As it turns out giblets, chicken hearts and liver can be mixed with green and red peppers, scallions and a few other things along with a selection of spices to create a very tasty dish. White pepper is used in great quantities in this dish to spice things up. At first I was a little hesitant to try such a bizarre mix of innards, but after a few cautious nibbles I found myself digging in. Sometimes it really does pay to experiment a bit.

Sesame fruit is harvested by hand just before the seed pods ripen. Once they are ripe, they will open up and the seeds come pouring out. The seeds can be roasted or used as-is and then oil can be made by cold-pressing or other methods. The seeds per ounce of oil must be quite astounding.

This dish really wants to be fast food and as unhealthy as possible. It is accomplishing it’s goals well since the batter fried beef came out oily and was then dipped in ketchup. The sesame seeds in this particular case are mostly for looks, which means this dish taste just like fried beef. It’d edible, but not good, it does however make decent drinking food and a something to consider if beers are in abundance.

The first thing to know is that aside from the bones basically everything on a fish head is edible, the skin, the eyes, the brains, and all the bits in between. The cheeks are often rumored to be the best meat of the entire fish. The eyeballs are hard, crunchy spheres that can be eaten but seem to be a love or hate item.

Fish head often comes in soup but in this case it was steamed/stewed. As you can see there are lots of peppers, but they are more sweet than spicy. The majority are cherry peppers that have been mashed with garlic, ginger, and salt before being cooked with the fish. Fish head cooked like this is fantastic, the spices fill your mouth with some great flavors and keep the fish tender and juicy.

This dish exceeded my expectations immensely. I’m not a fan of green peppers, causing me to assume the worst. The dried tofu isn’t very good at soaking up outside flavors which meant that the tofu was only mildly flavored by the peppers. The flavor of the tofu and the spiciness from the red peppers provided the most punch with only the subdued hint of the bell pepper seeping through. It’s a healthy choice and a nice use of tofu, but more than that it’s vegetarian as well.

This dish is a simple pleasing homestyle entree. Flavored with little more than salt and a few slices of ginger the beans are the predominant flavor, the mushrooms and the shrimp serve as a supporting cast. The beans are similar to peas in texture, but they are far less sweet than most peas and with their own unique bean flavor.

The cucumber dish shown above is a classic Chinese appetizer. It’s also one of the few dishes in Chinese cuisine that serves raw vegetables. The cucumbers pieces are mixed with oil, garlic, salt, and red peppers that when combined turn out really tasty.

To make this dish you’ll need:

1-2 cucumbers
2 cloves minced garlic
2 tsps salt
1tbsp oil
1 tsps sesame oil
2 chopped spicy peppers

Cut the cucumbers into pieces then crush them slightly to release the juices. I recommend crushing the cucumber by turning the knife on it’s side on the cucumber pieces and press down firmly with your palm (crushing the cucumber is key to the success of this dish). Add the cucumber, garlic, oil, sesame oil, salt, and peppers to a bowl and stir. You can chill it in the refrigerator or serve immediately.

Excessive amounts of salt are used to make the smoked pork shown above which means this is a great dish to order with some beer. This isn’t a healthy dish by any means, it is packed with salt, it’s mostly meat, and it’s cooked in ample amounts of oil, but it’s one of those delightfully sinful dishes. Think of it as the savory version of warm apple pie with ice cream, so enjoy it, just don’t over-indulge in it.

Here’s how to make it:

500 grams of smoked bamboo shoots (sliced)
200 grams of smoked bacon (sliced)
5 cloves of garlic (sliced)
2 red peppers (sliced)
2 scallions (sliced)
3 slices of ginger
2 tsps salt
1-2 tbsp sugar
cooking oil

Add the cooking oil to a heated wok. Drop in the garlic, red peppers, ginger, salt, and sugar. Stir for a few seconds and add the bacon. Stir for several minutes until the bacon is hot, add in the bamboo shoots and stir. Cook for 3-5 minutes, the bamboo shoots should be hot. Add the scallions and serve.

Tofu manufacturers grind fresh or dried soy beans into a milky pulp to which they then add salts, acids, or enzymes. Through a mixing, heating, and pressing process the soy milk coagulates into a tofu and is further processed depending on the type of tofu being made. Most commonly gypsum is used as a coagulant, that’s right, the same stuff that is used to sheetrock your house is also in your tofu. Other common agents used to coagulate soy milk include a de-icer, a termite controller, and a water hardener.

The dish above tastes great and works well for vegetarians and is an excellent choice on cold days when you need something to warm you up. The silken tofu and mushrooms are boiled together in a stone pot filled with a cornstarch thickened savory broth. One of my favorite ways to eat this is to mix a few spoonfuls in with a bit of rice and making an impromptu porridge of sorts.

Pudding can actually be made from eggs, rice, starches, gelatin and a few other substances. Sweet puddings, like this mango pudding, are usually made with gelatin. It turns out that the rumors regarding gelatin are true, it really is made from boiling down the bones and skins of dead animals. Globally, over 300,000 tons of gelatin are produced every year, that must translate into an astoundingly huge number of dead cows and pigs.

Enough of the gruesome stuff, sit back and enjoy this dish cause it is a delight. It’s served cold, which is perfect for the upcoming heat. It’s sweet enough to be pleasant, it’s light and the fresh mango make it a bit on the healthy side.

