Liveblogging a dinner-party

[desperance]

What I really wanted, I wanted to take a photo of the fish-heads in their soupy stock and post that: but alas, no power in the camera. No pix.

Still, one word is worth a thousand photos, so this post is a bargain.

So far today, I have done First Shopping, which is local; I have made the basic stock for the soup; I have cooked a very great deal of rice, which I will fry from cold for dinner; I have made six little vanilla blancmanges; I have put Chaz'z Chinese Pork on to simmer v v gently for v v ever. [Chaz'z Chinese Pork is a tradition; I invented it - with a huge great hand of pork - when I was called on once to feed a dozen friends, and now I'm not allowed to cook Chinese without it, however inauthentic it might be. Actually it's not really, because I read a lot of red-cooked recipes before I devised this; but basically all I do is stick a large piece of pork on the bone into a stock-pot, cover it with water, add dark & light soy, rice vinegar, Shao Xing and rock sugar, and then cook it very gently for hours & hours. The fat goes gelatinous, the meat is so soft that you can pull it off the bone with chopsticks, the liquid is boiled down into a sticky sweet sauce, and nom-nom-nomming occurs.

At present, after First Revisions, the menu looks like this:

Slivered radishes
Smacked cucumber
Silver fish with chilli
Jiaozi

Fish soup

Ants climbing a tree
Chicken with chestnuts
Chicken with black beans (or possibly General Tso's chicken)
Chairman Mao's red-braised pork
Chaz'z Chinese pork
Bamboo shoots with ground pork

Vanilla blancmange with saffron sauce (not strictly Chinese - at all - but hey...)

Comments

[martyn44.livejournal.com]

It's not a good idea to be a misbehaving cucumber around you, is it. Discipline, discipline, that's what they need!

[wishwords.livejournal.com]

I don't suppose you have a tried and true recipe for Shredded Pork in Peking Sauce do you? I have been looking for a good recipe since I left Missouri in 1984.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Lots of versions on the interwebs, but I don't know the dish myself; not sure if it has a UK iteration, and I didn't meet it in Taiwan.

[wishwords.livejournal.com]

I have a couple versions, but none are quite like what the Golden Dragon served. Was hoping it was one of the dishes you were familiar with.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

Don't forget: Chaz'z Chinese Pork (with pictures).

Also, yay for the return of the blancmange and saffron! Did you remember the right kind of gelatine this time?

I don't think I'm going to ask about the ants climbing a tree, just in case it involves ants climbing a tree...

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Did you remember the right kind of gelatine this time?

Well, powdered rather than leaf (I will keep looking at the prices; leaf costs about four times as much per jellied pint. Do you get four times as good a gel? I don't know, but am inclined to doubt it...). But yup, no nasty vege-gel for me.

I don't think I'm going to ask about the ants climbing a tree, just in case it involves ants climbing a tree...

Hah! I knew someone wouldn't. Be easy: it's actually beanthread noodles, in a beef mince sauce. You lift the noodles high with your chopsticks, and see all the little flecks of meat clinging to it, and think, "Ah! Ants! Climbing a tree!"

'Course you do, who wouldn't?

[lcohen]

is "smacking the cucumber" what the kids are calling that, these days?

(it all sounds wonderful--i hope everyone enjoyed it.)