Called dou chi in Mandarin and dul see in Cantonese, you may know them as the punchy dark flecks in the sparerib nuggets at dim sum. But fermented black beans are remarkably versatile. The beans can star as the gutsy seasoning responsible for the signature flavor of such favorites as clams with black bean sauce. But they don’t mind playing a supporting role too. When braised with meat, they recede into the background to lend an alluring earthiness to the sauce. Use them in vegetarian dishes to imbue ingredients such as tofu with umami depth. Or add them to chile oil to establish a savory backbone.

I keep a supply tucked into my refrigerator door, where it seems to last indefinitely. (Prepared black bean sauces taste monochromatic, so I don’t use them.) When first using the beans, they can seem tricky. Accidentally put too many into the wok and their saltiness prevails, throwing off the flavor balance. One remedy, says acclaimed cookbook author Grace Young (“Stir-Frying to the Sky’s Edge”), is to rinse and mash them first. “Otherwise the flavor is too intense,” she explains.

Some cooks don’t rinse the beans, and I lean toward that camp, achieving balance by reducing the salt or soy sauce in my recipes instead. Whether to mash, chop or keep the beans intact depends on how you want them to play with other ingredients. Render them into small bits to disperse their flavor throughout. Or allow whole beans to plump up during cooking to inject sparks of flavor into every mouthful.

Another useful application is using them in vegetarian stock, as Fuchsia Dunlop suggests in “Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook.” The beans’ umami is released into the brew, which has a porcini-like fragrance.

Look for fermented black beans at Chinese and Southeast Asian markets, usually in the dried, pickled and preserved vegetables aisle. Plastic packages of the beans are fine so long as the beans look bright and fresh, not mashed and old. Use just the beans and discard other bits, such as ginger, that may come in the package.

By Andrea Nguyen. Read Entire Article.

Grace Young shared a few more tips during our stir-fry lesson:

Get everything ready before you start to heat the wok. You won’t have time to stop and chop anything.

Mince ginger with a knife; don’t grate it on a microplane. Grated ginger creates too much liquid, which can be hazardous when you add it to hot oil.

Don’t stir-fry with a wooden spoon. Wooden utensils can’t get under stuck food as well as a fish spatula, which Young recommends.

Pat dry unmarinated meat or seafood before stir-frying. Any water can lower the temperature of the wok.

To clean the wok: Rinse with hot water and wipe out with a soft sponge. Dry by placing back on the burner over low heat; never dry a wok with a paper towel or cloth.

To do a wok facial: Heat wok on high heat until a drop of water evaporates in 1 to 2 seconds. Remove from heat. Add 2 teaspoons salt and 1 teaspoon peanut or vegetable oil. With three paper towels folded into a thick pad, scrub the wok with the salt-oil mixture. The salt will rub off any food debris and the oil will moisturize the surface. Wipe the wok clean. Rinse with hot water and a damp soft sponge. Dry the rinsed wok on a burner over low heat until totally dry.

By: Andrea Weigl. Read Full Article.

As proud as the Chinese people are of their thousands of years of gastronomic culture, even a Chinese native can feel disoriented when going to another province, given all the different styles of cooking. Many of the food names, often unique to different provinces, get lost in translation, especially in booming cities starting to embrace overseas tourists.

With few English speakers, restaurants usually translate their menus word by word directly from an English-Chinese dictionary. Or they just Google the Chinese characters. A photo that made the rounds online a few years ago got a chuckle from a lot of people: a restaurant with a large “page not found” sign above its door as its English name.

But the Beijing Municipal government hopes to end such unintended jokes with its new guidebook intended for the public and restaurants alike, “Enjoy Culinary Delights: The English Translation of Chinese Menus.”

The effort began in 2006 with a “Beijing speaks English” campaign. By the 2008 Summer Olympics, officials had created a draft guide with translations for major restaurants to meet the demand for arriving athletes and tourists.

By: By Bo Gu. Read Full Article.

Hutong Cuisine (hutongcuisine.com), a small cooking school in the alleys behind the Forbidden City, is run by the brother-sister duo Chao and Chunyi. Sign up for a morning or evening class and learn to prepare five Beijing, Cantonese or Sichuan dishes, chosen from a menu that lists favourites such as gongbao chicken and prawn siu mai. You’ll also get to sample some of the dishes for your lunch/dinner. The class lasts a little over three hours and costs 260 yuan (Dh152) per person. If you have the time, tack on a market tour (70 yuan; Dh40) and a quick lesson in basic Chinese condiments (30 yuan; Dh17); both are quite informative and take place before the cooking class. Book online and at least a day in advance – the classes fill up quickly.

