Chinese Food Culture

Some cool food images:

Black Beans in Adobo Sauce over Cumin Rice


Image by Kristin Brenemen
Simple, cheap food to fill many people’s bellies

Black Beans in Adobo Sauce

Ingredients
1 lb dried black beans
onion
salt and pepper
cumin
chipotle in adobo sauce
1 can diced tomatoes (salt free)

Directions
Soak the beans over night. Use plenty of water!
Early the next day, top with more water and add diced onion, the tomatoes, a healthy amount of pepper, a bit of salt, healthy amount of cumin, and a small can of chipotles in adobo sauce. Cook on high for 6~10 hours, depending on how soft you want them.

This has a little kick to it, but the chipotles gives it a smoky/sweet spice. I wish I put more in it honestly since I love spicy food.

Serve with over rice and then top with japanenos, cilantro, cheese, more tomatoes, more onions… you can top with anything. I just used lots of cilantro, personally.
Note: The guys brought some cajun sausage to add to the meal, so I just skillet-cooked the meat and added it to the pot after everything was done.

Cumin Rice
I use a rice cooker.
I cooked 4 cups of rice to go with the beans, and it may not have been enough. I often use jasmine, but this week it’s just plain long grain white rice.

In a skillet: quickly melt some butter and cumin seeds (whole) until the seeds are a ltitle browned. Don’t burn the butter! Dump this in the rice cooker with the raw rice and water. Add some lime juice (I use 1-2 cap fulls of real lime juice per cup and that may be a bit conservative) and then cook rice as directed.

Yum!

Lamb and Carrot Dumplings – Original Taste – Alpha


Image by avlxyz
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Dinner for 8 at Original Taste Northern Chinese Food came to a reasonable AUD105. We were able to try a few more dishes this time, and everyone agreed that the food was good and the familiar flavours were combined in new and different ways. The salads were crunchy and light, while the stews were rich and satisfying. Wheat is the staple cereal in the North and we had dumplings andŃ different types of pancakes. With glass noodles, there was one made from sweet potato flour and flat and round varieties made from green mung bean flour. The chilli chicken could have been more of a Sichuan dish but it was crisp and tasty. According to the waitress, it is marinated in Chinese black rice vinegar.

The only problem is that I don’t remember the Chinese names because most of them were recommendations by the waitress.

Since I borrowed Hong’s 6 y.o. Fujifilm Finepix S602Zoom, we decided to compare results with our 2 y.o. Casio Exilim EX-Z8Ȓ.

As it turns out, the Finepix produced photos with better colours, but occasionally over-exposed photos, whereas the Exilim was more consistent. I wonder if the circuits inside the Finepix are getting a bit old? I remember using it for Cathy & Scott and Chris & James’ weddings and it was fine.

In terms of shutter lag and general responsiveness, the newer Exilim definitely won out over the older Finepix.

It’s probably not really fair to compare camera’s made 4 years apart!

源味香 东�Œ—è��馆
Original Taste Northern China Cuisine
930 Whitehorse Rd, Box Hill
Tel: 03 9898 8787

Julia’s photos (Casio Exilim 𖋢):
- Home-style Salad
- Jellyfish, Squid – 6 Taste Salad
- Belly Pork and Preserved Cabbage Stew – flash
- Belly Pork and Preserved Cabbage Stew
- Chicken and Mushroom Stew
- Chilli Fried Chicken

Alpha’s photos (http://www.flickr.com/cameras/fujifilm/finepix_s602_zoom/):
- Home-style Salad
- Jellyfish, Squid – 6 Taste Salad
- Belly Pork and Preserved Cabbage Stew
- Chicken and Mushroom Stew
- Chilli Fried Chicken
- Stir-Fried French Bean, Pork Mince and Preserved Vegetable
- Stir-Fried French Bean, Pork Mince and Preserved Vegetable on pancake
- Spring Onion Pancake
- Lamb and Carrot Fried Dumplings
- Feng and JX hiding

