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.

I’m on a mission to cook a bunch of these in the coming months. Most of them seem straightforward and easy to prepare once everything is identified. I’m a sucker for dessert and these seem a trifle more healthy so they are regret free. Pictures and recipes to come.

In other news there is no other news.

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.

I’ve been frustrated with iPhoto for a long time. I have a lot of photos and they span a variety of subjects and countries and time frames. iPhoto is a decent enough program, but I don’t think it is very capable once thousands of photos are involved. I could go on and list the things that really annoyed my about iPhoto, but with Aperture 3 I’ve moved beyond iPhoto and very soon my wallet will be $199.00 lighter.

Aperture is much faster at previewing photos, even when there are thousands, and this helped me initially get my photos into appropriate folders and projects. In Aperture I’m able to manage photos using folders and projects and smart albums. I can group photos together into stacks, and reject photos that simply don’t make the cut, and the rest I can rate using simple keyboard commands. Making the whole process move extremely fast.

Once I’ve added faces, places, ratings, and groupings to my photos I can take organization to the next level by adding tags and titles and even color codes. There are a number of built in photo editing functions that allow me to adjust a photo in a myriad of different ways.

Like other photo programs, Aperture 3 uses a lot of memory. My meager 2GBs of RAM is not sufficient and my upgrade to 4GBs is already in the mail. Aperture has crashed on me several times in the few weeks, Apple recently released a patch that should help, and the additional memory will likely solve some of the problem.

Aperture 3 has fired up my OCD and it’s made me excited about photography again. It’s going to take me long time to become an expert in Aperture, but it’s straight forward enough that I already feel like I can use it.

The beans are the most recognizable, but the sprouts are common throughout China and can even be found in the US. In addition, the beans can be made into a starch which is in-turn used to make cellophane noodles, or glass noodles.

In 2004 it was discovered that some of these noodles from Shangdong province, where traditionally glass noodles are manufactured, were contaminated with lead leading to several factories closing down. Then in 2006 the noodles were found to contain formaldehyde and additional factories have been shuttered. Let’s hope that the noodle industry has become more responsible since 2006.

This dish lives and dies by the sauce. A nice balance of sweet and spicy coupled with the unusually soft texture of the noodles that are served cold while the sauce is served hot can develop into a relaxing stroll for your taste buds unless of course an overabundance of oil drowns the life out of the dish. Unfortunately this dish was drowning in oil that could have been easily reduced without damaging the sanctity of the dish.

Mung beans are used all over Asia primarily for desserts, but the noodles made from the bean starch are used in all manner of dishes. Glass noodles are most popular in the summer months and can even be purchased from vendors on the streets of Shanghai. When you are eating Chinese give these noodles a try and think about all that great potassium and phosphorous.

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.

You have probably noticed that things look a little different around the website the last few days. I was a bit bored with the uninspired stock website and decided to spend some time and money making things look a little nicer. I hope this is an improvement over the way things used to look and I’d be delighted to know what you think. The re-imagining process was a real learning experience for me and I’m quite glad I undertook the adventure.

Kung Fu Eats has been going strong for about two months now. I’ve been posting on a regular and dependable schedule that keeps me busy without overwhelming me. I’ve learned a lot about food in the process and I’ve learned a lot about managing a website. The site has been visible in China for about a month now, the first month it wasn’t.

Unfortunately I promised I’d be posting some recipes from time to time and so far I haven’t lived up to that promise. I’m aware of this and I am going to rededicate myself to this goal. There are some great seasonal vegetables that should be appearing in the weeks ahead which taste great and would be excellent dishes to cook at home.

I’m still having fun, which for me is most important, and I hope readers are enjoying learning about the variety of Chinese food out there. I’m going to keep improving things at Kung Fu Eats over the coming months, so stay tuned.

Calcium Oxide, also know as quicklime is used as in mortar, in the production of glass, as a fertilizer, and it has even been used as a weapon. It is a strong base that reacts with water and can cause extreme irritation and burns if exposed to it. It also happens to be a key ingredient in the production a few types of food including corn hominy, tortilla dough, and Chinese preserved eggs.

