Winter Melon and Fire Leg

Winter melon has become one of my favourite vegetables since moving to China. It has very little colour or flavour but the texture is amazing. It is one of the best things to cook in a hot pot, and I always find myself scanning the menu for winter melon dishes. A couple of weeks ago I ordered a dish of winter melon and ham (火腿, literally 'fire leg') but the ham ended up being a spam like substance that I picked out. This is something more like the dish I was anticipating.

Slice a pound and a half or so of winter melon thinly and sliver a couple tablespoons of bacon or salt pork with about one tablespoon of minced onion. Cook the bacon in a big frying pan or wok until the fat is rendered (if you are using a less fatty cut of meat, use oil) and add the winter melon. Add a half cup or so of broth and simmer until winter melon is tender. Serves 2 over rice.

Kendeji Style Corn Salad

In China, the K in KF-Chicken product stands for Kendeji. The meal combos don't come with a default side of fries (though you can swap them in) but with a little cup of corn salad - corn with carrots and cucumbers in a creamy dressing. Salads here are usually pretty grim, at least as depressing as the 'chicken juice potato mud' (mashed spuds and gravy) offered by the same chain, but I tried the corn salad for the first time a couple of days ago and was amazed at how great it went with the 'fragrant spicy chicken wings'.

To make the stuff at home I diced half a medium carrot, and two tiny cucumbers (it was only about 3/4 cup of chopped cucumber total). I steamed the carrot pieces for a few mintues, then added two cups of corn kernels and cooked them together until the kernels were just still holding crispness, then chilled them. Meanwhile, I salted and drained the cucumber.

(I'm really getting into steaming food by the way. In addition to the health and environmental reasons, if you have high quality vegetables then steaming preserves their colour/shape/flavour really beautifully. You also don't burn things, though it is easy to overcook...)

When everything was ready to mix together I poked through the fridge searching for my tube of Kewpie, but could not find it. I wanted a really sweet and tangy dressing but had to improvise by mixing 1.5 tbs mayo with 1 tbs cream and 1 tsp of sugar and 1/2 tbs lemon juice and a few shakes of salt. That said, giving exact amounts for this kind of salad is tough; the sweetness of the corn and whether or not the cucumbers were salted will affect the final taste. I would also use plain white vinegar here in place of lemon juice if I had it(white vinegar in China has little acidity). Anyway, make sure the taste balances and chill until cold, then taste again before serving. Serves 2-4.

Guo Kui

Guo Kui is the name given either to flat breads that are baked, then split and filled like sandwiches or stuffed with meat or sweet things and then pan fried.


The fried kind are my favourite. The stuffed kind are expensive and messy to eat, and it's harder to find safe specimens. However, there is one place by the Sichuan opera house downtown that has amazingly good guo kui; shown below.



Guo Kui are 1.5-2.5 RMB for the fried kind and 3-5 RMB for the sandwich variety. Because of my location I've been insulated from rising food prices back home; how are the frugal cooks managing in North America?

Millet Porridge and Other Convenience Foods

A couple of posts ago I mentioned that convenience is a good measure of food value. Many of the least expensive and healthiest foods take work - fresh vegetables need washing and peeling, beans need soaking and long cooking, grains ditto. The great thing is that a lot of this work can be done ahead of time so that when mealtime or random hunger strikes the prep and cleanup is minimal. Last Sunday I took a few hours in the afternoon and did a bunch of prep so that during the week I would have lots of quick food options in the fridge:

Kidney Beans: hot soak and cook, for use in tostadas and in kidney bean sandwich spread

Potatoes: scrubbed and cooked (skins on) to make home fries and Eggs Cooked on Top of Things

Skillet Grape Tomatoes: Put a pound of grape tomatoes in a wide frying pan over high heat with a tablespoon of olive oil and about a teaspoon of salt. Shake pan, covered, til tomatoes get blackened and juicy. Can be warmed up to eat with a few crumbles of feta or alongside a grilled cheese.

Roasted Calabacita: Cut calabacita into wedges (or slice zucchini); drizzle with oil or melted butter and a little salt. Roast in a toaster oven til tender and a bit charred. I was going to save these for use in tostadas too but ended up eating them. Amazingly good.

Roasted Red Peppers: These are very fun to do by yourself; they smell amazing and the vivid red/black is beautiful. Take a red pepper and char it all over under the broiler. When cool enough to handle, peel and lift out the stem and seeds. Use on eggs or tuck into sandwiches, or save to make roasted eggplant, tomato and red pepper dip.

Millet Porridge: Cook millet in 4X water (by volume) and a little salt. Keep cooked cereal in fridge and warm up with a little water mixed in for breakfast. Last time I made this I stirred in cooked sweet potato and honey, but it is just as good plain.

