Adventures with Kake

The dish I'm posting about today comes from Xinjiang, the region of northwest China that I posted about on Monday.

大盤雞 (dà pán jī) is a Xinjiang dish which translates literally as "a big plate of chicken". This is a pretty good name for it, really — a single order of 大盤雞 (pictured above) feeds at least four people. Some restaurants may offer a smaller portion, 中盤雞 (zhōng pán jī/middle-plate chicken).

I posted an example on Monday of a menu in Xinjiang written in Chinese, English, and Uighur. One of the dishes on this menu is in fact 大盤雞, the Uyghur version of which pne has kindly transcribed for me as داپه‌نجى (he also points out that this is just a transcription of the Chinese name).

I haven't managed to find a single authoritative-looking recipe for 大盤雞 (either in books or online), so please don't rely on the notes below being exactly accurate. The eGullet thread on big-plate chicken has some useful discussion, though.

I found two videos online showing 大盤雞 being prepared. The first was shot in a restaurant in Xinjiang. A whole chicken is cut into chunks on the bone with a cleaver, potatoes are peeled, leeks are prepared, and then various ingredients are shown in bowls, including the chicken, the sliced potatoes, sliced onions, chopped tomatoes, and chopped green chillies (I think). The chicken is initially fried along with a dark red paste from a tub which has a term on it that I can't quite make out, but it's four characters with the middle two being 油 and 豆. The stewing liquid added appears to be water.

The second video is one from 天天飲食, a daily cookery show from China Central Television. The ingredient list given is incomplete, but includes 三黃雞 (sān huáng jī/a type of chicken), 土豆 (tǔ dòu/potatoes), 青紅椒 (qīng hóng jiāo/green and red peppers), 麵粉 (miàn fěn/wheatflour), 朝天椒 (cháo tiān jiāo/"facing heaven" chillies), 乾線椒 (gān xiàn jiāo/some kind of chilli), 花椒粒 (huā jiāo lì/Sichuan peppercorns), 花椒麵 (huā jiāo miàn/ground Sichuan pepper), 紅油 (hóng yóu/chilli oil), 味精 (wèi jīng/MSG), and 鹽 (yán/salt). The chopped-up chicken is blanched in water, some sugar is caramelised, then whole peeled garlic cloves, sliced peeled ginger, and the white parts of spring onions are stirfried in oil. Sichuan peppercorns, star anise, and cassia/cinnamon bark are added and stirfried for a bit longer, then the chicken is returned to the pan along with the caramelised sugar, the two types of chillies, and some salt. Water is added, the chicken is simmered for a while, and then the sliced peeled potatoes are added. The chilli oil and red and green peppers go in later along with a brown powder and what I think is more garlic, chopped this time. The accompanying noodles are made from a simple flour/salt/water dough.

It's worth noting that when I tried making this according to the methods in these videos (and Sunflower's recipe mentioned below), my chicken ended up terribly overcooked. I may have over-fried it in the initial stages, but I do think next time I might give it some time out of the pan while the potatoes are cooking.

Given the large Muslim population in Xinjiang, I was initially confused by the inclusion of beer or Chinese wine in a number of the recipes for 大盤雞 I found online — for example Sunflower's 大盤雞, which uses beer for the stewing liquid. However, sashajwolf points out in comments that beer is not explicitly forbidden in Islam, and arguably neither is wine made from things other than grapes (and the type of Chinese wine used in traditional Chinese cooking is made from rice). pandarus adds in the same comment thread that it's actually intoxication which is forbidden.

The potatoes should be either sliced thickly or cut into chunks. The chicken should be cut into chunks still on the bone — just get the butcher to do this, unless you really love hacking carcasses about with a cleaver. (The chicken pieces should be small enough to be picked up with chopsticks, so you do want it chopped up, not just jointed.)

Garlic, onions, and fresh chillies are commonly mentioned in recipes. Some sources say that tomatoes or tomato purée should go in too, and possibly also some vinegar. Sugar appears in many recipes as well, with Yummy By Scratch even going so far as to caramelise the sugar first. Spices I've seen suggested include cinnamon, cassia, star anise, cumin, Sichuan peppercorns, and dried chillies; Sunflower also adds chilli bean paste (豆瓣醬/dòu bàn jiàng).

