Steamed Egg Roll

In Chinese, the egg roll can be roughly divided into two types. The general one is a sweet snack with flute-shaped pastry and flaky crust. The other one is steamed egg roll I would like introduce today. It's a savory main dish with meat stuff and egg skin. I have not ever seen before in restaurants or friends' home except my home in Taiwan. My mom said that this dish is come from the main land China.

The appearance of steamed egg roll just looks like cylinder-shaped omelet. The transection looks like Maki-zushi(rolled Zushi). My mom always cut a whole egg roll into several sections.
The origin of this dish is that we celebrated Chinese new year by our fortune because the steamed egg rolls signified gold. Some Chinese would instead cook many egg potsticker(dumpling) signified gold ingot. However, egg roll has more meat than egg potsticker so that I like egg rolls relatively.

I think the egg skin is simple to made by everyone. The meat stuff contains minced pork, green onion, and seasonings such as salt or pepper just like stuff of potsticker. But potsticker usually contains vegetable and sesame oil. And my mom would put mashed ginger to raise tasty. Even someone would put corn, shrimp, conpoy as well.
Maybe you can use beef instead of pork, onion instead of green onion and put corn into stuff. Then sprinkle ketchup over it. The steamed egg roll can catch your stomach as well.

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.

Steamed Pork Slices with Glutinous Rice Flour

You can see the yellow one, the minced pork with corn, and green one, Chao vegetable. A small piece of stewed spareribs with brown sauce lay on top right. Only one dish is new of today's lunch, which is "steamed pork with glutinous rice flour".##CONTINUE##
This dish has a distinctive appearance because the glutinous rice flour should be covered over meat. The white grain you can see is glutinous rice which play a main role of flour.
The glutinous rice is undoubtedly a genuine Chinese food. There are a lot of food made by it, such as "Zongzi", "Tangyuan", the most famous traditional Chinese food, and others less famous but common food. (It means so many food wait for my introduction:p) This rice is a special sort of rice and would become sticky after heat. That's why call it "glutinous rice". Because of its sticky feature, over-eating may cause indigestion.

Except glutinous rice, other seasonings are important in flour, too. Very many combinations of seasonings are used and bring many flavor on this dish. However, the five-spice powder is most often used in every combinations. If you want to find out the best steamed pork flour, an abundant experience is indispensable. I can image how hard to cook this dish for my forefathers because of complex procedure. I couldn't have change to usually eat "Steamed Pork Slices with Glutinous Rice Flour" if I was born in ancient time. Fortunately, we have instant flour package nowadays. My mom just marinates meat and covers ready-made flour. Then put it into TATUNG steamed cooker. Finally, I can eat a savory Steamed Pork Slices with Glutinous Rice Flour.

In addition, before steaming, you can wrap the meat with lotus leaves for traditional Chinese style, or put some sweet potato under the meat for Taiwan style, or substitute pumpkin for sweet potato. It's more complicated but more delicious.

Bamboo Shoot with Sliced Pork

The bamboo shoot with sliced pork is above, the middle of the stewed spareribs with brown sauce I introduced before, following fired vegetable, and the roe lay on the right.
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Every Taiwan child has heard of this dish even if he or she has never eaten. It's a funny extended meaning. We usually use "meat"instead of "pork" for Chinese food name and put the word "fry" into the major and miner material names. We also cut the meat into strips. So for example of directed translation, the "Chao bamboo shoot with sliced pork" would become a "bamboo shoot stir-fries meat strips". Besides, earlier on, Chinese teacher often punished students by slashing their palms(fingers) with bamboo pole. So use your imagination. A punishment that a bamboo is swung over some fingers(meat strips) becomes a name of a dish. This course is so popular but not because people like it; instead children hate it. :p

I have never seen foreigners eat bamboo shoot. Of course, I have never seen the bamboo except in Asia. The bamboo shoot tastes crisp and a little sweet. Sometimes we eat just with salad scream while finding the superior one, in order to enjoy its original flavor, juicy and tasty. It is also very suitable material for soup. The essence of bamboo shoot could be enhanced by simmering. Even though flavored with soy sauce, its fresh and juicy characteristic can make a dish more delicious.

Fried Pork with Dried Tofu

I love all soy food. We think the dried tofu is different from tofu, like tofu skin. Although they are made by the same material - soy bean, their shapes are unlike at all whether for looking or eating. You mush be amazed at what many varieties of tofu. The dried tofu is indeed made by dehydrating tofu, but I consider from cooking aspect the dried tofu should be classified to its own sort. It is because dried tofu is harder and more flavorful than normal tofu. It is hard so that can be cut to many shape, such as slice or stick. And its structure easily let seasoning into inside. We Chinese call this feature "flavor-entered". Furthermore, the number of dried tofu dishes are never less than that of tofu dishes.
In Dasi, one town of Taiwan, the residents even developed a special variety of dried tofu, called Dasi dried tofu, which can be treated (eaten) as a snack.
Of course, my mom fried dried tofu and pork with soy sauce and sometimes with chili. It is appropriate to eat with rice. Chinese says this dish is "rice-swallowed", means people can eat lot of rice with it.