Chinese preserved eggs, more commonly called century eggs, or thousand year eggs are created by coating a regular egg in a clay, wood ash, quicklime, and salt mixture. After coating the egg in the clay mixture they are allowed to cure for three months before they are ready to eat, the process has changed very little in the five centuries since it’s discovery.

In Thailand and Laos these eggs are commonly called horse urine eggs, which is probably one reason for the frequent myth that these eggs used to be produced by soaking them in horse urine. More likely this myth and the name came about because century eggs have an intense ammonia and sulphur odor.

The aging process allows the quicklime to transform proteins in the egg turning the egg whites into a brown translucent jelly that often contains crystalline like patterns, while the egg yolk takes on the bulk of the ammonia and sulphur flavors while turning green and adopts a creamy texture.

The appetizer pictured above is found in many Chinese cuisines and is readily available at restaurants. The silken tofu is often chilled and sliced or cubed. The century egg is then cut and placed on top. Soy sauce mixed with sesame oil and in this case pepper oil is drizzled on top and further enhanced with a liberal helping of cilantro. I enjoy the tofu and soy sauce mixture in this dish but I often find the century eggs a little overwhelming. The ammonia and sulphur never sit right with me and I choose to avoid the bulk of the eggs.

If you are in Shanghai or China for any significant amount of time you will undoubtedly be exposed to this dish. The concept of aged eggs has always been a bit strange and off-putting to me, but everybody has different tastes and I didn’t hesitate to give this dish a try. Once I figured out century eggs weren’t for me I avoided them easily enough and stuck to just the tofu.

Found throughout Asia, when you are visiting China or some place nearby be sure to try this dish. Even if it’s not something you’d go back for second servings on, it’s an adventure and a story to take back with you. Besides you might find that you like it.

This is all well and good unless your website shares an IP address with a website that China doesn’t like. China using their filtering software will simply block that IP address, thereby blocking that website and solving their problem. Unfortunately doing this also blocks the other websites sharing that IP address. This was the situation I found myself in when I renewed my hosting account. The new IP address was blocked by China and therefore my website was not accessible. Considering my content this was amounted to a show-stopper issue.

I decided to deal with this issue recently as it clearly wasn’t going to go away on it’s own. I tried to get the hosting company to move my site or allow me to change servers, essentially anything to give me a new IP address, unfortunately there was nothing they could do. Eventually I discovered that my viable solution short of changing hosting companies would be to move to a dedicated IP address where my site would be assigned it’s own IP address.

So, for a dollar or two a month my site not sits on a dedicated IP and is once again fully accessible in China. It would have been nice to come up with a free solution, but I just view it as a part of doing business in China. Sure I can eat out every night , hire a maid and taxi everywhere, but I can’t order books from Amazon, I need a VPN to access Facebook and my site needs a dedicated IP address.

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.

For the last several years I’ve been leaving China for CNY and this year is no different, I am headed to Seoul, South Korea. Getting out of China for a short time allows me to recharge in a way that’s not possible in Shanghai. It will be nice to forget about Shanghai for a week and see a new place.

As usual, I don’t have an itinerary. There are a few site I feel obligated to see, but largely I’ll be relaxing. I want to sample a wide variety of authentic Korean food, read a few books and generally be lazy for a week.

Along the way I’ll be taking quite a few pictures. Currently I have a Panasonic LX-2 that I’l be taking with me. It is 10.2 megapixel compact camera modeled after the Leica D-Lux 3. It’s a tiny camera with a lot of power and because of that it’s what I take most of my pictures with. The battery will stay charged long enough to take several days worth of shots and the 2GB memory card rarely fills up.

When I get back to Shanghai I’m going to dump all my photos into the Apple’s new Aperture 3 and within 30 days I need to decide if it’s a worthy investment. Currently all my photos are managed in iPhoto which is fine, but lately it’s become cumbersome.

I’ll be sure to take lots of pictures of food while I’m in Korea but I’m not sure any of those dishes will make it onto Kung Fu Eats, but the pictures will certainly appear in Flickr. Wheel’s up in just a few days, and it’s looking like a fun ride.

Wheat is primarily composed of wheat gluten and wheat starch. Separated from the starch by rinsing in cold water, the gluten contains 80% of the wheat’s protein. Gluten is responsible for the chewiness found in bagels and other baked goods.

