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Today is Chinese New Year! Traditionally, the night before Chinese New Year, Chinese families will gather around and eat dinner together, much like this plate from the LEE & LOW title, Auntie Yang’s Great Soybean Picnic:

Auntie Yang’s Great Soybean Picnic author and illustrator Ginnie and Beth Lo were kind enough to share one of their favorite soybean recipes with us: Mapo Tofu! While not a traditional Chinese New Year dish, the Lo sisters say that “mapo tofu is a Lo family favorite that we eat on the holidays, Christmas, and Chinese New Year.”

MAPO  TOFU

• Stir fry in small amount of veg. oil about 1lb of ground pork unseasoned over med-med hi heat. Salt lightly. When it is just losing its pink color add 1 ½ to 2T soy sauce and 1T sugar.  Stir fry until done.  Remove from pan, set aside.
• Stir fry one chopped onion in veg. oil until translucent.  Set aside (you can put it in with meat).
• Stir fry in remaining oil, 2T or more hot chili sauce (hot bean paste with chile, or hot chili sauce with garlic etc.), for 30 sec – 1 minute.
• Add  2 packages cubed firm tofu, the pork and the onion, stir fry until well combined.  Add edamame, frozen green peas and cook 10 minutes or more, until flavors are well blended.  Add salt or more hot sauce to taste.

Just before serving, remove from heat and add 3 scallions, finely chopped and 2T Chinese Sesame oil, stir and serve.

Enjoy, and feel free to let us know how it turned out!

Further reading

Angelo’s Sosa’s Chilled Edamame and Spring Pea Soup

What is Chinese New Year?

On Thanksgiving, everyone looks forward to the turkey. Valentine’s Day is the time for chocolate. During Chinese New Year, one of the most popular dish is one called jai, or Buddha’s Delight.

Jai is a vegetarian dish and is eaten on the first day of Chinese New Year to bring good luck. According to Buddhist tradition, no animal or fish should be killed on the first day of the lunar new year, thus, a dish with lots of vegetables is considered purifying.

While most of the ingredients are probably not available at your local grocery store, they can be found at Asian grocery stores in many parts of the country.

Want to try your hand at cooking jai? Here’s a good starter recipe from Vegetarian Recipes and Cooking website, reposted with their permission:

Prep Time: 1 hour

Cooking Time: 10 minutes

Ingredients

1/2 cup bamboo shoots, thinly sliced

2 dried bean curd sticks, soaked for 45 minutes in hot water to soften, cut into 1″ chunks

1/2 cup cellophane noodles, soaked in hot water until soft

6 dried shiitake mushrooms, soaked in hot water until soft (reserve soaking liquid for sauce)

1 carrot, julienned

1/4 cup dried lily buds, soaked in hot water until soft

1 oz. dried fat choy (black “hair” moss), soaked in hot water until soft

1/4 cup canned ginkgo nuts, drained

1/4 cup canned lotus seeds, drained

1/2 cup napa cabbage, thinly sliced

1/4 cup peanuts, roasted

1/2 cup snow peas, julienned

1/2 cup fried tofu, cubed

1/2 cup wheat gluten, thinly sliced

1/4 cup fresh wood ear mushroom, cut into strips (or soak dried wood ears)

1/2 cup bean sprouts

1/2 cup straw mushrooms

1/2 cup lotus root, thinly sliced

1/2 cup arrowroot (a starchy tuber), cooked and diced

1 TB peanut or vegetable oil

For sauce

1/4 cup mushroom soaking liquid or vegetable stock

1.5 TB Shaoxing wine

1 tsp ginger, minced

1 TB vegetarian oyster sauce

1 TB light soy sauce

1 tsp dark soy sauce

1/2 tsp sugar

1/2 tsp sesame oil

1/2 tsp cornstarch

Directions:

 Heat 1 TB oil in wok or large pan over medium-high heat. Add bean curd sticks, cabbage, snow peas, mushrooms, and carrots and stir-fry for 2 minutes. Mix sauce ingredients in a bowl, stirring to dissolve cornstarch, and set aside. Add remaining ingredients, except cellophane noodles and peanuts, to wok, along with sauce, and stir to combine. Simmer until bubbly and slightly thickened, about 5 minutes, stir in cellophane noodles and peanuts, and serve.

Happy cooking! And Happy Chinese New Year!

Further reading:

What is Chinese New Year?

His way of eating and driving are driving his Guardian Angel INSANE!

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Megan Branch, Intern

The only foods that I can think of as being as “American as apple pie” are recipes that have been lifted from other countries: pizza, sushi and, of course, Chinese food. College in New York has meant that I eat a lot of Chinese food. In his new book, Chop Suey: A Cultural History of Chinese Food in the United States, Andrew Coe chronicles Chinese food’s journey across the ocean and into the hearts of Americans everywhere. Below, I’ve excerpted a passage from Chop Suey in which Coe details the earliest written account of an American’s experience eating Chinese food for the first time almost 200 years ago.

