Muay Thai Food Fight!

In March we took a fun cooking class in Thailand--I'll share some of the easy, delicious recipes soon. But for now, here's an overdue Thai edition of Food Fight! One is a freebie, but do you recognize some of the other ingredients did we used? Use the comments to make your best guesses!

One Year Ago:

A Trip to the Market

Introducing Old Yeller Red

The problem was twofold. Without an old fixer-upper to keep us busy, Brian and I were itching for a project, and Chinese beer just isn't worth drinking. So we brought back all the equipment and ingredients needed to make several batches of beer with us. No more wimpy Chinese beer for us, thank you very much! Not a tear was shed as we dumped 36 beers down the drain in order to get enough bottles. It was either that option for $15 or a trip to the Shanghai IKEA for fancy swing top bottles for a staggering $114! An easy decision, and very telling that the bottles are worth so much more empty than with swill in them!

In honor of his inspired performance while we were bottling the beer last week, this red ale gets its name from the man in our apartment complex who stands on his porch each night at 8pm and elegantly yells "WHOOOOOOOO" for a minute or two. Ladies and gentleman, we give you "Old Yeller Red" the best doggone ale in the East!

The ceremonial first fill

...and capping

Lone proof of my participation...can we tell who's the photographer in this family?

So mark your calendars and hop on a plane, we'll be cracking 'em open on January 27!

A BYOO Christmas

So, after a wonderful month in the States and a busy month of Christmas cooking and covert elfing, I'm back to bring you up to date! I'm going to skip ahead to Christmas and fill in the blanks as time allows. 

Five other expats joined us for a Korean-Scottish-English-Canadian-American Christmas in China at our place. Naturally, it started with an adventure--after opening gifts I went to start the stuffing only to realize we didn't have gas or hot water. A few phone calls later and we luckily got the meter reset so we were back in business. Then we realized our turkey had yet to be cleaned. True, the intestines and stomach were gone but it still proved to be a treasure trove of surprises!

Brian's Christmas quote of the year: "It's as if it's giving birth to itself!"

Our Christmas was a BYOO affair. Bring Your Own Oven. Since our ovens are all tiny things that can only hold one dish at a time we needed three to pull this meal off! And thank goodness one of our friends has the biggest oven you can find here--it was just big enough for the turkey. It came with a roasting pan that slides in the oven in place of a rack. But here's where the fun begins. The roasting pan is only wide enough for a hair's width of overlap on the tracks. So when you add a 12lb turkey, the weight of it is enough to sag the pan and send it crashing straight down on top of the element. After repeating this comedy of errors multiple times we ended up putting a mixing bowl on the bottom of the oven between the elements and just set the pan on the bowl. Well, transferring the weight to the bowl made the bottom of the oven pop off, so then we had to shim that back into place as best we could. We were estimating 3 hours cooking time and it was looking pretty darn good around that time. So we took it out, but realized it wasn't ready yet. So back in it goes and we're checking it every 15 minutes or so. About 45 minutes in the internal temp still hasn't risen and we're commenting that we must have maxed out the oven, because it is now cold. Turns out we never turned it back on. Oops! So another 30 minutes more in an oven that's actually ON, and we had a juicy, delicious bird! Phew!

Sewing up the bird China-style, with a quilting needle and yarn.

How I spent my days the last 3 weeks

All in all, I couldn't have imagined a better Christmas in China.

Dumplings 101

Nearly a month ago Stella's parents came over to teach us how to make dumplings. For $15 we bought enough ingredients to feed an army! We learned to make the dough for dumplings as well as both pork and beef fillings. Stella's dad also made us a tofu salad (that was delicious!) and spare ribs. Rather than using recipes, everything seems to be eyeballed and learned from trial and error. Stella was translating multiple conversations at once while I frantically took notes, hoping we can repeat this meal for our families when were home and not land in the 'error' column.

The fillings consist of meat, ginger, onions, and really whatever else you like. We added mushrooms, a vegetable I identify as "leafy celery stuff" in my notes and rice stems.

Rice stems--you peel them and just use the white hearts.

You'll also need:

Three kinds of soy sauce, oyster sauce, rice vinegar, rice wine and sesame oil for the filling.

An oatmeal lid and tape for an irrationally angry smoke detector.

The dough is just like pasta dough--flour, water and egg. We got an assembly line going--rolling out the wrappers, stuffing and pleating. I think it's fair to say we were responsible for the bottle neck.

Delicious dried tofu salad with a soy dressing and cilantro.

Spare ribs

Final product with a vinegar/soy/garlic/cilantro sauce

yummers

After the five of us gorged and gorged on all the good food we still had about 80 dumplings left over. This is when we learned the very shallow drawer in our freezer isn't for ice cube trays (this much we knew), it is for freezing fresh dumplings. We are so in the know!

lunch for the next week!

Frosting 101

What's the best way to practice writing Chinese characters?

In frosting of course! (I can't believe I haven't thought of this before!)