Edible Adventures (edibleadventures.net) has a one-day “Beijing Breakfast” walking tour. The guide will meet you in your hotel lobby at 8.30am and take you through the hutongs to sample local snacks and staple foods. The tour ends with a cooking class and dinner.

Its two-day “Eats and Arts” walking tour begins in Beijing’s Creative Art District, allowing visitors to explore the city’s galleries and soak up its cafe culture. The itinerary is quite full; highlights include a stop at an all-night restaurant strip, plus a “snacking and window-shopping expedition” in the shopping district. Each tour costs from $380 (Dh1,396) for up to three guests, and includes food, drinks, transport, visit to a local market, a cooking class, popular dinner and a guide.

The Hutong (thehutong.com), a cultural exchange centre based in Beixinqiao district, is a good place to start. The Hutong’s “Kitchen” offers six kinds of cultural programmes, one of which is “All Flavours, All Tastes”. One of the events scheduled next month is a two-and-a-half-hour class titled “Chinese Kitchen: Tastes of China” that introduces visitors to three unique dishes from three different regions. You’ll also find out how to adapt and balance ingredients when cooking Chinese food in your own kitchen at home. The class costs 249 yuan (Dh145) per person.

The Kitchen also conducts weekly guided tours around local produce and meat markets. These morning walks take about an hour and 30 minutes and, at 100 yuan (Dh58) per person, are an inexpensive way to learn about local seasonal produce and basic Chinese ingredients and herbs, both in food as well as traditional Chinese medicine. Browse through the calendar for a list of upcoming events, and book online well in advance.

By: The National Staff. Read the full article.

The illegal oil, which is one of several illicit products currently being cracked down upon by the Chinese government, is made from leftover oil which is dredged from gutters behind restaurants. The oil is collected, processed and resold to other restaurants. Although it is clean in appearance, it often contains toxic substances.

The two plants, located in the city of Dongguan, were raided on Monday, according to an official with the city’s food and drug administration. However, police are still looking for the plants’ managers, the official said.

A report in Tuesday’s Guangzhou Daily newspaper stated that sanitary napkins, plastic bags and other refuse had been spotted in one of the plants’ oil containers.

He Yong, a worker at one of the plants who was severely burned after falling into an oil cooking vat last month, said that the oil was put into barrels and shipped to wholesale markets in Dongguan and the neighboring city of Shenzhen, according to the report.

He said that the low price of “gutter oil” leads many restaurants, both big and small, to buy the oil from the wholesale markets.

Law enforcement officers destroyed production facilities at the plants on Monday to prevent them from being used again, according to the report.

By: Zhangjin. Read more about this article.

Besides that, many Southeast Asian countries such as Malaysia and Singapore have multi-ethnic populations. Immigrants from all over the world bring their home country dishes and then create diverse dishes, a fusion cuisine of various culture’s cooking styles.

For example, Singapore’s Nonya food is based on Chinese and Malaysian traditional cuisine, using basic Chinese cooking way but blending in Malaysian spices; Malaysia’s Teh Taric is created by the early Indian immigrants who sought to preserve India’s historic tea culture. Sweet pineapple, fragrant curries, and spicy satay transport visitors from Shanghai to a tropical beach, enjoying lazy days.

Thai food is famous for its hot chilis, harmonious blend of the spicy, sweet and sour, and the abundant fresh ingredients. Each dish appeals not only to the palate but to the eyes and nose.

Aquatic animals, plants and herbs are major ingredients; the herbs in traditional Thai cooking are also beneficial to the health.

The Thailand Pavilion at the World Expo offers food ranging from the piquant and challenging to milder sensations and flavors.

They include noodles in spicy prawn soup, chicken Khao Soi and Pad Thai with prawns, among others.

A proper Thai meal consists of a soup, a curry dish with condiments, and sometimes fish and vegetables. Though the small restaurant in the Thailand Pavilion can produce only relatively simple dishes, it uses the freshest, high quality ingredients to create a range of food.

Visitors can enjoy traditional Thai food just through three dishes at prices lower than those outside the Expo Park.

The Singapore Pavilion showcases Singaporean food and has organized varied food festivals during the Expo.

The food center at the Singapore Pavilion has four sections offering Indian, Malay, Chinese and Nonya food, around 80 different dishes. The open kitchen is glassed-in so visitors can watch the preparation.

The Indonesia Pavilion serves its unique cuisine at its enak (snack) eatery beside the pavilion in the shade. The grounds contain a small pool and boat, suggesting a tropical island. The most popular Indonesian food — satay, chicken or beef kebobs, and Indonesian fried rice, also known as the national food — are served.

Satay is a distinctive Indonesian spice and the satay in the Indonesia Pavilion is different from the satay common in Shanghai.

By English.news.cn; Read more on this.

