Aug
20
Chinese Take-out
Yes you heard it here first. My favorite fast chinese dish is not something you’ll find at your regular old americanized take out joint. Lo mein, chicken with broccoli and moo-shu pork, easy to find. This dish I’m preparing now, Dried bean curd with yellow chives and pork is one of my ABSOLUTE favorite chinese dishes. This is classic chinese home cooking. The only challenge about putting this dish together is sourcing the ingredients. You’ll have to get your hands on some yellow chives and dried bean curd and pork..(well that’s easy)..But once you do get your hands on them you’ll understand what Hermes once said about fashion design. The best design always comes from high quality materials simply worked.
Below I am wearing my own design, a Luxirare half sleeve leather jacket with perforated leather panels.
Now while I am taking care of this dish, my priorities are getting this Santa Margarita into the freezer so it’s extra cold. Can anyone say, PI-NOT-GRI-GI-O??? After 6 pm, obligatory.
Below you will see one of the major ingredients of this dish. Dried bean curd. Imagine TOFU but condensed a 100x times over. It’s almost solid like cheese, this ingredient is quite salty and packed with flavor. I can’t quite describe but it’s fantastic, just hard to find. And there are the yellow chives, which is also another ingredient you can’t substitute. If you are chinese, please do provide some more insight to this dish. As you know I’m no expert. Any little tips and tricks are welcome.
You want to slice the dried bean curd, the pork, and the yellow chives in a uniform fashion.
There is this sauce I found at a chinese supermarket that my friend recommended to create this dish. It tastes like soy sauce, but it’s not, and it tastes 1000x better? I can’t explain… He is chinese, and he loves this dish so he told me to add some of this special sauce to not only marinate the pork but also to use as seasoning while all the ingredients are being stir-fried in the wok. You will find it here.
To marinate the pork, you’ll need sake, this special soy sauce I mentioned above, and ginger oil.
Time to heat up the wok…I recently got this great lighter. Usually I light with matches and my fingers burn and my hands are too close to the heat. With this tool I can light things up pretty easily.
Now to every delicious dish there is always some dirty little secret. For this dish it would definitely be some rendered pork fat. I am using a combination of both ginger oil and pork fat to stir-fry this recipe.
…And voila, dried bean curd, pork and yellow chives. Simple chinese home cooking, and not something you may normally order, but you can try it at home because it’s very easy. Add the pork first, let it brown, then add the dried bean curd and the chives last.
Now for a light Japanese dessert. Some sweet jelly-like noodles.
Separate noodles with your hands..
Thanks for reading, more soon.
Haha, I only know the dish by its Chinese name, so I didn’t even realize what you were making until the end! It’s interesting to see you elevate such a simple and homey side dish through your staging… my grandpa makes it all the time, and just serves it on a big platter along with a bunch of other stuff that comprises the family dinner. From the looks of it, you nailed it…
Whoa, those Japanese dessert noodles, where did you get them? After having them in Kyoto, I’ve been searching for them everywhere!
That has to be the best lighter I have ever seen. It would go so nicely with this brass knuckle corkscrew:
http://broccolicity.files.wordpress.com/2008/05/brass-knuckle-corkscrew-2.jpg
In Chinese, dried bean curd is called dou gan, or 豆干. Delicious marinated as a snack, too…
Just to let you know, Maggi is not a “Chinese” thing. In fact, it’d produced by Nestle, a French company. I grew up with it, we used to put it on eggs. It’s delicious!
hey! an alternative sauce for marinating the chicken would be those traditional chinese oyster sauce. it’s a common marinating sauce in chinese households
Maggi Sauce was inveted by the Swiss Julius Maggi. It’s neither French nor Chinese but as Swiss/German as you can get – think Marmite + England. It was based on Soy beans and wheat (today it’s just wheat) and was put together to substitute the more expensive meat extract. I was raised in its orbit, and frankly, I think it’s disgusting.
The food looks amazing of course, but it’s the hoodie that really caught my eye in this post. It’s such a good look with the denim shirt and the jeans, ugh.
Was also amused to see the Maggi. I grew up in Poland during communist times and yeah, Maggi was a staple.
Maggi may have originated in Europe, but it’s hit with a lot of countries in Asia. It also tastes slightly different depending on which country makes it (just like Coca-Cola tastes different depending on the country). I grew up in the States, but my Asian parents also liked to put it on eggs. Now I happen to live one of the few Asian countries where Maggi is not popular (Japan) and have to get it imported from other Asian countries (or from the US).
As for the clear “noodles”, these look like tokoroten, which are agar-based “noodles”, but I don’t recall ever seeing them in the States. I used to bring them to my mom when I’d visit.
amazing. the jacket is my heart’s desire, too.
What cut of pork did you use for this dish?
not the first to say this, but i grew up eating maggi in switzerland. its delicious with bread or over plain noodles. childhood yum!
For those who want to know the jelly is Kuzukiri, and from the packaging it looks like its from Minamoto Kitchoan on 49th and 5th! It’s amazing!
OMG.
I’m chinese, family of chefs. I hate Maggi, I would marinate with light soy, cook with a dark soy for colour. (If you’re from a more northern china or taiwan you might just use the 1 soy – a bit like Japanese, using one soy). But Southern/ Cantonese style there is def 2 types of soy. I am lazy and usually use an organic Japanese soy (not kikkoman – there are a lot better flavours out there) because I don’t cook much Chinese atm so there’s no point having so many bottles of soy in my kitchen….. I don’t think that is dried tofu – it’s 5 spice tofu which is compacted. Typical marinade for the pork would be light soy, and a very tiny bit of sugar, sesame oil
I’m chinese, family of chefs. I hate Maggi, I would marinate with light soy, cook with a dark soy for colour. (If you’re from a more northern china or taiwan you might just use the 1 soy – a bit like Japanese, using one soy). But Southern/ Cantonese style there is def 2 types of soy. I am lazy and usually use an organic Japanese soy (not kikkoman – there are a lot better flavours out there) because I don’t cook much Chinese atm so there’s no point having so many bottles of soy in my kitchen….. I don’t think that is dried tofu – it’s 5 spice tofu which is compacted. Typical marinade for the pork would be light soy, and a very tiny bit of sugar, sesame oil.
light soy, sugar, sesame oil is simply fantastic and fantastically simple but the maggi seasoning just packs an incredible level of umami. totally different flavor, in my opinion.
I’m Eurasian and we would often put Maggi on food growing up so I pretty much grew to love it. But often times it has MSG in it so you have to get an imported bottle without it!
Interesting about the Maggi–it must be like Bragg’s Amino–which is often used as a soy substitute. Tastes great, but the problem is with the naturally occurring MSG. Some people are so sensitive to it — am amazed that the MSG content in the US labelling is not as forthcoming given the hype (bad) around MSG. ct
Lovely post, I will be trying this as soon as I get to our local Asian supermarket for supplies.
Tip for fast chilling of your wine. Chilling only takes about 5 minutes if you place the bottle in dry ice. Keep a close eye though as the wine will freeze, actually that could make interesting ice lollies.
Uhmm ,vedendo tante buone cose i è venuta vogli di mangiare.Teresa J.
Love the dessert noodles. I just had some of those the other day, although I made mine with some cream and slices of strawberries.
Maggi is made in Malaysia! haha suddenly i am so proud that i am a Malaysian!
i use that for seasoning too!
Where oh where did you get that lighter? I am in love with it!