As mentioned above, if you're going to order 大盤雞 in a restaurant then you'll need at least four people to do it justice. One good way to eat the dish is to first eat all the chicken and potatoes, then to order some belt noodles (see Sunflower's recipe for how to make the noodles) which are placed in the remainder of the sauce to soak all up. Alternatively, you can soak up the sauce as you go along with the Xinjiang flatbread known as nan. This is similar to the Indian naan (it's leavened, and baked in a tandoor) but is circular rather than teardrop-shaped, and the centre is stamped flat before baking and often impressed with a decorative design (photo of stamped nan).

[Image: A map of China with Xinjiang shown in red. This is a public-domain image from Wikimedia Commons, originally created by Joowwww.]

While most if not all of the Chinese dishes I've posted about so far come from central/southern/eastern China, there is also some very good food to be had in other areas. Later this week, I'll be discussing a dish from Xinjiang, an autonomous region in the northwest of China, so I thought today I'd give some brief background on the region.

China is a huge country, with many different types of terrain and climate. Although it has a coastline of 14,500 km (9,000 miles) (source: CIA World Factbook), even a relatively central province such as Sichuan is 725 km (450 miles) from the sea at its very closest point, and 1,600 km (1,000 miles) at its furthest (source: Google Maps geocoding). Xinjiang, which borders on countries such as Kazakhstan and Mongolia, is even further away from the sea. In addition to the map above, Wikimedia Commons has a map of China which may help give some perspective on all this.

The vast majority of the land in Xinjiang is uninhabited desert; the population is found in the mountains and in oases around the edges of the deserts. The staple food is not rice, but wheat products such as bread and noodles. Commonly-used flavourings include cumin and other fragrant spices.

Xinjiang has a significant Muslim population, so you won't find the predominance of pork dishes here that you would in other Chinese cuisines [see footnote]. Instead, the main food animals are sheep and goats, though other animals such as chickens are also eaten. Typical dishes include laghman (handpulled noodles with a lamb-based sauce), big-plate chicken (a stew of chicken and potatoes), flatbreads, lamb grilled on skewers, and samsa (lamb-stuffed pastries similar to samosas). Rice is reserved for festive dishes such as pulao, a dish based on rice flavoured with meat and vegetables.

According to Wikipedia, the majority population of Xinjiang at the 2000 census was Uyghur (sometimes spelt "Uighur"), with Han Chinese coming a close second. Hence, while Mandarin is widely used in Xinjiang, so is the Uyghur language, which is a Turkic language (as opposed to the Sino-Tibetan Mandarin) written in an alphabet derived from Arabic. Here's an example of a menu from Xinjiang written in Chinese, English, and Uyghur. For the same reason, you may see the food of the region referred to as Xinjiang food (新疆菜/Xīnjiāng cài), Uyghur food, or sometimes Chinese Muslim food (though the latter is a broader term).

Uyghur food is not found only within Xinjiang; according to Beyond the Great Wall by Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Dugiud, Uyghur restaurants and street food stalls are common in central China, and pinetree notes in comments that in fact Xinjiang food is now found all over China. Even London now has a Xinjiang restaurant — Silk Road in Camberwell.

For more on the food of Xinjiang, see Fuchsia Dunlop's Gourmet article on the subject and two Life On Nanchang Lu posts: food seen and eaten on a trip to Xinjiang, and ten must-try Uyghur foods.

Footnote: [0] Indeed, while in most regions of China the character 肉 (ròu, literally "meat") is taken in the absence of further qualification to mean pork, you can't necessarily assume that this is the case on a Xinjiang menu; here's a photo of part of the menu at Silk Road, which simply uses 肉 to indicate a lamb dish, rather than 羊肉 (yáng ròu/sheep/lamb). I'm not entirely sure how widespread this practice is, however.

醬 (jiàng) isn't a character that generally appears standalone — on a Chinese menu, it's almost always part of a word. It essentially denotes some kind of jam-like or paste-like food, and is often translated as "sauce" or "paste".

The radical of 醬 is 酉 (yǒu/wine); note that it appears on the bottom of the character, rather than on the left as in most other characters with this radical. Characters with the 酉 radical are usually associated with alcohol or fermentation in some way, which certainly fits with 醬, as many Chinese pastes/sauces involve fermentation.

