Asian Vegetables

[Pulsegleaner]

do they have rice flour in them?

all of the rest sounds interesting and i would try it, but i've never made things like that. my own preferences are to find a good dim sum place and let them spoil me.

No, I'm fairly sure they're all wheat (though given how stretchy they can be it, would not surprise me if the better ones use a different kind of wheat flour with a lot more gluten than the regular stuff.)

There are LOTS of recipes and how to's for them on YouTube, but most are FOR the bready kind (which a lot of people actually prefer, since it absorbs more dipping sauce.)

It's one of those things with a very simple actual recipe, but where you need a LOT of experience and finesse to get it right (Ming Tsai, the chef on the TV show Simply Ming, once tried to make them on an episode of his show where his parents were the guest stars. His mother actually pushed him out of the way because, in her words "you don't know how to do it right."

West Lake Soup (another favorite of mine, and something I picked a quart of up today when I went to get the dumplings) is another "easy recipe, hard practice things. Ingredient wise, it's a simple as pie; all it is is egg drop soup with minced beef and cilantro added.) The tricky part is getting the broth correctly balanced, so it is neither too thin nor too salty, nor not salty enough. (that could be why, even though there is nothing in it any restaurant these days couldn't get from their corner store, it hasn't made the crossover to the hole in the wall/Americanized Chinese places.)
And if you are doing it the RIGHT way, you also lose one of the crutches. Like egg drop, West Lake is supposed to be a fairly thick soup (more like a chowder). A GOOD place can do this with only the eggs. A cheaper place will often resort to dumping in a load of cornstarch (a reason why 1. some places versions basically turn to jelly if left in the fridge overnight and 2. While I consider West Lake soup more or less of a lifesaver dish (it's filling enough to make me not hungry without dumping a lot of starch into my system and raising my blood sugar unduly) I have to go cautiously when getting it from a new place.)

And, of course, there are things where I literally have no clue what goes into them, like Fujian Wonton Soup. To be short (and very general) Wonton soups sort of go.

Shanghai-pork filled wontons, chicken broth (basically this is the kind you pretty much get anywhere)
Cantonese-shrimp filled wontons, usually thinner skins
Fuzhou- dumpling that have a tiny amount of meat wrapped in a massive amount of noodle (looks sort of like a parachute) These dumplings will basically FILL the entire bowl container, with only a little soup around them (which may be flavored with, or contain, dried shrimp
Fujian- wontons that as basically meatballs wrapped in skins in a HEAVY beef based broth with large amounts of vegetables and spices (mostly five spice powder). I love it, my sister hates it (the one time she tried it, out of desperation, she said it tasted like liquified meatloaf.)

There are probably more kinds (I imagine that, if I could ever make it through Brooklyn, where I understand there are some Uighur restaurants, there is probably a lamb/mutton wonton/dumpling soup.)

 

[Zeedman]

Has anyone had a flavorful Asian melon? Not talking about bitter or something like that. I've grown a few East Asian melons and they were remarkably lacking in flavor, not even sweet. They would have to be early to accommodate this growing season - and that would likely be a problem with developing flavor.

I've only tried them once, about 20 years ago. Small, smooth-skinned yellow melons, with a DTM short enough to ripen here. I can't recall the variety name (if it had one) but it resembled the Korean melons sold now. They were advertised as edible without peeling, which I found to be a stretch. Pale, crunchy, rather tasteless flesh, only faintly sweet... almost like a sweet cucumber. I'd like to think breeders have improved them since then; but glancing through the web, most of the Korean melon seeds I found were just listed generically as 'Korean', without a named variety. That seems to imply that they haven't changed much.

If it wasn't for the fact that I am avoiding hybrids, I might consider the Honey Melon offered by AG2T, which looks like it may be an improvement.

 

[flowerbug]

No, I'm fairly sure they're all wheat (though given how stretchy they can be it, would not surprise me if the better ones use a different kind of wheat flour with a lot more gluten than the regular stuff.)

There are LOTS of recipes and how to's for them on YouTube, but most are FOR the bready kind (which a lot of people actually prefer, since it absorbs more dipping sauce.)

It's one of those things with a very simple actual recipe, but where you need a LOT of experience and finesse to get it right (Ming Tsai, the chef on the TV show Simply Ming, once tried to make them on an episode of his show where his parents were the guest stars. His mother actually pushed him out of the way because, in her words "you don't know how to do it right."

i guess i don't know what you mean by snap since to me more gluten would mean less snap, maybe cake flour which has less gluten in it would be an improvement? i don't know.

... all sounds interesting (except for tons of corn starch added to soups) i'd rather have a thin soup than have corn starch added. a bit of fried flour is ok to me, but i don't need soups thickened. that's why they're called soups and not stews!

 

[AMKuska]

Yeah, that sounds like a good approach.

Strangely I do not recognize their kana flashcards at all. hmm. There are only the kanji cards and some kana workbooks on my shelf. I must have gotten confused (which seems to happen all too frequently these days!).

My N5 test prep arrived in the mail today!! I'm excited because if I can successfully get through the book I'll have a basic understanding of Japanese.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

My N5 test prep arrived in the mail today!! I'm excited because if I can successfully get through the book I'll have a basic understanding of Japanese.

