Our Foods And Cuisines: Chinese food

Browsing "Older Posts"

Browsing Category "Chinese food"

Chinese Dumplings

Tuesday, 26 May 2015 / No Comments

Hi there everyone! Welcome back to Our Foods and Cuisine Blog, Today i'll be writing about Chinese Dumplings since my mothers making it often. Enjoy!

Jiaozi

Image taken from wikimedia.org

Jiaozi or Chinese Filled Dumplings are commonly eaten across Eastern, Central, Western, and Northern Asia. Jiaozi usually consist of ground meat and vegetable wrapped with thin dough sealing it by pressing together the open ends. Jiaozi has flatter features and are usually eaten with soy-vinegar sauce or hot-sour chili sauce. There are Three ways to cook Jiaozi: Boiled, Steamed, and Pan Fried. Jiaozi was told to be created by the man named Zhang Zhongjin in the Eastern Dynasty period. This dumplings are commonly eaten on Chinese New Year celebration and Year Round in the Northern Province.

Wonton

Wonton are made by filling pork meat or shrimp to a square thin dough made by flour, eggs, water and salt. And sealing it as we like. Wontons usually are served in clear soup or deep fried eaten with hot-sour sauce. The preparations and eating style are different for every country in China.

Image taken from kudosushi

So, that's all for our Chinese Dumplings, See you next time guys, BYE!

Dessert Around The World: Chinese

Monday, 25 May 2015 / No Comments

Hi Guys! Welcome back to our Dessert Around The World series. Our destination today is China!! Enjoy!

Annin Tofu

Annin Tofu is a traditional dessert from Beijing, Cantonese, and Hong Kong made of jellied tofu made with apricot kernel, agar and sugar. This dessert is known as a vegan dish, but actually the traditional recipe contains dairy ingredients and flavored extract.

Image taken from guamdiner

Black Sesame Soup

Black sesame soup is popular in East-Asian and Chinese especially throughout China, Hong Kong, and Singapore. It's usually served hot and have the soup consistency but much more thicker. The main ingredients of this soup is black sesame seeds, sugar, rice and water. Chinese traditional treatments used this soup to warm the body, replenish blood, relax bowel and nourish your hair. This soup is also good for those who have Anemia, Constipation, Dizzines, and Tinnitus.

Dragon's Beard Candy

Image taken from newyorkstreetfood

Dragon's Beard Candy is a Chinese sweets similar to spun candy. It's is describe to be an old-fashioned candy with rich and sweet flavor with threads and chewy texture. It's shaped like a white cocoon and is very sensitive to moisture and heat (it tends to melt if it's exposed to heat). The first Dragon's Beard Candy was recorded during the Han Dynasty. The process of making this candy includes stretching the dough into thin strings.

So, that's all from our destination today guys! See you on our next destination, BYE!!

How to Make Tofu Pudding

Friday, 8 May 2015 / No Comments

Hello my lovely friends… listening to our favorite music is such a good way to boost our mood, because it will make us relax and forget some problem that we are thinking about. How about you? What is your way to boost your mood?.

image taken from: designverb

Beside of listening to the music, eating a sweet food also make my day effectively. Because today our star is the soft tofu, today I will tell you about how to make tofu pudding, or in Chinese called as ‘dou hua’, and in my place called as ‘kembang tahu’. If you make this dessert at home, you can have new experience to try new way to enjoy healthy tofu. The pudding is so soft and melting in your mouth. Even just writing about this can make me hungry ha-ha. Okay, just check this out…

Ingredients:

• ⅓ cup (100 ml) boiling water

• 10 g gelatin

• 175 g firm silken tofu

• 5 Tbsp. honey

• 1½ cup (350 ml) unsweetened soymilk

• ½ tsp. almond extract

Instructions:

1. Mix the boiling water and gelatin in a bowl until it was completely become mixture.

2. Mix tofu, honey, and soymilk together. You can use food processor to make sure it will completely become smooth.

3. Transfer the mixture to the large bowl. Add the gelatin mixture and almond extract and whisk. Make sure you don’t making too much bubbles.