“Westerners sometimes hold their chopsticks too low or too high,” says Chir, a Taiwan native who is also the artistic director and designer of the International Chinese Culinary Competition.

“Chopsticks should be used as if they were an extension of your arm. Proper use of chopsticks shows that you have education and good manners.”

Indeed, watching Chir maneuver chopsticks while eating food at the Radiance Tea House (158 W. 55th St.; 212-217-0442) is like watching an artist paint. With her slender right hand she deftly works the retractable stainless steel sticks she always keeps in her purse, grasping even the smallest grain of rice.

Chir demonstrates the proper way to hold chopsticks, by resting the lower stick on the ring finger and the gap between the thumb and the index finger, then gripping the second chopstick with the index finger and thumb. The bottom chopstick does not move while the top one is manipulated by the index finger.

“Using chopsticks keeps the brain in shape,” says Chir, an upper West Side resident who owns at least 36 pairs of chopsticks. “More than 100 nerves and muscles have to work in order to use the chopsticks. There is scientific research that shows people who use chopsticks are less likely to get Alzheimer’s disease.”

Chopsticks originated in China more than 4,000 years ago. According to Chir, the ruling class originally made their chopsticks out of bronze, which turned out to be poisonous, so they switched to silver and ivory. The working class most often made their chopsticks out of wood, which is more common in north China, or bamboo, more common in the south.

For Chir, the beauty of chopsticks, which are used not only in China but Japan, Korea and Vietnam, lies in their versatility. They can be used for whisking, pulling, clamping, digging, cutting and, of course, picking up various sumptuous items of food.

But chopstick etiquette isn’t simply how to hold the chopsticks, it’s also what to do with them when they are no longer in use.

“It is very rude to cross chopsticks on your plate or suck on them or leave them sticking out of your bowl of rice,” says Chir, who insists that real chopsticks must be between 6 and 8 inches long unless they are primarily used for cooking. “When you are finished with your food, place the chopsticks next to each other so that they rest on top of the bowl. That’s the polite way to say you are finished.”

And, by no means, should New Yorkers ever point them at another person at the table, unless they’re looking for a fight.

“Chopsticks are an integral part of Chinese culture,” says Chir. “If you have a Chinese girlfriend and want to impress her mother, you have to learn proper chopstick etiquette.”

By Jacob E. Osterhout. Read the entire article.

Q: You grew up in Taiwan, came to South Africa as a girl and moved with your family to the UK as a teenager, where you are now based. Do influences from all these countries reflect in your cooking?

A: Not so much South African cuisine but I draw from my mother’s improvising skills when she cooked us Chinese meals in South Africa, especially when it was so hard to find Chinese ingredients. I have very loving memories of South Africa because it was my first encounter with Western food, so trying things such as avocado, yoghurt, mielie pap, biltong, ostrich, boerewors . it was such a food adventure for me as a young child.

My cooking now is a blend of my favourite dishes, whether Taiwanese, British-Chinese, Cantonese, Sichuanese or Eastern Chinese. I like to share dishes I think are a joy to cook and eat, and of course that are accessible to the Western kitchen. I have managed to keep my identity, culture and heritage through cooking Chinese. For that I’m grateful because as a teenager growing up in UK, all I wanted to do was fit in but cooking has meant I have been able to keep my “Chinese-ness”.

Q: Have you ever been back to South Africa?

A: Yes, I was back in 2008 for the Sunday Times Food Show. It was great fun and good to be back. I miss the warmth, sunshine and a good braai.

Q: Many people only consider Chinese food a greasy takeaway option. How do you go about changing this perception?

A: Chinese “fast food” is very different from home-style cooking, which is much lighter and healthier. At home, soups, stir-fries and steamed dishes are cooked more often than deep fried dishes. You also use fresh ingredients and can see exactly what you are putting into your food, which makes you eat more consciously. So my recipes try to reflect the diversity of Chinese food, traditional dishes and regional dishes so people can appreciate that Chinese food is not just served in a takeaway.

Q: Who taught you how to cook?

A: My grandmother influenced me a lot because I lived with her before my family moved to South Africa. Although I was very young, I grew up watching her in the kitchen cooking on her enormous wok and working her magic. In South Africa and the UK, my mother influenced and taught me. When I was 11, my mother started going away a lot for work and I was responsible in the kitchen, so I started young. It started as a necessity and I grew to love it.

Q: What are the cornerstones of Chinese cooking?

A: Chinese food is very much about sharing and giving. Food is a means of expression and, in China, the most common greeting is “Ni chi fan le meiyou?” which means “Have you eaten?” No matter which part of China you come from, everyone is united by this single bond – the passion for sharing good food.

