Chinese Cookery

[myrtleWilson]

Hi,
Is anyone up for joining me on an exploration of Chinese cookery?

I'm a big fan of Fuchsia Dunlop and have three of her books (Every Grain of Rice, Land of Fish and Rice and The Food of Sichuan)

Despite all of the above have only just purchased a wok!

Tonight I'm cooking "Fish Fragrant Aubergines" and a cold chicken dish with spicy sichuanese sauce. Other favourites have been the chicken and chestnuts, gung bao chicken, steamed fish with garlic and ginger (old school but love it!).

Have had mixed results making dumplings - first time (I think beginners luck) they were great. Then revisited a couple of years later and to mis- quote Craig Revel Horwood "DisARRRSter"

What am I missing...would love to try congee but bit scared...

If you're an expert or beginner like me but feel the love please do join in!

[NotGenerationAlpha]

I love fuchsia Dunlop and have those book too. She has a Shanghai home styled aubergine which I make often. And love those 4 cold chicken dishes from Sichuan cookery. It’s in my rotations for years.

Do you have a rice cooker with congee settings. It’s literally just put half a cup of rice in the thing, top water to the mark in the pan, and press the congee setting button. There’s nothing more to it. You can then flavour the congee with anything you fancy.

I also love Grace Young’s Breath of a Wok and Stir Frying to the Sky’s Edge. She’s American so you need to convert the measurements. I also like Andrea Nguyen. She’s Vietnamese but has a really good tofu book if you want to explore this. And a dumpling book too, though the children don’t like dumplings so haven’t made much from it! I have done Dunlop’s dumplings with the red sauce from Every Grain of Rice many times before the children and love them.

[meg70]

I'll join! I have those 2 books from the library, need to buy them. I've only tried a few dishes but I'll post later re the results. Did salt and pepper chicken last night (using that seasoning from home bargains that's mentioned on another thread) - lovely.

[Waitingforadulthood]

I have this book and haven't cooked much from it, so I'll join you and try to cook a few dishes this month. I have made the twice cooked pork repeatedly and , whilst it takes longer than instructed, is wonderful and one I always pull out for dinner parties

[myrtleWilson]

yay! Cooking buddies.... the Sichuan aubergines were a revelation (photo attached). I've made them once before (but in a frying pan rather than wok) and the difference was amazing. I am obsessed with the cold chicken ones -the first time I made them DH and DD were sceptical but DH has come around!

[meg70]

Which cold chicken dishes have you done Myrtle?

[meg70]

Late to the party and probably not very brave choices but I've cooked these 3 from 'every grain of rice' and loved them all: gong bao chicken p.118, red braised pork p.94 (merged with Ching-He Huang's recipe from Saturday kitchen), black bean chicken p.116 (the dried black beans make all the difference). Also going to try the cumin beef recipe p.106 (or maybe with lamb as I've had that in restaurants) and the aubergines on p.212.