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.

Alleviating myself of all the crap around me has been liberating as it always is. I’ve never had a lot of “stuff” and it is refreshing to realize that there are precious few material belongs that are vital to my happiness.

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 year has been nice in that winter was long and up until today things have been alright. Today however it’s finally hot and humid and I’m not ready for it. I may end up turning on the air conditioning tonight just so I can sleep. The smells of the city are ripening and my clothes are starting to stick and it never really feels like I’ve stepped out of the shower.

I’m not ready just yet for the summer as much as I hated the winter. It’s just there aren’t any beaches near by and diesel fumes seem much more tolerable when it’s freezing outside than when it’s boiling.

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.

I got asked quite a few questions about how my vacation was when entered “What a Long Strange Trip it’s Been”. Upon further inquiry it seems the Grateful Dead are complete unknowns even to this day in China. Same thing with Jimi Hendrix, a complete unknown, since when I posted “All Along the Watchtower” people started asking when I became a Jehovah’s Witness.

It never ceases to amaze me the things I assume are common knowledge that in actuality are only known in my little part of the world. Sure It’s a Small World Ater Al, but it’s also a Big BIg World.

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.

The metro system in Shanghai is amazing. I ride it daily. It’s cheap, clean, fast, regular and available all over the city. Enough lines have opened up in the past few years that I no longer know all the stations or even where all the lines go. The most amazing thing though is even though the trains run 3-5 minutes apart and there are 420km of metro line in use, every single day for the bulk of the day, you’ll be crammed in the subway like a can of sardines

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.

Pineapples are incredible at the moment and I’m looking forward to fresh lychees, waxberry, loquats, and tasty watermelon. I’m probably leaving out a few fruits, but I’ll stop now before those of you not in China get jealous.

The fresh vegetables are even more stunning. A variety of leafy greens with unknown English names show up at all the markets, meanwhile the regular veggies like tomatoes and beans just get better.

Now that your mouth is watering I’m going to mix up a Korean pomegranate vinegar drink I bought today at the Japanese grocer.

I recall my own successful experiments with Skittles and a medium-roasted tie guan yin. Then I became tickled at the puckery bite of kiwi with lapsang souchong. Hey- don’t knock it until you’ve tried it.

Other tea drinkers have chimed in as well. Adagio gives suggestions for pairings with a handful of their teas. Serendipitea’s founder piles up the pairings to the point that I think he’s trying to convince me that a Ceylon will go with anything.

I’ll take a middle road.

Beef dishes: Seek black teas and heavily-fired oolongs. An earthy pu’er would do well with beef served with potato, carrot, or mushrooms.

Pork: If its light on sauces, a lighter oolong should fit the bill. Think Huang Jin Gui or Dong Ding here. If the little piggy is fried or in a thick sauce, Assams, Keemuns, and Kenyan blacks will add briskness while cutting the coating on your throat.

Chicken: Chinese green teas often have nut, rice, or vegetal flavors that pair well with poultry. Mao jian, or dragonwell should do nicely. You could even try a white tea like bai mu dan (white peony).

Seafood: Steam fish, crab, or lobster almost call out for Japanese greens. Think of sencha or gyokuro with their lemony and/or marine aromas.

Dessert: Overly sweet desserts can be cut with dark-roasted oolongs. Da hong pao can have a tangy aftertaste that balances with creamy sweets. I’m also keen to try a pu’er ice cream float I read about here.

Bon appetit.

Guest post provided by Jason Walker of Walker Tea Review. Jason lived in China, and shares his tea experience through video tea reviews. Chris and Jason used to work together.

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.

As it turns out I don’t care much one way or the other but I think that everyone is following the same script as we go from one event to the next whether it be China’s birthday, the Olympics, the Expo or something else.

It goes like this:

1. Everyone starts talking about said event
2. Visa restrictions are tightened up before the event
3. Bars, DVD shops and other seedy venues are shut down or restricted before and during the event
4. Expats start complaining about visa restrictions, bar closers, and how hard it is to buy a fake DVD
5. The event happens and everyone survives
6. Expats keep complaining about additional restrictions, traffic or something else
7. Visa restrictions let up, DVD shops open once again, a new set of bars take the place of the old ones
8. Everyone is happy once again until the next big event

Just my observations.

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.