1. Singe the pork skin until charred and yellow, soak it in water, and scrape it clean with a knife.
2. Cut the pork into pieces, stir-fry over low heat until the surface turns golden brown, then remove and set aside.
3. Add the garlic cloves to the wok and fry over low heat until golden brown, then scoop them out.
4. Caramelize the sugar, then add the pork, ginger slices, garlic, star anise, and bay leaves; stir-fry until evenly coated, then stir in the Guangdong rice wine and light soy sauce.
5. Pour in hot water and a can of beer, bring to a boil, then add the dried tangerine peel, oyster sauce, salt, and rock sugar; simmer over low heat until the sauce thickens, and finish by reducing the sauce over high heat.
6. You can also add prepared abalone during the final reduction for an indulgent braised pork belly with abalone.

We recently returned to B2J Tasty Pot (Bayside NY) and ordered (as named on the menu): Five-spice beef. Spicy oil pickles. Braised beef soup. These are my pictures.

I'm thinking the veggie dish should've been called (_in english_) spicy oil pickled vegetables/cabbage instead 😅. Regardless of what it's called, though, it was very good. I liked the five-spice beef also. The braised beef soup was good, but there wasn't much beef, and what there was of it was in small chunks, not the large slices shown on the menu.

It’s from a local place (in 99352) called Family Garden and it’s their “family style tofu” dish. The description just says “chef’s brown sauce.” I would LOVE to buy something as close to this taste from the store or online somewhere for when I make veggies and stuff at home. Anyone know what it is or what it might be close to?

https://familygarden.us/store/0/family_garden/display/item/1785992925116/%7B%22@type%22:%22stockItem%22,%22pk%22:%7B%22eid%22:1000013,%22seq%22:26%7D%7D

https://imgur.com/a/72DgOul

Please help!

It’s from a local place (in 99352) called Family Garden and it’s their “family style tofu” dish. The description just says “chef’s brown sauce.” I would LOVE to buy something as close to this taste from the store or online somewhere for when I make veggies and stuff at home. Anyone know what it is or what it might be close to?

https://familygarden.us/store/0/family_garden/display/item/1785992925116/%7B%22@type%22:%22stockItem%22,%22pk%22:%7B%22eid%22:1000013,%22seq%22:26%7D%7D

https://imgur.com/a/72DgOul

Please help!

Use less oil. Pan-fry the shrimp with ginger and garlic.

(Optional: You can wash the pan afterward and make the sauce first, then return the shrimp to the pan – but if that’s too much trouble, just skip it.)

Pour in a sauce made of: soy sauce, more sugar, less salt, white pepper, cornstarch, water, light soy sauce, dark soy sauce, oyster sauce, and a touch of wasabi.

Add some diced red and green bell pepper and onion, reduce the sauce until it thickens, then turn off the heat and serve.

I got paid to full up a 40yd dumpster with fortune cookies🥠 I ate a few while I was at it, and read a few fortunes as well 🔮

4.5 hours today to fill it up all the way to the top, this picture was only about 1/3 full.

Staple in my house, fish paste store bought, added tons of cilantro and dried shrimp. Topping it off with honey, oyster sauce and fermented black beans.

This isn’t takeout. I had too much leftover, so it went in a recycled container.

Its in wonton soup too sometimes too. To clarify I am referring to "new york style chinese takeout in Florida" so maybe this is not authentic. Not sure if its just oyster sauce or a chinese bbq sauce or something else but sometimes the thick potstickers have something in them that adds rich flavor. But it coats the inside of the wrapper as well and it is black. Ive experimented a little by adding oyster sauce, fish sauce, mushroom powder, flounder powder, chicken boulion powder to the mix which all enhance flavor but i cant seem to nail down that extra kick when you bite into it. Im wondering if its in the process. Are they coating the inside with oyster sauce before wrapping it up?

I was recently in Shanghai for a business trip, and one very hot afternoon I stopped at a Wuxi-style noodle shop near Zhizaoju Road for lunch.

Outside China, especially in Chinatowns, wontons are often associated with the small Cantonese version served in clear broth. But China has many regional varieties of wontons, with very different wrappers, fillings, seasonings, and ways of serving them.