Green Peppers and Onions: Slice into slivers for stir fries. Red Cook is a great new Chinese food blog which is now running a stir fry series.

Noodles V: Ran Mian (燃面)

We finish up the noodle series with a snacks post. Left front is the star of this post - a bowl of ran mian. In the rear is a slightly more expensive bowl of dan dan mian. In front is a little dish of pao cai and peeking in the far left is a bowl of noodle water to drink. Dan dan mian is one of the only things I could read on a menu when I first got to China so I ended up ordering it a lot and quickly got sick of it. I still eat dan dan mian from time to time but much prefer ran mian, noodles with similar spicy and oily condiments but which are vegetarian and have added tang from the ya cai and crunch from the peanuts. They cost about thirty cents for a little one oz bowl like this.

I haven't made ran mian yet - it is too cheap and easily available at the snack restaurants. But I will miss it a lot when I leave China so here is a recipe that I want to try when I can no longer get it on the street. It is from this Chinese food site, which gives quite a bit of background and explanation of the snack.

You need 3 oz of fresh Chinese wheat noodles, 2 tbs of chopped ya cai (芽菜, a type of preserved vegetable), 2 tbs of chopped roasted salted peanuts, one chopped green onion, 1 tbs of chili oil, 4 tbs of sesame oil, 2 cloves of garlic, 3 tbs soy sauce, 1 tsp sugar, 1 tsp of vinegar, 1 pinch ground Sichuan pepper, MSG to taste.

Boil the noodles til al dente (texture is important) and drain; then toss with the sesame oil so they don't stick. Pile noodles into 2 bowls and top with remaining condiments. Everyone stirs the condiments into the noodles with chopsticks before digging in.

Noodles IV: Rotini and Bleu

Many people think of cost per volume or cost per weight when looking for a good grocery buy. This is easy to figure because this is how many foodstuffs are sold. There are other ways to look at food value, however. Cost per usable weight often comes out differently than the cost of what you buy, for example - about one third of a banana's weight is skin. Considering cost per nutrition leads the shopper to healthier, if more expensive foods like dark coloured greens or whole grain foods rather than their blander, paler counterparts. Convenience is a valid measure of grocery value, though it often comes at a price of flavour and nutrition. Then there is cost per pleasure or cost per flavour. Blue cheese ends up being a great buy on this scale; a small amount packs a great deal of character and flavour.

This is one of those pasta dishes that can be ready in slightly more than the time it takes to boil the noodles. A noodle with high surface area for the sauce to cling to is ideal. I like eating this richly sauced pasta with a pile of steamed vegetables, either greens or squash, that can be cooked over the pasta water. You could also chop some tomatoes to stir in at the end.

Boil 3/4 cup of rotini or other short pasta in salted water. Meanwhile, heat 3 tbs of cream with 1 tbs blue cheese, more or less to taste, in microwave or other container. You can use a pretty strong blue like Gorgonzola or a Danish blue here, or a milder one if desired. Add a pinch of salt to balance cheese if needed. Drain pasta well and stir in sauce til coated. Serves one.

Noodles III: Loch Ness Noodles

My homemade noodles always morph into something monster-like - larger than life and not too pretty. They take more work than I usually do for one meal too, so I don't make them very often. I really love how they taste, however, and they satisfy my childhood wish to have bigger noodles, and more noodles, in my soup. This is a good recipe for a day when you can put off all your outside tasks and spend an hour or so in the kitchen.

Start by making the noodle dough - one and two thirds cups of flour, two eggs, and two tablespoons of milk. Mix together thoroughly (dough will be moist) and then work in enough additional flour to make a kneadable dough. Knead til smooth and elastic and wrap in plastic to rest for a few minutes.

Chop the vegetables for the soup next. This soup is all about the noodles, so you want really little pieces that will mostly cook down. Cut about one cup of finely diced celery and the same of onion, three cloves of garlic, and some carrot if desired. Sweat these vegetables in a dutch oven or large saucepan with about a teaspoon of salt til they are limp and giving up their flavours. I added two thirds of a cup of chicken, chopped small like the vegetables, but you can easily leave it out. Add one and a half litres of chicken stock and one chopped tomato. Bring to a boil; then simmer.

This is where you shape the noodles. I either roll them thin and cut them with a knife, or just pull off little pieces of dough to roll with my hands. Doesn't seem to make much difference.

Anyway, taste the soup and make sure there is enough salt (the noodles will absorb some) before bringing to a boil. Drop in noodles and boil noodles for several minutes, until they are cooked all the way through. It's tough to eat these with a spoon so we attacked them with chopsticks. Serves 3-4.