Throughout China and Japan and more recently into the Western world, wheat gluten, know also as seitan, is used in the creation of vegetarian foods and particularly vegetarian meat. In China wheat gluten is commonly fried, steamed, or baked resulting in widely varying textures and shapes.

Kǎo fū (烤麸）as shown in the dish above is a baked version of wheat gluten that is first leavened (most likely using baking powder) and then baked or steamed. The wheat gluten takes on a spongy texture littered with air bubbles. The sauce in this dish is made using sugar, soy sauce, and star anise. Boiled peanuts cloud ear mushrooms and shitake mushrooms are then added to the mix to make this Shanghai appetizer. Here’s a recipe to try at home.

Often served warm, but just as likely to be served cold or at room temperature, the wheat gluten cubes absorb the sauces during the cooking process. The spongy texture is unique but not off putting, and when combined with the soft mushrooms and slightly crunchy peanuts a whole array of textures serve to stimulate the mouth. When the dish is served warm, the sweetness explodes, but when served cold the flavors are more subdued. Think of it as the difference between eating warm chocolate cake and eating chilled chocolate cake, both are good but in different ways.

This is a great dish for kids, and those with a sweet tooth. Appealing to a wide audience, especially a Western audience, this makes for a great appetizer when finicky eaters are likely.

Sometimes eating is an adventure and other times adventure isn’t really what’s called for. On those less adventurous days consider this dish as an option. Enjoy.

Humans have two kidneys located on the left and right side of the spine fairly low in the abdomen. Male kidneys are slightly larger than a females and the left kidney is generally larger than the right. Kidneys secrete hormones, play a significant role in the regulation of blood pressure, and remove waste from the body in the form of urine.

Unfortunately, pig kidneys cannot be transplanted into humans, so many of them end up in rendering plants and are turned into fertilizers or fuels. However, some pig kidneys are eaten as offal by cultures throughout the world even though they are high in purines which may increase the risk of gout.

Pig kidneys are commonly eaten throughout all of China. This dish comes from a restaurant specializing in Xi’an food (located in northwest China). There is a lot going on in this dish. From the picture you can see cloud ear mushrooms, red peppers, onions, green peppers, and of course kidney. Like many Chinese dishes garlic and ginger were both used along with soy sauce, sugar and salt.

The dish is spicy and the mixture of ingredients produces a great flavor. The food had a chance to absorb the sweet and savory sauce while cooking, and now the sauce can fade away and let the food shine. Kidney has a unique shape that reminds me of a sea anemone and a unique texture that reminds me of the squeaky feeling of cheese curd. As for the taste of kidney I am reminded of liver but a more mild and less gamey version while the shape allows it to pick up pleasant flavors from the sauce.

Chinese food can be delicious and it can also be bizarre. This dish is both. Sometimes it is worth while to go out on a limb and try something out of the ordinary. Many people may be turned off just by the thought of eating kidney, but try to overcome those preconceived and often warrantless judgements until you’ve had the opportunity to try for yourself. Remember eating should be fun and adventurous and sometimes even a little bizarre, so what are you waiting for, get out there and try it.

Since I don’t routinely cook in Shanghai I post few recipes on Kung Fu Eats. I am determined to change that. Recipes allow the more adventurous to sample a bit of China in their own homes.

Unfortunately, I think the vast majority of recipes out there today limit people’s creativity. Cooking has become little more than a mundane manufacturing task in the modern home. The mass market pre-packaged plague of modern civilization removes all the enjoyment from an otherwise creative adventure.

Expect to see more recipes on Kung Fu Eats. I won’t be adding them for every dish, but they will appear from time to time. The recipes will be left a little vague so there will be ample room to add your own flair and adjust them to your liking.

Cooking should be a challenging and creative endeavor. Along the way though, be sure to have fun and try to learn something with each exciting escapade.

Originally a South American vegetable with origins in Peru and Chile, it wasn’t until the 1600s near the end of the Ming Dynasty that potatoes were introduced to China. Originally a vegetable reserved for the rich and royal it became an important crop during the Qianlong reign in the late 1700s. Today China produces over a third of the world’s potato crop and is the world’s largest potato producing country even though per capita consumption of potatoes in China remains low.

