Which Asian food reigns supreme?

[Drew]

Yeah, the first couple times I made it I followed the recipe to the letter, then I started messing with it. I never leave anything alone after the 3rd time I cook something.

I usually go with; carrots, brocolli florets, mushrooms, celery, the needed oinion, and about 1-2lbs of beef(fajita or stir-fry "steak" seems to work best for sheer $/lb value). I get the mild Golden Curry mix. I also cook the hell out of it, the broth base simmers for like 2 1/2 hours total before it gets the mix. I've found there's this point were the meat will stay solid chunks untill you hit it with a fork, but if you cook it past this it just mushes into the 'gravy'...

I have this manga I downloaded fan-translated that's nothing but strange curry recipes. Like mango and shit. One of these days I'll get a bug to try some of them, but not now.

I almost never follow a recipe verbatem - much like playing guitar, I'd rather improvise than rehash.

One of the better tips I've gotten re: stir-frying beef is that odds are, if you go into a grocery store and buy a specal "stir-fry" cut that's been cut into strips for you, you're not going to get as quality a cut as if you just buy a good chunk of beef and slice it up yourself. The downer of this approach is you need a pretty damned sharp knife to do it properly, but most of the "stir-fry" cuts I've had in the past have a little too much fat/gristle in them and are a bit tougher than I'd prefer. The same is true of "stewing" beef, pre-cubed - you're paying a premium for the cut, and not for the meat. IMO you'd be better off buying a small roast and dicing it up (for a stew) or thin-slicing a thinner cut of meat for a stir-fry (I'm partial to sirloin tip strips, especially when you can get them on sale - they've got this great fine marbling to them).

I do a beef/basil stir-fry a lot that I semi-ripped off from a great Thai place up the street - again it's improv, but I usually do somehting like:

-dice a small onion, either chopped coarsly or sliced and then divided into half-rings, and sautee over medium heat in a little bit of olive oil until transluscent.
-cut a Thai pepper (sorta like a jalepeno, just red and a touch milder) into thin strips, and either add them to the onion as-is, cut them in half, or dice them up, according to your mood/taste/etc. For a milder dish, remove the seeds; for a (significantly) spicier, add a second pepper.
-when the onion is becoming clear, crush in about two cloves of garlic. Sautee for another 30 seconds or so.
-add your thin-sliced beef (maybe about a pound or so, but if it's for one person expect to eat a lot and have leftovers) and turn up the heat to medium high. Sautee, stirring frequently.
-slice a bell pepper into thin strips and add to the beef once it's nearly cooked. Sautee a little longer to cook the pepper.
-add as many of the following as are on hand and sound appealing; water chestnuts, bamboo shoots, baby corn, thin-sliced mushrooms, etc.
-as these begin to cook, add in several good sized splashes of soy sauce. Me being me, I also usually grind in some black pepper.
-Once everything's essentially cooked, dissolve about a teaspoon-1 1/2 teaspoons of corn starch in a cup or so of water, and add it to the frying pan. Stir quickly, then toss in several handfuls of fresh basil with the stems removed - I generally buy one of those plastic containers in the herb section of grocery stores, and add the whole thing.
-by the time the basil begins to wilt and take on a deeper green color, the sauce should have thickened up considerably and turned from milky to clear. If it's too thin, add more corn starch diluted in water (never add corn starch directly to a hot liquid); if too thick, add more water and soy sauce.
-remove from heat, and serve over a medium-grained sticky rice - a proper Thai rice is ideal, but I usually use an Italian Arborrio, as it's still quite authentic and I also use it for risottos so I'd rather stock one rice I use a lot than two that get used occasionally.

It's hardly authentic, and I'm looking for other things than soy sauce to use as a base for the sauce (well, technically the onion, beef, pepper, and garlic provide a lot of the flavor too), but it's pretty good in a pinch.

 

[bostjan]

For my tastes, real Indian food is by far the best.

Chana Masala, Rajma, Vegetable Biryani and Poorie are my fuels. Peshvari Naan is great for dessert.

Thai would be my second favorite. Since I'm not at all into eating live or raw meats, I'd say Japanese is not my thing.

 

[D-EJ915]

I just don't like chinese food, lol...

