inch chunks and drain and dry again. If you want, you can then freeze these dried chunks in wrapped plastic in your freezer overnight, thawing them and draining/drying them again in the morning: gives the tofu more of a chickeny texture. Though I don’t find that as important for this recipe tastewise, it helps avoid unpleasantness in frying
for raw chicken, just chunk it
for either, dip them in either 1 beaten egg yolk or a mix of vegan egg replacer (make to recipe) plus an extra 3 tablespoons of water in addition to the box dierctions, coating each piece completely. Sprinkle cornstarch over the sides of the chunks of “whatever”, again mixing to coat them as evenly as possible (don’t let the cornstarch clump up too much: this is harder with tofu since you don’t want to break it up too much)
Heat up a fair amount of vegetable oil in a wok/pan until it’s steady hot but NOT starting to burn (you aren’t deep frying, but enough so that the chunks are sitting in a puddle of oil). Fry the chunks, turning regularly, until they are golden. Careful about hot oil splatter from any water being released from the tofu or chicken (this is where a good drying would have come in handy) Remove from the oil and drain them on paper towels. Don’t overcook or the chunks will become uninterestingly hard and dry.
You can just deep fry if you want, but not everyone is equipped to do that. If you are, just fry it as you would anything else.
sauce:
-chop 3 entire green onions (the long kind)
-mince up a heaping Tablespoon each of both ginger and garlic
-make or get 2/3 cup of a flavorful vegetable stock (or chicken stock, whatever) ready to go, adding 2 TBsp of soy sauce, 4 TBsps of sugar, and 1 TBsp of some sort of white vinegar You can also hit this with a TBsp of sherry if you have any around
-now get yourself a few (don’t overdo it) red chilis, dry or fresh (use less if fresh) split and de-seeded if needed, but not chopped up
-alternatively, add a good amount of spicy red pepper flakes to the stock/soy/sugar mix
-get a cornstarch mix ready to go: 1TBsp of cornstarch mixed in 2 TBsp of water
Now, heat 3 TBsps of vegetable oil, medium heat and saute the garlic, ginger, and onions for about 2 minutes, careful not to burn anything. Add the stock mix and peppers and stir. Add the cornstarch mix and keep stirring: it will quickly turn into goo. Toss in the chunks of “whatever” and coat it up good.
Serve with steamed veggies over brown rice or whatever. Easy and cheapo. Serves 3.
Woah, hairy crab Xiaolongbao? Heh, didn’t know that existed. Where can you get it in Shanghai? Probably anyplace, now that I think about it, since I can’t read very much :smack:
Not that I’m a fan of hairy crab (too much work!), but that sounds like a neat combo.
Oh, and for the OP, I like:
Tang Cu Pai Tiao = I believe that’s sweet and sour pork strips, tho not absolutely sure
Hui Guo Rou = A Sichuan dish with pork and cabbage and just the right amount of spice for my taste
Jian Bao Qie Zi = Eggplant with copious amounts of sauce (maybe soy?), absolutely delicious
Yu Xiang Qie Zi Bao = Fish-smelling eggplant arranged in somewhat hemispherical shapes
Ca Shao Shu = It’s a dian xin (dim sum) thing, that’s a small baked bun with pork inside. Absolutely fabulous, but probably frighteningly fattening.
Yao Zu Luo Bo Gao = It’s a rice paste thing with radish.
Zong Ze = The sticky rice concoction usually in the shape of a pyramid covered in green (lotus?) leaf