Here are some types of 醬 you might see mentioned on a menu, or used in a recipe:

And here are some specific dishes that use the character 醬:

醬 is also used in the Chinese names of various Western sauces/condiments such as peanut butter, mayonnaise, etc — see the CantoDict entry for 醬 for a list.

Footnote: [0] sung points out in comments that the Cantonese term for soy sauce is different: 豉油 (si-yau) is the term used for soy in general and 生抽 (san-cao) for light soy and 老抽 (lao-cao) for dark soy.

One particularly tasty type of Chinese mushroom is 茶樹菇 (chá shù gū), also known as tea tree mushroom or Agrocybe aegerita. I posted about 菇 (gū/mushroom) earlier this week, and have also previously posted about 茶 (chá/tea). 樹 (shù/tree) frequently appears on menus in the form of 螞蟻上樹 (mǎ yǐ shàng shù), or "ants climbing a tree".

Although tea tree mushrooms are available fresh in some parts of the world, I've only ever seen them dried in London (at New Loon Moon in Chinatown). The dried ones are still tasty, though the stems of the larger ones can be a bit hard even after soaking — one tip I've heard for using up the tougher stems is to pop them in a bag in the freezer and throw them in next time you make stock, for a bit of extra flavour.

茶樹菇 are good in soup, in stir-fried dishes, and in 火鍋 (huǒ guō/hotpot/steamboat) (photo of some prepared for hotpot). Pictured above is a rather good stirfry of 茶樹菇 and 臘肉 (là ròu/Chinese ham) that I ate at Chilli Cool in Bloomsbury and later tried to recreate at home.

I based my attempt on a recipe from Beijing Haochi, though I left out the greens as I was doing a separate leafy greens dish in the same meal. There was plenty of flavour from the mushrooms and ham alone, but I did also add a bit of Shaoxing wine and soy sauce.

I didn't use an expensive ham — I've tried finding Yunnan ham in London, but as yet have had no success, so I just used some cheap 臘肉 that I found at Loon Fung in Silvertown. If you feel adventurous, you could also try making your own!

I'm back from my month off, and have lots of interesting things to post about — but for today, I'm just going to put up this index of all the dishes I've posted about so far, to go with the subject index I posted a month or so ago. Please do let me know if you think there's a better way to organise it.

I'll be keeping this up to date as I write about more dishes, and it's also linked in the sidebar.

Skip to: dishes by main ingredient | dishes by other interesting ingredients | cold dishes | dim sum | vegan and veganisable dishes | specific cooking techniques | dishes not otherwise categorised.

