Hey guys, a few notes: 1. To blanch the vegetable: pot of boiling water, squeeze in a touch of oil for a bit of sheen. Here we were doing Choy Sum, so that gets blanched for ~1 minute. The way I (Chris) learned to do crunchy veg like Choy Sum or Baby Bok Choy is to hold the thick stem in the bubbling water for about ~30-45 seconds (I usually do it until my hand gets too hot), then drop it in for 15-30 seconds then drain. Of course, Steph doesn’t bother with that… and she’s a better cook than the person that taught me that anyhow. I just like my blanched vegetable cooked *just* enough and no more I suppose. 2. I’m guessing my opinion on Mapo Tofu with rice might… have some strong disagreement lol. Here’s the way I look at it. A proper Mapo Tofu can be pretty intensely flavored… and I feel like for something as strong a taste as Mala, I personally want my white rice to be a break from that, a respite. Having it on the side gives the meal a bit of contrast. Obviously though, if you like your Mapo Tofu over rice, most of the world seems to agree with you. I guess I seem to be the weird one :) 3. So I promise we weren’t trying to pull a fast one on you or anything by labelling “Lao Gan Ma on white rice” as a ‘recipe’. Here’s the thing - a number of things that people might think of as xiafan (i.e. good over rice) here are basically prepared products. Another example might be fermented tofu, or perhaps Sichuan pickles. We wanted to include that sub-category of “good-over-rice” stuff in the video, and Lao Gan Ma is certainly the king of that sub-category… 4. Generally, I think most people in the West equate ‘good over rice’ as ‘saucy’. And saucy stuff *is* good over rice, no doubt… but there’s definitely stuff beyond that. So yeah. The whole concept here was ‘something saucy’, ‘something not saucy’, and ‘something prepared’. 5. Another contentious opinion I hold: *definitely* make your black soybean garlic sauce yourself… it’s so, so much better than that bottled LKK. I compared the difference to mayo, but in hindsight I think a better analogy might be whipped cream - i.e. homemade = awesome, store-bought = kinda gross. To my taste buds at least, the bottled stuff just isn’t a substitute for that chocolately richness that douchi brings. 6. So “xiafan” in an interesting word, because it seems that different people here have different concepts of what the word means. For some, it means basically anything salty/flavorful that you want to eat a lot of rice with *in the same meal*. For others (and how we used it here), it means something that you toss on/in your rice and eat it *in the same bite*. I can’t seem to put together if it’s a regional thing or not. It’s a kind of interesting dynamic because you could theoretically have people from the former group be talking about ‘xiafan’ dishes with the latter without much hiccup, as often there’s a big overlap there. Lastly, if you like this sort of stuff… let us know. We do have a comparative shortage of ‘weeknight cooking’ kind of things on this channel, and we quite like the concept of “a handful of good-over-rice dishes” in that 50 minute time limit (30 minutes is the cliché ‘quick and easy’ time limit, but I think 50 minutes is more realistic for proper cooking). It was fun for us to conceptualize & test too. We’d love to circle back around to “over rice dishes” every ~3 months or so, but only if you guys are into it. I know it’s not quite that hardcore foodie content that y’all might expect from us by now.
I'll just say that while I enjoy watching the extremely elaborate fancy videos, the quick dinner videos are the ones that I actually make :) Anyway, absolutely going to try the squash this weekend!
Both are interesting. I think a large part of the interest for me at least here is the fact that here in the US, we just don't have home style Chinese cooking. Luckily where I am I can FIND authentic Chinese food, but home cooking... is well HOME cooking. Amazing videos, but definitely the simpler more home cooking style foods are the ones I would actually make at home. So more home cooking please.
Look up Gai Ma Fan 盖码饭 recipes from Xiang cuisine 湘菜，all over-rice one bowl wonders ready in 20 min. 辣椒炒肉盖码饭 番茄炒蛋盖码饭 孜然牛肉盖码饭 酸豆角炒肉末盖码饭 雪里红盖码饭 雪菜小笋盖码饭 麻婆豆腐盖码饭 鱼香肉丝盖码饭
Hey gang - long time listener, first time caller. This channel is absolutely the best English-language source for learning Chinese cooking ever done, full stop, and it really has me appreciating NYC's Chinatowns in a way most people don't get to. This video reminds me of a question (or maybe just 'topic') that's been burning my brain, and I can't seem to find a great source for answers. The headline is "what does a full home-cooked family meal look like day-to-day, in China, and how might that vary regionally, or how might it vary from a big meal at a decent restaurant?" So what I mean to get at is things like: "is rice a always a must with dinner, or if some noodles are involved in dinner, does rice go by the wayside?" "are there particular chili condiments you might nearly always see at a home table in Hunan or Sichuan?" "How many dishes might be made for say, a weekend meal when company is over?" I'd love to see a video on what the guidelines and traditions for home-cooked meals are!