In the parks around town we'll see people of all ages practicing characters with massive paint brushes and water.

To practice with frosting, all you need is a Chinese colleague of your husband's who wants to learn how to cook. At her request, this afternoon we made bruschetta, spaghetti carbonara, and two cakes. Yes, two. Xu Li is my kind of gal! We took the chocolate cake out of the oven and then she asked if we could also make the yellow cake I'd made for Brian's birthday. How could I say "no?" Someone who is eating, let alone making, cakes for the first time has to be given the opportunity to decide if she's a chocolate cake or yellow cake kind of gal, right?! Thank goodness we ran out of time, so I couldn't show her how to make mashed potatoes. I thought living in China would be a much needed diet by default for me, but it has unfortunately proved otherwise. Oops!

My go at Xu Li's name

Xu Li's maiden voyage in frosting!

Happy Valentines Day Babe! Now eat bugs.

Today is Qi Xi Jie, the Night of Sevens, the rough equivalent of Valentines Day. As a newly married woman, I'm supposed to be demonstrating my mastery of the "domestic arts" by artfully carving melons and trying to float a needle on water to prove my skills as a seamstress. Later today I will make offerings of fruit, tea, flowers and makeup, and then attempt to throw them 6 stories up on to the roof of our apartment so I'll be united in beauty with Zhinü (a fairy separated from her love in the sky, except on this day).

Instead, I'm now lying on the couch in my pjs, teeth unbrushed, rocking some fantastic bed head, watching my back-up husband beat the Yankees, and feeding my actual husband bugs. Yup, bugs. As any good Valentine is apt to do, I was making one of Brian's favorite dinners, arroz con pollo. About half way thru I realized there wasn't enough rice to soak up the sauce, so I went to add more. Only then did I realize the rice was alive. Cross my heart, I didn't see a single little black bug when I'd scooped out the first two cups!  I'm praying they were at the bottom of the container and I simply stirred them up, meaning our dinner was still bug free. Needless to say, I didn't add more rice, or bugs, to the pot. We simply had somewhat soupy arroz con pollo. That's right, we ate it. Somehow we were both very calm about this. Maybe it's a sign that China is rubbing off on us? Only as we crawled into bed last night, did we both confess that we had to convince ourselves with each bite that the flakes of oregano were NOT bugs with the legs cooked off of them.

Now, who wants leftovers?

Click to enlarge....

Chinese Potpourri

I've been keeping a list of things I wanted to write about here on Ovenless, but none of them were long enough to stretch in to an entire post. So here's a smattering of memorable moments....


Stella on a huge explosion of fireworks in our apartment complex: "Someone's dead or getting married. You need those for both."
She said this so deadpan, it struck me as hilarious.

 __________

The members of the CSL Tai Tai Club have joined a gym for a whopping $12 a month. I bet your gym doesn't have this:

That's right. A smoking lounge in the lobby for those who want to wheeze a bit more on the treadmill.

Jealous much? I didn't think so. The other tai tais both smoke and even they find this ridiculous.

__________

I've learned you can't cook coffee cake in a cheapo countertop oven. It will just froth and boil over. This is a photo AFTER Brian scooped out mounds of batter from the bottom.

__________

I made my first phone call spoken entirely in Chinese! Granted, it was brief, but after practicing with Stella, I picked up the phone and said:

为。 你 号。 我 要 两 通水。 我 家 在 丽都 城市 花园 一百零八 庄 二零三。再 说 一边？等 一 下。

Okay, then yes, I handed the phone to Stella because the woman asked a question and after asking her to repeat it, my brain turned off. Idiot me--all she was trying to do was repeat what I said to confirm my order, with just a few too many new words thrown in. When she repeated it again to Stella, she had my order exactly right! I consider it a successful phone call!

__________

Sunday night we took Stella to Turkish Delight, our favorite restaurant in town. (I should take photos next time--life changing lamb chops and hummus!) Afterwords, I put my life in her hands.

While I don't think twice about riding with my dad on his Harley (with helmets!), I was really nervous to hop on considering the insane driving we've observed here. Luckily, it was just a short trip in light traffic and I live to blog another day. I know you're all relieved.

The soup that wasn't meant to be

Mexican food (read Mexico Lindo in Melrose, MA) is the one thing we really crave here in Jiangyin. So I'd planned on making a Chinese version of my aunt's oh-so-yummy chicken tortilla soup yesterday.

Cue stovetop meltdown.

I now know if you remove the 1" strip underneath the stovetop and reach your arm waaaay in, there is a battery that powers the ignitor.

This was not the problem.

Cue call to repairman.

Thank goodness I was spending the afternoon with my Chinese teacher, so she could translate. The top of the stove needed to be removed.

Cue grinder and sparks to show a stubborn screw who's boss. Counters were now covered in metal dust.

Cue cuts on every finger from washing the jagged stovetop once it was removed and being thankful for the 500 shots I got before moving to China.

