#china cuisine

[greedyapron]

24/3/2024 - Dinner 1

📍 Malatang Store, Kopitiam @ Paya Lebar

(the last store on the right at the turn, next to the vegetarian YTF store)

🐓 Chicken Wing Mala ($8.10)

The malatang was spicy, numbing and super addictive. Even though my mouth was burning (even at mild), I kept digging for the extra stuff in the soup. The wings itself was rather meh. We recommend ordering another meat instead! Comes with tofu fa too.

Rice ($0.80)

[niteshade925]

Remembering when I posted this (I think; it's been a while)

But now I finally had the real stuff again after years:

Jianbingguozi/煎饼果子:

Doufunao/豆腐脑 (the salty/northern version):

Shaobingliji/烧饼里脊 (Tianjin version):

The thing about Chinese food is that most of the time they don't look all that fancy, and may even look unappetizing to people who never had good Chinese food, but when you taste it, you will be surprised

[slavic-roots-western-mind]

Chinese Desserts

There's quite a large variety of treats and desserts in China (more than you can imagine), so here are some of the most common ones!

Almond jelly/tofu - 杏仁豆腐 - xìngréndòufu Despite the name, almond jelly doesn't actually have almonds in it. Almond jelly is made from gelatin and almond milk, although some recepies use dairy milk instead.

Glutinous rice balls - 汤圆 - tāngyuán These rice balls are made from glutinous rice balls with a sweet filling, such as red bean paste (a pretty popular filling in desserts, I've been fooled more than once when purchasing what I assumed to be a chocolate filled pastry).

Red bean buns - 豆沙包 - dòushābāo One of my favorite desserts so far. These are steamed buns with a sweet red bean paste filling that I'd definitely recommend.

Egg custard bun - 流沙包 - liúshābāo A sweet and savory bun, with a lava-like egg yolk filling. A pretty interesting dessert, as it's both sweet and savory.

Pumpkin cake - 南瓜饼 - nánguābǐng I haven't tried this yet, but it definitely looks good. A fried and crunchy cake with a sweet filling such as red bean paste.

Eight treasure rice pudding - 八宝饭 -bābǎofàn This is a pretty popular dessert, especially during the Lunar New Year. It gets this name becase of the toppings, which are eight or more different types of dried fruits and nuts arranged on top of the sweet rice, with (once again) red bean paste.

Hawthorn stick/ Candied Haws/ Sugar coated haws/ Bingtanghulu - 冰糖葫芦 - bīngtánghúlu This treat has quite a few translations and you may have probably already seen it. This is basically candied fruit covered with a sweet, crunchy and sugary syrup. Traditionally, Hawthorn is used but other fruits such as grapes, strawberries and oranges are also popular options.

Sachima - 沙琪玛 - shāqímǎ I haven't tried this snack yet, but it looks quite fascinating. Sachima is made from fried batter stuck together with a sugary syrup, with an interesting texture.

Sesame balls - 芝麻球 - zhīmaqiú Similar to the rice glutinous balls, this treat is also made from glutinous rice flour with varying fillings including lotus seeds, mung bean and red beans, and sesame seeds.

Water chestnut cake A sweet pan-fried cake made from chinese water chestnut, with a unique semi-transparent appearance.

Wintermelon puff/ Wife cake/ Sweetheartcake - 老婆餅 - lǎopóbǐng This cake has many names, mainly because it has several different origin stories, each more fascinating than the next. This dessert is a flaky pastry with wintermelon, almond (not red bean this time!) paste and sesame filling.

Fortune cake - 发糕 - fāgāo Not a fortune cookie! This is a spongy steamed cupcake cake commonly made for the New Lunar Year celebrations and occasionally other events. They're usually a white-ish or brown-ish color, but they're often dyed bright colors to add extra festivity.

Mooncake - 月饼 - yuèbǐng This is a pretty well-known dessert, commonly prepared for the Mid-Autumn Festival. Mooncakes are smallish steamd/fried (depends on the region) cakes with a sweet filling that can also sometimes have an egg yolk inside.