Once you are good at it, there are two other books I would recommend you get you hands on, Even Monkeys Fall From Trees and its sequel Even a Stone Buddha Can Talk. These two bilingual (technically trilingual, as they have the writing in both kanji, phonetic Japanese (in English Characters) and English) each contain 100 common Japanese proverbs, idioms, and sayings. Learning these will potentially have two benefits 1. You will understand them is someone says them to you and 2. Your Japanese will sound more natural and less like "robot tourist speak."

 

[AMKuska]

Once you are good at it, there are two other books I would recommend you get you hands on, Even Monkeys Fall From Trees and its sequel Even a Stone Buddha Can Talk. These two bilingual (technically trilingual, as they have the writing in both kanji, phonetic Japanese (in English Characters) and English) each contain 100 common Japanese proverbs, idioms, and sayings. Learning these will potentially have two benefits 1. You will understand them is someone says them to you and 2. Your Japanese will sound more natural and less like "robot tourist speak."

Thanks! Those are great tips. I checked a book out from the library one time that was essentially a dictionary of words foreigners commonly use the wrong way. Example would be "amai" which means sweet, but should never be used on a person. In English we can say someone is sweet and mean they're nice, but it doesn't work that way in Japanese.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

Thanks! Those are great tips. I checked a book out from the library one time that was essentially a dictionary of words foreigners commonly use the wrong way. Example would be "amai" which means sweet, but should never be used on a person. In English we can say someone is sweet and mean they're nice, but it doesn't work that way in Japanese.

That's sort of like how, when I fist saw it listed (in a book called You Know When You've Been in Japan Too Long When......) it said that ittai was the Japanese word for "Ouch!" (in the section where they were trying to explain what yoisho actually meant). So that's what I thought it was. THEN I watched some subtitled anime, and found out that ittai was a very juvenile, cutesy way of expressing pain, so it was more like "Owie!". It also taught me that the other exclamation they covered, otto ("oops!") is VERY informal, and not to be used if you are actually apologizing for anything to anyone you don't intimately know.

The idiom books have also allowed me to play around with the Japanese characters in some of my stories by making it that some of them DON'T know some of the common idioms, and so misinterpret them. For example one of the characters in my After The Fall project is a kappa name Ribuka Tokiazame (I've flipped all the name to Western arrangement so as to be consistent between Japanese and non Japanese names.) He does know Japanese, but since he grew up (or more accurately, hatched) in the US, he doesn't know a lot of the idioms. So for example where Sojobo Karasu (the mentor figure in the series, and the last living tengu) uses the expression Kappa no he (literally translated it means a kappa's fart, figuatively it mean making a mountain out of a mole hill.) he thing it is being implied he has actually farted, to which he gets indignant. And he takes the expression Kappa no kawa nagare (Even a kappa can drown, i.e. even an expert can make mistakes.) as a personal threat!
There is also a subtle pun with Alexander Toyotomi, who is of the Toyotomi clan (i.e. the same clan started by the Shogun Hideyoshi). He is also a kitsune (fox) and got that way when a fox spirit fell in love with one of the Toyotomi women, disguised himself and seduced her.) So the joke is that while in his lifetime many people accused Hideyoshi of being "possessed by a fox" (a then polite way of saying someone was crazy) his decendent really WAS "possessed by a fox"!*

*To make thing even MORE complicated, while Alexander is NEARLY pure blooded Japanese, the fox spirit in question was actually a Chinese one, which shows up in the fact that, when he transforms into a fox, his fur is black, as opposed to white/red.)

 

[jbosmith]

I admittedly haven't read this whole thread, so apologies if this is all redundant.

My favorite place to browse asian greens is Kitazawa. They were recently purchased by True Leaf Market and I hope they treat the brand well. https://kitazawaseed.com/

I love Yu Choy Sum from the local vietnamese market, and I'm fairly sure it's just rapeseed greens. They tell me it means 'Yellow flower vegetable'. I'm no good at growing them except for at the very end of summer. Flea beetles kill them early on unless I put them under reemay and the heat makes them bolt during the summer.

I also grow a lot of komatsuna early and late in the season, and Senposai all season long.

Broccoli raab is getting to be fairly well known and is quite good.

The bok choy type plants are good for crunch, and super cute to grow, but aren't my favorites taste-wise.

There's a lot of good mustards out there and I like the big purple ones that are fairly easy to find at most seed companies. These volunteer in my garden so I just move them around as needed and I haven't bought seeds in years.

I grow a lot of daikons but only eat a few. I mostly grow them for the way they til the soil for me and donate hundreds of pounds most years.

I tend to grow almost all of my asian greens starting in August, after onions come out. The bulk of these is senposai because it's the easiest to grow a lot of. I also buy fresh greens from the local markets to augment these and because I like supporting them.

 

[AMKuska]

I grow a lot of daikons but only eat a few. I mostly grow them for the way they til the soil for me and donate hundreds of pounds most years.

Any tips for a good daikon? This is one of my favorite vegetables, but I have a problem with bugs eating the root

 

[jbosmith]

Any tips for a good daikon? This is one of my favorite vegetables, but I have a problem with bugs eating the root

They don't do especially well in the summer in northern New England but, if you plant them on August 1 they'll sprout, put on some decent leaf growth, and then grow their big roots once it gets chilly in the fall. I have very few bug problems with fall-grown brassicas, though there are a few more snails.