Saturday, March 5, 2011

Enjoy the Rich Taste of Chinese Seafood


China is famous for its best quality of non-vegetarian food. China offer huge variety of sea food. Chinese products regularly go to the world market. Customers are demanding more and more Chinese products because of their varied quality. Chinese food is famous in all over the world. There are large number of restaurants and hotel which are offering Chinese food.

China has one of the world's largest seafood industries processing and exporting an enormously varied range of both warm water and cold-water products. China has now surpassed Thailand and other countries to become the largest exporter of fishery products. China has an enormous aquatic production. A large part of this production comes to the International market.

China seafood is rapidly gaining a foothold throughout markets in North American, Europe and Australia as well as Asian countries. Its quality and competitive pricing make it an obvious choice for the restaurants, hotels and resorts. In China, small restaurants also keep a tank of live fish for their customers to choose from. Big cities with their higher classed restaurants have tanks with an unimaginable variety of aquatic creatures.

China is rich in seafood, fish and beef. In any Chinese restaurant you will get various varieties of these seafood, fish and beef. China owns many fisheries resources and over 3000 marine species. Chinese seafood, beef and fish have become the most demanded non-vegetarian food since the last five years. The best thing about Chinese seafood is its rich taste and deliciousness.

Chinese Tea Shop – A Place Of Discoveries


Chinese tea has a long and rich history. Chinese tea shops bring us information as well as examples of the beverage that was once brewed exclusively for royalty. Visiting a tea room can take you away from the cares of day to day life. Try a new type of tea, sit and breathe the aromas of the delicate blends. It is the best way to discover your own passion for tea, be it black, oolong, rare white or delicious green.

Tea Villages

Different kinds of tea have their roots in different villages. Although all tea comes from the same plant, camellia sinensis, climate and altitude play a huge role in the taste of the tea. Add to that cultivation and processing methods, and you can understand that a tea grown in the foothills of the Himalayas will be very different from tea grown in a village in Inner Anxi.

A good tea place will have tea that is specific to different regions, and will have the best examples of those regional teas available. Ask for a cup of Tiegunayin tea, and find out just which tea garden it comes from. Once you try these different types and learn about them, you will discover just how varied tea can be.

Quality Tea

The tea you buy at the grocery store may be of varying quality. Tea bags are made with paper which may have all kinds of chemical additives. A Chinese tea shop is a good place to get high quality, fresh tea. They will carry loose tea leaves, which are the best basis for a truly good cup of tea. In addition to having good quality tea available, they should have a wide variety for your tasting pleasure.

Most Chinese tea shops have relationships with specific tea gardens. They will have plentiful information concerning the details of each garden’s methods of picking and cooking the tea leaves. As with other fine things, the more knowledge and information you have about the tea you are drinking, the greater your enjoyment.

Relaxing experience

Amidst the hustle and bustle of the modern world, a moment taken out to enjoy a fragrant cup of tea is increasingly valuable. Tea shops are oases in the desert of today’s stressful environment! Step inside, choose a new kind of tea, and give yourself over to the experience. You will leave feeling refreshed and ready to take on the challenges of the day.

While green tea and black tea are now cultivated throughout the world, exotic high end teas such as rare oolong tea and white tea can still only be found in a well connected Chinese Tea Shop. Sampling such teas could well rank as an experience of a lifetime!

Chinese Style Chilli Prawns and Rice in a Rice Cooker


Owing to health and safety regulations, the only cooking utensils we're permitted are a rice cooker, egg steamer and combination microwave oven (it can do grills and roasts). I try to use these tools to provide our staff with cheap healthy meals. Local dining establishments serve low quality, expensive food, that can have a noticeably negative impact on the afternoon performance of my staff.

This dish involves a delicious combination of chilli prawns and rice. Either raw or pre-cooked prawns can be used. Though raw prawns are better for absorbing flavour from the marinade. The end result is very similar to fried rice, though a wok is not required.

I shall not list quantities in the ingredients list as I just take a guess and chuck things into the pot. Just use a sensible estimate and experiment until you have the balance of flavours that you require.

Ingredients

Prawn Marinade:
ginger
garlic
chilli (powder, flakes or fresh)
sesame oil
light soya sauce

For the rest:

rice
water
onion
mushrooms
sweetcorn
peas
Bouillon vegetable stock
spring onion

Instructions

Prawn Marinade

Chop the ginger, garlic and chilli (if fresh) finely. Mix this with the sesame oil, light soya sauce and ground black pepper. Mix the prawns in the marinade and set aside in a fridge for a few hours. If I'm planning on serving lunch at 12pm, I'll normally prepare the beef at 9am.

