dan zai mien - Tainan shoulder stick soup noodles

In every trip one of my unwritten goal is to bring back a culinary inspiration. Often in the form of a dish or food preparation techniques. The dan zai mien - translated to "shoulder stick soup noodles".

chiuchow pickled oysters 潮州醃蠔

I watched every episodes of this Netflix documentary about cuisines in Chaoshan 潮汕 and really enjoyed learning dishes that I didn't know. One that piqued my interest is the pickled oysters 潮州醃蠔. As it is a food and culture documentary there is no recipe nor the ingredients are listed, except the few that were mentioned. As soon as I watch this may be 2 minutes segment on this dish I had a very good idea how to make it even though I have never tasted it. I can taste it in my imagination. It is analogous to ceviche in which raw seafoods are cured in vinegar or citric juice, except high salinity condiments are used.

taiwanese three cups chicken 三杯鷄 - part 2

I made another pot of Taiwanese three cups chicken 三杯鷄 using the other half of the American big breast chicken. I used more the less the same procedure and ingredients. The main addition are some red bell pepper that I forgot that I have in the fridge. I also used some Chinese drinking white liquor (aka rocket fuel) in addition to the cooking liquor. This pot tastes even better than the one from the day before.

taiwanese three cups chicken 三杯鷄

I don't generally buy whole chickens. The reason is American chicken are bred to have a lot of breast meat, and I dislike white meat especially when a chicken has disproportional amount of it. I can buy Asian breed chickens and I have occasionally over the years. My experience here have been they have been frozen and often for too long so the flavors are lost.