Chicken Soup, Anyone?

Sometimes you hear about all the Chinese delicacies and how there is virtually no waste in China. It's true. Chinese people cook with and eat virtually anything. There's kind of a funny (or typical, however you want to look at it) story about this particular dish. Megan, Matt, Zanitta and I went to get some food and the place we wanted to go to was closed, so we ended up going to Matt & Megan's place they recommended. It was kind of hot, so Megan asked them to turn on the fan and kind of pointed to the fan. Under the fan was a picture of this lovely soup. The waiter did turn the fan on, but I think he also thought we wanted to order this dish. Luckily my colleagues know me well enough that they hid the chicken head and feet under the cabbage bowl until I was finished eating. Then we turned it all around and played with it to take this picture for your viewing pleasure.

What's Cookin?

I like food. A lot. As I've said many times, Chinese cuisine isn't really my thing. Although I will admit that Chinese food in China and Chinese food in America are two different things. So I have found several dishes I like, and I do eat Chinese food on a regular basis. My sister Kayle was excited for me to come to China because when I went to France I made up a recipe for homemade salsa and we've never bought store bought salsa again. She is hoping I come up with something genius here, too. I can't say that I've "invented" anything new here, but I have adapted some things I liked and made them with stuff I can readily find in China.

 

So far I've made tortillas, cinnamon rolls, and ravioli. The ravioli turned out really well. I used sauteed spinach (with garlic and olive oil), feta cheese, and cashews. I blended all that together in my little $15 blender, and then used fresh wonton wrappers as the shell. It's only 40 cents for a pack of 48. Sweet, right? They turned out really well. I just topped it with a little garlic butter sauce :)

Chicken Wings and Dumplings

Sometimes I do fun things and forget to blog about them. Like this-- Asian cooking class through the Nanjing International Club. It's a monthly thing, but this is the first one I've been able to attend. Both other ones I was sick :( I'm sick all the time here too, if you didn't know. But that's not the point of today. Today is about the cooking class. It was actually a happy mistake that led us here. Apparently we usually meet in a meeting room and the chef will just do like a mini demonstration then cook it in the kitchen and return. Today though, they messed up and when we showed up for the class at the Westin hotel, they didn't have anything set up. So we got to go into the massive kitchen and cook. 

I personally love the hustle and bustle of hotel kitchens, so it was cool to be in one again. 

The chef showed us how to make Chinese-style chicken wings and dumplings. Here's the ingredients:

 

 The chicken was a demonstration, and the dumplings were very hands on.

The finished product--I don't really care for meat on the bone, so I didn't have these... plus, eating wings with chopsticks was pretty funny to watch :)

 If you look to the far left of the picture, you'll see dough that kind of looks like rolls. That's the dumpling dough. We started by rolling it out into a long log, about an inch in diameter.

 Then, you pinch off little dough bits and roll them into circles.

 Press it with your hand to start the flattening process, then use a rolling pin to make it more circular in shape--but not too thin!

Then you pinch them shut... it is really an art form, clearly one I have not mastered as show above. 
That's the finished product before cooking... let's just say we're not experts on pinching dumplings into beautiful works of art. Here's a little video I took of the chef schooling us on the art form:

Shao Bing

Yum. This little treat deserves its own post. It is by far my favorite snack in China. I crave it just typing this up :) Shao bing (燒餅)  is a little like flat bread with a filling and sesame seeds on top. The oval ones are savory, and the round ones are sweet. The oval ones have a salty/green onion paste inside and the sweet have sugar. When you bite into the sweet ones, you can't see anything. It looks empty but tastes sweet. I've seen them make these babies-- they start by rolling the dough into a ball and then smashing it with their hand. Then, they take a small rolling pin and roll it into the correct shape based on the filling. Once they have a massive amount made, they sprinkle the tops with sesame seeds and press them in. Finally, they go into the center of this pit thing--they use water to get the dough to stick to the walls. There is coal burning inside there. Once they are browned, they pull them out with some tongs and put them on the tiled top to stay warm.

