international food news: chicken feet to be stranded stateside?

Chicken feet are having an impact on international policy. I read a New York Times article this week that talks about how President Obama has decided to levy taxes on Chinese tires coming in to the United States. In retaliation, the Chinese government is threatening to cut off imports of American chicken meat.

China is the United States' largest export market for chicken meat, but the American chicken industry isn't too worried, or their feathers aren't as ruffled as I would have guessed. Chinese consumers have come to love American chicken feet and wings so much that it seems this might just be an empty threat. The Chinese government may be considering new ways of retaliation as to avoid a country full of angry chicken consumers. American chicken producers use selective breeding (and probably growth hormone and antibiotics) to make our chickens fat and have lots of meat even in the feet. Chickens raised in China are scrawny. When I've eaten dishes made from chickens in China, the meat is normally shredded in small pieces and mixed in with vegetables (like kung pow chicken) or served chopped up with the bone. And their feet and wings leave little to chew on.

I would imagine that a lot of feet will go to waste in the States if we can no longer export them to China where they're appreciated. Chicken feet, anyone?

-mary kate

a good read: the fortune cookie chronicles

 One of my first days in Chinese class in college I asked my professor who was from mainland China where fortune cookies came from in her country. She said, "what's a fortune cookie?" 

I said, "well, they're Chinese good luck cookies that they give out at all Chinese restaurants." Duh, I was thinking, how could she not know what fortune cookies are, she's from China! I brought one in for her to see. She opened it and thought it was the funniest thing she'd ever seen. This was the first time and not the last that I realized I had a lot to learn about China.

I recently read a new book called The Fortune Cookie Chronicles by Jennifer 8. Lee (yes, 8. is her middle name). The author, Jennifer, investigates the origins of Chinese food as it exists in America and why it is so different than traditional Chinese food. She opens the book with a story about the winners of a 2005 Powerball lottery. Normally there about 2-3 people who pick all the correct numbers and win the pot, but on this particular drawing 110 people all picked the winning numbers! The lottery commission knew this huge amount of winners couldn't be a group of cheaters because the winners were from all over the country. It turned out that the winners had all eaten at Chinese restaurants and played the numbers they received in their fortune cookies. In the book she travels all over the country interviewing the winners of the lottery and the Chinese-American owners of the restaurants where the cookies were served. She even goes to China to the birthplace of General Tso to find out about his chicken and digs through old court case trademark documents in California to find who invented the fortune cookie. What emerges out off all this is a comprehensive and hilarious picture of the profound effect Chinese food has had on American culture and how Chinese food has morphed into something unique and new here in the states, for example: Spicy Szechuan Alligator served at a Cajun-Chinese restaurant outside New Orleans.

The book is well researched but also very entertaining; it had me laughing out loud. Check out her video on TED where she talks about the book and her process writing it. Since its publication, Jennifer has been on the Martha Stewart show teaching Martha how to make turkey dumplings and held own against Stephen Colbert.

I finally learned where fortune cookies are from: Japan of all places, brought over from Japanese immigrants. So how did fortune cookies become "Chinese?" As Jennifer puts in a presentation (featured in the video above) "Well, we locked up all the Japanese during World War II including those that made fortune cookies. So that's about the time the Chinese moved in, kind of saw a market opportunity and took over!"

-Nate

the older the ginger, the hotter the spice & ginger milk pudding

 “The older the ginger, the hotter the spice.”

姜还是老的辣

My birthday was on Monday and when I looked in the mirror I’m pretty sure I saw my face sag a millimeter or two before my very eyes. I’m trying to look on the bright side of getting older though. The Chinese proverb “the older the ginger, the hotter the spice” comes to mind. That’s not such a bad thing and I do feel spicier these days…

I made some ginger milk pudding (姜汁撞奶, jiang ji zhuang nai) this week. It was so easy to make and a good sweet snack. Ginger juice has acids like lemon juice that will make the milk curdle. You just boil some milk, add sugar and ginger juice, and wait a few minutes for it to congeal. Oddly, Nate and I think it tastes exactly like the milk at the bottom of a bowl of Fruit Loops.

I also finally found out what those aged (really old and dried) roots that are kept in huge vats at Chinese health stores (see picture here) are for. I assumed they were aged ginger, but they're ginseng. The store clerk told me to boil the ginseng in water and drink it often like tea and that it would improve my digestion and keep me from getting a cold. I was excited about trying this until I looked at the price of the shriveled up roots: $48/lbs.! So I bought about 1/48 lbs. for $1— just enough for one cup of tea. After making this at home, I would not recommend making or drinking ginseng tea made like this. Unless you can think of it like medicine and add heaps of sugar or pour in a tub of honey.

This year to celebrate I’m going to dinner with some friends tomorrow night at a restaurant in Koreatown that I’ve heard a lot about— Don’s Bogam BBQ & Wine Bar. I’ll let you know how it goes. I’ve still not found a Korean restaurant in new york that serves Korean food as good as you can find in China.

Here's my ginger milk pudding recipe. I made it several different ways and think I found a good balance of sweet and spice and texture with this recipe. The more ginger you put in, the thicker the pudding, but at the same time the spicier! If you can find young ginger (light colored with pink nibs) you can double the ginger juice I've added here because it's not nearly as spicy. 

-mary kate

Ginger Milk Pudding

4 oz fresh ginger root 

1 1/2  cup whole milk

2 tablespoons sugar

cheesecloth

(makes two servings)

Peel the ginger and grate it over a small bowl. Place the grated ginger in the center of a piece of cheesecloth. Gather up the edges of the cloth and squeeze the ginger over the bowl to collect 4 teaspoons of the juice.  Discard the ginger pulp and set the ginger juice aside.  

Heat up the milk in a saucepan over medium heat, stirring continuously until the milk begins to simmer. Turn off the heat and stir in the sugar. 

Put two teaspoons of ginger juice in each of the two serving bowls. Pour half of the milk into each bowl but do not stir. Wait 5 minutes, or until a spoon can rest on the surface of the pudding.  Serve warm or chilled.

ingredient stalker: what is lotus root?

Lotus root (藕,ǒu)  is my favorite vegetable. Actually a root vegetable, it looks kind of like giant white sausage links and grows in the mud at the bottom of lakes. It has a crunchy texture like water chestnuts and a subtle flavor similar to a potato. Check out the video above for some pointers on where to find lotus root and how to prepare it.

There are a ton of ways to eat lotus root: boil it in soups, deep-fry and stuff it, stir-fry with other vegetables, eat it raw in salads, or sweeten it with sugar and fruit. Here's a simple and quick recipe for stir-fry lotus root. It's the same recipe I make in the video.

(藕,ǒu) Simple Stir-Fry Lotus Root

2 lb. lotus root (fresh or canned)
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon chili sauce or fermented bean paste

Peel the lotus root and slice into 1/8"-thick slices. Heat up the oil in a wok over medium heat. Add the lotus root slices and stir-fry for 7 minutes, or until the lotus root is cooked through but still a little crunchy. Toss in the salt and chili sauce and stir-fry for 30 more seconds. Serve.

asian eggplant 长茄子 (cháng qié zi)