4. Transfer the mixture into individual ramekins. Put it in the refrigerator at least one hour until set.

Your pudding is ready to serve. You also can put the sauce like fruit sauce or ginger sugar sauce depend on your taste. I hope you can enjoy the pudding well, because it is healthy and also softy delicious.

See you next time…

The History of Tofu

/ No Comments

Hello guys… did you enjoy everything today? I hope you have such a beautiful day. Yesterday my friend and I went to the Taiwan Restaurant to eat some delicious dessert. We ate the dessert that contains tofu pudding. Do you ever eat tofu pudding? Or the other food that made from tofu? How it was?

Image taken from: bbcgoodfood

I think tofu is really popular in the world because tofu is delicious and healthy. In my country for example tofu is called as ‘tahu’ and tahu is the one of the most popular food in Indonesia. But do you who is the founder of tofu? Do you want to know how this food can spread out the world?. Let’s see how the history of our creamy tofu.

Maybe we often hear the food made by tofu is originated from Japan, but actually the founder of tofu was China over 2000 years ago. The oldest evidence of tofu production is a Chinese mural incised on a stone slab. It shows a kitchen scene that proves that soymilk and tofu were being made in China during the period A.D. 25-220. Su Ping was writing the poem “Ode to Tofu” about tofu at about A.D 1500.

Tofu was brought to Japan by Kento Priest, who went to China to study Buddhism, brought tofu back to Japan during the Nara era (710-794). Firstly tofu was eaten as a vegetarian food in vegetarian diets for priests. In Japan in the dairy of the Shinto priest Nakaomi is the first time ‘tofu’. In 1489 the word "tofu" was first written in the actual Japanese characters. Tofu gradually became popular among the nobility and the samurai class. During the Edo era (1603-1867), tofu became popular among ordinary people. The cooking book "Tofu Hyakuchin" was published in 1782 and sold very well.

Tofu history in Western world - In 1603 the Spanish dictionary "Vocabulario da lingoa de Iapam" was the first European document with reference to the word "tofu". Domingo Fernandez de Navarrete described in his book "A Collection of Voyages and Travels" how tofu was made. The first English reference to tofu was in 1704, when Navarrete's book was published in English. Tofu was first produced (non-commercial) in France by Paillieux in 1880. Hirata & Co started to make tofu in San Francisco in 1895. The first Westerner who produced tofu on a commercial scale was T.A. Van Gundy in 1929 when he started the company La Sierra Industries in California.

In the western world, "Vocabulario da lingoa de Iapam" was the first document that write the information about tofu, that is the Spanish Dictionary. Domingo Fernandez de Navarrete described how tofu was made in his book "A Collection of Voyages and Travles". Navarrete's book was published in English, that’s the first document about tofu that written in English. In 1880 tofu was first produced for non-commercial in France by Paillieux. Hirata & Co started to make tofu in San Francisco in 1895. The first Westerner who produced tofu on a commercial scale was T.A. Van Gundy in 1929 when he started the company La Sierra Industries in California.

It’s been a long time since tofu was found and became so popular in the world. It’s proper because from tofu we can make a lot of delicious food. Some recipes about delicious foods that made of tofu will be our post next time. Have a nice day…

How to Make Black Sesame Paste

Thursday, 7 May 2015 / No Comments

Hello everyone. Like what I told before, in this post I will share about how to make black sesame paste. Black sesame paste is usually used in many kind of Asians foods. Just like mocha, tang yuan, bread, and many more. You will easily find them at the groceries store, but if you are the fans of Asians food, I think you need to know how to make the authentic one by yourself.

Image taken from: homemadeinhk

It’s so simple to make black sesame paste, let’s check the recipe below.

Ingredients:

• 1 part of roasted black sesame seeds (1 Tbsp.)
• 1 part of honey (1 Tbsp.)

