Get your own
 diary at DiaryLand.com! contact me older entries
powered by SignMyGuestbook.com

2001-07-17 - 2:20 p.m.

This past weekend I had the pleasure of not only eating ants climbing trees but I made the dish myself. Chinese cooking has been something that has interested me for many years now, but it was not until just recently that I started to teach myself how to do it. When I began to read all the books that I could find on the subject I quickly became discouraged. It seemed that all the books that I had found so far were merely recipe books, and had little or no theory in them. Well this is all fine I guess but in order to understand how to cook something well, you need to know the why. After a fair amount of searching I finally found a book that had questions to my many questions: The Modern Art of Chinese Cooking: Techniques and Recipes

So now I have the book, and some great concepts such as the yin and yang requirements for every thing that you cook.

The Yin and Yang of Chinese Cooking

But I am still lacking a very important tool. Where do I get preserved salted black beans, or dried wood mushrooms, or even a reliable source for good fresh veggies such as bamboo shoot, ginger or Chinese celery? Well what you need to do is find your self a good Asian market. If you have never been in one of these places before, I highly recommend it, even if you are not interested in Asian cooking. As soon as you step the through the door of these often very crowded shops you cannot help but feel overwhelmed. The smells, sights and sounds are like nothing you will find anywhere else in the US. Now I must admit that even though I have been going to the same market now for several months I still feel a bit uncomfortable there. Why you ask? I can�t read Chinese. And if you ever go to a Chinese market, you will quickly realize that everything in there is written in, duh, Chinese. Imagine if you could not read English, let alone understand the spoken language, it makes shopping there a challenge to say the least. I find my self staring at the shelves looking for pictures, or the little fragments of English that the products may have on them, hoping that I�ll find what I�m looking for. And on those occasions that I cannot find what I am looking for I have to turn to the employees (who all have a better grasp of their native language than they do of English) and hope that they can understand what it is I am looking for. Imagine trying to explain what anis seed is to someone who does not speak English very well. Needless to say I�m not very good at it, and in fact you could call me down right chicken when it comes to asking people there for assistance. Fortunately for me, I�m married to a brave young woman, so when my wife is along with me I make her go do it.

So oddly enough this problem I have with reading the labels on these products has led me to take this new hobby of mine a step farther. I have also begun to teach myself how to read Chinese but more on that later.

So after several weeks now of studying the theory, techniques, common ingredients, and recipes, I have successfully produced several dishes that not only closely matched traditional Chinese cooking, but also remained have also remained faithful to the ever-important yin-yang balance. Among some of my successful creations are tea eggs, spring rolls, ants climbing trees, a variety of Sichuan and Hunan stir fry, and of course rice. Tonight - wife willing - will be another exciting creation quail eggs with mushrooms and asparagus, and white rice. So until later remember they immortal words of the famous TV Chinese cooks - �Wok your dog, Wok for life, and Wok around the clock."

previous - next

about me - read my profile! read other Diar
yLand diaries! recommend my diary to a friend! Get
 your own fun + free diary at DiaryLand.com!

powered by SignMyGuestbook.com