Ok, this is for Spicy Brown:

And I have no photos of this dish. I looked all through my flickr and all the hundreds of photos I'm too lazy to post. Not to be found anywhere. Ooops!!! Sorry. If you want to see pictures, go look at this blog:
http://kitschow.blogspot.com/2008/07/116-white-cut-chicken-recipe.html
which is not the same recipe but is similar for you visual folk.

& more info here about white cut chicken.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_cut_chicken

White Cut Chicken recipe (p. 177)
(from the People's Republic of China Cookbook, Nobuko Sakamoto, 1977.
ISBN: 0-394-40286-3
All MSG has been removed from this recipe, it's just fine w/o it.

Succulent chicken in a sauce with a real bite to it.

• Combine the ingredients for the seasoning mixture. Boil enough water to cover the chicken in a large pot. Put the chicken in and boil for 20-30 minutes, remove and test for doneness by piercing the thickest part of the thigh. If blood appears, cook for 5-10 minutes longer. Drain and carve into serving pieces. Sprinkle with the grated ginger.
• Put oil in a small pan over medium heat. When the oil begins to smoke, add the flower pepper and after 1/2 minute remove from heat.
• Put 1/2 cup stock in a wok over high heat. When it begins to boil, add the seasoning mixture and then the cornstarch paste. Stir until thickened.
• Pour the hot seasoned oil over the chicken, (the chicken will make a nice sizzling sound) then pour the sauce mix over it and garnish with green onion. Serve with rice. Makes enough for 3-4 people.

~I just get chicken breast and boil it. This is a dish that is really tasty either hot or cold. It translates REALLY REALLY well to tofu.

Enjoy!
~kat

Another good tofu recipe as I'm too lazy to type when I can cut and paste.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mapo_doufu
http://www.riceagain.com/2008/08/recipe-mapo-dofu-tofu/
Recipe: Mapo Dou fu / Tofu
Posted: August 18th, 2008 | Author: Nick | Filed under: Recipes | Tags: Chinese, Recipe, Sichuan |

Even tofu haters love Ma Po Tofu. Nearly everywhere you eat this dish it’s slightly different, because there are so many regional and family variations, and despite being a Sichuan dish it’s popular all over China where people have made slight adaptations to suit their collective pallets.

Here’s how I make it.

Ingredients:

* 500g Tofu, cubed (use soft tofu, not to lao/old which is coarser and harder)
* 100g ground pork
* 2 Tbsp peanut oil
* 2-3 Minced garlic cloves
* 1 Tsp minced ginger
* 2 Tsp ground Sichuan peppercorn
* Dried Sichuan chili pepper
* Chopped spring onions
* 1 Tbsp fermented black bean
* 2 Tbsp chili bean paste
* 1 Tbsp soy sauce
* 1 Cup of Chicken stock
* White sugar

1. Add oil to the wok and brown the pork.
2. Add garlic and ginger and stir fry until fragrant. Then break the dried chili and add with the ground pepper corns and stir fry for 30 seconds or so.
3. Next add the bean paste and black bean and stir fry for about a minute until the flavors come out and the bean paste has coloured the other ingredients and the oil in your wok red.
4. Stir in the chicken stock and simmer for 30 seconds before adding the tofu cubes. Some stock powders and cubes contain a lot of salt, so if you’re using short cuts like me, be aware of the saltiness of the stock mixture before you add it lest your final result turns out a salty disaster.
5. Be careful not to stir the tofu too much as it breaks easily, though you can turn it over gentally or ladle the sauce over the top to ensure even coverage and that each and every bit soaks up all the flavours. (I have a shalowish wok so the tofu wasnt quite covered while it simmered in the sauce)
6. Add a pinch of sugar, cover and simmer for about 5 minutes but no longer than 10.
7. Add cornstarch mixture (2 tsp starch to 1 of warm water to thicken the sauce if still needed after simmering and garnish with spring onions.
8. Serve.

You'll need this for both recipes- Szechuan flower pepper. Go find it. or if I am really nice I could be persuaded to send you some.

A new experiment for dinner tonight- made Vietnamese summer rolls and clafouti.

Vietnamese summer rolls:

My clafouti was half peach and half blueberry.  I got all the fruit at the local farmer's market on Sunday morning.  I can't believe that it is peach season already!  Thus far I guess this counts as 2 different types, the previous try was raspberry lemon (which I felt was a bit too tart).  Next I think it will be pear or strawberry.




Closeup:



BLUEBERRY CLAFOUTI RECIPE from here:
"This recipe can also be made in individual ramekins - see the variation below. Half and half or light cream makes this dessert a bit richer and, in my opinion, a bit better"

INGREDIENTS:

1 pint blueberries, about 12 ounces

3 large eggs

1/3 cup sugar

1 cup whole milk, half and half, or light cream

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Pinch salt

1/2 cup all purpose flour

DIRECTIONS:

Heat the oven to 350 degrees and adjust a rack to upper position. Lightly butter a 9-inch pie dish and arrange berries in an even layer.