Camera reviews:
- Fujifilm Finepix S602Zoom – Digital Photography Review
- www.flickr.com/cameras/fujifilm/finepix_s602_zoom/
- Casio Exilim EX-Z850 – Digital Photography Review
- Casio Exilim 𖋢 – flickr

Even nevertheless I tout Rasa Malaysia because the on-line source for Asian cooking and recipes nowadays, I really don’t have any Filipino recipes! When I began thinking about having Filipino guest writers, I immediately thought of ChichaJo of 80 Breakfasts. I adore her beautiful blog, writing style and fab food photography. So, please welcome 80 Breakfasts to Rasa Malaysia as ChichaJo shares with us the recipe, origins, and different adaptations of Filipino adobo. Drool!

My Filipino Adobo

Guest Writer: 80 Breakfasts

Although I enjoy my local cuisine just as very much since the following Filipino (which is to say a lot!), I’m an absolute beginner in terms of cooking Filipino food. That’s why, when Rasa Malaysia asked me to guest-write a post on a Filipino dish I was a bundle of nervousness, in spite of being over-the-moon flattered! I’m just at the beginning of my journey by way of Filipino cooking and I am nevertheless fumbling by way of some of the twists and turns. Even so, I was quite excited and I knew what I wanted to compose about – adobo! Aside from it staying 1 of those dishes which are quickly related to the Philippines, I’m currently within the thick of adobo experimentation. You see, I by no means cooked this dish when I was younger (it was often prepared by an individual else) so it truly is only now that I’m flush with infatuation at adobo’s a lot of faces….(get adobo recipe and understand numerous adobo adaptations after the jump)

You will discover as many adobo recipes as there are Filipinos. Maybe more. I absolutely have additional than 1. Just taking into account recipes which would fall under categories like “the original”, “traditional”, or “best-ever” would fill up volumes and volumes of booksâ€�each varying from the subsequent. That isn’t even considering all of the reinventions, fusions, and new variations that this uncomplicated dish is going by way of!

And adobo’s origins? An additional minefield of confusion! Spanish? Mexican? Indigenous? With soy sauce? Without having? Soy sauce came to us by way with the Chinese, so any adobo produced before that would only have had salt. Does that mean any adobo touted as “traditional” or “original” shouldn’t have soy sauce? Logical to some, a sacrilege to other people!

Knowing this, when it comes to adobo, I proceed with both caution and abandon. I can loosely say nevertheless, that Filipino adobo is often a stew or a simmer of meat or vegetables cooked with vinegar. Probably the most widespread variants uses chicken or pork or each, with soy sauce to flavour, as well as bay leaf, black pepper, and garlic. The pillars of adobo. That becoming said, we also have variants applying squid (adobong pusit), long beans (adobong sitaw), and water spinach (adobong kang kong).
I’ve noticed individuals use everything from baby back ribs to catfish in adobo. Some prefer to cook their adobo devoid of the soy, utilizing salt instead, or even patis (fish sauce). Some want to add coconut cream towards the end of cooking (my late grandfather’s favourite).
You’ll find Spanish-influenced adobos that use red wine and smoked paprika. You will discover also Chinese variations that use star anise and oyster sauce. Other people prefer to add liver spread or liver pate to thicken the sauce. Diverse regions on the Philippines argue as to what is the very best vinegar to use for adobo and you will discover heated debates about whenever you can stir the sauce (in no way stir until the vinegar has burned off most of its acids!).

I do not think there’s, or will ever be, a really definitive recipe for Filipino adobo. In spite of some lovely Filipino cookbooks finally making themselves witnessed locally and beyond, Filipino cooking in general is still so private, so familial – recipes are stories and myth and fables, shared around the kitchen table, handed over to friends and family like gifts. I can’t support but adore this dish every one of the much more for its refusal to be pinned down, together with its questionable and uncertain past. For me, adobo eludes as significantly since it entices…and that’s what constantly has me coming back for additional.

So instead of sharing The Recipe For Filipino Adobo, I am sharing with you My Recipe For Filipino Adobo. This isn’t my only recipe, much as it is not my only “adobo story”. This really is my simple “springboard” recipe from which much more adobo adventures commence.