One thing I've never understood is the "food comics" in Japan. Like "Ramen comics" or "Soba comics" or "Curry comics." How can you make a whole comic series based around food? And then why does it get so many people who read it? My ex-girlfriend loved that stuff. She didn't own any of the comics herself, but she read them at the library whenever I went there to get reference books (I dated her when I was in college). And when I asked her why she liked them, she was like "Hey, they're pretty interesting, aren't they?" That didn't help me a bit. I still don't understand them at all.

lol, Yakitake! Japan :XD

With all that being said lumpia kicks ASS at least it did the last time I had it at my friends house when I saw him like 3 years ago so I don't really remember what it tastes like, lol.

 

[Makelele]

The greatest thing about Asian cuisine is the TV-show "Iron Chef". It's the shit.

 

[Drew]

Ahh, see, call me naive, but I thought it was asian women.

 

[D-EJ915]

Oh man, time for a screencap or two:

lol

 

[Sentient]

The Black Hole Who Lived In My Apartment And Ate All My Food was Fillipino, and her cooking blew. Then again, she blew.

Sorry to hear that, dude. But as with most things in life (including people), some are good, and some are not. Sounds like your experience was with one that was not.

Out of all the Filipino food that I've tried (not just my wife's cooking, but also her family's & friends'), I've loved about 95% of it. But as is surely the case with practically any other type of food, different people can often prepare the same dish in very different ways.

I didn't even like fish until my wife starting preparing it in meals. Now it's damn near become my favorite thing she prepares.

 

[Regor]

Don't even need to think about this one. Japanese. Dude, you can't even spell your favorite Asian food right. I have a feeling most people will put "Chinese" though, since that's the only one a lot of people have eaten before. A lot of people in North America have never had Japanese or Korean food. And I bet there are a lot of people who haven't had Thai or Filipino as well.

That'd be me. "Chinese" for me is take-out chop suey from this little place in the neighborhood. I ain't ever had the rest of that stuff, except for Mongolian BBQ, which I like, so I picked that.

Naren, I'll make a deal with you. When I come to Japan for a PrideFC event, you hook me up with some Japanese food, and I'll hook you up with some Chicago deep-dish pizza.

 

[Naren]

Naren, I'll make a deal with you. When I come to Japan for a PrideFC event, you hook me up with some Japanese food, and I'll hook you up with some Chicago deep-dish pizza.

Sounds like a damn good deal for both parties involved.

 

[Toshiro]

I almost never follow a recipe verbatem - much like playing guitar, I'd rather improvise than rehash.

One of the better tips I've gotten re: stir-frying beef is that odds are, if you go into a grocery store and buy a specal "stir-fry" cut that's been cut into strips for you, you're not going to get as quality a cut as if you just buy a good chunk of beef and slice it up yourself. The downer of this approach is you need a pretty damned sharp knife to do it properly, but most of the "stir-fry" cuts I've had in the past have a little too much fat/gristle in them and are a bit tougher than I'd prefer. The same is true of "stewing" beef, pre-cubed - you're paying a premium for the cut, and not for the meat. IMO you'd be better off buying a small roast and dicing it up (for a stew) or thin-slicing a thinner cut of meat for a stir-fry (I'm partial to sirloin tip strips, especially when you can get them on sale - they've got this great fine marbling to them).

I do a beef/basil stir-fry a lot that I semi-ripped off from a great Thai place up the street - again it's improv, but I usually do somehting like:

[snip recipe]

It's hardly authentic, and I'm looking for other things than soy sauce to use as a base for the sauce (well, technically the onion, beef, pepper, and garlic provide a lot of the flavor too), but it's pretty good in a pinch.

I would think about cutitng my own meat, but at almost 3 hours prep+cook time I can only make it on my days off. It's enough of a time sink at that point that cutting my own meat would drive me crazy. I've found that the stuff at Publix is very well cut, where-as if I had to shop somewhere like Walmart I would cut my own(more likely I'd go to a butcher shop over Walfart though, yuck).

I love soy sauce. I don't think I would make anything asian without it, since that's one of the draws of the cuisine for me.

One thing I've never understood is the "food comics" in Japan. Like "Ramen comics" or "Soba comics" or "Curry comics." How can you make a whole comic series based around food? And then why does it get so many people who read it? My ex-girlfriend loved that stuff. She didn't own any of the comics herself, but she read them at the library whenever I went there to get reference books (I dated her when I was in college). And when I asked her why she liked them, she was like "Hey, they're pretty interesting, aren't they?" That didn't help me a bit. I still don't understand them at all.

It's one scary-ass manga... I got it for the recipes though, in case I ever lose my mind enough to try them.

 

[Naren]

I love soy sauce. I don't think I would make anything asian without it, since that's one of the draws of the cuisine for me.

