Years 2009-2012 Breningstall.com

Salt Rush

Near-hysteria has destocked shelves along China’s eastern seaboard of salt. I first heard of the rationing of salt in restaurants when I was in Shanghai yesterday, eating lunch with Chinese friends. I wanted to put salt on my french fries. One of my companions offered to get the salt for me from the order counter. She mumbled something about salt being precious. I thought it was an odd comment. I looked around at the other tables in the restaurant to see none of them had salt shakers. I didn’t think anything more of it.

My wife later that evening told me over dinner how our ayi had bought a kilogram of salt. “It was so expensive,” she told me, “a single small bag can now cost 15 rmb.” Bags used to cost a couple yuan. She explained to me the near-hysteria with which Chinese consumers were buying up salt in fear of atomic radiation blowing in from Japan should a reactor explode at the Fukushima nuclear plant. The iodine in salt, so Chinese wisdom holds, will protect consumers from radiation poisoning. She told me, “I said to the ayi, ‘What are you going to do, eat handfuls of salt?” She said the ayi had no response.

- This is China! blog (via Shanghaiist)

 

Taco Recipe du Jour

Living in China, one of the things I miss most is Mexican food. There are a few Mexican restaurants in town but the better ones charge on the order of 200-300rmb for a two-person dinner, or about six times the equivalent price of most local (Chinese) restaurants... so I don't find myself going to them very often.

Yesterday I cooked up a dinner for my wife and I- and for my taste at least, they were some of the best home tacos I've ever had (my wife also had four). So I thought I'd better jot down the recipe. These are home-style tacos and not meant to be authentic to what you might find in Mexico. Enjoy!

• 2 slim minute steaks
• one large white onion
• 1 Anaheim-type pepper, 2 fresh red chilis, 1 can of preserved jalapenos
• 1 small cabbage
• 1 can salsa beans
• 1 yellow bell pepper
• two saturated-red tomatoes
• 2 tablespoons of La Victoria taco sauce (not my favorite, just what I had on hand)
• 1 packet Ortega taco powder
• splash of Tabasco habanero sauce
• dash of Cajun spices
• freshly ground pepper flakes
• vegetable oil
• 2-3 avocados
• hard taco shells

The preparation was extremely easy. I just heated up the oil, tossed some of the Cajun spice and ground pepper inside, fried the onions, then added the peppers, then the meat, then the cabbage and tomatoes, finally throwing in the taco powder and sauce. I stuffed the taco shells full, then crammed in raw avocado slices on top. This recipe worked quite well. The only change I might consider is adding shredded cheddar cheese.

Maybe if I get brave I'll try to come up with a recipe for shrimp tacos- another time.

The Shanghai Xiao Long Bao Ride (Phat in Shanghai)

check out the course and reviews at phatsh.com

Adventures in Cooking: Steak and Macaroni

I've cooked many dishes in my life, but I've only done a few steaks, so when L brought home a couple round steaks left over from a work event I took it on as a worthy challenge. For the principal recipe, I took on "Herb Swiss Steak," as published on About.com. Following the advice of another website, I asked L to salt the steak about an hour before cooking. I think this is good advice, but be careful to wash the salt off thoroughly when the hour is done- the first steak came out a bit on the salty side. The recipe called for oil, salt, pepper, tomatoes, onion, celery, marjoram, thyme and garlic powder. I made a few substitutions, throwing in oregano and garlic cloves in place of the marjoram and garlic powder. We had some leftover hot green peppers, so I popped those in the mix. I also doused the steaks in wine shortly before cooking. I fried the vegetables first, then cooked the steak under them. Overall, the results came out quite tasty. I was helped by the fact that this was a fine steak, thin and capable of cooking thoroughly in a couple of minutes. The celery stalks were very thin, which made for better cooking than the heavy stalks contained in most dishes. To tenderize the meat, I used a lazy method, batting it with the spatula as I cooked, helping to soak in the spices.

For vegetables, I went with a yam, pepper and carrot stir-fry recipe I found on Home Chinese Recipes. I can't recall trying this dish in any Chinese restaurant, but it fit the flavors I was looking for (from the picture I'm wondering if the recipe writer doesn't mean yams at all, but "shanyao," sometimes called a Chinese yam but containing a flavor that is quite different). Anyway, for our dish I went with a sweet potato, carrots, green pepper, light soy sauce, ginger, garlic, and wood-ear mushrooms, basically following the recipe exactly (except for perhaps the yam issue-personally, I think the sweet potato made for a much better fit with the carrots than shanyao would have).

