ABC Wednesday: Letter B

This is technically NOT a BED. When I saw Mrs. Nesbitts' poor cat Ella all cramped in a round pot as a bed, I told her that I will cyber Ella a more comfortable bed.
http://mrsnesbittsspace.blogspot.com/2010/07/zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.html

This is a Chinese BUN called BAO. This is eaten by the Northern Chinese. They call them a Flower Bao. After kneading, they score lines on the dough. When it is steamed, the lines open up, and hence a flower. It is eaten in place of rice with meat or vegetables.
http://abcwednesdayround3.blogspot.com/
ABC Wednesday is hosted by Mrs. Denise Nesbitt

I normally post this meme on my Photos site, but decided to do it here as it is a food.
Denise, I hope Ella will have a good night sleep and she has plenty of room to stretch her legs. This pot is 6 inch by 10 inch. The pattern is not exactly like yours, but the colour looks alike.

Glutinous Rice

split skinned mung beans, Chinese Chestnuts, little Chinese mushroom. ( If you prefer a vegetarian Glutinous rice.
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No soya sauce pork, browned by caramelized sugar.


This is a lazy modern day person's concoction of Zhung Zhi. The Cantonese call it NOI MAI GAI. I use pork in mine, so it is called NOI MAI FAN or glutinous rice.

To make my caramelized pork, I had to email my sister Margaret.

You remember when you were in form 1, you learned to cook pork trotters. You caramelizd sugar to make a beautiful reddish brown, you remember how to do it?
Sam doesn't like soya sauce. I decided to cook from memory of you doing it. The colour is very nice, but because I was multi tasking, I forgot to tell my assistant Sam to stir all the time, it got a little too brown. Luckily it was not burnt.

Hi Ann,
Heat up the wok until hot and then you put in the sugar until it melts and turned brown. Depending on the degree of browness you want, then you add in the pork trotters. Ýou have to be very vigilant, otherwise you end up getting charcoal.
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Glutinous rice is also called sweet or sticky rice. It is used in this recipe as you need the rice to stick together. In Thai restaurant, you often get a pudding of sweet rice and mango cubes and coconut milk.

Instead of wrapping the rice individual with bamboo leaves, I make it like a pie. Soak the rice for at least 4 hours.

In a casserole dish, line a layer or soaked glutinous rice, put the pork, and vegetarian mixture in the middle, cover with rice, and you should have the filling enclosed in the rice.

Steam in a wok for one hour.

Alternatively you can cook in the microwave for 15 minutes. Add boiling water into the casserole dish.

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In fact, the Zhung my family are not tetrahedral shaped, they are like a six inch pillow. Zhung takes about 3 hours to steam. I am making the simplified version. The Purists would shake their heads especially when I do the mircowave version.

Causa: Food from Peru

At the end of every term, in our adult ESOL school at Mt Albert Baptist School, we encourage our students to bring something of their home for a shared lunch.

My student Felicitas from Peru brought Causa. I asked her to explain to the other students. She made a potatoes mash filled with tuna and avocado. The potatoes were layered like a giant sandwich.

Ingredients:
1kg potatoes (yellow, if available)
½ cup vegetable oil
1 lemon juice
1 can of tuna-fish
½ onion, finely chopped
1 cup mayonnaise
1 avocado
parsley and chopped hard boiled eggs for decoration
Salt
This is a very beautiful and delicious dish to take to a pot luck aka bring a plate. It is economical, and you can have your own version of minced beef, lamb or chicken.

Bamboo leaves and Zhung Zhi

This is a post of Tradition and nostalgia. The Zhungzi or zhung in my Cantonese dialect or commonly known in Singapore and Malaysia as Bak Zhang is a traditional Chinese food, made of glutinous rice stuffed with different fillings and wrapped in bamboo or reed leaves. They are cooked by steaming or boiling. Through the years in South East Asia, it has morphed into the Nyonya Zhung where the fragrant pandan leaf has been used to impart it's fragrance.

We ate this every year on the Lunar fifth of May, and we helped Mum wrap this difficult dumpling. I can make it but I am a lazy person, so I have not made it as an adult.

The History behind this dumpling and the Dragon boat festival associated with is Qu Yuan, a famous Chinese poet from the kingdom of Chu jumped to the sea when he was frustrated that the king did not listen to his advice. After his death, the people realized that the king had made a great error by not listening to him. By then it was too late, they threw rice into the sea so that the fish would not eat his body. The banging of drums on the dragon boats was to scare the fish away.

These days you can buy the tetrahedral shaped zhungzi throughout the year. My traditional Cantonese ones are rectangular shape like a pillow. My two older sisters Rose and Elizabeth can make them. Alas for me, too many decades away from home and combined with laziness, this tradition has died with me. I think I can make the tetrahedral shape of my mother in law, if I tried. They use a special kind of bamboo leaf which my mum grew in her garden. Most people buy from imported from China. The Vietnamese call this Elephant bamboo.

On Wednesday, just as I was about to start my Adult ESOL class, the ESOL administrator, my friend C gave me a pack and she had made some Zhungzi. I have forgotten it was the festival again. During the class, I was discussing with the class about lunch, and they talked about rice. We talked about the different ways of eating rice. A student brought up the dumpling made of sticky rice. My friend's Zhungzi came handy. I took them out and showed it to my students from Algeria and Peru.. What is more true than one picture is worthed a thousand words. I only had 4 of them, so I didn't want to let the students sample them.

When Sam saw them, he was very excited. He had not have Zhungzi for 4 years. No prize for guessing who ate most of them. May be I should try to make them.

I took the photo of the bamboo clump when I arrived on the Gold Coast. It was the same one Mum had grown in Borneo. Here where her body lay, they also grown the bamboo which we used to make Zhungzi. We used with without having to boil them as you would have to with the imported ones. The leaves were soft and subtle.

My friend and ex school mate http://sarawakianaii.blogspot.com/2010/06/zhongzie-remembering-chu-yuan.html
has written about this festival. You may like to read about it.

Stewed Beef tendon

When I was living in Singapore, beef tendon noodle soup was quite popular. My friends told me with all my training for my marathon running, it was good to have this soup to build up my legs. I bought a bowl once with noodles, but I could hardly find any tendon. The vendor had ripped me off by selling me beef noodle soup. You see beef is very expensive over there, and tendon is even more expensive.

Yesterday, I was at my Asian supermarket, and they were selling some very good quality beef tendons. I have never cooked any before, but I was game. After buying a kilo, I scoured the spices rake and found this pack which says,"for meat soup". It has pepper, star anise, cinnamon, WA JIAO, a kind of tree pepper, and others I couldn't identified.

I google for recipe and one says it needs 4 hours to stew. I almost wish I didn't buy it, as the water engineer doesn't like beef, the daughter has turned vegetarian and chances are the son won't eat it as well. It took about 3 hours, and it was ready.

The verdict? Those of you who eat pork trotters, the beef tendon is similar except it is not so fatty. Would I cook it again? No, because no one else eats it , and besides I don't run marathons anymore. LOL