I like soy sauce, but I think I'd vomit if every Asian food I ate had soy sauce in it. I prefer miso. For example, normal chashumen is soy sauce-based and I don't really like soy sauce-based ramen, but I love chashu, so I always order "Miso chashumen" that is the same as regular "chashumen" but is miso-based instead of soy sauce-based. I like pretty much any miso-based ramen. And spicy red miso makes an awesome dipping sauce.

Now that I think about it, less than 40% of Japanese foods use soy sauce. And I can't think of 1 Korean food that uses soy sauce (I'm sure they exist, though). I think you should revise your statement, dude. Do you put soy sauce in your curry?

 

[Toshiro]

I like soy sauce, but I think I'd vomit if every Asian food I ate had soy sauce in it. I prefer miso. For example, normal chashumen is soy sauce-based and I don't really like soy sauce-based ramen, but I love chashu, so I always order "Miso chashumen" that is the same as regular "chashumen" but is miso-based instead of soy sauce-based. I like pretty much any miso-based ramen. And spicy red miso makes an awesome dipping sauce.

Now that I think about it, less than 40% of Japanese foods use soy sauce. And I can't think of 1 Korean food that uses soy sauce (I'm sure they exist, though). I think you should revise your statement, dude. Do you put soy sauce in your curry?

I put soy suace on the rice that's under my serving of curry...

I don't eat as much aisian food as you though, and I could imagine it getting insane. I mean, I eat something asian-based like once a week or less, and italian, german, and "american" based food the rest of the time.

 

[Naren]

I put soy suace on the rice that's under my serving of curry...

Oh... I'm getting sick just thinking about that... I'll remember never to eat your curry.

Most Asians would consider that blasphemy (not so much to the curry, but to the soy sauce)... I remember when these Japanese I knew first came to the US and saw Americans putting soy sauce on their rice (at Chinese restaurants, etc.) and said to me, "That's disgusting. Why are they doing that?" to which I replied "I don't know... I just don't know..."

I don't eat as much aisian food as you though, and I could imagine it getting insane. I mean, I eat something asian-based like once a week or less, and italian, german, and "american" based food the rest of the time.

I eat Japanese food every day. And I eat Chinese food about 2 times a week. And Korean food about once a week. Other food like Thai, Filippino, Indian, Mongolian all combined together is about 1-3 times a month.

I need soy sauce for sushi, sashimi, gyouza (pot stickers), and stuff like that. I use to live in Choshi (which has two huge soy sauce factories: Yamasa and Higeta) and, even there, I didn't have soy sauce that much.

 

[Toshiro]

Oh... I'm getting sick just thinking about that... I'll remember never to eat your curry.

Most Asians would consider that blasphemy (not so much to the curry, but to the soy sauce)... I remember when these Japanese I knew first came to the US and saw Americans putting soy sauce on their rice (at Chinese restaurants, etc.) and said to me, "That's disgusting. Why are they doing that?" to which I replied "I don't know... I just don't know..."



I eat Japanese food every day. And I eat Chinese food about 2 times a week. And Korean food about once a week. Other food like Thai, Filippino, Indian, Mongolian all combined together is about 1-3 times a month.

I need soy sauce for sushi, sashimi, gyouza (pot stickers), and stuff like that. I use to live in Choshi (which has two huge soy sauce factories: Yamasa and Higeta) and, even there, I didn't have soy sauce that much.

As a child I hated the taste of rice. I bet most americans grew up with some type of flavored rice, like rice-a-roni, or just bullion cubes in it, where that would be blasphemy in a rice-growing asian country.

Eh, you'd be fine, I take my portion of rice out of the rice cooker, 'flavor it', and leave the rest untouched. I have respect for people that don't want the sauce.

I'm not heaping it on either, just a little.

 

[Naren]

As a child I hated the taste of rice. I bet most americans grew up with some type of flavored rice, like rice-a-roni, or just bullion cubes in it, where that would be blasphemy in a rice-growing asian country.

Yes. In fact, when I was a kid, my father made wild rice that had lots of spices mixed in and he would cook a pheasant or quail with the wild rice and spices. It was dang good stuff. American rice. But quite different from soy sauce on rice or buillon cubes. I think most Americans probably think it's boring that just about every meal in Japan, China, or Korea comes with a bowl (or 2 or 3) of plain white rice. You don't put any sauce on it and you don't mix it with anything. You just eat it plain. I (and pretty much all Japanese) think it's delicious. I've known Japanese people who would go to a restaurant and order just white rice by itself and eat it plain. I've done it myself once, actually.