Dishes by main ingredient

• Beancurd (tofu):
  • Hot-and-sour "flower" beancurd (酸辣豆花/suān là dòu huā)
  • Mapo tofu (麻婆豆腐/má pó dòu fu)
  • Tofu with preserved egg (皮蛋豆腐/pí dàn dòu fu)
• Eggs:
  • Oyster omelette (蠔煎/háo jiān)
  • Stirfried eggs with tomatoes (蕃茄炒蛋/fān qié chǎo dàn)
• Fish:
  • Fish soup with pickled greens (酸菜魚/suān cài yú)
  • Raw fish salad (魚生/yú shēng)
  • Steamed fish with chopped salted chillies (剁椒蒸魚/duò jiāo zhēng yú)
• Flour:
  • Cha siu bao (叉燒包/chā shāo bāo)
  • Steamed sponge cake/ma lai goh (馬來糕/mǎ lái gāo)
• Meat:
  • Beef:
    • Cumin beef (孜然牛肉/zī rán niú ròu)
    • Married couple's lung slices (夫妻肺片/fū qī fèi piàn)
    • Water-cooked beef (水煮牛肉/shuǐ zhǔ niú ròu)
  • Chicken:
    • Big-plate chicken (大盤雞/dà pán jī)
    • Chicken with chillies (辣子雞/là zi jī)
    • Jellyfish salad (涼拌海蜇/liáng bàn hǎi zhé)
    • Mouthwatering chicken (口水雞/kǒu shuǐ jī)
  • Pork:
    • Cha siu bao (叉燒包/chā shāo bāo)
    • Crispy roast pork belly/siu yuk (燒肉/shāo ròu)
    • Dongpo pork (東坡肉/Dōngpō ròu)
    • Noodles with pork and fermented bean sauce (炸醬麵/zhà jiàng miàn)
    • Pork with mashed garlic (蒜泥白肉/suàn ní bái ròu)
    • Red-cooked pork (紅燒肉/hóng shāo ròu)
    • Siu mai (燒賣/shāo mài)
    • Vietnamese-style spring rolls (越式炸春卷/yuè shì zhà chūn juǎn
• Noodles:
  • Ants climbing a tree (螞蟻上樹/mǎ yǐ shàng shù)
  • Cheung fun (腸粉/cháng fěn)
  • Dan dan noodles (擔擔麵/dān dān miàn)
  • Dongbei lapi (東北拉皮/Dōngběi lā pí)
  • Noodles with pork and fermented bean sauce (炸醬麵/zhà jiàng miàn)
  • Three-sliver salad (涼拌三絲/liáng bàn sān sī)
• Offal:
  • Ears:
    • Pig's ears with chilli oil (紅油豬耳/hóng yóu zhū ěr)
  • Kidneys:
    • Fire-exploded kidney flowers (火爆腰花/huǒ bào yāo huā)
  • Tripe:
    • Beef tripe with ginger and spring onions (姜蔥牛柏葉/jiāng cōng niú bǎi yè)
    • Married couple's lung slices (夫妻肺片/fū qī fèi piàn)
• Rice:
  • Congee with lean pork and preserved egg (皮蛋瘦肉粥/pí dàn shòu ròu zhǒu)
  • Rice with chicken in lotus leaf/lo mai gai (糯米雞/nuò mǐ jī)
  • Zongzi (粽子/zòng zi)
• Seafood:
  • Jellyfish:
    • Jellyfish salad (涼拌海蜇/liáng bàn hǎi zhé)
  • Oysters:
    • Oyster omelette (蠔煎/háo jiān)
  • Prawns:
    • Har gao/prawn dumplings (蝦餃/xiā jiǎo)
    • Paper-wrapped prawns (紙包蝦/zhǐ bāo xiā)
• Vegetables:
  • Aubergine (eggplant):
    • Fish-fragrant aubergine (魚香茄子/yú xiāng qié zi)
    • Mashed steamed aubergine (擂蒸茄子/lēi zhēng qié zi)
    • Three fresh things from the earth (地三鮮/dì sān xiān)
  • Cucumber:
    • Cucumber salad (涼拌黃瓜/liáng bàn huáng guā)
    • Jellyfish salad (涼拌海蜇/liáng bàn hǎi zhé)
  • Daikon (mooli/Chinese radish):
    • Deep-fried shredded turnip puffs (蘿蔔絲酥餅/luó bo sī sū bǐng)
    • Pan-fried turnip cake/lo bak goh (蘿蔔糕/luó bo gāo)
  • Edible fungus:
    • Wood ear salad (涼拌木耳/liáng bàn mù ěr)
  • Green beans:
    • Dry-fried green beans (乾煸四季豆/gān biān sì jì dòu)
  • Greens (cabbage, Chinese leaf, pea shoots, etc):
    • Hand-torn cabbage (手撕包菜/shǒu sī bāo cài)
    • Mangetout leaves in a rich stock (上湯豆苗/shàng tāng dòu miáo)
    • Vinegar-glazed Chinese cabbage (醋溜白菜/cù liù bái cài)
    • Water spinach with fermented beancurd (腐乳炒空心菜/fǔ rǔ chǎo kōng xīn cài)
  • Mushrooms (dried or fresh):
    • Tea tree mushrooms with Chinese ham (茶樹菇炒臘肉/chá shù gū chǎo là ròu)
  • Potato:
    • Shredded potatoes (土豆絲/tǔ dòu sī)
    • Three fresh things from the earth (地三鮮/dì sān xiān)
  • Sweetcorn:
    • Sweetcorn with salted egg yolk (鹹蛋黃玉米粉/xián dàn huáng yù mǐ fěn)
  • Taro:
    • Crispy deep-fried taro croquettes (蜂巢炸芋角/fēng cháo zhà yù jiǎo)
  • Tomatoes:
    • Stirfried eggs with tomatoes (蕃茄炒蛋/fān qié chǎo dàn)
  • Winter melon:
    • Winter melon with dried prawns (海米冬瓜/hǎi mǐ dōng guā)

