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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Cooking oil is reclaimed from restaurants and sewage drains and is then cleaned up and refined. It’s sold back to low-end restaurants that are able to cut their oil costs by about 5o%. Unfortunately recycled cooking oil contains high amounts of aflatoxin. Aflatoxin is 100 times more toxic than arsenic.

This tofu is fried, but I’m guessing I got fresh oil. I ordered this vegetarian dish one night when I was eating alone. Silken tofu pieces were deep fried and then a selection of mushrooms with asparagus and carrot slices was added in. A sweet yet savory sauce was stirred in while cooking and the dish presents well. Unfortunately the sauce was a bit too watery making the flavors muted. This dish has a lot of potential but something is needed to spice it up.

Here’s how to make it:

Ingredients:

500g Firm tofu
200g Shitake mushrooms (fresh)
1/2 Carrot (small)
1/2 Green Pepper
1 Scallion (diced)
1 small chunk Ginger (sliced)
2 cloves Garlic (minced)
3 tbsp Bean paste
1 tbsp cornstarch mixed with 1tbsp water
Vegetable oil

Directions:

Prepare the tofu by delicately cutting it into chunks and frying in oil and set aside.

In a clean wok add a bit of oil then add the garlic, ginger, and bean paste and stir fry for a minute. Next, put the carrots, green peppers, mushrooms, tofu, and cornstarch/water mix into the wok and stir. Cover and allow to cook several minutes until the carrots are tender. Finally add the diced scallion and serve.

The shells were cracked by the cook so that the the sauce could get inside and fully flavor the meat. The sauce was based off of a sweet and syrupy kind of pork dish and supplemented with pepper oil. To eat them you’ve got use toothpicks or other utensils to pull the meat out of the shell then you’ve got to separate out the foot and throw the rest away. The dish was spicy and the meet tasted a bit like intestines or something similar. It also seemed a bit muddy.

I’ve had snails only a few times and I’ve never been impressed. They can be challenging to eat, and they just aren’t that tasty. Psychologically I find it a little hard to eat snails as I know they’ve been crawling along riverbeds and other rather polluted areas in China. Try these if you must, but be warned. I have no love for the snail.

Stinky tofu is simply tofu that has been soaked in a marinade and fermented for several days to several months. I was clueless as to how stinky tofu was made but wanted to give this dish a try. This dish took ages to arrive, but even before the waitress put it on my table I could smell the pungent manure like odors rising up from the steam.

Learning about stinky tofu nearly caused me to lose my dinner, as I was to learn the recipe for stinky tofu hasn’t been standardized so the taste varies from region to region and vendor to vendor. The brine mostly made from soy milk, vegetables and meat that has been aged together for weeks, then tofu is added and the mixture is aged for another few weeks.

The steamed stinky tofu can best be described as similar in taste to sharp cheese, but much softer. The black mold on the outside was a little disconcerting, but tasted fine. Generally the whole dish was a little salty on occasion of the soy sauce. The pieces of ham were a little dried out and as one might expect they were very salty.

This proved to be an excellent choice, though next time I’ll be sure to have a beer to temper the salt. Ignore the rumors surround stinky tofu that maggots are used in the fermentation process or that the whole process is unsanitary, or that some manufacturer’s cut corners by using kitchen waste and human feces to speed the ripening process. When you’re in Shanghai stinky tofu is one of those things you’ve just got to try. It’s something different for sure.

Today’s dish of tea tree mushrooms, garlic stems, smoked pork, and other ingredients is coated in oil. It’s an unfortunate reality throughout China that the local food is oily. Some dishes are literally served in a bowl of oil, while dishes such as this one simply come served with a thick oily film. I’ve talked about cured meats and mushrooms before, both of which I eagerly devour, so it’s only natural that I would like this dish too. The flavors and textures meld nicely, the dish is tinged with spiciness, but the real flavor comes from the meat.

This is a nice solid Sichuan dish that includes a lot of great ingredients, but it’s hard to overlook the oil in this incantation. Give this one a try, but be sure to specify that the cook goes light on the oil and I you will have an enjoyable meal.

Two kinds of celery are found in Shanghai, standard celery as found in Europe and North America, and another type of celery commonly called Chinese celery. Chinese celery can be easily distinguished by it’s paler color and thinner stalks and is regarded as being closer in nature to wild celery.

