Thursday, September 18, 2008

Drunken chicken

Drunken chicken is the name given to several different ways of preparing chicken using alcoholic beverages.

China


In Chinese cuisine there are many different ways of cooking drunken chicken.

* One nationally known and very popular version, Shaoxing, originated in the Zhejiang province of eastern China. Shaoxing drunk chicken is cooked and marinated exclusively in historic Shaoxing wine to create a deep taste.
* In another version of the dish, the whole chicken is first then chopped up into pieces appropriately sized for picking up by chopsticks. The steamed meat, along with its juice, is cooked with scallions, ginger and salt. After the chicken is cooked it is marinated in , sherry or hard liquor, like whiskey, overnight in the refrigerator. The chicken is served chilled, often as an appetizer. Besides the liquor-flavored meat, another feature of the dish is the liquor-flavored gelatin that results from the chilled mixture of the alcohol and the cooking juices.

North America


A western version is made by standing a prepared chicken upright on a partially filled can of beer and cooking it slowly in a barbecue or oven. The can goes into the opening of the chicken so that the beer evaporates and permeates the cooking chicken. It received its name due to way the chicken wobbles once the beer has evaporated and due to the fact the chicken is flavored with evaporated beer. The wobbling and falling usually indicates the chicken is done.

Another related recipe is bourbon chicken, which is prepared from bourbon whiskey.

Latin America


The Argentine and Mexican versions of this dish are called ''pollo borracho'', and usually include green and black olives and cinnamon.

Drunken shrimp

Drunken shrimp is a popular dish in portions of China based on fresh-water shrimp that are eaten alive, but stunned in a strong liquor—baijiu—to make consumption easier. Different parts of China have slightly different recipes for it, but the net effect remains the same.

A typical recipe from Sichuan might be:
# Crush 15 roasted together with 100g of scallion whites, mixing both with ?tsp. salt, 2tsp. soy sauce, 2tsp. sesame oil, 1tbsp. chicken stock, ?tsp. MSG. Set aside as dipping sauce.
# Wash 300g live freshwater shrimp to remove all sand. Optionally cut off antennae and feet and wash again. Drain, place in bowl and set aside.
# Shortly before serving, pour 2tsp. strong baijiu over the shrimps and add 25g chopped scallions. Cover the bowl with a dish, invert it and weight it so the shrimp cannot escape.
# To serve, remove bowl, take live shrimp, dip in dipping sauce and consume.

East Meets West (TV Series)

East Meets West is a popular cooking show on the Food Network hosted by the renowned Chinese American chef Ming Tsai. During the half-hour show, Tsai cooked Asian-European fusion cuisine. ''East Meets West'' aired from 1998 to 2003. In 1999, Tsai won the Daytime Emmy award in the category Outstanding Service Show Host for the show.

Filipino Chinese cuisine

There are many types of foods in the Philippines because of inhabitants residing in the country. Most of the Filipino Chinese are ones who have businesses in Chinese food and service restaurants. Restaurants are frequently seen as places where there is a great amount of Chinese Filipino living in that area or somewhere nearby. The food is usually Cantonese where the chefs are from Hong Kong. Typically the Chinese name of a particular food is given a Filipino name or close equivalent in name to simplify pronunciation.

History


When restaurants were established in the 19th century, food became a staple of the pansiterias, with the food given names. The "comida China" includes arroz caldo , and morisqueta tostada . When the Spaniards came, the food influences they brought were from both Spain and Mexico, as it was through the vice-royalty of Mexico that the Philippines were governed.

Filipino foods also find their influence/origins in , , , , , and cuisines. Culinary procedures from China, Spain, Mexico and United States integrated into cuisine practices as well.

From Doreen Fernandez, ''Palayok:''

In the Philippines, trade with China started in the 11th century, as documents show, but it is conjectured that undocumented trade may have started even two centuries earlier. Trade pottery excavated in Laguna, for example, includes pieces dating to the Tang Dynasty . The Chinese trader supplied the silks sent to Mexico and Spain in the galleon trade. In return they took back products of field, forest - beeswax, rattan - and sea, such as beche de mer. While they waited for goods and for payment, they lived here, and sometimes settled and took Filipino wives, a development that resulted in many Filipinos having Chinese origins, bloodlines and the culture now called "Chinoy" . It was a development that resulted in major Chinese inputs into Philippine cuisine.