Cooking

Rinse the rice in the rice cooker a few times, and fill with water until there's about a finger nail's breadth of water above the top of the rice. Add about half a teaspoon of vegetable stock to the rice,Chop the onion and mushrooms into small pieces.
Add all the vegetables (apart from the spring onion) to the rice.Add the marinaded prawns to the rice. Mix everything up. Turn on the rice cooker start cooking.
Chop up the spring onion.When the food is cooked (this normally takes about 30 minutes), turn off the rice cooker, add the chopped spring onion, and give it all another good stir.

Chinese Food


Dim Sum, a wonderfully tasty Chinese tradition goes as far back as the ancient Silk Road. In those days, dim sum was associated with another tradition called yum cha, or a tea tasting. Yum cha came about when weary travelers atop camels needed a place to rest and replenish themselves. Because of this, many teahouses were soon established all along various roadsides. Yum cha originally did not come with food, because it was believed that tea combined with food would cause disproportionate weight gain. However, when tea was later discovered to actually help with digestion problems, teahouses began to add many different types of snacks for people who stopped by. Although dim sum originally started off as snack food, it quickly popularized and became a unique, and most often times loud experience.

The actual emergence of dim sum as a culinary feat originated in southern China with the Cantonese. In China, dim sum can be served as early as six in the morning, and many people wake up this early to be first in line to try the tasty treats that they offer. Dim sum restaurants usually close by mid afternoon and do not reopen for dinner, as was the tradition many, many years ago. The style of dim sum restaurants is very unique because instead of one waiter taking our order, many waiters push carts with various dim sum items around the restaurant, and you pick and choose from these carts.

Salty and savory snacks like shu mai, dumplings of every flavor imaginable, and cha siu bao are offered. Shu mai (literally "cook and sell dumplings") can be vegetarian or made with meat, and they are wrapped with gyoza wrappers and steamed. Dumplings come in pork, shrimp, crab, and vegetable flavors, and are either made with a thick, rice flour dumpling wrapper or a translucent wheat starch wrapper.

These translucent dumpling wrappers are very difficult to cook precisely, but their flavor along with the dumpling filling is quite satisfying. Cha siu bao are buns with cha siu pork, a sweet and salty barbecued pork cooked into them. For dessert, you can indulge in egg custard tarts, a creamy and delicious treat, mango pudding, sesame seed balls, or red bean paste buns. An exceptionally delicious Chinese dessert is the dou fu hua, which is a soft tofu served in a sweetened ginger flavored soup. For the more adventurous, a dish called "Phoenix Talons" is also served at dim sum restaurants. These are in actuality chicken feet. They are deep-fried, boiled, and sometimes marinated with black bean sauce. They are very tender, and many people enjoy them once they get over the initial shock factor of the chicken feet.

This Asian delicacy has spread across the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and is now available in various countries throughout the world. It is an especially popular type of food in America, where Americans can get a taste of the delicacies and oddities of the Chinese cuisine. Just remember to get to a restaurant early, because they get busy fast!

Chinese Beef in a Rice Cooker

In this article I shall describe a Chinese beef recipe that I cooked a couple of weeks ago. The seasoned strips of beef provide a tasty source of protein. While the rice and vegetables complete the meal to make it healthy and balanced. It cost under £5 to feed 3 hungry workers. And one of them ate enough for two. I shall not list quantities in the ingredients list as I just take a guess and chuck things into the pot. Just use a sensible estimate and experiment until you have the balance of flavors that you require.

Ingredients

For beef:

rump steak
ginger
garlic
sesame oil
light soya sauce
ground black pepper
Chinese 5 spice

For the rest:

rice
water
bean sprouts
mushrooms
bell pepper
Bouillon vegetable stock
chopped coriander

Instructions

Beef Marinade

Slice the beef into thin strips about 1 inch with.
Chop the ginger and garlic finely, and mix with the garlic, sesame oil, light soya sauce and ground black pepper to form a delicious marinade.
Mix the sliced beef with the marinade and set aside in a fridge for a few hours. If I'm planning on serving lunch at 12pm, I'll normally prepare the beef at 9am.

Cooking

Rinse the rice in the rice cooker a few times, and fill with water until there's about a finger nail's breadth of water above the top of the rice.
Add about half a teaspoon of vegetable stock to the rice,
Chop the mushrooms and bell pepper. I normally chop them into lumps between 0.5cm and 1.0cm in diameter.
Add all the chopped mushrooms, bell pepper and unchopped bean sprouts to the rice.
Add the marinaded beef to the rice.
Mix everything up.
Turn on the rice cooker start cooking.
When the food is cooked (this normally takes about 30 minutes), turn off the rice cooker, add the chopped coriander, and give it all another good mix.
Serve!