Steamed Salted Duck's Eggs

Because busy on Wednesday, I just took terrible pictures. You wouldn't want to see the fragmentary dishes. Anyway, I bring my lunch made by Wednesday overleft today and can still introduce my mom's works. So today's target I choose is more acceptable for foreigners.

As you can see on top right of my lunch box, this dish mixed yellow and white looks like a strange steamed egg. Chinese originally have a traditional steamed eggs. But my mom's way is a little different. She puts more ground pork and less water. Hence, it becomes drier than traditional steamed eggs.
In addition, salted duck's eggs are used instead of chicken egg. It tastes salty and has special flavor. The chicken egg has no savor like it. Furthermore, my mom uses soft boiled egg. The yolk is solid and white is liquid. Then put ground prok and a little salt to enhance the taste.
Finally, after steamed in TATUNG steamed cooker, a savory steamed salted duck's egg with ground pork comes out! And the steamed way is unusual for home dish, but usual for restaurant. It requests much works so that you can see that the most dishes I posted are fried, not steamed. However, the invention of TATUNG steamed cooker makes steaming convenient.

Fried Bacon with Silver Sprout

This is my lunch today. You can see fried vegetable, fried egg with soy sauce, and fried bacon with mungbean sprout. In fact, it is a good opportunity to explain significance of soy sauce for Chinese because I love the fried egg with soy sauce so much. However, I prepare to talk about it someday else when I have enough time. Now I want to talk about the other special dish.

We usually name mungbean sprout "silver sprout" because it looks shiny and glossy just like silver. And it sounds more expensive than cheap mungbean. A noble name is able to rise its value. The mungbean sprout which can grow up every place and every season is easily gotten. We even experimented with it in natural course while I was a elementary school student.
We eat soybean sprout, too. It is similar to mungbean sprout. But I doesn't like it because of too stony. In other words, the soybean sprout is hardly cook to soft and tastes raw.
Moreover, mungbean can mix with a lot of materials. Its chewing feeling, cheap cost, and appearance let mungbean sprout become a common dish in the menu of bargain restaurants.

Stewed Spareribs with Brown Sauce

Because I came home late and just ate leftovers, I could not take the beautiful pictures in time for today's dishes. So I chose my favorite one to introduce. And another excuse is that it's simpler to introduce one dish than all dishes. Maybe I would continue this pattern from now on: only choose the best one or the most special one a day, until I have enough time. Or please give some advices.

Stewing something with brown sauce is the common method for Chinese food. Even in some dishes, this cooking method is just one step of whole cooking procedure. And Chinese also cook fish, beef, chicken in this way. It can be regarded as one of the most important methods in Chinese food. Maybe foreigners do not like it, but we have not only "Sweet and Sour" way.
Yes! You may guess it. The main material is soy sauce, Chinese favorite. It's the reason why it looks brown. We stew spareribs with soy sauce, sugar and other flavoring. Although this is common dish in Chinese families, it doesn't mean everyone can easy prepare the delicious and good-looking stewed spareribs. Not only the quality of material but also heating control, sequence, and flavoring process are indispensable. I am so lucky to have a great mother on cooking.

Saturday Lunch

There are four dishes this noon. They just satisfied us. I'll try my best to introduce them one by one:

1> The diaphragm of hog:
Our Chinese eat almost every parts of pig. The pork as you see is the diaphragm muscles located between the 12th ribs and the 14th ribs. Because the muscle connects with the membrane, it tastes more flexible not like other general pork. The feeling of chewing is similar a bit to chewing the part adhered to the bone when eating spareribs. We usually eat them with garlic soy sauce.


2> Edible tree fungus flavored shredder pork:
There are two main materials. One is general pork, (unnecessarily explain!) and the other is black jelly ear fungus, which scientific name is Auricularia Auricula. It tastes like the harder jelly. It's so difficult to describe. Moreover, they was fried with silk ginger.


3> Fried sweet potato leaves with thousand-year-old egg
Sweet potato (yam bean) leaves were so common in Taiwan farm home in early age. According to the statement from my grand mother, these leaves was so cheap that the farmer fed pigs with them. However nowadays, people want to eat healthfully, so eat every easily available vegetables. Because modern people don't like to eat simply but creatively, they add the thousand-year-old egg to flavor. The thousand-year-old egg is a sort of preserved egg. The old Chinese preserved the duck egg with tea under special soil. Many foreigners hate it because it smells like urine. When I was young, my parent also kid me and said it was made by horse urine.


4> Fried Chinese cabbage
This the simplest dish of four. My mom just sliced the cabbage and fried it with less garlic.

Finally, I may introduce our rice later.


In conclusion, it is so very very difficult to explain Chinese food. So many materials even have no name in English or never be ate by foreigners. I spend about 4 hours to look for their names and post here. I am so tired and not sure it's a good idea to keep posting my home dishes.