Evidence of Chinese influence in Philippine food is easy to find, since the names are an obvious clue. ''Pansit'', the dish of noodles flavored with seafood and/or meat and/or vegetables, for example, comes from the Hokkien pian + e + sit meaning something that is conveniently cooked: usually fried," however, pansit now names only noodle dishes, and not only stir fried or sauteed, but shaken in hot water and flavored with a sauce , served with broth even a pasta form that is not noodle shaped, but is of the same flour-water formuation, such as ''pansit molo'' .

One can conjecture without fear that the early Chinese traders, wishing for the food of their homelands, made noodles in their temporary Philippine homes. Since they had to use the ingredients locally available, a sea change occurred in their dishes. If they took Filipino wives, as they often did, and these learned or ventured to cook the noodles for them, then their Filipino tastebuds came into play as well, transforming the local ingredients into a variant dish into an adapted, indigenized Filipino pansit.

Further adaptation and indigenization would occur in the different towns and regions. Thus Malabon, Rizal, a fishing village, has developed ''pansit Malabon'', which features oyster, shrimp and squid. While in Lucban, Quezon which is deeply inland and nowhere near the sea has ''pansit habhab'', which flavored only with a little meat and vegetables, and is so called because it is market food eat off the leaf .

The same thing has happened to lumpia, the Chinese eggroll which now has been incorporated into Philippine cuisine, even when it was still called ''lumpia Shanghai'' . Serving meat and/or vegetable in an edible wrapper is a Chinese technique now to be found in all of Southeast Asia in variations peculiar to each culture. The Filipino version has meat, fish, vegetables, heart of palm and combinations thereof, served fresh or fried or even bare.

The Chinese influence goes deep into Philippine cooking, and way beyond food names and restaurant fare. The use of soy sauce and other soybean products is Chinese, as is the use of such vegetables as ''petsay'', ''toge'' , pickled mustard greens . Many cooking implements still bear their Chinese name, like sianse or turner. The Filipino ''carajay'', spelled the Spanish way is actually a Chinese wok.

Cooking process, also derive from Chinese methods. ''Pesa'' is Hokkien for "plain boiled" and it is used only in reference to the cooking of fish, the complete term being peq+sa+hi, the last morpheme meaning fish. In Tagalog it can mean both fish and chicken .

Since most of the early Chinese traders and settlers in the country were from Fukien, it is Hokkien food that is most widespread in influence. Since, however, restaurant food is often Cantonese, most of the numerous Chinese restaurant in the country serve both types. Other style of Chinese cuisine are available though in the minority.

Living and traveling


Filipinos traveled to Europe in 1890, to attend the Paris Exposition, and in 1899 there lived "a group of respectable Filipinos composed in the majority of those who emigrated from the Philippines to escape the persecutions brought about by the revolution against Spain in 1896."

Chefs and cookbooks


*Martin Tinio, Jr., spoke of recipes that he or his family prepared for holidays and other special occasions, and which his parents or he himself had first encountered in France.

*Each recipe, by Mariano A. Henson of Pampanga, "gives exact measurements, the price for each condiment, the total price for each dish, and the date when he tested it. Among the French recipes he obviously cooked and served his family are: Salmon au Gratin, Chuletas a la Papillote, Bouillavaise [sic] de Marsella, Oysters a la D'Uxelles, Mechadong solomillio a la Francesa, Fish au Beurre, and Glorified Fondue" in one of his 30 cookbooks: ''Cusinang Capampangan, patina ding linutu nang ibat caring Americano, Castila, Frances, Intsic, Italiano, Polaco, Turco at aliwa pa, nahun qng paglasa nang sarili''; Pampango, .

Lifestyle


Evidence of the French-influenced lifestyle can be seen in a magnificent set of S鋦res tableware. All plates and glasses were monogrammed, complete with large platters for pi鋃es mont嶪s and carafes for wine, gift of the Grand Duke Alexis of Russia -- and a set before that.

