New Direction

I would like to adjust the direction of this blog. Because finding Noah takes a photo of himself every day for six years, I realize that I can take a photo of my meal every, too. And write a subject a week like previous article. So that my blog would be richer and not become weekly report. I plan to start from next New Year but warnup recently. Hope I will carry on!

Glutinous Oil Rice

"Glutinous Oild Rice" ,briefly called "Oil Rice", is common for a snack in Taiwan night market and for a present of celebrating the first month of a newborn baby. Somebody would sacrifice oil rice when a traditional Chinese festival - "Qi-Xi". I'm not sure the origin of oil rice but it has a long history.##CONTINUE##
The main material of oil rice is Glutinous Rice, which was used in previous posted dish "Steamed Pork Slices with Glutinous Rice Flour". So that it tastes sticky, not grain of clear. Besides, the minced pork, Shiitake, dried shelled shrimp, and so on are indispensable as well. I introduced Glutinous Rice before hence today focus on Shiitake and dried shelled shrimp that enable to increase the fragrance. Both of they matched with each other and are used in many courses.

Shiitake, a sort of mushroom, is a usual material on Chinese food. Because it contains light not heavy flavor, we don't regard it as a primary material. However, it is perfect to play the second role or supporting role or even provisional actor. For the purpose of preservation and delivery, Shiitake would be dehydrated and then packeted. When preparing to cook, my mom dips Shiitake into water and waits it to expand. During the dip process, the fragrance would release much more because of chemical action.

We generally call dried shelled shrimp "Shrimp Rice" because its size is just similar to a grain of rice. Shrimp Rice is dried and has to dip into water before use like Shiitake. It also has a distinct fragrance and is suitable as a seasoning. I hated Shrimp Rice while I was a child because it tastes crisp like eating minced shrimp shell. But somebody love this texture. I feel not bad now with it in oil rice. In the picture, the grain of Shrimp Rice is bigger then general one and not be called "Rice", I think.

There are some other courses that looks like Oil Rice, such as Zongzi or Rice Cake in Bamboo Tube. (I will introduce them if having chance.) In addition, we eat that kinds of food with sweet spicy sauce. It's wonderful for that combination.

Pork Steamed with Pickled Mustard Cabbage

Don't belittle this bad-looking dish. Even though it looks dirty and decayed, it's a famous Chinese course. We call it "Buckle Pork with Mei-gan", which directly translated from Chinese name. Mei-gan is a sort of pickled vegetable and sounds like a female's name "Megan" :p I will introduce Mei-gan vegetable and explain why named "Buckle Pork".##CONTINUE##
A classical "Pork Steamed with Pickled Mustard Cabbage" is a time-consuming dish and need a complex procedure. According to my grand mom's recipe: besides choosing a good pork side, the side with skin, fat meat, and lean meat have to be layers of clear. So that Chinese call this cut "Five Pattern Pork" or Taiwanese call "Three Layers Pork", which comes from multiple layers characteristic. In restaurants or for banquet, the cook would cut into thick slice for beauty. But my mom just cuts into cube as thumb size. It's convenience for eating and without chopping them.

Before stewing, the pork would be taken to deep-fried in order to seal up the meat juice and avoid over cooking. The next step is to stew them with soy sauce and other seasonings, almost similar to "Stewed Pork with Brown Sauce". This step seems to be a groundwork of meat cooking. The color, luster and the taste, texture all depend on this stew process.
After that, neatly and separately arrange pork slices on the plate and put Mei-gan vegetable onto meat. Then place it into steamer and wait. Finally, after steamed pork is done, put another plate upside down on the top and buckle two plates with your hands and then turn them over. While you take the above plate away, a delicious "Buckle Pork with Mei-gan" is done. Now you understand where the name "Buckle" comes from.

You must be curious what the Mei-gan vegetable is. The title leaks answer. It made by a sort of Mustard Cabbage, whose seeds can process to mustard. Chinese pickle leaves with salt and then dry them until black. The "gan" of Mei-gan (乾) means "Dry". The "Mei" has two stories. The first "Mei" (霉) means "Mold" and describe its moldy appearance. The other "Mei" (梅) is "Ume". According to legend, Chinese made Mei-gan vegetable when the fruit of Ume is ripe.

Mom's Curry

  Curry is a well-known dish or sauce all over the world now. I have eaten curry in a restaurant in Czech when visiting Eastern Europe. Maybe we'll have a page to introduce that dish someday. Today, I still focus on my mom's curry and talk about our Taiwanese favorite flavor.##CONTINUE##
  Every body knows Curry comes from mysterious India. According to my colleague who have been India for business, Indian eats everything with curry (and by their hand), just like Chinese eats everything with soy sauce. In addition, Indian curry tastes very salty and spicy but I think that heavy savor is classical curry.
  Besides India curry, another style of curry is common in Southeast Asia, such as Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand; we call South Pacific Ocean (南洋) Style. Locals add their most common material - coconut milk to the curry and you can smell its distinct fragrance. The Southeast Asia curry looks more dilute than traditional India curry but tastes still hot.
  Another popular style in Taiwan is Japanese curry. Taiwanese loves Japanese food very much because our tastes are similar. The characteristic of Japanese curry is that you can find a little sweet in it. Japanese would put fruit, apples usually, or honey in curry. I don't know if it causes by they like a lot sweet stuff :p So that Japanese curry is less salty and spicy than India curry.
  What a food kingdom Taiwan is. You can eat all styles here. However, most Taiwanese don't like so salty and spicy food like Indian; not like sweet stuff like Japanese, either. Most curry dishes in Taiwan are localized from Japanese curry and a bit more salty. I tentatively call that style the "Taiwan curry".