Dishes using other interesting ingredients

• Century eggs/thousand-year-old eggs/preserved eggs (皮蛋/pí dàn):
  • Congee with lean pork and preserved egg (皮蛋瘦肉粥/pí dàn shòu ròu zhǒu)
  • Tofu with preserved egg (皮蛋豆腐/pí dàn dòu fu)
• Chilli bean paste (豆瓣醬/dòu bàn jiàng):
  • Ants climbing a tree (螞蟻上樹/mǎ yǐ shàng shù)
  • Big-plate chicken (大盤雞/dà pán jī)
  • Fish-fragrant aubergine (魚香茄子/yú xiāng qié zi)
  • Mapo tofu (麻婆豆腐/má pó dòu fu)
  • Noodles with pork and fermented bean sauce (炸醬麵/zhà jiàng miàn)
  • Water-cooked beef (水煮牛肉/shuǐ zhǔ niú ròu)
• Chinese ham/Chinese bacon (臘肉/là ròu):
  • Tea tree mushrooms with Chinese ham (茶樹菇炒臘肉/chá shù gū chǎo là ròu)
• Dried prawns:
  • Winter melon with dried prawns (海米冬瓜/hǎi mǐ dōng guā)
• Dried scallops:
  • Mangetout leaves in rich stock (上湯豆苗/shàng tāng dòu miáo)
• Fermented beancurd:
  • Buddha's delight/monk's vegetables (羅漢齋/luó hàn zhāi)
  • Water spinach with fermented beancurd (腐乳炒空心菜/fǔ rǔ chǎo kōng xīn cài)
• Hunanese chopped salted chillies (剁椒/duò jiāo):
  • Steamed fish with chopped salted chillies (剁椒蒸魚/duò jiāo zhēng yú)
• Pickled mustard greens (酸菜/suān cài):
  • Fish soup with pickled greens (酸菜魚/suān cài yú)
• Salted egg yolks (鹹蛋黃/xián dàn huáng):
  • Sweetcorn with salted egg yolk (鹹蛋黃玉米粉/xián dàn huáng yù mǐ fěn)
• Sichuan peppercorns (花椒/huā jiāo):
  • Chicken with chillies (辣子雞/là zi jī)
  • Dan dan noodles (擔擔麵/dān dān miàn)
  • Dry-fried green beans (乾煸四季豆/gān biān sì jì dòu)
  • Hot-and-sour "flower" beancurd (酸辣豆花/suān là dòu huā)
  • Mouthwatering chicken (口水雞/kǒu shui jī)
  • Mapo tofu (麻婆豆腐/má pó dòu fu)
  • Married couple's lung slices (夫妻肺片/fū qī fèi piàn)
  • Three-sliver salad (涼拌三絲/liáng bàn sān sī)
  • Water-cooked beef (水煮牛肉/shuǐ zhǔ niú ròu)
• Sichuan preserved vegetable (榨菜/zhà cài):
  • Dan dan noodles (擔擔麵/dān dān miàn)
  • Dry-fried green beans (乾煸四季豆/gān biān sì jì dòu)
  • Hot-and-sour "flower" beancurd (酸辣豆花/suān là dòu huā)
• Superior stock (上湯/shàng tāng):
  • Mangetout leaves in a rich stock (上湯豆苗/shàng tāng dòu miáo)

Cold dishes (涼菜/liáng cài)

• About cold dishes
• Cucumber salad (涼拌黃瓜/liáng bàn huáng guā)
• Dongbei lapi (東北拉皮/Dōngběi lā pí)
• Jellyfish salad (涼拌海蜇/liáng bàn hǎi zhé)
• Married couple's lung slices (夫妻肺片/fū qī fèi piàn)
• Mouthwatering chicken (口水雞/kǒu shui jī)
• Pig's ears with chilli oil (紅油豬耳/hóng yóu zhū ěr)
• Pork with mashed garlic (蒜泥白肉/suàn ní bái ròu)
• Shredded potatoes (土豆絲/tǔ dòu sī)
• Three-sliver salad (涼拌三絲/liáng bàn sān sī)
• Tofu with preserved egg (皮蛋豆腐/pí dàn dòu fu)
• Wood ear salad (涼拌木耳/liáng bàn mù ěr)