Eating seasonally and with balance is also very important, understanding the balance of yin and yang energy in ingredients as well as in methods of cooking. The goal is to nourish the body with the right foods giving it the right energy it needs.

Q: One of the essentials of Chinese cooking is a wok. Which is the best to buy?

A: If you have an electric hob, use a flat-bottomed wok, but the best is to have a gas hob and either a flat-bottomed wok or round-bottomed (but you will need a wok ring to keep it stable). Woks come typically in two materials, carbon steel and cast iron. Carbon steel is lighter and, if you are a beginner, buy a non-stick one as it is easier to look after. However, when you are used to wok cooking, invest in an unseasoned carbon steel or cast-iron wok and create your own seasoning. It is healthier this way as some non-stick coating can be toxic if heated over 230°C.

Make sure you buy a wok light enough to handle for tossing the food. I like a 14-inch wok (cooks for a family of three to four) with a bamboo handle, so it’s easier to lift. With a wok, you can cook soups, braise, steam, shallow-fry, deep-fry and stir-fry, so it pays to invest in a good one.

Q: What are some essential store cupboard ingredients for Chinese cooking?

A: Light soy sauce, dark soy sauce, a good quality oyster sauce, Chinese five spice powder, toasted sesame oil, Shaoxing rice wine (or dry sherry). Use groundnut oil or vegetable oil for cooking.

Q: You have published three books, China Modern, Chinese Food Made Easy andChinese Food in Minutes. Out of all your recipes, is there one you go back to again and again?

A: There are so many I rely on! But if there is one, it would have to be my seafood congee.

Q: You are well known for your healthy touch to Chinese cooking. Share a traditional recipe that you have given a healthy makeover.

A: It would have to be my grandmother’s traditional zong zi or bamboo-wrapped rice dumplings. She used to use fatty belly pork and salted duck egg, fill the dumpling with raw rice, fried peanuts and the pork and egg yolk, then either boil or steam them for hours until the rice was cooked. I use cooked rice, seasoned and stir-fried. For the filling, I use lean chicken, stir-fried with Chinese mushrooms, five spice, soy and shallots, cashew nuts and then wrap them in the bamboo leaves so they are ready to eat. It takes half the time and is much healthier.

Q: MSG is something we are told to avoid yet the Chinese use liberal amounts of it in their cooking. Why?

A: MSG was not made in China. It is from Japan and was introduced to Chinese cooking. I don’t believe in its use because fresh ingredients have natural glutamates in them so it is not necessary to add it to food, especially if you use quality ingredients. When MSG is added, there is only one flavour profile and that is salty, whereas flavours should always be more balanced. Chinese food is subtle and the mixture of ingredients should give it layers of flavour.

By Hilary Biller. Read the article here.

Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Douglas Southard ruled there is enough evidence to try Chun Ren Chen, a former busboy at Jade Palace on California Avenue, on charges of attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon and aggravated mayhem. He faces 10 years to life in prison if convicted, according to the district attorney’s office.

Chen is accused of stabbing the cook several times in the back with the cleaver on May 27, 2009. The apparent victim and Palo Alto police Detective Anjanette Holler testified at a brief preliminary hearing Monday morning, said Deputy District Attorney Jim Demertzis.

At the request of the district attorney’s office, The Daily News is withholding the name of the victim, who fears for his safety after testifying.

According to police reports, Chen and the cook had been feuding for weeks and blamed each other for starting the fight, which culminated in the cleaver attack. Chen has alleged his co-worker was trying to grab a weapon of his own.

Chen was arrested at his Fremont home the morning after the alleged attack.

He is scheduled to return to court Oct. 4 to be arraigned on the charges.

By Jesse Dungan. Find the article.

Wine body is ‘amazed’ at pace and endurance of China market growth

Bordeaux sales to China have doubled every year for the last five years, according the Conseil Inter-professionel du Vin de Bordeaux (CIVB).

The rapid and sustained growth saw sales hit £84m in the first half of 2010, catapulting China past Britain to become the largest export market.

While it was no secret that some wealthier Chinese had developed a taste for the region’s most expensive wines, the CIVB said consumption had been doubling as well.

This meant China also surpassed Germany as Bordeaux’s number one importer by volume in the second quarter.

Thomas Jullien, the CIVB’s director of marketing in Asia, told Sky News: “China has a strong thirst for wine and Bordeaux is a point of reference in the wine world.

“But to be honest I had expected it to reach a plateau earlier and I’m amazed at the growth figures.”

London-based wine merchant Berry Bros. & Rudd has also witnessed a fast-growing appetite for Bordeaux.

The group – which cites the fact that its 15-year-old Hong Kong merchant is China’s oldest as evidence of the market’s relative immaturity – has seen trade triple in the last three years, now accounting for a third of total Bordeaux sales.