Whisk the eggs and sugar in a medium bowl until lemon-colored and slightly thickened, about 1 minute. Add the milk, vanilla and salt and whisk to combine. Sprinkle the flour over the mixture and whisk until smooth. Pour the batter over the berries and bake until puffed and nicely browned around the edges, about 45 to 50 minutes. Once removed from the oven, the clafouti will deflate as it cools. Serve warm with a sprinkling of confectioner's sugar.

Serves 6 to 8.

I am thinking of naming it Cafall.

Friday I made the beginnings of this yummy soup.  I am almost always perfectly happy with nothing but soup for dinner.  This one is no exception, and I found a great recipe here on the Cookography blog which is a modification of a Cook's Illustrated recipe.  I was especially happy because it takes a lot of the active prep time out of this recipe- instead of standing at the stovetop stirring until the cows come home, you use a dutch oven and bake it in the stove.  Yay for easy.  the only thing I would have changed is instead of using canned broth I would have preferred to use up those beef soup bones in my freezer and make a nice rich homemade beef broth.  We got them to make demi glace but since fell by the wayside and bought demiglace instead... perhaps I will make an oxtail soup or something or marrows.  I also think I used over the 4 lbs of onions called for but hey whatever.  It is always amazing to me just how much those onions which originally filled the entire pot cook down!!!

Pics from my flickr:

I somehow managed to delete all the pics off the camera when my computer had to be restarted.  Luckily i had some of the pics on a flash drive, but the rest were... just... GONE kaput patooey.  If there's a cheap and non-spyware way to recover those files, please let me know?

thx!!

~k

Look how cute, you think.  Wait til the 2d picture.

 
Kiba, our tuxedo cat, is our special kitty, as in short-bus kitty.  She does stuff like this all the time.  Certainly she does keep us entertained, but wow.  only about 2/3 of her is actually crammed up on the edge of that desk.  We think she was following the sunny warm spots.  She finds weird places all the time to sleep- like this, on top of the nice warm Playstation3:  Actually this is after we found the bad kitty having finished her snooze on top of the gaming device.  The DH was QUITE unhappy about that.  At least she wasn't on top of the really expensive AV stuff.


And here:  on a random bookshelf.

Suki on the other hand is usually a lot more ladylike.

Today it snowed here.  I really didn't believe that we would get it. 
Looks like back home in NH. 
So pretty and as always, it sounds so still during a snow storm.
I'm glad that I filled the feeder the other day, the birds must be having a terrible time in this unaccustomed snowy weather.

pics here:
www.flickr.com/photos/kitkabbit/sets/72157612811431248/

The DH and I did xmas a bit early.  We ripped open our presents and gloated amid the debris, while the cats watched in fascination.  I should have taken pics of the fang marks Kiba left on my present from Matt and on one of his from me.  That cat must sniff out cardboard somehow since she absolutely MUST gnaw on any cardboard box around. 


Among my loot was the Absolute Sandman #3, a wonderful crocheted scarf from a friend, gorgeous and delicate earrings from my mom, and the piece de resistance--- an envelope with printed reservations for Tony Bourdain's lecture/talk in February at the Durham Performing Arts center.  We have orchestra PIT seats, in the 2d row.  Wow!  The special VIP package also includes entry to a special book signing afterwards.  I'm so excited.  Now I have something to look forward in the 2 months til VDay and birthday week.  It's going to be great.  And tonight i'm off for 3 days.  My feet will thank me.  And I won't have to deal with ACs or PITAs (Annoying Customers aka Pain in the Asses) for a couple days, although the holiday hell won't be over until Jan 15th when people have gotten all their xmas reject and return done. I get to escape retail hell, and we are going to spend xmas up in VA.  Matt and I are going to stay with his brother Mark and wife Teresa, and I will get to meet their new kitties, squeee!  I hope they let me pet them (let enough squeeze them and cuddle them.. I can hope...)

Aside from that.  Those of you who have known me for a long time...  Well in no way is this an exception, XMAS from me will be late (as usual) this year.  I'll be doing my xmas cards, baking, and parcel dispatch after XMAS but before the new year.  So, you will get your stuff... but it will take me a couple days.  Let's just hope I don't bring back kiddy plague from Matt's aunt and uncle's, they have 2 kids... I refuse to be sick this year.  last year was QUITE enough, what with being walking wounded for a month between turkey day and xmas.

FYI, folks, things will be sort of normal around here after christmas, I hope.  I'll try to catch up on LJ entries sometime soon, but I'd expect that to happen in the new year.