Examples of dishes, pastries, and others


* Pansit
* Lumpia
* Taho
* ''Maki'' - pork, beef or fish in a thick cornstarch-based soup.
* ''Kiampong'' - a variant of fried rice.
* ''Comida China'' - nowadays a Table d'hote of Chinese dishes offered in some Chinese restaurants.
* Hopya
*
* Kwapaw
* ''Ma-Chang'' - a variant of Lo mai gai shaped in a triangular pattern.
* Mami

Fried rice

Fried rice is a popular component of Chinese cuisine and other forms of Asian cuisine. It is made from cold rice fried with other leftover ingredients. It is sometimes served as the penultimate dish in Chinese banquets .

There are dozens of varieties of fried rice, each with their own specific list of ingredients. In Asia, the more famous varieties include Yangzhou and Fujian fried rice. In the West, Chinese restaurants catering to non-Chinese clientele have invented their own varieties of fried rice including fried rice, Singaporean fried rice and the ubiquitous 'special fried rice'.

Fried rice is a common staple in American Chinese cuisine, especially in the westernized form sold at fast-food stands. The most common form is a basic fried rice, often with some mixture of eggs, scallions, and vegetables, with chopped meat added at the customer's discretion. Fried rice is also seen in other Asian American restaurants, even in cuisines where there is no native tradition of the dish such as the Caribbean. The dish is also a staple of Chinese restaurants in the United Kingdom , and fried rice is very popular in the West African nations of Ghana and Togo, both as a restaurant food and as street food.

Ingredients


Ingredients used in fried rice are greatly varied. They can include:

*Vegetables such as carrots, , celery, and peas
*Chicken, pork , shrimp, or tofu
*
*Chili pepper or hot sauces - these are sometimes offered in a small dish served alongside the rice. Many cooks also season the fried rice with black pepper.
*Shoyu, rice wine, or cooking sherry is sometimes used as it gives fried rice a brown color.

Often cooked in a wok, it includes vegetable oil or animal fat to prevent sticking, as well as for flavor. Often, onions and garlic add zest and extra flavor. It is popularly eaten either as an accompaniment to another dish or, alternatively on its own as a course by itself.

Popular garnishes include fried shallots, sprigs of parsley, carrots carved into intricate shapes or sliced chili sprinkled on top of the heaped rice. Many food stands found on the streets across Southeast Asia will serve fried rice on the spot expecting the customer to choose which garnishes to add.

Basic method



Fried rice is made from cold rice which has already been cooked by boiling. The wok is heated with some oil, until it starts smoking. Rice is stirred quickly and uniformly to prevent burning, and to coat the rice grains with oil to prevent sticking. After 1-2 minutes the rice is flavored to taste and stirred thoroughly, then the other ingredients are added.

More often than not, the rice is also tossed with an egg to smooth its texture and enhance its flavor, and hence the name 蛋炒飯, ''dan chao fan'', meaning simply egg with fried rice. The most common method of preparing is to stir fry spices like chopped garlic in a wok briefly to release its aroma , and then to crack an egg into the wok; before the egg becomes completely cooked the rice is then added, and after some intense stir frying it is ready to be served.