Soy Beans have a long and complex history with humans dating back to at least 5000 years. Great leaders and scientists alike recognized soy beans as important for not only their food value, but also for their industrial value. Soy beans became a staple crop of American agriculture only after a big push during the Great Depression that saw Henry Ford capitalizing on the industrial uses of soy beans to the tune of two bushels of beans in each and every car coming off the assembly line.

This edamame pictured above was boiled water and Chinese rice wine. It’s a simple food that is almost too simple. The beans are just beans, but the rice wine adds a little tang. Manipulating your chopsticks and sucking out the beans is entertaining and serves as a nice healthy way to start a meal.

It’s also good to remember that this dish compliments a nice cold beer perfectly.

Snow peas have been cultivated for over 12,000 years, originating first in near Thailand and now found worldwide. They are an early spring vegetable that signifies the end of winter. Legumes, snow peas included, release nitrogen into the soil by hosting beneficial bacteria. This excess nitrogen is great for leafy green vegetables so peas, snow peas, and related veggies are often grown intermixed with them.

In Chinese cuisine not only are the unripened peas eaten as is common in the west, but the young sprouts and tender leafy materials are also eaten. The sprouts are called “豆苗“ dòumiáo and can be eaten just like spinach or lettuce

The snow peas above were julienned along with some bell peppers. Then lightly sauted in sesame oil and served cold. The dish was crisp and refreshing. The nutty flavors of the sesame oil were pronounced but tempered by the sweetness from the veggies.

Chinese food provides an ample selection of vegetarian appetizers, so you will certainly be able to find something you like. Snow peas aren’t always my favorite thing, but from time to time this dish is a nice way to start a meal.

The large and juicy shrimp above were marinated in XO sauce and sautéed in a wok with ginger slices and few other ingredients. The results were really great. The shrimp were sweet and the XO spiced things up. The shells were crisp and peeled away cleanly revealing large chunks of white flesh.

It’s hard to go wrong with large shrimp and the pairing with XO sauce was a wise choice. I think you’ll be able to find XO sauce where you are and will be able to experiment with it. Add it to your arsenal of universal spices that already likely includes Lawry’s Seasoning salt and some sort of barbecue sauce.

The bitter melon and pork stir fry was simply flavored with salt and garlic letting the pork and vegetables flavors mingle without restraint. The pork slices were mildly flavored with the bitter melon and the bitter melon was tolerable in small pieces. Every year I try some bitter melon at least once just to see how it’s treating me, I feel I really should like this bizarre vegetable, and one day I hope I will.

The powdered meat tenderizer that you buy in a supermarket is made from a combination of enzymes. Soaking the meat in the tenderizer or sprinkling it on top can break down the meat and make it more tender obviously. Surprisingly the enzymes are derived from pineapple, papaya, kiwifruit, and figs, and have a wide variety of medical uses.

This dish came to the table still cooking. The soup was based on tea and simple things like soy sauce and garlic. There wasn’t enough broccoli to satisfy me and the only other vegetables were a few hidden onions. The beef was tender to the point I wasn’t sure it could be called beef anymore.

This dish is so easy to make, it can hardly be called cooking, but the dish can still be good. It’s simply pork loin that’s been cooked, sliced thin and served cold. The sauce is sesame oil, minced garlic and loads of salt. With this dish you are able to get a hefty dose of meat before the real meal even arrives. I think it’s best when the meat is very cold, then i drench it in the sauce and enjoy, I recommend you do the same.

The dish above is simple to the extreme but it’s still nice. Corn, peas, carrots and pine nuts plus a little salt and the dish is made. The pine nuts add crunch and a unique mild metallic nutty flavor. It should come as no surprise that pine nuts remind me slightly of gin and I’m of the general opinion that a few pine nuts go a long way in the flavor department.

Often used in soups and cooked with other foods, the Enoki above are served alone covered in sesame oil, salt, and spring onions. Cooked first, and then dished out cold as an appetizer the mushrooms are pretty mild tasting, but a little string. The bulk of the flavor comes from the sesame oil with a slight assist by the salt and spring onions. You’ll find this dish widely available and it goes great with beer.

This dish is a small step into the more bizarre side of Chinese food. Leaf tripe is mild flavored and chewy textured. The chopped cilantro, ginger, and onions are refreshing and even a bit spicy. On the whole, this is a dish I eat on occasion (and enjoy) and is something I can recommend as an excellent choice if you aren’t sure how you’ll like internal organs.

It’s hard to go wrong with tofu and mushrooms. The addition of the bell peppers almost ruined it for me, but they didn’t overpower the dish and the chunks were big enough to avoid. The shiitake mushrooms never fail to appeal to my palette and as usual there weren’t enough to satisfy me. The pieces of very thin dry and firm tofu manage to become coated in the thin cornstarch based salty sauce forming a mild yet desirable reaction on the taste buds.

This vegetarian dish is another one of those foods that isn’t likely to be winning culinary awards, but instead can be found on many dining room tables in homes around China. I’m hoping to hunt this one down soon to add to my arsenal of dishes I can cook.

Water chestnuts aren’t really nuts they are more like underwater potatoes. They are packed with starches and can even be milled into flour. Generally found in small cans in supermarkets everywhere, they are found fresh and packed with flavor all around Asia.

The water chestnuts in the dish above were mind-bogglingly sweet and crunchy, water chestnuts being one of the rare vegetables that don’t get mushy when overcooked). The slices of meat were salty sweet but far too small. Even though this dish lacks a little execution I’ll be back for more just for the water chestnuts.