The absolute worst "Chinese" food, not to mention the absolute worst restaurant meal I ever had, was in a restaurant on the Irish mainland not far from Achille Island. The entire dish was a uniform shade of orange that doesn't exist in nature and contained not a single identifiable ingredient except what I think was rice that had been boiled to glue before being colorized. After a couple of tentative nibbles, I paid my bill and left. Ugh.
I have no idea where Europeans and Americans got the idea that Chinese food has wildly sugared or pungent flavors. Chinese cooking is literally based on subtleties. This orange chicken meal (not even a Chinese dish) is just way out to left field.
The orange meal was not just a local aberration? Lord. The mind boggles. We have several good Asian food restaurants in town, most of them run by folks who learned to cook in The Old Country and then adapted items to American tastes. Lucky us.
This is interesting. Let’s take what is perhaps the most famous of westernised Chinese meal, sweet and sour chicken with fried rice. Forget the rice, does ‘sweet and sour chicken’ even exist in China? And if so how would you describe its taste?
But Chinese American is just a different kind of food. American pizza isn't the same as Italian pizza. I wouldn't assume that General Tso's chicken is authentically Chinese, and presumably the Chinese immigrants who run the restaurants don't either, but it tastes pretty good.
Don't remember, but they're common at big box appliance stores or online here. A Weber Smokey Joe will cost several hundred dollars if you can even find one though, and Green Eggs are nonexistent.
China has 1 billion people. I don’t know why we talk about ‘authentic’ Chinese food as if it is a ubiquitous monolithic thing. Is Cajun the same as Tex-Mex? They’re both American cuisines. Most of the Chinese places here (Indianapolis) have one normal menu, and one for the expatriate Chinese. My wife orders food from there via texting the owner on WeChat. There are also a couple of Chinese families who cook in their home kitchens and sell out from there, I usually am picking up food once a week. None of it is anything like the food I would normally order at a Chinese restaurant. but I do like General Tso’s and orange chicken!
Was at the Asian grocery today and made an impulse buy for an outdoor range. I haven’t used our wok since moving since the new home’s gas cooktop doesn’t have a wok ring and it is way too wimpy anyways. my wife made duck wings and chicken feet. Not sure what all went in other than three bottles of Sapporo and a shit ton of chilis. It was too hot even for her so I didn’t try. I marinated some sliced steak and stir fried it, along with some veggies using the leftover marinade as a sauce: first time cooking on a range that powerful. I had it pretty low but it still outdid the 25k btu burner in the old house. Was actually really nice. Even though the marinade had sugar hardly any sticking. I left too much of the marinade on so the steak (ny strip) didn’t brown, but still tasted pretty good. marinade: water, soy sauce, garlic, ginger, peanut oil, hot red peppers (deseeded because I am a wimp), sugar
I lived in China for quite a few years. I caught food poisoning two times. With that said, the stuff tasted pretty good. I was a huge fan of the Peking Duck. Good stuff.
Most recent new thing I made was Black Truffle Aioli It goes great on hamburgers, with caramelized onion, mushrooms and swiss cheese. (though if you can afford it, spring for the 'good' swiss cheese) Black truffle oil is pretty expensive though, the bottle we found was only a few ounces and we paid $15 for it!
I made green chili last night- real green chili with no damn red tomatoes- so will be having reruns tonight.
Porterhouse steaks with asparagus and mashed potatoes. The potatoes incorporate lots of sour cream, butter and salt, and some salsa as the special ingredient. It's key to cut the steak into strips, and the asparagus as well, and make sure you get some of each along with the mashed potatoes on every forkful. Once all those flavors hit the taste buds at the same time it's pure magic. Fresh squeezed lemonade along with, sweetened with Stevia.
Well, that was a crappy thing to say. If you ask me, this whole conversation has gone straight down the toilet.