Potatoes contain a selection of vitamins and minerals that are important for human health including thiamine and several phytochemicals. Potatoes also contain glycoalkaloids which are toxic to humans though there haven’t been any potato related poisonings in the USA in over 50 years.

Potatoes are easy to cultivate and do well in cool damp weather. Unfortunately, potatoes are prone to a number of pests and even organic potatoes are often sprayed with a copper pesticide. Potatoes have a tendency to spoil easily if mishandled or stored incorrectly, as a result nearly all potatoes are grown domestically which means they are less susceptible to global price fluctuations and overproduction.

The string bean and potato dish above combines two common vegetables found throughout the Western world and puts them together in a very Shanghai fashion that has a unique and appealing flavor. The dark brown soy sauce and sugar mixture that is common in Shanghai food is added to the wok after the vegetables have had some time to cook in a bit of oil. As the sugar cooks it releases caramelized flavors that help to tame the sweetness. Meanwhile, the soy sauce adds a savory element and a deep dark color that enhances this vegetarian dish.

This isn’t an exotic dish made with bizarre ingredients that you didn’t even know existed, rather it is made out of ingredients that are likely in your kitchens right now. Chinese food is inventive and creative, but it isn’t scary, this dish is a great way to break into the world of Chinese food and it can even be done right from your home. Give this one and try and enjoy it in it’s simplicity.

Preferring to grow in cool weather Chinese chives make an ideal Spring or Autumn vegetable. The leaves are used to flavor dishes with their mild garlic flavor, while the tall white flowers can be eaten or used as an ornamental decoration. Chinese chives can be used in many of the same ways that scallions might be used.

Containing Vitamins A, B, C, iron and calcium Chinese chives are nutritious vegetables and they are also a valuable tool in Chinese medicine. They contain many of the same compounds as garlic and their oils help to aid in healing bruises, and easing mild food poisoning.

The Chinese chives and scrambled duck eggs dish above is an excellent example of what can be done with a rather ordinary vegetable. This is also a great example of a simple dish that can be considered part of Chinese home style cooking. The slight garlic flavors of the chives come through and mingle with the salty flavors of the scrambled eggs. The duck eggs provide a rich full bodied taste that feels thicker than chicken eggs. Of course chicken eggs could have easily been substituted without a substantial difference. The chives wilt upon cooking, but are often stringy, though not in an displeasing manner.

Trying this dish at home is quite simple. Mix the eggs together with a bit of salt pour them into a heated oiled wok and scramble till they are cooking but still runny, then add the Chinese chives and mix them until the eggs are cooked and the vegetables are wilted. Use a medium heat and be careful to not overcook the eggs.

This is a simple dish that uses ingredients not so unusual from what might be found in any Western kitchen, but they are put together in an unexpected way that delivers a fresh perspective on what could otherwise be a dull meal. Get out there and try this dish, cook it, eat it, enjoy it.

My apartment is located right in the center of downtown Shanghai. Busses, metros, and taxis are plentiful and yet most nights I eat within a ten minute walk of the place I sleep. I visit two particular restaurants two to three times a week while half a dozen others few times a month. I’ve been living in the same place for over three years and visiting the same few restaurants. The wait staff recognize me and know the dishes I like. The food won’t win awards, but it is good wholesome fare.

Is this a bad thing, definitely not. It’s nice to be known and it’s nice to be in familiar places and around familiar faces. But sometimes I do think maybe I’ve become too much a creature of habit. I should eat more adventurously, the selection is innumerable, there are hidden gems all around the city to be discovered yet I rarely try to seek them out anymore, instead I covet the gems I’ve discovered.

When I was first finding my legs in Shanghai, everyday was an adventure of one sort or another. If I want an adventure now I need to seek it out. I’m going to try taking up the call to action and rediscover parts of the city I’ve lost and along the way I’ll be eating and I’m excited of the discoveries I’ll be making.

There are over a dozen different kinds of jelly fungus and most of them are edible, a few of them are delicacies, and a few of them are commonly found in dishes throughout Asia.  Jelly fungi have earned their name because they have the consistency of jelly or something a bit more rubbery.