The celery and tofu stir fry is a fine example of a home cooked vegetarian dish found throughout China. The ingredients are simple and combine into a wholesome healthy food. The textures of the celery and tofu keep my tongue from getting bored. The salt and other spices are plenty to flavor the tofu and temper the stronger flavors found in Chinese celery, without being overbearing. The celery does taste more like celery than the European kind, so be prepared.

Here’s a recipe so you can have a crack at it in your kitchen:

400 g dried tofu
400 g celery
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sichuan peppercorns
1-2 chopped scallions
2 slices of ginger
4 sliced dried peppers

1. Prepare the celery by removing the leaves and washing the stalks. Cut the stalks into 4-6cm pieces and set aside.
2. Prepare the celery by washing and then slicing into strips similar in size to the celery.
3. To cook, add a tablespoon of oil to a hot wok and coat all sides. Add the peppercorns, peppers, ginger, and spring onion and stir fry for a few seconds then add the celery strips and salt then stir for half a minute and add the tofu. Stir until all the ingredients are mixed and let cook for a few seconds before serving.

Thousands of different varieties are available with countless variation in size, taste, growing climate, and even color. Today tomatoes are one of the most common garden vegetables in America, but China vastly out produces the USA in total tomato productions having produced over 33 million tons in 2008 compared to just over 12 million tons for the USA. California produces 90% of the US tomato crop which amounts to 35% of global production.

In 1753 the tomato was classified in the same family as the potato, but was later moved into it’s own family. Later scientists decided that the original classification was correct and tomatoes have been restored to their proper location in the Nightshade family of plants that include potatoes, eggplant, and even chili peppers. In a bit of Frankenstinian science tomatoes have successfully been cross bred with potatoes and produced viable offspring.

A tomato is considered to be a fruit and more specifically it’s a berry. A fruit by definition develops from the ovary of the plant and the flesh of the fruit will contain chambers where the seeds are located. By this definition, cucumbers, eggplants, and all squash are also fruits rather than vegetables.

Scrambled eggs with tomato is a classic dish that is likely to be one of the first dishes you are introduced to upon arriving in China. The eggs are scrambled in a wok with oil, sugar and salt. Once the eggs are about half cooked the sliced tomatoes are mixed in and then the whole thing is covered for a short while and then served hot. Here’s a detailed recipe.

It’s not a dynamic dish and it’s not fine dining. It’s very much a home style dish that nearly anyone can cook at home. The eggs taste like eggs and the tomatoes taste like tomatoes, the whole mixture is slightly sweet because of the added sugar.

The beauty of this dish is it’s simplicity and near universal appeal, it’s even vegetarian. It can be found at nearly every Chinese restaurant in Shanghai and it’s something that you can easily create in your own kitchens. While certainly not an adventurous dish, the Chinese have created a unique dish using rather mundane ingredients that is familiar enough to appease even those with a more conservative palette. Try this one and I’ll be surprised if it doesn’t make it to your dinner table more than once.

American settlers started using corn as a staple food in the 1800s and soon after began suffering, in epidemic proportions, to a disease called pellagra which was first identified in 1735. The disease characterized most seriously by skin lesions, sensitivity to sunlight, aggressive behavior, and insomnia is caused by a lack of niacin in the diet.

The relationship between pellagra and corn wasn’t proven until the mid 1920’s when scientists identified that corn is not a source of niacin for humans unless the corn has been processed using nixtamalization. Native Americans did not suffer from pellagra because they discovered that soaking corn in an alkali solution of lime and ash kept people from getting sick, this process later became known as nixtamalization. Today pellagra is still seen in parts of poor regions of the world including Africa, Asia (including parts of China), and other developing areas.

The corn dish above is a popular “junk food” served at many restaurants. The corn is first mixed with starch (cornstarch works) and then placed into a frying pan with a little oil and a little water if necessary. After several minutes the corn is fried into a delicate pancake like shape which is then served with a small amount of sugar and mayonnaise on top.

The dish is sweet, but most of the sweetness is derived from the corn (not the sugar on top). The mayonnaise adds a different texture and a savory flavor that takes this dish from good to great. Unfortunately once this dish cools down the corn gets soft and the dish rapidly loses it’s appeal.

If you find yourself drawn to french fries and enjoy the occasional donut this dish will be a satisfying addition at a meal. It’s great for children since they’ll savor the sweetness and they can eat it with their hands. This isn’t a special dish in either ingredients or style, but it’s another example of how Chinese cuisine has taken something basic and created a unique food that isn’t normally seen in Western cuisine. Experience corn in a new light, and enjoy it.