This vegetable side also came out quite well- though I could have dispensed with the wood-ear mushrooms, which didn't seem to offer much, either in sightliness or flavor. Then again, I'm not a mushroom guy.

The following night, I met with less success in the kitchen. A couple months ago, I made a superb macaroni and cheese dinner using one of those instant packages (no really, it was great, amazing what enough pepper and basil will do). In America, these packages cost a $1 or $2, but in China they cost 25 or 30 RMB (about twice as much). Instead of paying that, I thought, why not just mix my own cheese and noodles? This week's macaroni was made using: fusilli pasta, sharp chedder cheese, shredded monterey jack, parmesan, salt, pepper, and cooked in a mix of butter and olive oil. For a sauce, I added some basil pesto and wine. My taste buds tell me the pesto may have been the odd man out, but whatever the case is, the result was not as tasty as I would have liked (and shamefully, not even as good as the instant pack). Costwise, it didn't make much of a difference, saving only a couple RMB at the most. Time to stock up on those instant packs!

Adventures in Cooking: Gongbao Jiding, Take One

I frequently cook Chinese dishes at home and I've done a reasonably proficient job with such varied dishes as lazi ji (chili chicken), ganbian tudousi (deep fried spicy potatoes), pumpkins and beef, and shrimp dumplings. Two dishes that have eluded me, however, are gongbao jiding and Sichuan hot pot. Multiple efforts at each dish have failed to yield the desired results. So this evening I decided to make an effort at tackling the first.

Gongbao jiding may have a similar name as kungpao chicken in the west, but believe me, they are two completely different dishes. Kungpao chicken evokes chicken and green peppers washed out in soy sauce. Gongbao jiding, at any decent Chinese restaurant, suggests a succulent dish with a chicken and peanut core, sometimes outlined by vegetables (green pepper, cucumber or carrots), a spicy dish that has just a hint of sweetness.

Before I get into my methods, I should note one thing about my cooking style: I don't measure. Anything. And I also have a penchant for cooking with ingredients that I have on hand, rather than ones that would require walking outside at 8 pm to visit the grocery store. So proceed with caution.

Thinking about previous efforts, I decided that a crucial failure had been in the sauce (some might suggest failing to measure anything, but I don't think so).

Consulting many recipes on the Internet, I found that several advised adding either egg white or spicy bean sauce. I decided to add both. (Once, on a previous occasion, I had made the distastrous decision to toss an entire egg yolk into the mix- I did not repeat that mistake this time).

Here is a rough estimate of the ingredients I gathered together and the plot that unfolded:

Marinade

• water
• corn starch
• salt
• egg white
• light soy sauce
• cheap Chinese wine of unknown variety
• a dash of MSG (in place of chicken soup stock)

Sauce

• yuxiangrousi powder mix
• vinegar
• light soy sauce (I would have added some dark soy sauce if I had any)
• olive oil (in place of sesame oil)
• water
• corn starch
• Splenda (in place of sugar)

Spices

• ginger
• garlic
• dried red chilis
• peppercorns
• leek

Base ingredients

• chicken breast
• peanuts
• green bell pepper
• hot red pepper
• carrot

First, I left the chicken to marinade for about a half hour. Heating up the wok, I put in the cooking oil (I had wanted peanut oil but the store only had a mix), then the spices. Next came the carrots, then the peppers, then the chicken, and finally the peanuts. Last came the sauce. The whole endeavor took about two hours.

The result?

The dish tasted fairly good. However, it still tasted nothing like gongbao jiding. A much better description would have been lazi jiding with a lot of peanuts. The next time the weather is looking good and I attempt to face off against gongbao jiding, I'm going to make some adjustments. First off, the dish tasted a bit salty. Between the soy sauce and the powder mix, there was already enough salt going in the wok. so next time I don't think I'll bother to add any plain sauce.

The peanuts need to go in earlier. Next time, I'll throw them in before the chicken, letting the peanut flavor soak in a bit more and giving them time to fully roast. I would also like to replace the mixed oil and olive oil with peanut oil and sesame oil. I might consider holding the fire spices down a little and using less vinegar or better quality vinegar for the sauce (I didn't use a lot, but it was too much).

Finally, I think I should have waited until right before turning off the stove to add the sauce. I put it in last, but then gave it too long to cook down. A thicker sauce would have been nice to coat the rice.

Well, I'll conquer that mountain someday and figure out the key to this dish. In the meantime, I still have leftovers to work through- tomorrow's lunch.

If the recipe above doesn't suit your style, you may want to consult these other versions (by chefs with more systematic methods):

• I made gongbao jiding!
• Gongbao jiding with cashews
• Gongbao jiding sans nuts
• Kung pao chicken, the lunch of champions