Osmanthus cake - 桂花糕 - guìhuāgāo This is a unique traditional pastry made from glutinous rice flour, honey and osmanthus. This cake has a really interesting texture, as it's quite dense but also airy in a way? I'd definitely recommend trying it, as it's not super sweet and goes really well with tea.

[tuulikki]

Anyone who insists that Chinese food has to be cheap and junky reveals only their own lack of experience, like a writer of tabloid horoscopes ranting to an astrophysicist about the stars.

—Fuchsia Dunlop, Invitation to a Banquet

[femenaces]

My small life has been infinitely enriched by meeting and getting to know immigrants from different cultures that I've been lucky enough to have as friends and acquaintances. Maybe it's just my melting pot US american attitude but I will never understand the violent resistance people have to the idea of people from different cultures joining their society. No, you are not going to be ""replaced""-- your world will be expanded.

[foodiefannation]

Szchen peppers and rice

[khizuo]

having ur family home be central plains china means that even among the vanishingly small amount of positive mainland chinese rep u get in the west u still get basically nothing lol

[raffaellopalandri]

Master Wu's Mother's Mapo Tofu

Today I craved Mapo Tofu, a traditional Chinese recipe from Sichuan, so I prepared it, following the original recipe of Master Wu’s mother. Master Wu has been my first Chinese and Daoism teacher, in the late 80’s. After quite a while he also started teaching me how to cook proper Chinese food. Since then, I have been humbly carrying on his family’s recipes. Master Wu’s mother’s Mapo…

[cabinet-of-postal-curiosities]

One of the nicest postcards I have ever received. The subject of the card is the double skin milk dessert (双皮奶), which is particularly dear to me as it is typical of Guangdong, where I lived for a year. The stamp is quite nice as well.

[greedyapron]

15/3/2024 - Dinner

📍 小吃王国, Changsha

It's off the main road, past the Uniqlo into some sort of gates. There are a few restaurants in the same area. This shop is one of them.

⭐️ Fish - freaking tender and not alot of bones

Veggies

⭐️ Beef with 3 chilis - super good, lots of garlic but way too spicy

Hong shao rou

Smoked blood sausage - tastes just like bacon

⭐️ Pickled long beans? - not sure what it is but it's hella tasty

[niteshade925]

Apr 12-13, Xi'an, China: more food from Xi'an!

These are Shaanxi specialty dishes, shuipenyangrou/水盆羊肉 (the one closer to the camera; lit. "water bowl lamb") and yangroupaomo/羊肉泡馍 (farther from camera; lit. "lamb and soaked bread"). Of these, 水盆羊肉 is the one that Zhang Xiaojing had in The Longest Day in Chang'an, and it's frickin good. I love me some good lamb broth. If you love lamb, carbs, spicy food, and barbeque skewers, then Xi'an is the city you should visit

The bing/饼 (Chinese flat bread) in the basket is called a crescent bing (月牙饼), and it's basically shaped like a pocket. When eating the 水盆羊肉, you are supposed to stuff the crescent bing with the lamb pieces and some of the pickled vegetables (small dishes to the left and right, with a generous spoon of Shaanxi's specialty chili oil (called 油泼辣子), and then enjoy the broth.

The other dish, 羊肉泡馍, is more or less the same, but with broken pieces of mo/馍 (a type of Chinese bread) in the broth. This is somewhat similar to putting crackers in soup.

Breakfast in Xi'an, another roujiamo/肉夹馍 and a simple serving of cold rice noodles mixed with 油泼辣子 chili oil:

Lamb noodle soup (left) and biangbiang noodles (right), both with Shaanxi's signature "waistband noodles" (裤带面; these noodles are extra-extra wide, hence the name):

Finally, milk tea from a Xi'an local brand. Even at regular sugar levels, it tastes more like half-sugar milk teas in the US, which imo is a good thing because you can actually taste the tea here, it's not just sweet:

[slavic-roots-western-mind]

Breakfast foods in China

Since arriving in China my typical breakfast has changed quite a lot (hello baozi and mung bean paste!) so I decided to explore some common local breakfast foods eaten in China!

包子 - Bāozi (my love) These have been an almost consistent (excluding the lunar new year when the canteens and most cafes and restaurants closed) staple of my breakfast ever since I arrived in China. They come with several fillings such as veggie, pork, seafood etc. and they can cooked in different ways such as being steamed, fried etc. Here's a more in-depth post about the types of dumplings and bāo.