Dim sum (點心/diǎn xīn)

• Dim sum overview
• Fried dim sum (煎炸點心/jiān zhà diǎn xīn):
  • Crispy deep-fried taro croquettes (蜂巢炸芋角/fēng cháo zhà yù jiǎo)
  • Deep-fried shredded turnip puffs (蘿蔔絲酥餅/luó bo sī sū bǐng)
  • Pan-fried turnip cake/lo bak goh (蘿蔔糕/luó bo gāo)
  • Paper-wrapped prawns (紙包蝦/zhǐ bāo xiā)
  • Vietnamese-style spring rolls (越式炸春卷/yuè shì zhà chūn juǎn
• Steamed dim sum (蒸點心/zhēng diǎn xīn):
  • Beef tripe with ginger and spring onions (姜蔥牛柏葉/jiāng cōng niú bǎi yè)
  • Cha siu bao (叉燒包/chā shāo bāo)
  • Fishballs with pig skin and daikon (魚蛋豬皮蘿蔔/yú dàn zhū pí luó bo)
  • Har gao/prawn dumplings (蝦餃/xiā jiǎo)
  • Rice with chicken in lotus leaf/lo mai gai (糯米雞/nuò mǐ jī)
  • Steamed sponge cake/ma lai goh (馬來糕/mǎ lái gāo)
  • Siu mai (燒賣/shāo mài)
• Other dim sum:
  • Cheung fun (腸粉/cháng fěn)
  • Congee with lean pork and preserved egg (皮蛋瘦肉粥/pí dàn shòu ròu zhǒu)
  • Crispy roast pork belly/siu yuk (燒肉/shāo ròu)

Vegan and veganisable dishes

Note that I've only included here dishes that I think are just as good in the vegan versions as they are in the meaty ones. For example, I don't feel that 擔擔麵 actually needs the pork mince, but 乾煸四季豆 wouldn't be the same without it. Obviously, this is subjective. Another point worth noting is that you will need a good (preferably home-made) vegetable stock to use in place of the chicken/pork stock that flavours many of these dishes, and you may find that the texture is more watery than it should be due to lack of gelatin — this latter point also applies to the meaty versions, if you're using e.g. stock cubes instead of proper stock.

• Ants climbing a tree (螞蟻上樹/mǎ yǐ shàng shù)
• Buddha's delight/monk's vegetables (羅漢齋/luó hàn zhāi)
• Cucumber salad (涼拌黃瓜/liáng bàn huáng guā)
• Dan dan noodles (擔擔麵/dān dān miàn)
• Fish-fragrant aubergine (魚香茄子/yú xiāng qié zi)
• Hand-torn cabbage (手撕包菜/shǒu sī bāo cài)
• Hot-and-sour "flower" beancurd (酸辣豆花/suān là dòu huā)
• Mapo tofu (麻婆豆腐/má pó dòu fu)
• Mashed steamed aubergine (擂蒸茄子/lēi zhēng qié zi)
• Shredded potatoes (土豆絲/tǔ dòu sī)
• Three fresh things from the earth (地三鮮/dì sān xiān)
• Three-sliver salad (涼拌三絲/liáng bàn sān sī)
• Vinegar-glazed Chinese cabbage (醋溜白菜/cù liù bái cài)
• Water spinach with fermented beancurd (腐乳炒空心菜/fǔ rǔ chǎo kōng xīn cài)
• Wood ear salad (涼拌木耳/liáng bàn mù ěr)

Posts which mention specific cooking techniques

• Blanching meat: Red-cooked pork (紅燒肉/hóng shāo ròu)
• Fire-exploding: Fire-exploded kidney flowers (火爆腰花/huǒ bào yāo huā)
• Fish-fragrance/sea-spice: Fish-fragrant aubergine (魚香茄子/yú xiāng qié zi)
• Red-cooking: Red-cooked pork (紅燒肉/hóng shāo ròu)
• Roasting meat: Crispy roast pork belly/siu yuk (燒肉/shāo ròu)
• Steaming fish: Steamed fish with chopped salted chillies (剁椒蒸魚/duò jiāo zhēng yú)
• Water-cooking (poaching): Water-cooked beef (水煮牛肉/shuǐ zhǔ niú ròu)

Dish posts not otherwise categorised

• Hotpot (火鍋/huǒ guō)
• Mooncakes (月餅/yuè bǐng)
• Tea (茶/chá)

According to my vocab lists, 茄 (qié) was one of the very earliest Chinese characters I ever learned; this doesn't really surprise me, since it's the character for my favourite vegetable — the aubergine, or eggplant.