After nearly 90 minutes and several attempts to fix the stove, the entire igniter is replaced.

This was the problem.

Cue real life application of Chinese lessons!

For a mere 八十快 ($12.31) the repairmen is on his way, telling me he'll swing by at 六 点 (6pm) with a 发票 (receipt) because 我 现在 没有一张 (he didn't have one now) but he has another service appointment 在 丽都 城市花园 (at our complex) then.

Cue commencement of soupery.

Cue dumping of almost entire costco-sized chili powder container in to soup and blessing of said Chinese manufactured lid.

This was a problem.

Cue dinner that causes hot flashes in spite
of best efforts to save the soup.

Look at me, mom!

The silver lining? I'd been neglecting my sourdough starter for several days thinking it had petered out. But with the unplanned sprinkling of metallic dust it now looks better than ever.

Is this a problem?

Food Fight Redux!

This recently appeared in our grocery store in huge quantities, so for just $0.12 I was headed home with the mystery food of the week. Our teacher told me it was delicious stir fried with garlic (it was just okay).  After looking online, it's semi-available in the States, so it might not be much of a mystery for some of you to guess.

 

And a very popular snack here. 

Yes, we've had it.

It tastes fine, it just isn't worth all the gnawing for a tiny amount of food.

P.S. I've heard from some of you that you can't enter your guesses in the comment field without registering. What you do is choose name/URL and just leave the URL field blank. No registration needed. Let me know if that doesn't work.

Not so ovenless anymore....

 Well, I held out for almost six weeks without an oven, thinking if the Chinese do it, so can I! But in the end, I gave in.... just too many things I wanted to eat that I wasn't able to cook with just 1 stovetop burner. Although what we have is hardly an oven. It's more of a toaster oven on steriods. The front door isn't insulated, nor does it seal closed--there's a huge gap all the way around so hot air spews right back out. Funny how back in the States everything is made in China, and the quality is fine. Seems like the dregs and rejects are sold here...and not just in regards to ovens.... But so far I've made baked potatoes, brownies, sourdough bread, and apple crisp and it's been such a treat to have "Western" food!

So does this mean I have to rename my blog?

In other cooking adventures, I tried a Chinese BBQ pork recipe--it's soy based rather than tomato and uses Chinese 5 spice (cinnamon, star anise, fennel, cloves, and Sichuan pepper). The 5 spice here smells (and tastes) FANTASTIC! There are five flavors in Chinese cooking--sweet, sour, bitter, pungent and salty and  the 5 spice is a mixture of these tastes that supposedly balances the yin yang of food. In the end, the flavor was good, but it was pretty salty on account of all the soy.... so I'll have to play with it a bit next time for better yin yang ;-) I made scallion pancakes (think Chinese naan) to go with it, which were pretty good, and we think they can stand in for burrito shells when we're dying for Mexican food in the (near) future. (We'll be running to Mexico Lindo in Melrose whenever we're back in the fall!). So to hide the saltiness of the pork, I decided to make Chinese pork buns. We scoured the grocery store and bought a white powder we were praying was baking powder (it had a picture of pork buns on the package, so we thought it had to be it!). It was not. The dough was very strange from the get go, but I continued on. I think they were the grossest thing I've cooked in my adult life. I have no idea what our 'baking powder' was but the dough was rubber and had  a residual taste and smell of bleach! Blech! So in the end we broke them open and just ate the salty filling I'd been trying to disguise....

What's cookin?

My boss and co-workers gave me a fantastic Chinese cookbook as a going away gift.  I’ve already tried 4 recipes from it, and thought I’d share the winner so far. It’s just a stir-fry sauce, but we really like it and have made it twice so far—once with chicken, once vegetarian, and we think it’s better just with veggies. In fact, I think we’d eat it just sauce and noodles—the noodles here are so good! But it was a nice marinade for the chicken as well.

1 cup chicken stock
4 Tbsp oyster sauce
2 Tbsp Shaoxing wine (an amber-colored Chinese rice wine)
2 tsp light soy sauce (light in color, not light sodium. There’s an entire aisle in the grocery store devoted to the many types of soy sauce!)
2 tsp rice vinegar
2 tsp sesame oil
2 Tbsp cornstarch
2 tsp sugar
½ tsp salt (I skimped on this)
¼ tsp pepper

Here’s what I did: Heat peanut oil in wok until it begins to smoke. Add minced ginger until just golden. In this order, add carrots and broccoli, blanched bok choy, onions, peppers. When veggies are just about ready, add soybeans, snow peas, al dente egg noodles, and sauce.  The noodles will absorb most of the sauce in just a minute or two. YUM!

And for my BSO ladies who suggested I post pictures of bizarre foods for you all to guess, here goes. I’m starting with one I had no idea what it was in raw form, even though I’ve had this before. And now it’s sitting prepared in my fridge. In fact, as a hint, I could have added it to our stir-fry. Happy guessing!