Instructions:

1. Grind the black sesame seeds by mortar and pestle or in food processor. It takes some time for sesame seeds to secrete oil, but be patient.

2. When the sesame seeds are finely ground and become moist from natural sesame oil, add honey and mix all together. If you want to use black sesame paste for savory dishes, you can add a little bit of sesame oil instead of honey.

That’s how to make black sesame paste. If you can make the good filling for your dessert I’m sure the dessert will be so much special. See you next time… have a good day…

How to Make Tang Yuan

/ No Comments

Good day everyone, how was your day? Every day is our gift from God, so we need to enjoy our day in order to fill our self with blessed feeling.

Image taken from: chinasichuanfood

Well, today I want to share about how to make Chinese dessert. That’s Tang Yuan. This dessert is so much popular in China, served in many occasions like holiday and festival. The texture of Tang Yuan is soft and chewy maybe you can try this one at home.

To make the black sesame filling, we need black sesame powder or paste. You can try to search some in Asian stores or make your own toasted black sesame and then ground them into powders. In the next post I will share about how to make your own black sesame powder or paste.

Ingredients:

For Black Sesame

• 1 cup toasted black sesame

• 1 cup sugar or as needed

• 1/2 cup of lard or butter, melted

For Tang Yuan

• 2 cups glutinous rice flour

• 1 cup water

Instructions

To make the dough:

1. Mix the glutinous rice flour and water to make the dough. Keep kneading for couple of minutes until the smooth; shape the dough into a long log so that you can make similar pieces in the following step.

2. Take one piece and shape it to a bowl carefully. When shaping the bowl, we need to make the bottom thicker while the other parts uniform. If the bottom is too thin, the balls might break during the shaping process. Then scoop around 1/2 tablespoon to 1 tablespoon black sesame filling into the center. Seal the rice dumpling completely. If you are not skilled at sealing balls, try to shape the filling into balls too. This will make the process easier.

3. Shape the balls as round as possible gently.

4. Bring water to a boiling in a pot (the water should be at least 2 cm higher than the balls); cook the rice dumplings for 5-6 minutes or until they float on the surface.

5. Scoop out with the soup and serve with sugar, or sweet osmanthus or syrup.

Tang Yuan usually is served warm with syrup, sugar or fermented glutinous rice. In some parts of China, people love to eat meat dumplings with a savory soup base. You need to scoop one up and gently take one bite. Then say hello to the lovely filling.

Well, that’s all how to make this popular dessert. I hope you can try and enjoy this one. Have a nice day…

The History of Mantou

Sunday, 3 May 2015 / No Comments

Good day guys… how was your day? I hope everything that you face can make your day.

My Chinese friend ever told me that he was really bored with the same bread for breakfast every day for a week, when I asked him what kind of bread is that, he said it was mantou. Actually that day I really want to eat mantou because in the same day my Chinese teacher told me about this food, and I thought this white and soft steamed buns is so much interesting. But for my friend as a Chinese mantou is a staple food that he eats every day.

image from: taiwantrade

When the first time I see this steamed buns name in Chinese character (馒头) i just wonder why there is character of head (头) in the name of the buns, and I think the shape of the buns are not similar with the head.

Well, in fact this buns are have such an interesting history. According to Ming Dynasty scholar Lang Yin, the original name for mantou was barbarian’s head. In the story, Chancellor Zhuge Liang went on the battle to suppress the Southern barbarians and won. On his way back, he and his army need to cross the Lu River. Lu River had a big stormy waves. The people told them that they need to throw 50 human heads to please the river god, so they would be allowed to cross the river.

Chancellor Zhuge Liang didn’t want to shed more blood, so instead he ordered his soldiers to kill some of their animal and put the meat into the flour dough in the shape of a head. Then they throw the head buns to the river as fake heads. So, they can cross the river safely.

I think it was a good story, because the buns were born from the good thoughts of Zhuge Lian. I think you really need to try this buns someday, and enjoy the feeling that the buns that you eat also eaten by the river god in the past.

Have a nice day…