Cloud ear fungus and wood ear fungus are two closely related types of jelly fungus that are commonly seen in Asian food.  Their names come from the fact that without too much imagination they look very much like clouds or ears.  They are found in forests throughout Asia and much of the world growing on a variety of trees and are often found attached to Mango, Kapok and Elder trees.  Recently scientists have discovered that they have some blood thinning/anti-coagulating properties, Chinese medicine has been using them for hundreds of years for those same properties.

Snow fungus looks very similar to cloud ear/wood ear fungus with the exception that it is white or translucent.  However it is an entirely different species of mushroom that can be found throughout most of the subtropical world growing on a variety of hardwood trees.

Cloud ear/wood ear and snow fungus are generally sold dried in supermarkets throughout China.  They can be soaked in water for a few hours at which point they retake their former shape and texture.  They are mostly tasteless absorbing the flavors of the food they are cooked in.  Traditionally snow fungus is used in sweet dishes and the others are used in savory dishes.

The dish pictured above was served as an appetizer.  The mushrooms were tossed in a wasabi, vinegar and oil mixture with julienned strips of carrot, cabbage, cilantro and Chinese radish.  It wasn’t spicy as the name implies, rather it was tangy, the wasabi was very mild and I give credit to the chef for knowing how to balance the flavors nicely.  The small cloud ear mushrooms were delicate and crispy and the added vegetables provided flavors and textures that really benefited the dish.  I especially noticed that the sweetness from the carrots brought the flavors to the next level.  I’ve had this same dish at other restaurants and hot peppers were used as a substitute for the wasabi, personally I enjoyed the wasabi as it is so rarely used in Chinese cooking, but both variations are pleasant.

This dish can be found at various restaurants around the city, it is almost always available at higher end restaurants, but can also be found frequently at more reasonably priced establishments.

Sometimes a name is strong enough to make a dish unappealing, and this dish is a prime example of a unique treat on a Chinese menu that might be passed over simply because of it’s name.  So take a moment to forget the name and venture just a bit into the unknown with this dish.  Enjoy it, Devour it.

When cornstarch, also known as cornflour or maize starch, is mixed with water or milk it becomes something known as a dilatant, which means that it flows easily enough ordinarily, but under high velocity the liquid becomes much more viscous and acts similar to a solid. Military research is being conducted with dilatants right now because it is believed that the right dilatant would hold all the properties of great body armor. However, in cooking, cornstarch is generally used as a thickening agent for soups and liquids.

Cornstarch is derived from the starch of the corn kernel. Both the germ and the endosperm of the corn kernel contain starch, but the majority of the starch comes from the endosperm. The germ is the part of a grain that contains all the genetic material to produce a new plant, it’s essentially the plant embryo. The germ is rich in antioxidants and other nutrients but is typically removed from refined grains. Endosperm on the other hand surrounds the germ and provides nutrients to the plant embryo, it is the primary component in many refined grains such as wheat flour and rice flour .

To extract cornstarch from a corn kernel, the corn is first soaked in hot water for 30 to 40 hours. The kernels are ground which separates the germ from the endosperm. Starch, which is water soluble, is washed away from the gluten in cold water. Then centrifuges are used to collect the starch and from there it is processed into cornstarch.

Occasionally pregnant women suffer from a condition called Amylophagia in which they compulsively eat refined starches, chief among them is cornstarch.

This dish makes a great choice on frigid wintry days when the cold is especially biting. It is served nearly boiling and stays hot for a long time due to the cornstarch thickened soup. It’s a simple dish composed of just tofu, ham, spring onions and soup.

The ham isn’t exactly ham, rather it’s salt cured pork and therefore is much saltier and drier than regular ham. These characteristics are used to their full advantage in this dish by naturally adding salt and flavor to the soup while the meat is softened and provides a rewarding texture. The soup isn’t exactly soup either. It’s not something you can really drink like a soup rather the soup clings to the tofu and is simply eaten. The dish tastes nice and has a certain home style appeal to it, the salt plays well with the tofu and the thick soup warms the body deep down.

Try this dish, it’s very palatable to Western taste buds even though it’s basically all tofu. Eating should be an experience which means from time to time it’s necessary to step away from the known and experience a little of the unknown. This is a pretty common dish and isn’t too wild and it is served all year round so you’ve got no excuses, try it, enjoy it.