Berry Bros. & Rudd sales and marketing director Simon Staples told Sky News it was still only glimpsing the “tip of the iceberg”, with only a handful of customers on China’s mainland.

“It’s been a really slow burner; it wasn’t until the last three years when we went into recession over here, that the fine wine market in Hong Kong really took off.

“They were just going for the top, top, top wines, but now they’re after education and there’s interest, which makes it far more sustainable, so that’s good.”

Mr Jullien said the CIVB had boosted its marketing in China, teaching the local population about wine and making a home for Bordeaux there.

“It’s key to be able to make wine part of the culture and in China meals are very important.

“China is enormous and all over the country you have a different cuisine, so what we do is we put the diversity of Chinese cooking in front of the whole diversity of Bordeaux wine – you have rose, sweet wine, dry white and tannic reds.

“There’s a red pork dish you have in Shanghai that goes with a tannic red wine perfectly; you get a little bit of fat, a greasy feeling in the mouth and the tannin in the wine wipes it out. It’s an interesting combination.

“To be honest, we’re still just scratching the surface on this – it’s fascinating.”

Mr Staples was also licking his lips at the prospect of wine’s future in Asia – and his eye is already wandering to other items on the menu.

“China’s a very interesting market – but what’s even more exciting and more sustainable is that India is just taking to wine and they’re more likely to drink it more often.”

By Ed Merrison at Sky News Online. Read full article.

Besides being a TCM doctor, Lee is a licensed acupuncturist, medical qigong instructor and Eastern nutritionist with private practices in Pasadena and Venice. Valencia is a holistic chef who received her training from the Kushi Institute, a renowned macrobiotic educational and healing center in Massachusetts. She privately cooks and teaches in Los Angeles, Las Vegas and Mexico City.

In Traditional Chinese Medicine, the lungs and colon are the most susceptible organs affected by the fall season, according to Lee. This is a time when imbalances related to these organs–including allergies, asthma, colds, constipation, dry skin and wrinkles, and sadness and grief– appear or worsen. To combat these conditions, Lee and Valencia have come up with this “energizing and stabilizing” grain-based soup.

In the following recipe, millet and pumpkin seeds counter dry conditions by lubricating and strengthening the lungs and colon, Lee says. Squash contains beta-carotene, which boosts immune system function and protects the lungs and colon against colds and the flu.

The class will be held at 74 N. Fair Oaks Blvd. in Pasadena. The cost is $25 and includes cooking ingredients and recipes. Call (323) 540-4180 for more information or to sign up. Class is limited to 15 people.

Millet-Corn Chowder with Sweet Squash
From: Chinese medicine doctor Henry Lee and holistic chef Vicky Valencia
Note: Kombu is a seaweed available at Asian markets and at Whole Foods.
Serves: 4

½ cup millet, rinsed and drained
4-6 cups of water, depending on desired consistency
1 X 4″ to 1 x 6″ piece of kombu, soaked in water for 10 minutes until reconstituted
1 cup of fresh corn, removed from a single corn cob
1 small onion, diced
1 celery rib, diced
1 cup of half-inch cubed kobocha squash, or other sweet squash of choice (such as butternut)
½ tsp sea salt or 1-2 tbsp of white miso or brown rice miso, diluted in a small amount of water
1 tbsp sesame oil, or ¼ cup water for a water sauté

Soup garnish:

¼ cup roasted pumpkin seeds, rinsed and drained
a pinch of both shiso powder and nori flakes
1 scallion, thinly sliced

1. Heat oil or water in a 4-quart pot. Saute onions, celery, corn and salt for about three minutes, or until the vegetables are translucent. Add the millet, kombu and water. To create a quick stock, add the remaining corn cob to the pot, which will sweeten the dish. Bring to a boil, cover, place a flame deflector under the pot and simmer for 25 to 30 minutes.

2. Roast the pumpkin seeds on a medium to medium high flame, stirring constantly, for about eight to 10 minutes, until they turn golden brown. Remove from heat immediately by placing in a bowl.

3. After 30 minutes, remove the kombu from the soup. Then add the squash, sea salt and additional water if needed, and continue to cook until the squash is soft, about eight to 10 minutes. If you add miso instead of salt, add the diluted miso after the squash is cooked, and let it gently simmer for three to four minutes (be careful not to let it boil, which will destroy beneficial enzymes). Immediately remove pot from stove, garnish with the pumpkin seeds, scallion, shiso and nori, and serve.

By Samantha Bonar. Read this full article.

Poaching is an often overlooked way of cooking a delicate protein – generally chicken, fish or eggs – that submerges it in a barely simmering liquid (about 160 to 180 degrees); the surface of the liquid shimmers, showing few, if any, bubbles. Up the heat a bit, to about 185 degrees, and you’ve gotten to a simmer, which is the heat level for braising. Crank the heat up even further, and you’ve reached a boil, used for cooking pasta, blanching vegetables and more.

