Tummy Tuesday : Chinese Street Food

Tummy Tuesday : Chinese Street Food


Chinese Street Food: Small Bites, Classic Recipes, and Harrowing Tales Across the Middle Kingdom
(I am an Amazon affiliate. See disclosure at bottom of post)
I look at cookbooks the way some people look at porn. Well, okay, I’m not that bad but pretty close. I love looking at the pictures but I rarely actually use them. And when they mix it up with travel, it’s an awesome combination. And so it is with this one.

Howie Southworth and Greg Matza tasted their way across China, photographing and eating at the street stalls. Their book is filled with the recipes, faces and hands of the cooks making their living selling food to people strolling by. They’ve been traveling to China for 22 years and said:

“Where restaurants are exquisite, numerous, and undeniably welcoming to foreign friends, we have a special place in our hearts for street food. It’s relatively simple, filling, kind to the ol’ wallet, and perhaps most importantly, it satisfies our need to be impulsive. What’s he cooking? That looks incredible! Did you smell that? We’d like three, please.

The translated descriptive names of the recipes can be poetic or humorous such as Huntun Tang (Swallowing Clouds soup), Doufunao (Tofu Brains), and Pugai Mian (Bedspread noodles).  The recipes range from extremely simple to um, a bit more work but the wonderful thing is that most ingredients you can get at your local grocery store, or Amazon in a pinch. Although I did have to wonder what Chinese black vinegar was because it showed up a few times.  They enthused over how the Chinese found numerous new ways to do eggs including Chadan (Tea-Poached Eggs)

I scanned the pages for the Chadan hopefully big enough so you could read it.  They include photos with each recipe. Sometimes of just the food but a lot of the time with the people on the street too.  Then they have an intro as you can see on page 167 and then finally the recipe.  If you try this out, definitely let me know.  Part of the procedue is for the eggs to be steeped in black tea, cinnamon, anise, orange zest, and peppers which sounds like a great tea until you see there are about 5 tablespoons of soy sauce too.  I might just make the tea portion to drink without the soy sauce because it sounds so good.  The eggs sound interesting.

I love the cookbook. It felt like sharing a trip to China with my foodie besties who love, love, love food.  Plus when I travel, I love going to street vendors too.  Knock on wood, but I’ve never had a bad experience eating from them.  The food smells and looks delicious as you trot by so how can a person not have a quick bite to eat.  This book brought back memories of traveling (although my travel was to Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand but they too have Chinese street vendors as well as Malaysian and Thai). It’s a beautiful cookbook, don’t you think?

Roundup of last week’s Tummy Tuesday (3/18/19-3/25/19) :

Ladylee Manila Blog's photos of greek food for lunch, food photography
Lady Manila: Greek food for lunch, food photos
My Slice of Mexico Sopa Tarasca, Mexican corn, beef, tomato soup, food photography
Irene: Sopa Tarasca – A Flavourful Ambassador for Mexican Cuisine, recipe
Cactus Catz homemade soup, food photography
Cactus Catz: home-made soup, food photo

 

This week’s Tummy Tuesday (3/26/19-4/1/19):

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13 Replies to “Tummy Tuesday : Chinese Street Food”

    1. Yeah, I agree, street food is great. I don’t know why it tastes so much better when I’m traveling abroad but it seems amazing over there.

    1. Me too. My Japanese friend laughs when she visits because I have so many cookbooks but I don’t cook that often. I like looking at them.

    1. I love Asian food too. They are my favorite restaurants because they often have fabulous lunch deals to boot. Gosh, now I’m hungry.

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