粥 - Porridge (zhōu) I sometimes have porridge for lunch instead and it's a really filling meal. I get the Century Egg Congee with Chicken - 皮蛋瘦肉粥 (Pídàn shòu ròu zhōu) and it's one of my all time favourite meals.

煎饼 - Egg pancake (jiānbing) Popular also as a street food, this is a thin crepe type pancake with an egg, veggie, spice, sauce and sometimes meat filling. The actual filling varies as you can customize what veggies and spice level you'd like and whether or not you want meat.

热干面 - Hot and dry noodles (règānmiàn) I honestly had no idea about this dishes existence until a while ago, probably because it's a regional dish originating from Wuhan which is kind of far away from my location. These are spicy and dried noodles which are actually eaten without a broth unlike many other noodles. They seem pretty interesting so if anyone tried them before do share your experience!

桂林米粉 - Guilin Rice noodles (guìlín mĭfĕn) This appears to be another regional dish from Guilin, Guanxi as I had no idea that this was a also a pretty popular breakfast dish. Apparently it's not the noodles but rather the broth that they're cooked in that makes them special, with the actual recepie varying across the region. Someone should do a long weekend trip vlog (pondering on this) to Guilin where they just go from store to store trying these noodles and trying to determine the differences.

葱油饼 - Scallion oil pancake (cōngyŏubĭng) A tasty but heavy-ish pancake imo. These pancakes are cooked with scallions (green onion) and pan-fried to give it that crispy and chewy texture. Very tasty, but it's a little too heavy on the oil for me so I save these pancakes for special occasions instead.

豆浆油条 - Soy milk and deep-fried dough sticks (dòujiāng yóutiáo) I have tried the dough sticks, and I have tried soya milk but separately so far. The dough sticks are these long deep-friend dough sticks, reminding me slightly of breadsticks but more lighter and chewier.

茶鸡蛋 - Tea eggs (chájīdàn) I adore these, my canteen serves them along with regular eggs for breakfast and the tea eggs are usually the first to go. They actually don't really involve tea, instead these eggs are cooked in a mixture of chinese five-spice powder (pepper, cloves, cinnamon, star anise and fennel seeds), soy sauce, and black tea leaves, although some recipes leave out the tea leaves. They have a relatively strong smell so I usually grab some for breakfast on the weekends or in the canteen at lunch if there are any leftover after breakfast. They are also quite cheap, one egg is around 2 yuan so around 0.30 euro, making them a pretty filling and affordable breakfast food.

If there are any other common or specific breakfast foods that you know of, do share them please as I love trying out new things!

[miutonium]

Tell me one of your favorite and least local dish!

Omg nobody asked me this before but djfjslaksla okay so like there's this one dish that i really really like its Chicken Coconut Curry with Green Chilli (or in my native language its called Masak Lemak Cili Api) and oh god Im so obsessed with this dish, if I ever go to a local restaurant for lunch I will order this with sides of white rice and spiced fried chicken. Idk how to explain the flavor but it doesnt taste like a curry really, its more like a creamy tumeric with a heavy hit of chilli (which is why it's yellow). I am a picky eater but I would literally add more rice if my mom ever cooks this at home.

Seasia cuisine is very flavorful and unique and I cant deny it but sometimes I just don't like some of it.

Everyone like Sambal Belacan (it's a sambal made of shrimp paste usually mixed with chillies, onions and lime juice) I dont really consider this as a main course dish but more like a side dish where you eat with raw veges and herbs or as an accompanying dish to white rice. I don't want to yuck someone's yum but for me it just smells too strong to me like if you ever smell shrimp paste you understand how overpowering the smell is. It's also usually made raw and not cooked on a stove and personally Im a bit picky when its related to raw food.

[gunlord500]

Saturday, July 13, 2024 fried wontons and beef fried rice at my beloved china king!

[fouryearsofshades]

A Chinese wedding and Pageant on Immortals in Zhangzhou, Fujian. Chinese voice over with both Chinese and English subtitles. 17 minutes