My Great Uncle Yuen, a partner in my family’s Chinese restaurant when I was growing up, did great deal of poaching. He loved poached chicken, which he ate many times each week. He would place a whole chicken into the huge, barely simmering cauldron of chicken stock that was always on the burner, and then would go back to working. A couple of hours later, he would fish out the chicken, set it aside, and then eat it when he could.

If he didn’t have time to take a lunch break, he would wrap up the cooled poached chicken and refrigerate it. Later, he’d bring it out of hiding, chop it up and eat it cold. Uncle Yuen often used hot broth or made a quick sauce to take off the chill.

I haven’t poached a chicken in quite a while until lately, when I realized again how much sense it made. Poaching is easy and doesn’t require much attention. Chicken is relatively inexpensive, and when poached, doesn’t need its skin to remain moist so there is less fat overall. An added plus: Poached chicken can be used in many recipes.

I’ve developed a master recipe for poached chicken that uses ginger-infused water, which eventually becomes an Asian-style broth, but you can also use different flavorings to take the broth in a new direction (see accompanying suggestions).

Besides keeping the chicken moist, poaching allows the chicken to absorb flavor; in return, the chicken contributes its essence to its cooking water.

Once the chicken is cooked, remove the meat from the carcass; the carcass then goes back into the poaching liquid to simmer. Ingredients such as carrots, celery, more onion and herbs can be added to make soup. Or you can keep the broth simple, making it easy to freeze and use in other recipes.

Back in the day, we really were not concerned about how to freeze Uncle Yuen’s leftover poached chicken – because there usually was none left. The only thing we worried about was who would get the last piece.

Playing with flavor

Use your imagination and think outside the box for interesting combination to flavor poaching water. Here are some ideas:

– Bay leaf and oregano
– Cardamom, cinnamon and curry leaves
– Fennel seed and marjoram
– Thyme or rosemary and whole black peppercorns
– Oregano, whole coriander and toasted cumin seed
– Caraway, juniper berries and thyme
– Five-spice and soy sauce

Poaching tips

Yield: A 5-pound chicken provides about 2 pounds of cooked, boneless meat, which can be made into several two-person meals.

Sauce: If you want to enjoy the chicken straightaway as it comes out of the pot, serve some of the meat with my version of Uncle Yuen’s chicken sauce: Combine 2 parts double-strength chicken broth with 1 part oyster sauce, a dash of pepper and an optional drop or two of Asian-style toasted sesame seed oil. Garnish with sliced green onion. Serve the chicken with steamed rice and vegetables.

Uses: Breast meat is best used in sandwiches. Cubes of breast or dark meat are good in vegetable salads. Irregularly shaped dark meat is good in stir-fries, pastas and chicken salad.

Storage: Leftover poached chicken should last several days, well-wrapped, in the refrigerator. You can freeze it if you first submerge it in some broth, which helps protect the meat from freezer burn.

by Lynne Char Bennett. Read entire article.

The market is worth an annual 10billion yuan (£1billion) having quadrupled in the past five years. For comparison, the British organic market is worth roughly £2billion. Interest has been promoted by a series of scares including toxic beans, contaminated milk and pork, pesticide-laced dumplings, chemically-tainted chicken, and the growing presence of what is known as “sewage oil”.

Night soil collectors typically visit the drains behind restaurants late at night to scoop up dregs of oil, which they filter and resell.

The government, which released the figures, has promised to take action against the practice. But since there are no laws against skimming oil from drains, police have had to release any suspects.

In April, a man was caught in broad daylight collecting oil at a sewer in Zhengzhou, Henan province, which he admitted intending to sell to street food vendors for 300 yuan a barrel.

“There is no way to prevent this oil from returning to the food chain,” said Zhen Zhiquan, 32, the manager of a company in Qingdao that turns sewage oil into biofuel.

“Companies like us buy around 10 to 20 per cent of the oil that is dredged from the sewers, but at least 80 per cent is recycled,” he said.

Xie Lili, 25, runs an organic store on the internet. In the aftermath of the oil scare, she said she had seen “a huge increase” in demand for organic salts, oils and spices.

“The volume is 10 to 15 times greater. People became quite scared and preferred to cook at home,” she added.

In the Shanghai suburb of Nanhui, famous for its peaches, the 4,000-acre Duoli Organic Farm was founded in 2005 and left fallow for three years to allow pesticides to seep out of the soil.

“In Shanghai, because land is scarce and the city has 20 million people, farmers are using up to four times the recommended amount of pesticides to boost their yields,” said Wang Tao, the head of the farm’s quality control department. In 2009, Duoli’s sales were 30 million yuan. This year, it expects revenues to more than double.

