Corduroy Orange

Hello Jesse,

I just stumbled upon your blog today through various clicks and it has been a real treat to read. I am currently living in rural China as part of World Teach, a volunteer program that sends willing participants to developing countries, teaching their little ones Spoken English. I have 23 classes a week, which translates to over 1000 students.

Now, don’t get me wrong, Chinese food is delicious, and I can guarantee you’ve never had real Chinese food (that stuff from the states is not!). I live in southern Hunan which is known for their spicy dishes, and let me you, they ain’t lyin. However, every once in a while you get sick, as a foreigner this is to be expected. Crops are grown wherever they can and are fertilized with the most natural of fertilizers (poop!) amongst other things. Who knows what it was? Either way, it only reinforced my plan to begin cooking more for myself. Stateside I’m an enthusiastic kitchen dweller with my own favorites. Yet, I’m homesick, and I can’t wait for the day when I can make a proper breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

So, my question, I’m looking for a little advice in terms of what to cook for myself. As for implements, I have a two burner gas stove, which seems to have 2 settings, afterburner and not-so-afterburner, and a microwave which I haven’t fully learned how to operate. I have a wok and a frying pan, and two pots, both pressure cookers, however, one does not have a lid. They are maybe 3 quarts? It’s possible to find bigger pots, however, most are incredibly thin pounded sheet metal.

As for ingredients: Of course, rice, lots and lots of rice. Rice noodles as well. I have absolutely no cheese to speak of. However, the kids all drink some “milk” that’s never refrigerated. Vegetables include garlic, ginger, tomatoes, potatoes, red onion, pumpkin, white gourd, cucumber, eggplant, carrot, celery, mushrooms, numerous greens, cabbage, some other unidentified root vegetables, and of course, peppers. Fruits include apples, oranges, bananas.

Meats include pork, beef, duck, chicken, dog, rabbit, cat, boar, goat, and a ton of fish, amphibians, snakes, and I’ve even seen a badger for sale. Now, most of these are sold whole, cleaned, but whole. The pork you can buy by the half kilo, and there is no such thing as a cut of meat. You get whatever you point to.

There’s a plethora of other stuff, dried spices, dried meats, eggs, but much I cannot identify.

Peace,
Derek

Derek–

Surprisingly, I have had real Chinese food, though nowhere near as much as you have, and from Beijing, where I spent a few days in 1999. More often than not, I didn’t know what I was eating. Though some of the foods I tried were quite tasty, each sampling of a new dish took a great deal of willpower (I swear one of the foods I sampled was jellyfish, but I have no way of knowing for certain). My main impression of eating in China was that each meal was an adventure. It sounds like you have a more balanced and positive view of the local cuisine than my short stay provided me, but in any case I can understand why you would like to do some more cooking for yourself.

Your available equipment, of course, puts some limitations on what you can make, the most notable being nothing roasted or baked. Still, with some creativity, there’s still a fairly wide range of what you can accomplish with two burners.

Breakfast:

You didn’t mention flour or baking powder in your list of ingredients, but for the sake of argument, I’m going to assume you can find both, even if the flour is rice flour. Pancakes are an easy stovetop breakfast. If you have no other syrup options, you can make a simple syrup by mixing equal parts sugar and water and heating until they boil. Make the simple syrup gourmet by sauteeing a sliced banana or apple and then finishing it by adding some of the syrup to caramelize (you could do this in your wok on the second burner while the pancakes cook in the frying pan on the first). Top your pancakes with this mixture.

Even if that suggestion is a bit off-mark because you have no luck finding the baking powder, you still should have all of the ingredients to make Huevos con Papas. This is a hearty breakfast, home fries and scrambled eggs all together in one dish (thereby requiring only one pan to make it). In my recipe, I recommend using kale and a cast iron skillet. Even if you can’t find kale, you have a variety of other greens that you can substitute. Likewise, you can easily make this dish in a pan that’s not cast iron, though the potatoes might not caramelize quite as well. Home fries by themselves are always a tasty dish (and work as a dinner side dish as well as they do as a breakfast!). To make them, just omit the eggs.

To make toast on a stovetop, rub a slice of bread with butter or oil and put into a hot skillet. Let brown on one side; flip and let brown on the other.

In his Yan Can Cookbook, Martin Yan has a great recipe for Fried Golden Egg Balls, which he describes as “my version of Chinese doughnuts.” Again, it would require baking powder, though the baking powder could probably be eliminated and the result would still be just fine:

1 1/4 cups water
2 tablespoons lard or shortening
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 cup flour
5 eggs, lightly beaten
5 cups oil
1 cup powdered or granulated sugar

Bring water to boil; melt lard in water. Turn off heat and slowly stir in baking powder and flour. Mix until smooth

Slowly add beaten eggs. blend well.

Heat oil in wok over medium-high heat. Using a small ladle, drop 1 — 1 1/2 tablespoons of batter into oil. Deep fry over medium heat until balls triple in size. (jesse’s note: if you can’t get the baking powder, they likely won’t triple in size, though they should get somewhat larger and turn golden brown.) Keep turning to allow for uniform cooking.

Roll fried balls in sugar.

Source: Yan, Martin. Yan Can Cookbook. New York: Broadway Books, 1999 (First published 1981). p.282.

