thread of pictures of real chinese food

one time i went to dim sum and ate like five rectangular patties (about 1/2" thick each) of what i thought was tofu before my friends informed me it was like long-stewed skin of some sort ... don't remember if it was pig or shark or cow or what

does that sound right?

or were they jerking me around?

hooray, that blog looks interesting and has a recipe for 魚香肉絲 which is pictured upthread and which various Chinese restaurants round here call "sea spicy shredded pork" - suspect the local variety is not very authentic but we like it, anyway

http://sunflower-recipes.blogspot.com/2008/09/fish-fragrant-pork.html

from its name I thought it had fish sauce in but it seems not?

one time i went to dim sum and ate like five rectangular patties (about 1/2" thick each) of what i thought was tofu before my friends informed me it was like long-stewed skin of some sort ... don't remember if it was pig or shark or cow or what

does that sound right?

― the late great, Tuesday, March 13, 2012 7:08 PM (30 minutes ago) Bookmark

description makes me think of radish cakes

http://i.imgur.com/O3tCh.jpg

but there is also 'tofu skin'

http://i.imgur.com/xt4vd.jpg

could also be a tofu skin roll

http://i.imgur.com/FVnKW.jpg

i think the fuschia dunlop books are good if u want to cook the food from this thread mostly because even if they are based on hunan/sichuan etc. they discuss crucial cooking methods at length and give you a good idea of how "real chinese food" can be reproduced.

yeah sounds like radish cake, man

http://static0.enjoyoung.cn/images/assets/Image/articles%20photo/20100224%E7%8C%AA%E7%9A%AE.jpg = pork skin

http://image4.club.sohu.com/pic/3a/a3/5be83a57eb26682929d3bf45e5b4a33a.jpg

http://www.techan-cn.com/uploads/allimg/110725/163025N58-0.jpg

anything like that?

yeah they looked just like the first "radish cake" picture that dayo posted, not so much like the others

it was rubbery and chewy iirc

Shanghai rice cake is sometimes my favorite food:

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/46/157652886_5a5a98105c.jpg

especially because it doesn't look or taste anything like either rice or cake.

my friends really had me going - you're telling me i wasn't eating a thick skin steak, right?

hooray, that blog looks interesting and has a recipe for 魚香肉絲 which is pictured upthread and which various Chinese restaurants round here call "sea spicy shredded pork" - suspect the local variety is not very authentic but we like it, anyway

http://sunflower-recipes.blogspot.com/2008/09/fish-fragrant-pork.html

from its name I thought it had fish sauce in but it seems not?

― instant coffee happening between us (a passing spacecadet), Tuesday, March 13, 2012 11:25 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

iirc in fuschia dunlops book she talks about this, its to do w/ the recipe using the same flavourings they usually use to cook fish

I've never had it, but that Shanghai rice cake looks A+. You had me at gai lan.

http://www.glulu.com/UploadFile/%E9%9F%A9%E5%BC%8F%E7%82%92%E5%B9%B4%E7%B3%95500x375--175445449.jpg

韩式炒年糕

韩式 okay but on the menu at every restaurant north from the tip of the liaodong peninsula to the songliao plains.

精彩不容错过，eh？let's see if womanfriend.com lets me link to it

http://www.womanfriend.com/happy/UploadFiles_2413/200812/20081205085103329.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tteokbokki

one time i went to dim sum and ate like five rectangular patties (about 1/2" thick each) of what i thought was tofu before my friends informed me it was like long-stewed skin of some sort ... don't remember if it was pig or shark or cow or what
does that sound right?
― the late great, Tuesday, March 13, 2012 7:08 PM (30 minutes ago) Bookmark

not these i take it..
http://a3.att.hudong.com/68/61/01300000280411123780612007947_s.jpg
(pig skin)

not sure why radish cake would be rubbery..

or there are these things
http://img.dwnews.com/houtai/201005/2010052701402690659920.jpg

豬皮凍
which i have never tasted.

^ i assume the above is served cold.. hence "凍"

or pigs blood
http://http.cdnlayer.com/smoola/00/00/47/70752eead50a568a_m.jpg

^ f-ing tasty (and apparently good for you)

猪皮冻 is like..... pigskin + other stuff in the gelatin from the pig skin, right?

http://fjbak.86516.com/month_0708/20070807_8829271a803cf3223b77MiZ8gEOINzbE.jpg

蛙鱼儿

“蛙鱼儿”，江苏应该很多城市都有。只是，我只喜欢徐州的。起初，我并未听过如此的小吃。当朋友说带我去吃“蛙鱼儿”时，以为是一种鱼。当吃的时候才发现，就是用凉粉做的，一小点儿，一小点儿。放入盘中，加点醋，放点糖，再加上一些咸菜，最好再放进冰箱稍加冰冻，一盘可口的“蛙鱼儿”，就“出炉”了。轻轻喝上一口，凉爽入心。午饭或晚饭前喝上一碗，着实给炎热的夏天带去一丝凉意。