It's definitely a *big* topic. I know we tend towards more 'restaurant' dishes on this channel... it's definitely a topic we want to cover but I'm not sure the best way to approach it. It's a huge country after all. I can answer a couple questions now though :) >is rice a always a must with dinner, or if some noodles are involved in dinner, does rice go by the wayside? In general, yes. Usually it's only one starch. >[How does day-to-day homecooking vary] from a big meal at a decent restaurant? Generally it's the same structure, it's just the complexity of the dishes that changes. Homecooking's usually simpler/quicker. Even if you have someone like Steph's Dad (who's a proudly good cook) when he's cooking it's usually one complex dish together with a handful of simple dishes. I'd say it's usually only around festivals when you have more than one complex dish. >How many dishes might be made for say, a weekend meal when company is over Equal to the number of people eating, give or take one dish. Plus white rice. There's a sort of silly, not-overly common saying that "three people eating, make two dishes; two people eating, make one dish; one person eating, order delivery" (it rhymes in Mandarin 三个人吃两个菜，两个人吃一个菜，一人吃叫外卖) . So... that number, plus white rice, plus (depending where you are) a soup. So pretty similar to the structure of ordering at a restaurant, really. If you're interested, we did a bit of a collab with the channel Blondie In China where we made a sort of standard homecooking meal if you're curious: ua-cam.com/video/0fv0un2FduY/v-deo.html Obviously though, this's kinda the type of thing you could write a thesis on :)
Good questions. Being from southern china, I can only speak from my experience, because it varies so much by region, and even by family, cuz nowadays people come from all over. My parents are from different regions (central south and extreme south) and live in the extreme south. For us the staple is rice. In a family of three+ situation, for either lunch or dinner we would typically have rice and about two or three dishes to go with it. One with protein and vegetable, stir fried. One just vegetables, stir fried (typical of the extreme south, Guangdong and Guangxi). And often also a soup, which is more common in the south. For breakfast in Guangxi where I come from we often go out and eat rice noodles, like in South East Asia. The type varies from city to city, usually involving some kind of bone/meat broth. Cantonese speaking people don't eat that much chili, but since there are also a lot of people with other backgrounds in the mix, spicy foods are very common. I personally also like wheat based noodles, and unlike a lot of southerners I can live without rice and just eat any other sort of starch. For the staple you'll see more steamed buns in the North-east, and in the north-west they eat a lot of wheat noodles. Then you have minority groups who have completely different food cultures depending on their own histories. Nowadays as I live alone there's no point in doing a proper meal for myself, I can't possibly use my rice cooker to cook just one bowl of rice and make three dishes. More often than not I just throw everything together in a stew. Not worth the pain cooking the traditional way when you're alone...
@@ChineseCookingDemystified Why not just pick one day a week where you upload a video of a "Family dinner night"? Since most western familes these days have a family dinner night, you could just pick a region and make a traditional family dinner from that area for family dinner night on your YT channel.
I didn't know there was a school of dishes of this distinction, but as it turns out, I happen to have a favorite breakfast, nearly like the last entry in your video: On low to medium heat, fry 1/4 cup chopped peanuts, one clove of chopped garlic, and one small chopped chili of your choice in a wok or standard frying pan, with 2 tbsp oil, until just barely browned. Next, crank the heat for only as long as it takes to crack in two large eggs. Immediately cover and remove the pan from the heat, allowing the residual heat to cook the eggs to your liking. This will vary (I like mine about 30 seconds past the free running yolk stage, or about 2 minutes covered). I serve the eggs over rice, with the yolks facing down. The underside of the eggs are beautifully studded with garlic, peanuts, and chili pieces, and the yolks, and soft albumin flow down into the rice. I like to splash a bit of black vinegar, light soy sauce, and the occasional lash of hoisin sauce over the top, and devour. I suspect some pickled veg work well with this as well. Hard to source where I am.
I love that you are honest about how long these take to cook. Way too many recipes claim to cook in 20 minutes to seem more appealing, but they just exclude the prep time to get that number.