Nevertheless, the first account we have of Americans eating Chinese food does not appear until 1819, thirty-five years after Shaw’s visit. It was written by Bryant Parrott Tilden, a young trader from Salem who acted as supercargo on a number of Asia voyages. In Guangzhou, he was befriended by Paunkeiqua, a leading merchant who cultivated good relations with many American firms. Just before Tilden’s ship was set to sail home, Paunkeiqua invited the American merchants to spend the day at this mansion on Honam island. Tilden’s account of that visit, which was capped by a magnificent feast, is not unlike the descriptions Shaw or even William Hickey wrote a half century earlier. First, he tours Paunkeiqua’s traditional Chinese garden and encounters some of the merchant’s children yelling “Fankwae! Fankwae!” (“Foreign devil! Foreign devil!”). Then Paunkeiqua shows him his library, including “some curious looking old Chinese maps of the world as these ‘celestials’ suppose it to be, with their Empire occupying three quarters of it, surrounded by ‘nameless islands & seas bounded only by the edges of the maps.” Finally, his host tells him: “Now my flinde, Tillen, you must go long my for catche chow chow tiffin.” In other words, dinner was served in a spacious dining hall, where the guests were seated at small tables.

“Soon after,” Tilden writes, “a train of servants came in bringing a most splendid service of fancy colored, painted and gilt large tureens & bowls, containing soups, among them the celebrated bird nest soup, as also a variety of stewed messes, and plenty of boiled rice, & same style of smaller bowls, but alas! No plates and knives and forks.” (By “messes,” Tilden probably meant prepared dishes, not unsavory jumbles.)

The Americans attempted to eat with chopsticks, with very poor results: “Monkies [sic] with knitting needles would not have looked more ludicrous than some of us did.” Finally, their host put an end to their discomfort by ordering western-style plates, knives, forks, and spoons. Then the main portion of the meal began:

Twenty separate courses were placed on the table during three hours in as many different services of elegant china ware, the messes consisting of soups, gelatinous food, a variety of stewed hashes, made up of all sorts of chopped meats, small birds cock’s-combs, a favorite dish, some fish & all sorts of vegetables, rice, and pickles, of which the Chinese are very fond. Ginger and pepper are used plentifully in most of their cookery. Not a joint of meat or a whole fowl or bird were placed on the table. Between the changing of the courses, we freely conversed and partook of Madeira & other European wines—and costly teas.”

After fruits, pastries, and more wine, the dinner finally came to an end. Tilden and his friends left glowing with happiness (and alcohol) at the honor Paunkeiqua had shown them with his lavish meal. Nowhere, however, does Tilden tell us whether the Americans actually enjoyed these “messes” and “hashes.”

Hello There:

Another day of luscious rain. Here in the Southern California desert, we take all we can get!

I hope this entry finds that you all had a lovely Valentine's Day weekend. Gary and I had our traditional dinner of chinese food, a bottle of Almond Champagne and lots of dark chocolate and cheesecake! A yummy dinner followed with a movie by the fireplace. And as always, the obligatory red rose ~



The majority of the weekend was spent moving my mom's "stuff" from her storage facility to our trusty 4 car garage. With her stay at the Board and Care, we decided that the $125.00 we were paying for her storage could be used in oh so many, useful ways. So...off to U-Haul to rent a truck, packing up all her belongings and shuffling them all round our garage was how we spent most of the weekend. After the truck was returned, we still managed to have our delightful dinner ~


But of course, as our holidays so often lead to adventure, a romantic dinner, a movie and a long day of moving furniture just wasn't enough. Nope, just not enough. Last night, while nobody was watching, the tank on one our toilets decided to "runneth over". By the time the soggy mess was discovered, the water had managed to find it's way out of the bathroom and into the hall carpeting. Hurry, hurry, run, run, run...outside to turn off the water to the entire house. Fetching over a dozen bath towels to soak up the floor. Then, Gary and my oldest son were off on an adventure to find a part for the tank. All of this just as Gary was almost finished with his school paper. Out the door at 7:15 p.m. They purchased the part and managed to get it all done and cleaned up with one minute to go before the season premiere of "The Amazing Race"! Sheeesh ~ I get a wee bit weary just thinking about it. However, even with the general busy-ness of this Valentine's Day weekend, a good time was had by all.

Oh....and lest I forget ~ one of our PCs became riddled with viruses while we slept. So, download anything saveable and reformat the entire machine.

I hope your weekend went a bit smoother than ours did. But...considering all that I have to be thankful for, virus riddled computers, drenching toilet tanks and shifting large pieces of furniture is all just part of the adventure!

Until Next Time:
Kim
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