Dim sum and other Cantonese food

[garcia1000]

Hey guys

I know a bit about Cantonese food. I know the most about Hong Kong/Guangzhou style traditional food, and a bit about Chiuchow and Hokkien (Fujianese) food but not much.

Anyone interested? I plan to post a bit about the different kinds of dim sums. Then I could post about the ways of making food (such as steaming fresh fish or double-boiled soup)

One advantage of this food is that it tastes good, so that gourmets will like it. I can start off with barbecued pork buns (cha xiu bao). Tell me if this topic interests you!

Barbecued pork buns

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cha_siu_baau

This consists of a bun made of dough, with a filling of barbecued pork (I'll write another entry about barbecued pork later, as it deserves its own section).

A good bun has the following characteristics:

The bun must be soft. A hard bun indicates staleness and is unpleasant to the palate. A soft bun is easy to chew.

The bun must not be excessively moist or dry. Excessive moisture causes dough to stick to the roof of the mouth. Insufficient moisture makes it a struggle to chew.

The bun must be hot. These should be eaten as soon as they arrive at the table. Steam should be visible.

The barbecued filling must be sufficient in quantity. Not a lot is required, but it needs to be enough to flavour the bun.

The filling must also be hot and contain the right amount of gravy/sauce. When the bun and the filling mixes together in the mouth, it should not feel too dry. Also, the taste should not be overwhelming. It is analagous to mashed potatoes and gravy, you want the right amount of both.

Usually, these are served in a wicker container containing two or three buns. These are considered the cheapest items on the menu and will be rated a 'small'. (Small, medium, large, extra-large, special, other are the ratings, each category has ascending prices.)

garcia1000 likes these.

[edfurlong]

Lots of pictures of yummy food would make me interested!

[imitation]

most boring type of chinese food, but hey what ever floats your boat.

[garcia1000]

Many people think that Cantonese food is boring. Quick background, there are four main categories of Chinese food.

Northern food, such as dumplings, noodles, and so on, is more similar to Western food. This is because the higher latitudes and colder climate means that food must be easy to make and able to be stored for a long time.

Sichuan food is appreciated by Caucasians a lot because it is very spicy due to use of their special kind of peppercorn. Sichuan is a mountainous region with a low variety of foodstuffs, and so the food needs to be flavoured with these things.

Shanghainese food, such as wonton chicken soup or Shanghai-style dumplings, are sort of midway between those above and Cantonese food. They have a variety of fresh ingredients (for example, hairy crabs are a particularly tasty delicacy) but also use cold cuts and noodles.

Cantonese food, especially places around the Pearl River Delta such as Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Shunde, etc, get a wide variety of fresh food including seafood. Because of this, the cooking de-emphasises heavy spices and sauces, and emphasises freshness of ingredients and bringing out the fresh taste.

As an analogy, say some guys were to prepare a tuna. Northern style would be to fry it with heavy sauce, Sichuan would be to dunk it in hot peppercorns, Shanghainese would be to steam it in some soup base, Cantonese would be to eat it sashimi-style.

In American restaurants, much Chinese food is Sichuan or sometimes Northern style. This is because it is the tastiest when working with cheap or non-fresh ingredients, and the use of thick sauces is more recognizable to the Western palate.

Pictures

[WhoIam]

Please keep these coming. There are a lot of good Chinese and dim sum restaurants in Vientiane but I'm not very familiar with this type of cuisine.

[splashpot]

I was planning on doing a dim sum post but never got around to it. If you go to a good place, it is delicious. Here are some standard dim sum dishes. Pics from google.

Siu Mai (pork/mushroom dumpling)


Ha Gow (shrimp)


Cheung Fun (shrimp or beef inside, rice noodle outside)


Don't know the name for this one (I know my Chinese sucks) but it's bean curd on the outside and pork/mushroom on the inside, very delicious.


Dan Tat (standard dessert, custard egg tart)


I may post more later.

[splashpot]

And just for fun:
Fung Jao (chicken feet)


Don't feel bad if you don't like it. I know plenty of Hong Kong born people who don't. I think it's ok. Basically you just eat the skin, spit out the bones.

[DcifrThs]

i went to Roy's in philly and got Lobster Dim Sum. here is a picture of some random dim sum. please to be telling me how to make lobster dim sum as it was one of the best appetizers i've ever had. bar none.!!!!

thanks,
Barron

[howzit]

garcia, love the post but char siu bau as the #1 pick? COME ON!

my dream would be for a dim sum cart to be walking through the trading floor during business hours.


for nyc dim sum eaters, Oriental Garden is my top pick.

[El Diablo]

garcia, splash:

I love dim sum. I usually go a couple of times per month. Sometimes to nicer places, sometimes to dingy huge ballroom type places. I like it all.

I always have lots of the regular stuff (BBQ Pork buns, Siu Mai, Ginger Pork dumpings (the ones that explode and burn your mouth if you are not careful, and come w/ a red wine vinegar sauce), various other types of dumplings, egg custard YUM, etc.) and love it all.

I would be interested in more detailed discussion on any common stuff like you did for pork buns.

But I'd be even more interested in which of the things you think are really great that don't come on the dumpling carts - all of the "special" items. I've had mixed experiences with those, some are great while others are pretty bad.