  My mom's curry can be regarded as Taiwan style. First, she bought a curry sauce cube (like bouillon cube) at supermarket. We always buy the Japanese curry cube because our taste is more similar to Japanese's and the food made in Japan means elaborate and dainty. After that she was not eager to boil curry sauce but prepare main materials. My mom would cut the meat, potato and carrot into cubes; then stewed them with soy sauce like the beginning step of "stewed spareribs with brown sauce" in order to let the meat and vegetables more savory. Finally put the curry cube and other seasonings. If you like hot, you can put spicy powder. If you want to eat Southeast Asia style, you can put coconut milk. It's delicious to put the cheese as well. (We learned from a certain restaurant.)

A curry recipe reference

Taiwan Mooncake - Yolk Pastry

Here a special new thing comes, the Taiwan mooncake! The Mooncake is one of traditional Chinese dessert especially for Mid-Autumn Festival. I don't want to explain this festival now, maybe next year instead. Although Mid-Autumn Festival already passed (August 15 in Chinese calendar), my mom still bakes them to feed us like pigs :p In fact, she will give some to her friend as a gift. As you can see, the appearance in my picture is very different from that in Wiki because this one we eat is Taiwan Style and we call it "Yolk Pastry". ##CONTINUE##
You can understand the key point of Taiwan mooncake from its local name: "yolk" and "pastry". The most common and traditional way is to fill with sweet bean paste and a salted egg yolk inside. The black bean paste and yellow yolk represent dark sky and a light moon respectively. Besides, the salted egg yolk is able to balance the sweet of bean paste. Nowadays, fat people so afraid of Cholesterol, especially in egg yolk, that we can buy fake yolk instead. It made by cheese and smells better. The other primary role "pastry" is the most difference from other styles mooncake. Only the skin of Taiwan mooncake made by puff pastry, just like another famous Taiwan dessert "Suncake". The puff pastry skin looks laminated as thousand skin and tastes crisp.

The mooncake has a variety of fillings from traditional ones "Lotus Seed Paste" or "Jujube Paste" to modern ones "ice cream" or "coffee". My mom also bakes a very popular sort this time: "Bean Paste with Mochi". This way comes from Japanese style and has an effect that balance sweet like yolk. Some people enjoy the taste combined with crisp pasty and sticky mochi. In addition, my mom bake her favorite filling, Taro Paste, too. However, I still prefer the most traditional one, sweet bean paste and egg yolk.

Stewed Tofu with Chinese Toon

We go to a restaurant for today's lunch. This restaurant decorates with old things and offers antique dishes. You can see a black TV, gramophone records, pulse tone telephones, the 1st generation mobile phones, and so on. You can seat in a log cabin and eat dishes which my mom or grand mom was eating when she was a kid. Some of them can be seen nowadays but others only are eaten at this type of restaurant. I recommend you welcome and feel the ambiance of early Taiwan stage. The Map below shows where it is. But you need a local to take you there because of no buses and no English signs. Especially, they have no English menu.##CONTINUE##
I try to take pictures for all courses. However, they are so much delicious that I forgot take them except the first two dishes. Finally, I just take photos of leftovers and a photo of a half my favorite "Stewed Tofu with Chinese Toon". By the way, I remembered that I also forgot my packet in Thailand because cared only for eating a Thailand snack. It's a bad record :$

Why would I like to introduce "Stewed Tofu with Chinese Toon"? Because I haven't eaten it before, either. I never ate food with Chinese Toon. So we chose it when we first went to this restaurant. The taste of Chinese Toon is similar to Oregano but they still have their own unique flavor. We usually use Basil instead of Toons for cooking. I think the flavor of Chinese Toon is more soft than Basil. It is better to cook with tofu. Although the appearance of "Stewed Tofu with Chinese Toon" is not pretty, it looks like green sauce pasta. I think "Green Sauce Tofu" is also a great western name ;)

After I was back home, I looked up the information of Chinese Toon on Internet and found it has some curative effects. Traditional Chinese medicine says that Chinese Toon is able to strengthen humen intestine and stomach, and make humen sperm stronger. Attention please every gentleman, you mush try this dish for your future life :p Besides, modern medicine finds Chinese Toon is anti-oxidant and help people healthy. What a wonderful food it is!

Finally, I'm not sure what style this stewed cooking way is. According to my reference, a Chinese style seems cold tossed. So I decide to label "Stewed Tofu with Chinese Toon" as Taiwan Style.

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