China is a humungous country, and despite being all Chinese styles, every region has it's own unique cuisine as well. This week, we are going to try out new Chinese dishes according to different geographic locations. And guess where we are starting first? Yes, BEIJING!! Beijing became one of the fastest growing cities in the world in all aspects. Even though everything advances, Beijing's food culture remains traditional except with the help of modern techniques and technologies. One of Beijingers' favourite dish would be noodles! And today, we are going to learn how to make Chinese spaghetti bolognese 炸酱面!
Here we go!
So first you would need a package of noodles. The noodles we used were kinda' flat and thicker than usual. But the Chinese have so much varieties of noodles for a reason; everyone has different tastes! So you can get whatever noodles you would like whether it be round, skinny, short, etc. Now that you have chosen your noodles, you want to boil them until they are cooked. Take it out of the water and mix it with sesame oil so it doesn't stick together afterwards when you try to eat them (coming from personal experience ahaha)!
Now the sauce, or more like a paste. For this paste, honestly I didn't really follow the recipe we got....ooops. The 炸酱面 that I usually eat were more peanut buttery and with some sesame paste 芝麻酱. It is sort of sweet and salty; and that is something that I was trying to go for. So using my tongue, this is what I ended up making :). What you would need is some ground pork, sugar, sesame oil, chili oil (if you feel adventurous), stock (or water if you don't have any), soy sauce, peanut butter, and hoisan sauce 海鲜酱 (sweet). And so depending on YOUR taste, you can add more of one ingredient and less of the other. This is why I didn't give you any measurements because it's all improvised! To top it off, I sprinkled some chopped green onions, garlic, and crushed peanuts! (This is like the icing on the cake!! :). Food presentation is another "big thing" in Chinese food culture. Wanna' know more about it? Stay tuned for tomorrow's post! ;).)
And there you have it! Chinese 炸酱面 (with modifications) :). Let me know how it tastes like and how you made yours!
And now to everyone's FAVOURITE part, VEGGIES! Haha okay fine, MY favourite part. I've always been a vegetable kind of person, but I wouldn't go as far as being a vegetarian. I mean, Chinese food is SO GOOD!!! ALL OF THEM! (Fine, you caught me, most of them, there.) This dish is called braised eggplant. When eggplant is cooked, it should be soft, and kind of squishy. Do not fear! It's actually pretty good. But if you can't stand this kind of texture and consistency, I do understand, I'm a reasonable person :). Adventurers, you will need:
- 1/4 c. soy sauce
- 1 tsp. sugar
- 2 tsp. bean paste
- 1 tsp. cornstarch
- 3 tbsp. vegetable oil
- 1 large eggplant (cut into bite sized pieces)
- 2 cloves or garlic
- 1/4 tsp. salt
The first thing you want to do is the mix together the soy sauce, 1 1/2 cup water, sugar, and the bean paste. Now in another bowl, mix together 1/4 water and corn starch. Turn on the wok and when it heats up, add in the oil, garlic, and eggplant. After about 2-3 minutes add in the soy sauce mixture and turn up the heat. Cook for 15 minutes with some stirring action going on! And then add in the corn starch mixture. Guess what? You're done! Now pick up your chopsticks and start eating!! :)
With all honestly, I wasn't a hugeeeee fan of this dish. Not because of the eggplant, not because of who is cooking it, but because of the recipe (maybe). I actually really do like eating eggplant. However, I don't know why, I just wasn't too crazy about this dish. There is an eggplant dish I really liked in Chinese restaurants. I can't think of the name. But the eggplant is cooked so thorough that it is ALMOST like a tofu consistency. I think thats it! If I were to remake this dish, I would cook it for another 5-10 minutes and allow the eggplant to fully soak in the flavours!
I really don't remember my family ever making eggplant. To be fair, my parents do all the cooking. I guess one of them, probably my dad, doesn't like eggplants much. He's usually the picky one and he doesn't really like soft, squishy, kind of textures. But I do remember that whenever I eat an eggplant dish, it is usually cooked with some kind of meat. Probably because eggplant itself doesn't have that strong of a flavour, and meat brings flavour to literally anything you cook it with.
If I had to choose, I'd stick to the noodles. Just because it is really customized to my liking haha :). Which one would you choose?
That is it for today! I hope you have fun making these two both traditional yet so different dishes! Let me know what you think in the comments below or if you have any suggestions that would be great! Come back tomorrow for some food presentation!!
Evann
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