To encourage more sustainable farming, the Shanghai government provided 140  million yuan out of the farm’s 200 million yuan start-up costs. It sent scientists from local universities to help to develop new farming methods.

By Malcolm Moore. Read the entire article at Telegraph.co.uk

Dear Cecil, I’ve heard it often said and experienced it myself on various continents (including Asia): you enjoy a terrific Chinese, or Thai, or Malay dinner, only to feel hungry again a short while later. Is this our imagination playing a trick on us appreciators of Chinese cuisine? Or is it a western counterpart to the fact that many Asians don’t tolerate milk? — Erwin Kuhn, Germany

Cecil replies:
We had a helluva time with this one, Erwin. The problem wasn’t just coming up with an answer. It was figuring out the question, which we’ve gotten in different forms over the years.

Possibilities:
1. Why, after eating Chinese food, do you soon feel hungry again?
2. Do you, in fact, after eating Chinese food, soon feel hungry again?
3. People used to say that after eating Chinese food one soon feels hungry again. Now they don’t. What changed?

All we were able to establish initially was that, long ago (at least), people did in fact say the Saying, as I’ll refer to it, and that this wasn’t some mass hallucination. My assistant Una found the following fragment from a dramatic piece published in the literary magazine Golden Book in 1934:

julie (in a flat tone): Yes, but the trouble with that Chinese food is, no matter how much you eat you feel hungry an hour later. Have you ever noticed that?

ham (the Orientalist): It’s the rice.

The easily satisfied will say, “So there you have it — it’s the rice,” and move on. Those of subtler bent will inquire more closely. This Julie — why is she speaking in a flat tone? Has she been drugged? Has Ham, the glib Orientalist, put something in her lo mein? I have no idea, and if we waste any more time on such flighty inquiries we’ll soon run out of column. However, having eaten considerable quantities of the impugned starch without subsequently experiencing premature hungriness, I feel confident in saying: it’s not just the rice.

What, then, is it? I’m working on that. Some preliminary observations:

* I don’t personally feel hungry soon after eating Chinese food, nor do I hear the Saying much these days. I therefore incline to the view that while the Saying may have been true years ago, it’s not true now.
* Different foods are digested at different rates. One measure of digestion speed is the glycemic index (GI), which measures how quickly and how high your blood sugar levels rise after eating. This has led some to wonder if there’s a connection between GI and subjective feelings of satiety, or fullness, after a meal. Answer: no. The GI correlates with satiety for some foods but not others, and correlation varies depending on how the food was processed and the fat and protein levels of the meal overall.

* Taking a different tack, other researchers (Holt et al, 1995) have developed a satiety index, or SI. Testing satiety typically involves eating a specified calorie amount of various foods and rating how you feel over the next two hours on a scale from “extremely hungry” to “extremely full.” The ratings are then converted to a numerical score by comparing them to ratings for white bread, whose SI score is fixed at 100. From this we learn that two major components of Chinese cuisine — white rice and white pasta noodles — have much lower SI values (138 and 119 respectively) than the starch that was once a mainstay of American food (I won’t call it cuisine), namely the potato. The humble tuber has an SI of 323, by far the highest of any food tested.

By Cecil Adams from The Straight Dope

Federal prosecutors allege that 10 top executives of Alfred L. Wolff GmbH conspired to illegally import more than $40 million worth of honey from China between 2002 and 2009, and concealed its origin to avoid paying nearly $80 million in anti-dumping duties.

The U.S. Commerce Department has imposed anti-dumping duties on Chinese honey brought into the United States since 2001. The current duty is $2.06 per net kilogram.

Prosecutors say the some of the honey in this case was tainted with antibiotics, although there were no reports of illness stemming from it.

All 11 people and six corporations in the case were charged with one count of conspiracy, and most others were charged with smuggling, falsifying federal Customs and Commerce Department records, and violating food and drug safety laws. Former Alfred L. Wolff chief executive officer Alexander Wolff, of Hamburg, Germany, is among the defendants.

Also indicted is Chinese national Gong Jie Chen, also known as “George Gao” and “George Chen,” a sales manager for QHD Sanhai Honey Co. Ltd. in Qinhuangdao, Hebei Province, China. He allegedly set up QHD as a front company to conceal its Chinese origin and get out of paying anti-dumping duties.

The defendants allegedly destroyed records and other evidence in the case, including internal e-mails and documents related to the “new shipper review” process they allegedly used fraudulently to lie about the origin of the honey and get out of paying the anti-dumping duties.