There are a few other characters that 茄 often appears on menus in company with: 子 (zǐ), 條 (tiáo), and 蕃/番 (fān). I wondered if perhaps 茄子 was an emphasis of the egg-like nature of the aubergine, since one of the meanings of 子 is "seed" or "egg", but pne has commented with a more informed view — he says the 子 is probably being used as a mostly-meaningless suffix to disambiguate it from similarly-pronounced characters and/or to make the one character into a proper "word" (which often have two characters). 茄條 usually means that the aubergines are cut into strips — 條 refers to a long, narrow piece of something.

番茄/蕃茄, on the other hand, doesn't mean "aubergine", but "tomato". I don't know the etymology of this, but pne proposes in the same comment that it might be "barbarian's eggplant", since one of the older meanings of 番 is "barbarian", i.e. someone not Chinese (perhaps a politer translation might be "foreigner's eggplant"). Note that 蕃 is just 番 with a grass radical (艹) on top — I've seen both spellings in roughly equal proportions.

Here are some dishes with 茄 in the name:

Another term for aubergine is 矮瓜 (ǎi guā), which literally translates as "short gourd". As mentioned in the comments on that post, though, I've only ever seen 矮瓜 on one menu — 茄子 is much more common.

sung also points out in comments that the northern Chinese term for tomato is 西紅柿 (xī hóng shì), which translates literally as "western red persimmon". 蕃茄/番茄 is a more southern term.

I think I may have mentioned this before, but one very useful type of resource in learning to read Chinese menus is the English-language Chinese food blog, particularly those which include the Chinese names of dishes and ingredients.

Here are a few examples of the kind of blogs I find useful — I would love to hear of any others that people can recommend.

• Appetite For China
• Beijing Haochi
• China South of the Clouds
• Cooking The Books (China tag)
• Eat Drink Chengdu
• Eating Asia
• eGullet China Cooking forum (not actually a blog)
• Fuchsia Dunlop
• Life On Nanchang Lu
• Out To Lunch
• Rasa Malaysia
• Red Cook
• Show Shanti
• Sunflower Food Galore
• Yi Reservation

I'm mainly looking for sources that I can trust to know what they're talking about (and are willing to admit when they aren't sure about something), and that discuss the history and context of the food rather than just posting recipes. Have you got any good suggestions for me?

I'd also like to mention some blogs written by friends of mine; these have a wider focus than the ones listed above, but their authors know plenty about Chinese food and often post about it (usually, like me, in a London context): bellaphon, Eat Noodles Love Noodles, and Tamarind and Thyme.

Somewhat relatedly, here's advance notice that I won't be posting during October 2010 (except on the 1st, which is this Friday). I'm taking a month-long blog sabbatical and will be using the time to research new topics, take more photos, and seek out even more exciting Chinese food. I'll still be reading and commenting on other people's blogs, though, and I'm always available at kake@earth.li if you feel like inviting me out for an adventure!

First things first — happy Mid-Autumn Festival!

This week's character isn't related to the Mid-Autumn Festival, but it is tangentially related to one of last week's characters, 蛋/dàn/egg. 粥 (zhǒu) is the Chinese character for congee (rice porridge), and one of the most popular ways of serving it is with pork and century egg — 皮蛋瘦肉粥 (pí dàn shòu ròu zhǒu). Note the 瘦 (shòu) character here — this indicates that the pork (肉/ròu) is of the lean variety, rather than the fattier cuts that are used in many other Chinese dishes.

Here are some other flavours of congee I've seen listed on menus:

Finally, while rice congee is the most common type of congee in Chinese cuisines, it's sometimes made from other grains, particularly in the north of China where rice is less of a staple food than in other regions. For example, Baozi Inn, a small Northern Chinese restaurant in London's Chinatown, offers 小米粥 (xiǎo mǐ zhǒu) — literally "small [小] grain [米] porridge [粥]" — which is made from millet.