In fact, I don't think I've EVER seen plain white rice with nothing on it at a Chiense restaurant in the US. And, even though, traditional Japanese meals in Japan are usually served with; bowl of white rice, bowl of miso soup, pickled vegetables, and the main meal, I have never had a bowl of white rice given to me at a Japanese restaurant in the US (they don't serve pickled vegetables either. And many of the restaurants I've been to served a small salad. I was like "What the hell is traditional about this?"). I knew an American here in Japan who didn't even eat any of his rice. I was like "what the...? That's the main part of your meal and you didn't even eat any of it." And he was like "It's boring." I, of course, was doing this:

I hate Buillion cubes. So I don't think I could stomach rice made that way...

 

[bostjan]

I'm going to chime in as usual and just say that I love brown rice, even though it's very rare in asian cooking.

Teff is the most under-rated grain, though. Too bad it's gotten so scarce with the droughts and famines. If you like grain (and who doesn't), you should try teff.

I've always thought soy sauce and curry didn't mix. I've never been a huge fan of soy sauce. It makes bad food better, but it distracts from good food.

The Thai place I used to go to in my old neighborhood would always use fresh ingredients, so the food there was outstanding, but, of course, different every time you ordered it, since certain things were seasonal or would be used up before the end of the day. There had to have been at least a dozen spices in the fried rice at any given time, though, and all of them freshly made.

 

[Toshiro]

Heh. The place across the street serves a bowl of steamed white rice with dinners. Though they offer fried rice as an alternative, and judging by the look I got more people order that. Considering that fried rice has soy sauce in it, eh I've not much room to talk.

I can live without the soy sauce, just I prefer it. Considering how much 'fake' soy sauce there is over here, I feel okay putting brewed soy sauce on my rice if I like the taste.

The chinese take out locally knows it's me because I must be the only person around here that orders extra white rice, and no fried rice. Their fried rice sucks ass though, it's like saffron rice with veggies, no egg or anything.

 

[Naren]

My favorite Chinese food is "chahan." I thought for the longest time that it was a Chinese food that just didn't exist in the US until I went to a Chinese restaurant that had English written on the menu and under "Chahan" it said "Fried rice." I was like "What the fuck? No way 'chahan' is 'fried rice.'" I had never been a fan of fried rice in the US, but "chahan" became my favorite Chinese food soon after moving to Japan. I guess that American fried rice just isn't that good. There is no soy sauce in "chahan", by the way.

I used to make Kimchi chahan at my apartment all the time. The ingredients were: rice, grilled pork (chashu-style yakibuta), egg, kimchi, green onions (aka leeks), spices, salt, vegetable oil, and a kind of spicy Chinese sauce (just a little bit of it). Kimchi chahan is the best. I refuse to believe "chahan" and fried rice are the same. I mean, "chahan" isn't even "fried." Then again, I don't think "fried rice" is really fried, either.

I would always choose "chahan" over white rice if I have a choice in Chinese food.

 

[bostjan]

Eric, do you cook with "Hing?" I find that just a tiny bit of it makes food taste more "asian." It's one spice that tastes absolutely awful on it's own, but works great in small ammounts with the right food.

 

[Toshiro]

My favorite Chinese food is "chahan." I thought for the longest time that it was a Chinese food that just didn't exist in the US until I went to a Chinese restaurant that had English written on the menu and under "Chahan" it said "Fried rice." I was like "What the fuck? No way 'chahan' is 'fried rice.'" I had never been a fan of fried rice in the US, but "chahan" became my favorite Chinese food soon after moving to Japan. I guess that American fried rice just isn't that good. There is no soy sauce in "chahan", by the way.

I used to make Kimchi chahan at my apartment all the time. The ingredients were: rice, grilled pork (chashu-style yakibuta), egg, kimchi, green onions (aka leeks), spices, salt, vegetable oil, and a kind of spicy Chinese sauce (just a little bit of it). Kimchi chahan is the best. I refuse to believe "chahan" and fried rice are the same. I mean, "chahan" isn't even "fried." Then again, I don't think "fried rice" is really fried, either.

I would always choose "chahan" over white rice if I have a choice in Chinese food.

If I ever see it on a menu, I'll get it to check for ya. I'm well aware that the chinese food here has been westernized, sorta like dubbed anime. I order very simple food, usually just meat and veggies. My GF has a thing for Moo-shu though.

Fried rice here involves usually cooked white rice, egg, peas/carrots/onions/ spices, soysauce, and a wok. lol