richard-in-cincy
Well-known member
The dinner...
We ate homestyle with all the dishes prepared and placed on the table.
Those of you who know me know how difficult the following was for me: I was politely shooed into the living rooom while the final cooking and plating was happening. This was agony as I wanted to WATCH and LEARN!
The meal was exquisite. Such wonderful tastes and varieties.
We started off with a clear pork broth spiced with white pepper and chunks of cooked turnip.
These are the dishes:
Shanghai spicey braised pork ribs--These are braised with ginger, star anise, soy sauce, garlic, white pepper. Then finished off in the wok--a twice-cooked pork. Wonderful flavor, tender moist on the endside and wonderful crust on the outside.
Steamed Tilapia--whole fish that she bought live at the market. It was steamed with rice wine, scallion, ginger, cilantro, and pea shoots. The flavors of the other ingredients really permeated the fish. It was delicate and wonderful.
Her variation on "Buddha's Delight": layers of homemade spiced Chinese sausage, bacon, fresh bamboo shoots, slices of ginger, and mushrooms.
Ma Po Tofu: This is one of my favorite Chinese dishes and I was so happy to see it on the table. This was my favorite dish of the evening. It was filled with chili, szechwan pepper, white pepper, sesame, ginger, garlic, cilantro, and other wonderful flavors.
Garlic Broccoli: Stir-fried garlic and broccoli. And I mean GARLIC. Each piece of brilliant green and crunchy broccoli was literally covered with carmelized bits of chopped garlic. Absolute Heaven.
Stir-fried Chinese Yellow Garlic Chive (it is grown covered with out sunlight to make it yellow-white and tender--it reminded me a lot of leeks--they also are quite large growing this way) stir-fried with eggs.
And of course a big bowl of sticky rice.
It was such a wonderful dinner.
We ended with tea, crunchy dates (they are dried and crispy crunchy--most unusual), and pineapple shortbread (Erin and Sandra--this the little pineapple sweet that Erin treated us to at the Chinese Bakery in Flushing--it was fun seeing it again!).
And the tea! It was served in a tea set of the purple clay pottery that her hometown is famous for. The purple clay tea pot was decorated with brown clay shaped like vines curling around the teapot and forming the handle and lid.
The tea is a wonderful new find. Xinyang Hong.
If you can believe it, this is an entirely new tea that was just introduced in China. We can't even buy it here yet it is so new. I had alreayd been lucky enough to have shared some that my colleague had brought into the office (we're always sharing tea and talking about tea) and it is one of the best teas I've ever had. Very robust, almost "beefy". So I was thrilled that when the pot arrived at the table for the tea ceremony, it was filled with Xinyang Hong!
Such a treat and a wonderful end to the evening.
http://www.chineseteafiles.com/2010/11/18/xinyang-hong-a-new-tea-variety-is-born/
We ate homestyle with all the dishes prepared and placed on the table.
Those of you who know me know how difficult the following was for me: I was politely shooed into the living rooom while the final cooking and plating was happening. This was agony as I wanted to WATCH and LEARN!
The meal was exquisite. Such wonderful tastes and varieties.
We started off with a clear pork broth spiced with white pepper and chunks of cooked turnip.
These are the dishes:
Shanghai spicey braised pork ribs--These are braised with ginger, star anise, soy sauce, garlic, white pepper. Then finished off in the wok--a twice-cooked pork. Wonderful flavor, tender moist on the endside and wonderful crust on the outside.
Steamed Tilapia--whole fish that she bought live at the market. It was steamed with rice wine, scallion, ginger, cilantro, and pea shoots. The flavors of the other ingredients really permeated the fish. It was delicate and wonderful.
Her variation on "Buddha's Delight": layers of homemade spiced Chinese sausage, bacon, fresh bamboo shoots, slices of ginger, and mushrooms.
Ma Po Tofu: This is one of my favorite Chinese dishes and I was so happy to see it on the table. This was my favorite dish of the evening. It was filled with chili, szechwan pepper, white pepper, sesame, ginger, garlic, cilantro, and other wonderful flavors.
Garlic Broccoli: Stir-fried garlic and broccoli. And I mean GARLIC. Each piece of brilliant green and crunchy broccoli was literally covered with carmelized bits of chopped garlic. Absolute Heaven.
Stir-fried Chinese Yellow Garlic Chive (it is grown covered with out sunlight to make it yellow-white and tender--it reminded me a lot of leeks--they also are quite large growing this way) stir-fried with eggs.
And of course a big bowl of sticky rice.
It was such a wonderful dinner.
We ended with tea, crunchy dates (they are dried and crispy crunchy--most unusual), and pineapple shortbread (Erin and Sandra--this the little pineapple sweet that Erin treated us to at the Chinese Bakery in Flushing--it was fun seeing it again!).
And the tea! It was served in a tea set of the purple clay pottery that her hometown is famous for. The purple clay tea pot was decorated with brown clay shaped like vines curling around the teapot and forming the handle and lid.
The tea is a wonderful new find. Xinyang Hong.
If you can believe it, this is an entirely new tea that was just introduced in China. We can't even buy it here yet it is so new. I had alreayd been lucky enough to have shared some that my colleague had brought into the office (we're always sharing tea and talking about tea) and it is one of the best teas I've ever had. Very robust, almost "beefy". So I was thrilled that when the pot arrived at the table for the tea ceremony, it was filled with Xinyang Hong!
Such a treat and a wonderful end to the evening.
http://www.chineseteafiles.com/2010/11/18/xinyang-hong-a-new-tea-variety-is-born/