Among other allegations, prosecutors claim that a purported sales contract was sent to the Chicago executives from the QHD company in China. The contract was allegedly identified as “a fake sales confirmation from George Gao.”

According to CBS affiliate WBBM, the indictment also claims a German laboratory found antibiotics in some of the honey, but sent it out to be sold to U.S. customers anyway.

The investigation into the honey laundering scheme has been ongoing for more than two years. In May 2008, Stefanie Giesselbach and Magnus von Buddenbrock, who were executives of Chicago-based Wolff GmbH affiliate Alfred L. Wolff Inc., were arrested and chose to cooperate with prosecutors.

“This alleged international fraud conspiracy engaged in illegal and predatory trade practices that threatened our nation’s domestic honey industry,” said Gary J. Hartwig, Special Agent-in-Charge of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in a press release. “The crime of importing mislabeled and adulterated goods restricts U.S. competitiveness in domestic and world markets and creates an uneven playing field for American businesses and honey importers and packers who play by the rules.”

If convicted, some of the executives could face more than 20 years in prison.

By Edecio Martinez at CBS News

Use vegetable oil: One of the main reasons to use peanut oil is its high smoke point – the temperature at which the oil’s flavor and nutrition decomposes. Additionally, peanut oil is relatively bland and some cooks argue it will not alter the flavor of ingredients. Other light oils such as vegetable oil and sunflower oil are just as effective as peanut oil in flash frying or stir-frying, and can be used without a visit to the hospital.

Use cashews: Looking for a garnish on your noodle dish? Place a handful of raw cashews on a cookie sheet and bake at 375 degrees for roughly five minutes. The nuts should exit the oven golden brown and aromatic. Sprinkle them whole, or place them in a plastic bag and crush them using a pot, on any stir-fry or noodle dish for added flavor and texture.

Use Dijon mustard and soy sauce: Peanut butter-based dressings and sauces often accompany Chinese-inspired dishes ranging from salads to spring rolls. Those allergic to peanuts could consider mixing equal parts Dijon mustard and soy sauce. This combination achieves the same viscosity as peanut sauce, and arguably adds depth of flavor with the tang from the mustard.

By Karla Yeh at the Examiner

Source: NTD Television

Held at the Friendship Palace of the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries (CPAFFC), Sichuan cooking performances and traditional Sichuan opera were on display.

Following the success of the Tea Culture event held in Beijing, Chongqing and Chizhou in April, Delicacy Culture consists of three major parts: the opening ceremony, Chengdu cooking training and competition and a cuisine trip to Chengdu later this month.

Several Sichuan chefs are scheduled to conduct cooking classes, with a dish of Gung Pao Chicken up for judging.

A trip to Chengdu will take place at the end of the month, with 50 diplomats and their spouses from over 20 countries expected to attend. Those taking part will whip up Gung Pao Chicken and leave a hand print on a memorial wall in Chengdu to mark the occasion.

The annual Friendship Competition event is now in its ninth year and aims at promoting communication among diplomats and enhancing their understanding of Chinese culture, according to the organizers.

Different cultural elements are chosen to be part of the event each year, including traditional Chinese fashion parades, Chinese cooking, tea ceremonies and interactive activities in over 100 cities and regions.

By Zhao Zhijie from Global Times

The consumer price index increased to 3.5% in August, compared to a 3.3% annual rate in July, China’s National Bureau of Statistics reported on Saturday.

The global economy has become increasingly dependent on China’s rapid expansion as an engine for growth.

But prices in the fast-growing Chinese economy have been outpacing most western economies; U.S. prices were up only 1.2% over the 12 months ending in July.

That has raised some concerns that the Chinese government might take steps to slow down growth in order to keep prices in check.

“China has to be careful,” said Robert Brusca of FAO Economics. “Their big objective is domestic stability, and domestic stability requires employment. But they can’t let inflation get away from them. So they have a tiger by the tail.”

Separately, China reported that the country’s industrial output increased 13.9%.

The increases in Chinese consumer prices have been driven by higher food prices, up 7.5% in the last 12 months. Food makes up about a third of the overall consumer price index in China, compared to only 14% of the official mix of prices in the United States. Fresh vegetables have shot up 7.7% in the last month and further price increases are expected due to a poor wheat harvest in Russia.

There is little the Chinese policymakers can do to control food prices other than provide subsidies, said Virendra Singh, director in international economics for Moody’s Economy.com.

But he said there is concern that rising food prices could spill over to the rest of the economy as workers demand higher wages.

So his firm is expecting the People’s Bank of China to move soon to raise interest rates.

In fact, the August price report got particular attention when China moved up the release of the data by two days, prompting some to speculate the move was done to give financial markets a chance to digest the news and possibly pave the way for the People’s Bank of Chinato raise interest rates.

Read the entire CNN article.