bounties of the pacific

The Dungeness crab harvesting season had been delay this year, because the crabs were not fat enough. It finally opened in January. I made a point to go buy some. The prices had been quite high in recent years but not this time. Often the one I found are not necessarily from Oregon. They can be from Washington state. The size have been noticeably smaller in recent decades from memory. It can just be how the sizes were graded in the distribution process.

sichuan water poached fish 四川麻辣水煮魚 - part 2

Having a piece of good fish in the refrigerator can cause a lot of stress. As seafood does not keep and the last thing you want is to lapse and allow it to deteriorate and lose flavors. It was the plan to make another pot of Sichuan water poached fish 四川麻辣水煮魚 for dinner today with the remaining half piece of the Alaska cod.

sichuan water poached fish 四川麻辣水煮魚

At last I found a piece of excellent Alaska cod. What I have in mind is to make a proper bowl of Sichuan water poached fish 四川麻辣水煮魚 with the best fish that I can find here in the Pacific Northwest. Water poached fish 四川麻辣水煮魚 is one of the most famous dish of Sichuan cuisine.

sichuan water poached beef 四川麻辣水煮牛肉 - part 3

Practice makes perfect. As I have plenty of ingredients left I made another pot of Sichuan water poached beef. This time I went and bought a bag of soy bean spouts which is required for the traditional recipe of this dish.

sichuan water poached beef 四川麻辣水煮牛肉 - part 2

I am having this urge to try out a number of Sichuan classic dishes. Of this Sichuan water poached beef 四川麻辣水煮牛肉 was the first that I recently tried. This seemingly difficult dish turns out to be quite simple, once I figured out a few shortcuts. This is my third time preparing this dish. This time I made a point of getting some ingredients that I didn't have.

sichuan water poached beef 四川麻辣水煮牛肉

With a lot of Asian dishes this is one dish the name can so easily lost in translation. If translated word for word, this dish would be called water cooked beef which does not sound too appetizing. It was nearly 10 years ago in a business trip to Dalian that I had my first taste of a sister dish of Sichuan water poached beef - Sichuan water poached fish. When the fish was presented to the table in a large shallow ceramic bowl there was this half inch thick of orange chili oil. Very intimating. I was immediately perplexed with the name as the abundance of oil gave me the impression that the slices of fish were more likely poached in hot (as spicy hot) oil rather than cooked in water as the name suggested.

chinese home cooking - 中國家菜

Only very recently that the Western press talks about Japanese washoku 和菜 . Washoku 和菜 means Japanese home cooking in a not so good translation. The two Kanji 漢字 words - 和 means in harmony and 菜 means a dish. A similar term in Chinese is 家菜 (pronounced as gar-choy in Cantonese) though the Chinese one has a connotation of being simple and prepared with unassuming ingredients, except for special occasions. The alternate term for  is chang-chai 常菜, meaning daily routine home dishes.

The definition of  gar-choy 家菜 can be quite problematic as China is so vast. The ingredients or the lack off can vary significantly from cities to rural village, and from rich to poor. A few characteristics that are typically common are cook with the ingredients available locally to make the most out of them. Contrary to the misrepresentation of Chinese cuisines in the West deep fry and greasy dishes are not the norm. Almost always there are plenty of vegetable dishes and often a soup accompanies a typical family meal.