Next Wednesday is the fifteenth day of the eighth month in the Chinese calendar, which is the day of the Mid-Autumn Festival. So even though it doesn't generally appear on actual Chinese menus, there's only one food item I could possibly pick for today's post — the mooncake (月餅/yuè bǐng).

As noted earlier this week, 餅 (bǐng) refers to a (usually) disc-shaped cake, biscuit, or pastry, and may appear on menus in a number of contexts. 月 (yuè) means "moon" or "month", and I've never seen it on a menu.

Mooncakes are pretty much the heaviest kind of cake/pastry that I've ever encountered — I don't think I've ever seen anyone eat a whole one, not even bob. Wikipedia states that they're "usually eaten in small wedges", while Carl Chu at When In Roam jokes that mooncakes given as gifts are then swiftly regifted over and over again "like a game of musical chairs [...] until the day of the festival", at which point the person who gets caught with the mooncakes "has the misfortune of having to eat them". I think this is a little unfair; they're really quite tasty as long as you don't overdo it.

Essentially, a mooncake consists of a smooth sweet filling (usually based on lotus seeds) encased in a soft golden-brown pastry. Embedded in the filling, you may also find one or more salted duck egg yolks (鹹蛋黃/xián dàn huáng) — the more yolks, the more expensive the mooncake (the one below has a single yolk, and cost just under £5). I personally find the yolks delicious, but others disagree!

By the way, I apologise for the brevity of this post, but my internet connection has been acting up all week, so it's been quite hard to get anything written at all. I have something special to post on Monday, though, so I hope that will make up for it!

No, I haven't lost track of what day it is — I know I usually do concept posts on Mondays, but this week I'm doing two character posts instead. There will be an extra-special concept post next Monday though!

蛋 (dàn) is the Chinese character for egg; you may see this on a menu simply as 蛋, or you may see additional specification in the form of 雞蛋 (jī dàn). 雞 is chicken, and I did wonder the first time I saw it whether the eggs were specified as being chicken eggs because 蛋 on its own implied e.g. a duck egg — however, pulchritude set me straight, explaining that 雞蛋 is used rather than 蛋 for reasons of euphony, in situations where 蛋 on its own would sound lopsided or awkward.

There are a couple of situations where 蛋 generally refers to the egg of a duck, however; specifically, 皮蛋 (pí dàn) and 鹹蛋 (xián dàn).

皮蛋 are usually called "century eggs" or "thousand-year-old eggs" in English. The literal translation is "skin egg", which refers to the traditional method of making them by covering raw duck eggs in a high-pH paste based on lime and wood ash, then leaving them to cure. When the process is over, the yolks will have become creamy and sulphorous, while the whites will have set and changed colour to a beautiful dark amber colour — see Helen Yuet Ling Pang's post on 皮蛋 for photos.

Helen also mentions a couple of ways to eat these eggs. One is 皮蛋豆腐 (pí dàn dòu fu), which is a cold dish of century eggs combined with tofu/beancurd (豆腐). Another is 皮蛋瘦肉粥 (pí dàn shòu ròu zhǒu), which is congee/rice porridge (粥/zhǒu) with century eggs and lean pork (瘦肉).

鹹蛋 are salted eggs. You can make these yourself at home, by soaking raw eggs in brine for a few weeks (here's a recipe for the Filipino version and here's one for the Chinese version). Unlike 皮蛋, 鹹蛋 must be cooked before you eat them; in Chinese cuisines, this is usually accomplished by steaming.

I've mentioned 鹹蛋 before, in my post on 鹹蛋黃玉米粉 (xián dàn huáng yù mǐ fěn) — sweetcorn with salted egg yolk. 黃 (huáng) means "yellow", and 蛋黃 ("egg yellow") means egg yolk, so 鹹蛋黃 are the yolks of salted duck eggs — it's not uncommon for the yolks to be the only part of the 鹹蛋 used in a dish, and you can actually buy the yolks separately if that's all you need.

Here are some other dishes that use 蛋 in the name:

As well as these, sung points out in comments another use of the character 蛋, which he actually told me about before and I forgot about — the Cantonese term for fish balls (魚丸 or yú wán to non-Cantonese) is 魚蛋, literally "fish eggs", due to their being roughly egg-shaped.