Common varieties


* Bai cha - A variation of fried rice that includes diced , garlic, shoyu, and herbs usually eaten with pork.
* Canton fried rice - a Cantonese dish of fried rice typically dry, Fukien fried rice is usually served "wet", with sauce or gravy on top.
* Cha Han (チャーハン)- is Chinese fried rice suited to Japanese tastes, sometimes adding katsuobushi for flavor. 
* - A fried rice dish consisting of generous portions of shrimp, scrambled egg, along with barbecued pork. This is the most popular fried rice served in Chinese restaurants, commonly referred to simply as "special fried rice" or "house fried rice."
* Yuan yang fried rice - Fried rice dish topped with two different types of sauce, typically a savory white sauce on one half, and a red tomato-based sauce on the other half. Elaborated versions use the sauce to make a symbol.
* Thai fried rice - The flavor of this version is radically different from that of common fried rice, and comes from various additions not found in Chinese fried rice.
* American Fried Rice - Bizarre as it sounds, this style of fried rice is actually a Thai invention of hot dogs, fried chicken, eggs as side dishes or mixed in with rice fried with ketchup. Apparently, this was served to G.I.'s during the Vietnam war, but now has become very popular and commonplace all throughout Thailand. The Malaysian counterpart, substituting pork with chicken, is called ''Nasi Goreng USA''.
* Nasi goreng - a Malay and Indonesian version of fried rice. The main difference compared to fried rice is that it is cooked with sweet soy sauce . It is often accompanied by additional items such as a fried egg, fried chicken, satay, or keropok. Served in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, the southern Philippines, and most of the neighboring countries. Also very popular in the Netherlands.
* - A popular version of fried rice in Peru and Ecuador. Brought by Asian immigrants, it combines the traditional Chinese recipe with a distinct touch of South American flavor.
* Kimchi bokkeumbap or kimchi fried rice - A popular variety of fried rice prepared with Korean pickled cabbage, kimchi, and a variable list of other ingredients. Although a wide range of fried rice dishes are frequently prepared in Korean cuisine, often with whichever ingredients are handy, Kimchi Fried Rice is a popular variety.
*Garlic fried rice - Also known as ''sinangag'', this Filipino version only contains garlic and is often a breakfast fixture. Sinangag can be combined with other foods to create a new food like "Tapsilog"
*Curry fried rice - standard fried rice mixed with curry powder for a spicier flavor.
*Hawaiian fried rice – A common style of fried rice in . Usually contains egg, green onions, peas, cubed carrots, and one or both of and . Also sometimes available with kimchi added. Normally cooked in sesame oil with.
*Arroz Frito - Very similar to "Special Fried Rice", this version of fried rice can be found along side typical ''criollo'' dishes in many Cuban restaurants. This dish features ham, bbq pork, shrimp, chicken, and eggs along with a variety of vegetables. Some restaurants add ''lechón'' , lobster tails, and/or crab. Chinese Cubans are responsible for the dish's popularity.

Drunken chicken

Drunken chicken is the name given to several different ways of preparing chicken using alcoholic beverages.

China


In Chinese cuisine there are many different ways of cooking drunken chicken.

* One nationally known and very popular version, Shaoxing, originated in the Zhejiang province of eastern China. Shaoxing drunk chicken is cooked and marinated exclusively in historic Shaoxing wine to create a deep taste.
* In another version of the dish, the whole chicken is first then chopped up into pieces appropriately sized for picking up by chopsticks. The steamed meat, along with its juice, is cooked with scallions, ginger and salt. After the chicken is cooked it is marinated in , sherry or hard liquor, like whiskey, overnight in the refrigerator. The chicken is served chilled, often as an appetizer. Besides the liquor-flavored meat, another feature of the dish is the liquor-flavored gelatin that results from the chilled mixture of the alcohol and the cooking juices.

North America


A western version is made by standing a prepared chicken upright on a partially filled can of beer and cooking it slowly in a barbecue or oven. The can goes into the opening of the chicken so that the beer evaporates and permeates the cooking chicken. It received its name due to way the chicken wobbles once the beer has evaporated and due to the fact the chicken is flavored with evaporated beer. The wobbling and falling usually indicates the chicken is done.

Another related recipe is bourbon chicken, which is prepared from bourbon whiskey.

Latin America


The Argentine and Mexican versions of this dish are called ''pollo borracho'', and usually include green and black olives and cinnamon.

Dongpo's pork

Dongpo's pork is a famous Hangzhou dish which is made by pan-frying and then red cooking pork belly. The pork is cut to around 2 inches square in dimensions, consisting of half fat and half lean meat. The mouth feel is oily but not greasy, with the fragrance of .

Origins


Legend has it that while Su Dongpo was banished to , in a life of poverty, he made an improvement of the traditional process. He first braised the pork, added liquor and made pork, then slowly stewed it on a low heat. This dish was first launched in Huangzhou, then spread to Hangzhou, the capital of the Southern Song Dynasty, flourished, and then became one of Hangzhou's most famous dishes.