Cooking in China has been a source of many laughs and sighs. Our kitchen is about 5 feet by 7 feet, wall to wall, not including the counters, which stick out 18 inches on each side. It's too small to have the refrigerator in, or more than one person at a time, unless you are willing to be very cozy. It is tiled on the floors, walls, and counters. Along one wall there is a counter and double sink with running HOT water, a definite luxury here. On the short side under the window, is a 2-burner gas stove, on the other side is another narrow counter with shelves above. We also have a microwave/grilling oven, which sits on the second counter near the stove. We were going to buy a frying pan, but my Scottish blood rebelled at paying 98 yuan for it, so we use the wok for almost everything, including scrambling eggs, popping popcorn, and cooking most dinners. Having no oven and no cake pans has severely limited my baking menu, though we are experimenting!
Generally we eat a combination of rice and vegetables from the market, or tofu with various veggies. Sprouts cost about 8 jiao for a jin, tofu at 1 yuan per jin, and potatoes or jicama at 3 yuan for 2 kilos. Mandarin oranges grow in the surrounding countryside. The farmers had a bumper crop this year so they cost 1 yuan for about 10 oranges. There are 10 jiao in a yuan, and 8 yuan in a US dollar. A jin is half a kilo, or about 1.1 pounds, and is the standard measure in the markets. Thus, sprouts are about 8 cents (US$) a pound, oranges are 8-10 cents a pound, and tofu is about 12 cents a pound. Green beans, bananas, apples, etc. are all about 16 cents a pound. The children are eating 5-6 oranges a day, as well as lots of dates, sesame sticks, and roasted peanuts. We buy the peanuts raw and then cook them for several minutes in the wok, turning them over constantly. They are very tasty.
Some of the local native foods include lotus root, a white root that you slice thinly and then fry with garlic and hot peppers. It cooks up crunchy with a very mild flavor. Lotus seeds are also cooked in soups in the summer as they are supposed to be "cooling." There are many kinds of squash. These are usually served soft, having a sweet taste that is very pleasant. Some are orange with a green edge, other are off-white and used in soups. There are many kinds of greens that vary from very tasty to slimy and tasteless. Since arriving in Xiangtan, the greens have been very good, but after having eaten them twice a day, every day, in Macau, it took a while for us to appreciate them. The tofu comes in at least 4 different varieties. We usually use the one that comes in 2-inch squares by half-inch-thick pieces. We slice it thinly and use it in most everything. There is also 1-inch-cubed tofu, which makes a nice change, but is very chewy and really has very little flavor. The most aromatic type comes in a 2-by-4-inch rectangle and is golden brown in color. These have been smoked and give a pleasant smoky taste to whatever you cook them with. We have also seen tofu in sausage type wrappers, some similar to hotdogs other more the size of pepperoni sausage. We haven't cooked with these yet. One of our favorite treats is to visit the venders who deep fry the smoky tofu and then baste it with a hot pepper sauce and then paint it with crushed peppers. It is put on two sticks and snipped about halfway across, first from one side and then the other, the length of the tofu, so that it fries in a zigzag pattern. Two rectangles are 1 yuan. So far we have avoided any meat dishes, though often the people we eat with partake of them. This past week we were invited to lunch twice, with frog legs being the main course for one of the lunches.
Tim regards the kitchen as his domain. We alternate who cooks, depending on who has the most and latest classes that day. I am the soup and snack cook, and Tim is the king of the stir-fry. He delights in entertaining his students on gray, dreary Mondays by relating my episodes in the kitchen during the previous weekend. His favorites are the times I have attempted to make brownies, and the time I made popcorn.
Having no proper pan for the brownies and no oven to bake them in it has been a challenge to make a good batch of brownies. When cleaning out our kitchen before we left America, I packed two boxes of brownie mix. Here I started by using the round corning-ware pan Tim found for me, but when I cooked it on grill in the microwave, only the top cooked; the bottom was still raw. Determined to have some chocolate, I took the lid of the pot and inverted the brownies onto the lid, uncooked-side up, and returned it to the micro. It tasted great but was slightly over brown on top and gooey in the middle between the two crunchy layers. The second time I got the great idea of using the revolving glass tray of the microwave for a brownie pan. It was about 14 inches in diameter and had a slightly-raised lip on the edge. I figured that it was big enough that the brownies would not be so thick, and thus would cook completely. I would also combine the microwave and the grill elements of the stove. I poured the mixture onto the tray. It looked perfect. There was over an inch of bare tray all around the edge -- plenty of room for the mix to rise. I turned on microwave for 5 minutes. Checking at 3 minutes I opened the door to find brownie mix oozing off of the tray onto the bottom of the microwave, then across the countertop and over the edge, finally pooling under the stove. It was very hot and very messy to clean up. After removing some of the remaining mix on the tray I returned it to the oven. When it finally came out, for our celebration of October 20th, we declared that it was very tasty, if somewhat odd-looking.
Making popcorn in China is not without its hazards. The pots for the top of the stove have no handles and are made of paper-thin aluminum. Tim outlawed the wok for making popcorn when he found out I was using it, so I have only the handle-less pots to use. The stove is always very hot as it has an open flame, and if you turn it down too low it goes out. When I make popcorn therefore, I use a hand towel -- we have not found oven mitts yet -- and hold the top and sides of the wok and shake furiously. Once, as I was taking the popcorn off, I noticed that the heat had not diminished when I removed the pot from the stove. Looking down, I saw the towel was on fire, and singeing the hair on my arm. Luckily the floor is also of tile and I had shoes on, so I dropped the towel onto the floor and stomped out the flame. There was a two-inch V missing from the center of the towel, with brown singed edges on both sides. As we had company at the time, I didn't mention it. Tim however went into the kitchen later that evening and found the towel. He couldn't resist coming into the living room holding it, in front of everyone, and commenting, "I see you've been cooking again, my dear!" I had the last laugh though, when I cut off the burned part and hemmed the towel, then nonchalantly tossed it to him when he asked for a towel. He didn't believe it was the same towel I had burned.
Now that we have found a supply of rolled oats, I do make great apple crisp. Again it is a combination of microwaving and grilling -- 10 minutes on microwave and then 7 minutes on grill. It has taken the place of applesauce, and is a great favorite of our Chinese friends. The Chinese don't cook apples at all, so we have introduced them to applesauce, apple crisp, and baked apples stuffed with dates and walnuts, grown locally.
I hope this finds all of you happy and as well fed as we are here. Any new experiments we will keep you updated on, until then, all the best from all of us and much love to you all.
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