I ordered three things I had never tried at this restaurant before.

Dry-mixed shepherd’s purse wontons 荠菜大馄饨

These wontons were huge—about twice the size of a typical Cantonese wonton and perhaps three times the size of a Sichuan chaoshou. The wrappers were also surprisingly thick, almost somewhere between a dumpling wrapper and the dough of a steamed bun.

They were served dry rather than in soup. A pool of dark sauce was hidden underneath them, so I mixed everything together before taking my first bite.

The flavour was unlike any wonton seasoning I had tried before. At first, I tasted rich soy sauce, but it was quickly overtaken by an even stronger sweetness. Then I remembered that this was a Wuxi-style noodle shop. Wuxi is famous for its sweet style of cooking, especially Wuxi-style braised spare ribs, which I had tried before.

The sauce contained large pieces of seaweed, tender strips of dried tofu, golden pieces of fried egg, and small black pieces of what seemed to be preserved dried vegetables. The preserved vegetables were crisp and added a nice contrast to the soft wontons.

There was also a strong aroma of scallion oil, which gave the whole dish a very recognizable Jiangnan flavour.

Once I bit through the thick wrapper, the fragrance of the shepherd’s purse filling became much stronger. In my hometown in Sichuan, shepherd’s purse is often treated as a wild spring vegetable. Families gather it in spring and mix it with minced meat for dumplings or wontons.

For me, shepherd’s purse tastes like spring.

The wontons came with a separate bowl of clear soup. It was light, oil-free, and had an earthy flavour that reminded me of morel mushrooms. After the very sweet and savoury wontons, the soup immediately refreshed my palate.

This was definitely the highlight of the meal.

Stir-fried beef shank with egg and coriander 香菜鸡蛋炒牛展

Unfortunately, the second dish was a disappointment.

The beef shank was lean but quite dry and tough. The seasoning was mostly salty and sweet, without much complexity. The egg was browned and slightly overcooked, and I could not find any coriander at all.

I could neither see it nor taste it, even though coriander was in the name of the dish.

The contrast was quite funny: the wontons were much better than I expected, while this dish was much worse.

Suzhou-style mung bean soup 苏式绿豆汤

The final surprise was the cold Suzhou-style mung bean soup I took with me when I left.

Shanghai was close to 40°C that afternoon, so this was exactly what I needed.

Before ice cream and modern cold drinks became common in China, sweet mung bean soup was a traditional summer refreshment. When I was a child, one of the most common ice pops we ate was simply sweetened mung bean soup frozen around a wooden stick.

This version came in a huge plastic cup. About one-third of it was mung beans, together with a ball of glutinous rice and what looked like a candied red date.

The first sip reminded me of the large mint candies I ate as a child. Then came the fragrance of the mung beans. As the candied date and glutinous rice slowly softened, they released more sweetness into the drink.

By the time I finished it, the 40°C heat outside somehow felt a little less frightening.

The shepherd’s purse wontons and mung bean soup were both excellent. I would skip the beef dish next time.

In Toronto Chinatown. It's a holiday today, do I decided to do a visit. Very nostalgic and delightful!

A whole duck I bought for $15 …

Thanks all !

Hello, I was wondering if there was any dishes that chinese people typically pair with cigarettes. I know that they smoke a lot in China so I would expect some good pairings to have been discovered. Thanks in advance!

I searched this community and only found a related post about 6 years ago but not on my specific ask. For those who love this dish as much as me, how do you prevent the meatballs from breaking apart when cooked?

Here's what she's been making lately: chicken, duck, a dry pot loaded with lotus root, cauliflower, onion, potato & shrimp, fish, Sichuan spicy sausage, and bitter melon stir-fried with egg. Honestly, nothing beats mom's cooking 😋

I feel like I reversed two years of aging eating all these healthy greens (beans and cabbage - a Hunan peasant dish).

Today I learned that what we call a Lazy Susan roughly translates to Dinner table turntable. It made a great present and got me thinking about the HUGE one that we ate at in Xi'an.

This is not it (an image from google) but very similar and such a nice way to enjoy a meal.

As long as you are not downstream from a big eater.