Char Siu – the Charm of Chinese Barbecue


Char siu, the other name for Chinese Barbecued pork is in fact Cantonese-style barbecued pork. The primary requirement for cooking up this delicacy is a long stretch of boneless pork mainly taken from the shoulder. Char siu is characteristic in its own type due to its coating of seasonings which makes the meat look dark red. The seasoning ingredients of this red devil include red food coloring, sugar or honey, sherry or rice wine and five-spice powder.

How the dish is prepared and served ?

This BBQ variety involves a conventional cooking process. Forks are used to hold the meat within covered oven or barely over the fire. This Chinese barbecued pork is never eaten alone. It is in fact a form of accompaniment to other food preparations like Cha Siu Baau. Here the barbecued pork is stuffed in buns with Char Siu rice and is deliciously served. However, its list of accompaniments does not end over here. Char siew can be eaten with other cookeries like salted duck egg, chicken with Soy sauce and sliced steamed chicken, roasted duck and roasted pork. Not only rice, noodles such as Lai fun, Shahe fen, and Wonton noodles too seem great with Char Siu. In Singapore, Char Siew looks brilliant with Hainanese chicken rice.

Cantonese-speaking people including Southern China, Malaysia and Singapore enjoy this dish full-flegedly and whole-heartedly. This BBQ specialty also makes its appearance in Chinese restaurants and several notable food markets of the world. Japan has however specialized in this art of barbecuing, which is known as Chashu without the red sugar and five-spice preparation but obviously with sweet honey and soy sauce coating.

The art of cooking Char Siu

The preparation of this barbeque is a unique combination of mixing, marinating and roasting. After the mixing has been properly done, sliced pork of about 2 inches in width and 5 inches in length are applied to the marinade and kept in the condition from two hours till overnight. The oven should gain a heat of 425 degree and the rack should be added to the roasting pan before it is filled with water in order to make the rack lower down. The excess marinate from the pork should be wiped off and made to stand in a line in the roasting pan. The roasting should go on for ten minutes. Now the next step would be to reduce the heat to 325 degree and allow the pork to be roasted for another thirty to forty minutes. As you turn the meat from side to side with sesame oil, peanut oil and marinade, the finishing is provided with a dash of honey for ten minutes. Then it is time for you to cut the pork into bite size pieces to make others enjoy each munch with fun and contentment.

Though the seed of Char Siu was sowed in China but the flavor of its harvest has spread to various parts of Asia. In fact, this dish of Chinese barbecued pork is tastefully striking enough to gain universal appreciation.

Beijing Roast Duck, the Most Famous Dish in Beijing, China


Beijing Roast Duck is widely acknowledged as the most famous, popular dish in Beijing, China. The mainly ingredient of Beijing Roast Duck is the rare-breed duck. The recipe for cooking the world-famous dish was first developed during the Ming Dynasty. It is a must-try dish if you take a tour to Beijing, China.

How Beijing Roast Duck is Cooked

First, ducks are spilt open, dressed, scalded and then dried. When roasting ducks, it's better to use fruit tree branches (jujube tree branches particularly) as firewood to lend more unique flavor to the ducks.

Second, a steady temperature should be always kept in the oven. Ducks must be rotated in order to be evenly roasted. It takes roughly 50 minutes to roast them. When the duck skin turns crisp and golden brown, the duck is done.

Third, the duck is sliced into approximately 120 thin pieces, each of which is with both skin and meat.

How to savor Beijing Roast Duck

First, dip each piece of duck meat into the sweet sauce and/or mashed garlic according to your preference.

Then, wrap the meat together with stalks of shallots, cucumber or turnip in the thin pancake and eat it with your hands.

The Top Three Roast Duck Restaurants in Beijing, China

Beijing offers numerous restaurants where you can feast on authentic Beijing Roast Duck, but the top three restaurants to try the world-renowned dish include Quanjude Roast Duck Restaurant, the time-honored Bianyifang Restaurant, and DaDong Roast Duck Restaurant.

Beijing Roast Duck looks golden brown and tastes crispy, fatty but never greasy. It's no wonder that Beijing Roast Duck is often acclaimed as the World's Top Delicacy. Don't miss Beijing Roast Duck if you take tours to Beijing China.

Beijing is China's political, cultural and transportation hub and second largest city. It is also a world-renowned tourist city which is home to numerous world-famous tourist attractions, include the grand Great Wall of China, the enigmatic Forbidden City, the magnificent Temple of Heaven, and the gorgeous Summer Palace, etc. Beijing, with its unique personality, receives over thousands of millions of visitors from every part of the world. More information about Beijing China tour packages.