Lunch and Dinner:
A raw salad would probably help remind you of home, but unfortunately for the foreign stomach, as you mentioned, any Chinese-grown vegetables were likely fertilized with human excrement. That eliminates the possibility of eating any locally-grown produce raw. On the other hand, any imported produce items (as I would guess to be the case with the oranges, bananas, and perhaps the apples, but you should check on that) could be turned into a fruit salad. On the other hand, I would not recommend eating a salad made of the various greens.

I’m not going to be able to provide you with any tips for cooking snakes, cats, or badgers. if cooking dogs, though, be sure to cook them thoroughly.

Stew, as you also mentioned in your letter, is a great stovetop item. I’ve got a basic method that I follow when I make stew that helps to thicken it as a natural part of the cooking process— without flour. The key is to take advantage of the potatoes and their natural starch. As they break down, they thicken the stew. I start off by cooking small-diced potatoes tossed in oil, salt, and spices in the bottom of the pan, similar to how I start my home fries / huevos con papas. With a stew, though, I will often stack the potatoes on top of each other because I want a few more than just lining the bottom of the pan will provide. I stir them constantly as they start to cook, adding onions when the fond starts to stick to the bottom of the pan. At this point, I turn the heat down and cover the pan to sweat the onions until they release their liquids. This will help to deglaze the potatoes from the bottom of the pan. I’ll then turn up the heat a bit and add my garlic, ginger, meat (if I’m using it), and other vegetables. I stir constantly for a while longer, scraping the bottom of the pan with my wooden spoon the best that I can. Anything golden brown on the bottom is OK, but if things start to burn add the water (at least some of it), quick! When I do add water, it’s enough to cover everything liberally. Then, I let it simmer for a while (an hour or two, usually, depending on how hungry I am/when I want to eat), stirring occasionally, more frequently as it thickens.

Pumpkins and other winter squashes (I assume white gourd falls into this category) make a tasty side dish. Unfortunately, you can’t cook them via my favorite method (roasting), but cut into small pieces, you can start them out by coating them with oil, salt, and spices and sauteeing them. Then add some water and let them simmer until they are soft. They go great with caramelized red onion marmalade. Feel free to substitute simple syrup for the honey if you need to. Or, saute and simmer with some red onion, ginger, and garlic; all of which can be added to the pan initially with the squash (assuming you use whole cloves of garlic).

If you can point at something that resembles a pork chop, season it with salt and spices; dredge it in flour if you have any; and sear it in a hot pan on both sides. I don’t know about the dangers of trichinosis as they relate to Chinese pork, so just to be safe, I’d recommend cooking it all the way through (though stateside I’d say a pork chop tastes best cooked medium). What goes better with a pork chop than applesauce? Not much, as far as I’m concerned. Definitely core your apples since you don’t have a food mill to strain the applesauce with; peeling is optional–if you don’t mind a bit of texture to your applesauce, there’s no absolute need to spend the time getting rid of them.

If you can get pork ribs and you have a rack and cover for your wok (aluminum foil would work for the cover), rub the ribs well with salt and spices (I often use a geneous helping of hot pepper and ground ginger), set them on the rack in the wok over fairly low heat. Put a bit of water in the bottom of the wok and cover it. Let steam for a couple of hours or until done.

I’ve been eating pasta with bacon, cabbage, and onion at my house lately. I don’t know that you can get bacon, but other meat cut into small pieces would substitute well. Because the bacon is fatty, I start it off in the pan first and then add the vegetables to it when it gets nice and crispy and cook them in its fat. if you’re using a different cut of meat, you might want to just saute them all together in some oil with some seasoning. Add a bit of water or some stock and let simmer. Cook the noodles in boiling water as the vegetables approach doneness. Toss everything together and serve immediately. To reheat for leftovers, fry in your wok with a bit of soy sauce and hot sauce.

Fish are a quick and easy item to prepare. Problem is, different fishes take to different forms of cooking. A lighter fish won’t do so well being pan seared because it will flake and fall apart too easily. A meatier fish, though, tastes great like this. Dredge the fish in flour if you have it; don’t worry about it if you don’t. Get your pan hot and put enough oil in to cover the bottom. Add the fish and disperse some finely cut onions around it. Let the fish brown on the one side (it shouldn’t take long), then turn it over and sear on the other side, meanwhile stirring the onions around so they don’t burn. Add citrus juice (orange or grapefruit) and let reduce; you may have to remove the fish from the pan before the juice has reduced down so that it doesn’t overcook. Once the juice has thickened up a bit, serve the fish with the citrus sauce poured overtop.

Because your animals always come whole, make use of their carcasses by making stock. Cover the carcass (or carcasses if you’ve saved a few to make a larger batch) with cold water to cover. Bring to a boil. Let boil for a minute or two, then drain the water off to eliminate many of the impurities. Cover again with water and add vegetables of your choice. Onions, carrots, and celery are traditional, but I’ll often include apples, cranberries, mushrooms, etc. Let simmer for at least four hours, if not longer (the longer it simmers, the more concentrated the flavor will be). Strain bones and vegetables; save the liquid. Skim fat from the top of it before using it. The easiest way to do that is after it cools and the fat hardens. Vegetables (and rice or noodles) boiled in the resulting stock make an easy soup.
I hope these tips help. If you have any more questions, requests for clarification on some of my vaguer instructions, or requests for specific recipes, don’t hesitate to ask.

Have a culinary question of your own? Email me!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 13th, 2006 at 3:59 pm and is filed under Advice Column, Cooking Tips, Recipes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.