Tag: Chinese

Homemade fermentation: Chinese cabbage kimchi – Italian Cuisine

The Kimchi Chinese cabbage or Baechu Kimchi it is the basic preparation of Kimchi. It is usually done in winter, with freshly picked cabbages and savoy cabbage, to have a supply even throughout the spring.
The beauty of Kimchi is that you can add vegetables to taste, roots and, after a few tries, create your own perfect combination. In some recipes you can also find some types of fish and crustaceans, which give precious essential amino acids to the Kimchi.

The Chinese Cabbage Kimchi recipe

Ingredients for a jar of about 1 liter

Vegetables need to be washed very very well.
500 grams of Chinese cabbage or Peking cabbage
250 grams of cabbage
150 grams of cabbage
4-5 radishes washed well and cut into thin slices
3 spring onions + minced garlic cloves (quantity to taste)
1 tablespoon of Korean Gochugaru chili; if you can't find it, you can replace it with good Italian chilli, in powder or very finely chopped.
30 grams fresh grated ginger (a generous spoonful)
some cabbage leaves

You can also add
julienne carrots, thinly sliced shallot, daikon.

For the brine, to be prepared in proportion to the weight of the vegetables
sea salt 90 grams (or whole sea salt)
still water (bottled) 1 liter

Equipment
1-2 very large ceramic or glass bowls.
1 glass jar with bayonet cap or the classic jars with screw cap.
Very large cabbage leaves or one or two zip-free freezer bags, filled with water. You will need them as a weight to keep the vegetables under the brine.
Or a vase with a bubbler and ceramic weights.
Gloves.

Method

Coarsely chop the Chinese cabbage and place it in a large bowl with the rest of the sliced vegetables.
Prepare the brine: dissolve the sea salt in a liter of water.
Pour the brine over the vegetables and push the vegetables well to the bottom. A weight can be used on top of a plate.
Leave to soak for about 6 hours.

In the meantime, prepare the spices: mix the ginger, chilli, chopped garlic and spring onions, trying to form a sort of paste to mix with the vegetables.
After the time has elapsed, drain the vegetables from the water, transfer them to a smaller bowl and mix them with the spices.
For this phase it is better to use latex gloves.
After mixing the spices with the vegetables well, transfer everything to a liter jar covered with brine.
Cover with the cabbage leaves. Place a zip-up freezer bag full of water over the leaves.
Vegetables must always be covered with brine.

Let it ferment at room temperature for 5 or 7 days, if it takes up to 14 days (tip: if it is the first time you prepare it, let it ferment for 5 or 7 days). At this point you can taste it, the flavor will be similar to pickles and will evolve more and more, as the days pass.
Transfer the Kimchi to smaller jars (the vegetables must always be covered with brine) and then to the refrigerator, where it can be kept for over 6 months.

Discovering Chinese sweet soups, between tradition and modernity – Italian Cuisine

A popular Chinese food trend that never goes out of style is traditional sweet soups, from the well-known red bean soup to those with exotic ingredients such as lotus seeds and taro

Can a soup be a dessert? The answer is yes, and the proof is the tong sui, literally "sugar water", or one Chinese sweet soup of Cantonese origin based on water or coconut milk. As with many Chinese dishes, the tong sui recipe has been handed down for generations and sometimes revisited in a modern way, so much so that it has become a popular food trend among tourists and also exported abroad. Although the most famous is azuki red bean, a dish often associated with the Chinese New Year holiday, they do exist many variations of more or less sweet soups. Let's find out what are the main characteristics and the most popular and popular recipes.

Tong sui: from traditional food to food trend loved by young people

There Cantonese sweet soup was born in the post-war period in the provinces of Guangzhou and Shanghai, before reaching Hong Kong. It is here that in the 80's and 90's the first tong sui and che shops were born the original recipe gradually underwent the influence of Western cuisine. Just like the even better known Taiwanese bubble tea drink, Chinese sweet soup has also ended up becoming, in modern times, a widespread street food customizable with different toppings, such as fruit and tapioca balls, and available in an extraordinary and creative variety of flavors and colors. There is, of course, no shortage too specialized shops whose cooks faithfully reproduce and serve the recipes of their ancestors, paying the utmost attention to cooking times and methods, the balance of flavors and the selection of quality ingredients.

A sweet soup for all tastes and all ages

This dessert, looking similar to a soup, it has a more or less thick creamy consistency and is generally served at the end of a meal, in hot or cold version according to the seasons. Among the most famous sweet soups we find, as we have seen, that with azuki beans, prepared with dried lotus seeds, orange or mandarin peel and cane sugar, but also that based on black sesame, the Do you ever know lou, or a sort of cream-colored pudding prepared with sago starch or, alternatively, tapioca pearls, water, coconut milk and evaporated milk. Then there is no shortage of soups anymore sweet and delicate, including one made with sweet almonds, sweet potatoes or taro; those more exotic based on tropical fruit (for example mango and pomelo), red dates or peach gum; those flavored with spices (for example ginger or cumin) or local aromatic herbs and, finally, those that have inside them ingredients salty for us westerners somewhat bizarre, such as turtle meat or dried frogs.
In short, there really is something for all tastes and food preferences, with inevitable additions of superfood ingredients that can range from goji berries to gingko biloba.

Photo: Chinese sweet soup with dumpling_900_Pxfuel.jpg
Photo: Chinese sweet soup with pomelo and mango_900_Kyle Lam Flickr.jpg

Chinese, tacos or sushi? The best they deliver to Milan – Italian Cuisine

Waiting for the end of the lockdown also for restaurants, here is the selection of the best restaurants that from Argentina to Sweden, promise to take us around the world without leaving home

Abstinence: state of suffering due to the loss of the physiological, pharmacological or toxic effect of a substance to which the body was accustomed. In Milan, abstinence is from noodles, tacos and sushi.

After almost two months locked in the house to make bread, pizza and lasagna and to rediscover the recipes of the Italian tradition, the time has come to go back to eat something different; something that you can hardly reproduce with your own hands, even just for lack of ingredients.

Here then is the selection of the best restaurants that from Argentina to Sweden promise to take us around the world without leaving home.

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