“蛙鱼儿”，江苏应该很多城市都有。只是，我只喜欢徐州的。起初，我并未听过如此的小吃。当朋友说带我去吃“蛙鱼儿”时，以为是一种鱼。当吃的时候才发现，就是用凉粉做的，一小点儿，一小点儿。放入盘中，加点醋，放点糖，再加上一些咸菜，最好再放进冰箱稍加冰冻，一盘可口的“蛙鱼儿”，就“出炉”了。轻轻喝上一口，凉爽入心。午饭或晚饭前喝上一碗，着实给炎热的夏天带去一丝凉意。

sorry chinese characters + italics are hard on the eyes

http://a3.att.hudong.com/68/61/01300000280411123780612007947_s.jpg

oh yeah, that's pretty much exactly what it looked like except it was in a shallow, broad rectangular pan, one layer thick, and w/ a sauce the same color as the stuff

that is thick pieces of stewed pig skin? guess my friend wasn't lying.

I hope I'm not being culturally insensitive, Asian food is yummy and nutritious. I like all of the vegetables in it. But many of the pictures show food that is not attractive in its presentation.

I went to a "real" Chinese restaurant once to have a real Chinese meal...and I was surprised at how few vegetarian items they had! Back to Charlie Chu's or whatever, steaming plate of veggies is fine, whether it's "authentic" or not.

i'm with you, a lot of this stuff looks pretty nasty to me

then again, i grew up eating and loving food that looked dirt, mud and poop, so i'm not one to judge

On the other hand, lots of Asian restaurants put pictures of the food in the windows...it never looks ugly there! I think it's people's inexperience with digital photography.

aw that pains me greatly

otoh I think the dishes you linked to look pretty damn good xp

I think it's sort of a truism that Chinese cuisines aren't typically vegetarian-friendly, even though it has a lot of great vegetable dishes.

i think chinese homecooking is a lot less meaty. especially anywhere south of hebei. a table of dishes is going to be mostly vegetables, rice and maybe meat would be the special singular important item, a half of a roast duck picked up at the xiaoqu gate and meant to last for that dinner, next day's lunch, and then another dinner. in my experience. but possibly eating at the home of a family in zhejiang or shandong is not feasible for everyone.

so. if it's a "real" chinese restaurant taht "real" chinese people go to, they might not order a tableful of

http://www.eat4.com/upimg/070724/4_085139.jpg
http://www.5nong.com/article/Img/2011-7/2011717174064252.jpg
http://pic.fuwoo.com/4175/Photo/L_ef0e58b1aaf44b77a894c7ee910317d6.jpg

yeah - when I stayed in this small town/city in guangxi, we would go to this stir-fry place where you'd just go to table with ten or so vegetables laid out and you'd point to three or four and the guy would take them and stir fry them into something really good. if there was meat it was ground meat and used very sparingly

also the place used this weird cooking oil that had the consistency of water, I'm sure it was some illegal or adulterated shit but it wasn't so bad

I think a vegetarian's real beef (ha ha) with china is that when you ask for something like tofu, they'll still find a way to put ground beef or pork in it

right.

i think also, actual chinese vegetarian restaurants tend to be horrible (especially outside of china).

yeah it's all this deep fried soy fake meat jizzed with sweet sauce ish

dylannn, what are those three delicious-looking dishes?

炒空心菜 stirfried kongxin cai (semiaquatic, tropical plant grown as a leaf vegetable)
凉拌莴笋丝 cold salad of wosun strips (cultivar of lettuce grown primarily for its thick stem, used as a vegetable)
芝麻酱拌生菜 sesame sauce and lettuce

this is one of my favorite threads

http://www.palacechinese.com.au/images/big/b_Chicken_Feet.JPG

fried hands of small children o_O

the realest shit i ever ate

http://www.3qhouse.com/blog/attachment/201107/16/15301_1310807666IDr2.jpg

in dongbei there's this great thing i was reminded of by that picture of lettuce and sesame sauce

when i lived in vancouver, i lived in one room of a vancouver special on no. 2 road and the landlord's elderly parents from haerbin lived in the lower level, tended a garden

they ate 生菜沾酱, which is any green leafy vegetable (lettuce, dandelion greens, whatever), washed and then dipped in a sauce made from pork + fermented soybean paste kinda like this recipe http://www.yihesu.com/?action-viewnews-itemid-973-parenttype-menu so good

I bet that 凉拌莴笋丝 has some sichuan peppercorn oil dripped over it

http://blogs.wsj.com/scene/2012/06/11/cctvs-bite-of-china-takes-off-and-steam-pots-pigs-feet-benefit-too/

China would love the Food network, too!

http://img5.itiexue.net/1400/14002013.jpg

哦

http://i937.photobucket.com/albums/ad215/jiaoqu/hardlyworthit.jpg

watched the first episode of that 'bite of china' series

mostly about special ingredients used in chinese food and how they're harvested

felt sadness and despair that these rare fungi and fish will be overharvested now that everybody wants them after watching this delicious documentary