 I go to my shao bing lady on a pretty regular basis--we're talking daily... except Fridays (that's her day off and don't ask why I know that... okay I admit I had one of my colleagues ask her) and Sundays. She is always really excited to see me. She smiles and waves when she sees me coming. I think we may have built up some guanxi. You get 4 for 1 kuai (15 cents people!) It's amazing. They practically give them away. I always by 5 kuai worth. Sometimes I share, but most of the time I just eat all 20 of them. As a matter of fact, I had some today. Next time I go, I'll have to get a picture with the owner. And maybe I can make a video of her making them. That's something you all want to see, right? :)

Fruit and Nut Market

One of the things I enjoy about the international club are the explorer walks. In April, we went to the fruit and nut market. We met here at the TV tower and walked about half an hour to the market.

 Along the river, through the rain... we still went.

 This is the area where the market is located. Looks kind of dumpy, but it's all part of the China experience, right? :)

 You can buy all sorts of dried spices, beans, grains, and fruits.

 Rows and rows of vendors... most selling the same things. Lots of nuts.

 And ginger. Massive quantities of ginger. Back home, you get like 2 inches of ginger for $3, but in China you get a pound for that much!

 And purple potatoes and blue eggs.

 Look at that Chinese cinnamon. Huge sticks! This is actually a picture from the vendor where something funny happened. Behind the red bags is a bag with some white stuff in it. I think it might be candied ginger. I went to reach for a piece to smell, and a little mouse came squirming out of the bag! I screamed, drawing more attention to the foreigner. Needless to say, I didn't end up purchasing anything that day!

This is the view from the bridge near the market. I think it looks kind of like Seattle's space needle. It puts into perspective the distance we walked too.

China's Most Beautiful City

One of the things I've learned about China is that they give each of their cities a "China's Most (adjective) City" title. Kind of makes me laugh. I went to Hangzhou over the past few days for Ashley's birthday. We stayed in a nice hotel near all the attractions.

Tuesday we spent walking around Xi Hu (pronounced: she who) better known as West Lake. It is a gorgeous lake. We ate at a yummy Italian restaurant, Due Forni right near the lake. We had a fun time people watching and pointing out all the unusual attire choices from the day.

 like the shoes?

 I liked this girl with her hat, burnt orange shorts with lace edges, and bright pink sneakers.

 We saw a guy wearing a Utah shirt so we stopped and took a picture with him. It is completely normal to ask people to take pictures with them here... maybe just for foreigners? We must have gotten stopped at least half a dozen times for photo ops. After wandering the lake for a bit, we had some Cold Stone Creamery ice cream. Delish. Then, on to H&M at the mall to try on some clothes. I ended up buying a dress that actually fit! Yay!

Later that night we went to the night market. Funny story: Ashley had been telling me all about the night market and we were excited to go. We were staying on the 17th floor of the hotel, and Ashley looked out the window and said "it looks like there's a market out there. Oh, wait, I think they just have food". Neither one of us thought anything of it because she is used to taking a taxi places since she lives on the other side of the lake. Anyway, we go outside, hail a taxi and tell him where we want to go. He drove up maybe 10 yards, laughed, and said that it was right there. He must have thought we were nuts! Luckily he didn't charge us, I think he thought it was pretty humorous.

The next day we went to the tea fields and saw people picking tea leaves. Then, we saw them drying the tea to sell. Pretty cool, right?

 They had some beautiful paths you could climb.

 That's where they dry the tea leaves.

 Do you see what I see? A random chicken.. probably dinner :)

 Rows and rows of tea leaves.

 After wandering around, Ashley told me about this really good restaurant called Green Tea. We ordered lots of food--

 We had roasted new potatoes with some sort of herb and pepper topping, green tea bread

 whoops, we ate most of it before I remembered to take pictures :) this was cauliflower

 and yummy cabbage with red peppers and a good sauce.

 For dessert we had this massive thing of peanut butter ice cream (it was really good! it was called peanut sand cream on the menu...)

 And their famous dessert, bread temptation. It is a sweet bread, cut into cubes topped with ice cream.

 Ashley's showing the cubes :)

Our meal was about $16 total... for the whole thing. and two pineapple drink things. Ashley pointed out to me that this was the first time we willingly ate Chinese food on a trip together. I think I'm turning Chinese! For those who know me (or Ashley) you know that we actively avoid Chinese food as much as possible. Not this time... we came out to the tea fields especially for this restaurant. What has happened?!?!

 Thursday we went to Hufang Shopping Street.

 It was a mix of small shops and random market-style vendors.

And random statues...

Great trip to Hangzhou. I got to see alot and spend time with Ashley for her birthday. Overall, a success.