Honestly laoganma plus egg over rice is one of my most frequent lunches. It’s so easy and delicious. I also like to try all the different sauces - I love the laoganma with mince pork and Sichuan pepper plus egg over rice. So thank you for introducing me to the amazing world of laoganma
@@whatskraken3886 Yeah I agree but BigHenFor was complaining about it being too soupy when the consistency is something that you can personally adjust.
Very I interested. Love your purist approach and learn a lot but it's wonderful to see straight forward, over rice options - increases confidence to move from watching to actually cooking something. Thank you
As someone who rarely feels compelled to comment on videos, lemme say OMG, YES, PLEASE MAKE MORE VIDEOS ABOUT STUFF ON RICE! That is possibly my favorite category of food. I love your in-depth videos explaining Chinese cooking techniques in microscopic detail (and Chinese food culture in general), but I'm also kinda lazy and unlikely to actually make a lot of the things in your videos (also I live in Norway and I can't find all the right ingredients here). I mean, I WANT to make all your recipes, but I also want to not cry when my version doesn't come out as good as yours due to my lackluster kitchen skills and ingredient substitutions. Anyhoo, simpler "over rice" recipes are so up my alley.
I really enjoy the pace and content of your show. Please continue to also insert proper chinese naming! I also love using rice for many quick and easy meals and am intrigued to discover new ways to enjoy the basics. Thanks for your effort & expertise in delivery!
YES PLEASE!!!!!! more Xiafancai!!!!! & Ms Annie says she wants to see more of the cute puppy too!!!! Definitely more dog time needed ....I could have used this Tuesday night after 2 back to back snowstorms which left us with a foot of snow EACH and about 4 hrs of snowblowing AFTER the guy plowed out the driveway.... I was too tired & sore to make anything for dinner....I should have made the corn chowder I wanted BEFORE I went out to clear snow.... Lesson for next time....& keeping these in my "back pocket" recipes when I want something REALLY good & quick!!!!
i literally just ate laoganma over rice just yesterday, Used the same brand and type aswell lol. Just instead of egg i just ate some silken tofu cubes alongside it. provides a nice hot/cold-contrast
if you can, try mexican "panela" cheese in place of tofu, its basically, the same consistency as tofu but a little bit saltier, its an interesting combo
A simple and easy meal for any student or a single person to eat a healthy home cook meal. Good to teach someone to stay away from instant noodles. A useful lesson for me too. Thanks
omg. i didn't know macanese minchi was an actual thing. my late grandma used to make it for us like 30 years ago and it was the yummiest "french fries" and mince dish... She was the last tie we had to the chinese culinary world. I've been trying to find out how to make it -- seeing the image with the potatoes totally took me back! and now I know it's got a name. THANK YOU. you don't know how much you've just totally filled a void. And just found your recipe video. :)
Cheers! Minchi's one of those things where often every family'll have their own way of doing it, so word of warning that you might find it a bit difficult. The basis of that recipe was from a (Portuguese to Chinese) translation project Steph worked on years ago which was an oral history of Macanese food. So while that recipe's authentic to *somebody's* family, you might need to play around with it to get closer to what you remember. Hopefully our video can at least get you close :)
I really just want to say thank you for bringing Laoganma into my life, this stuff is just delightful, and will probably end up being a staple in my house.
Love this! Excited to try the squash with black bean sauce-not something I would have come up with on my own, but now craving it. Glad I have all the ingredients!
The pumpkin was stellar. I tried the same concept today but with freshly dug sweet potatoes (in season right now in North Carolina). Equally good results, just needed to steam for a few minutes longer. Thanks again for a another fast and healthy vegetable dish.
This was really interesting. Basically 90% of Iranian cooking is over rice stews and meats so I grew up heavily with those kinds of meals so seeing this trend in other cultures is so cool and interesting to watch
One of the wonderful things about your channel is you show dishes people actually eat - not some idealized version that's gussied up (that much). I'm wondering about the terminology "ding" in your pork and mushroom dish. I've read that a "ding" is a type of dish in itself... usually a stir fry that has some crunchy component like a cashew, peanut, or even jicama. Would love to see you guys address this topic in the future.
I love the last one, big fan of simple, fast, and healthy, recently discovered Lao Gan Ma (from this channel!), and throwing a fried egg in with everything!
Although I really love your other, more complicated videos, i really hope you upload more videos like these in the future! Recipes like these are perfekt after a long day of work
I am very guilty of just adding lao gan ma on noodles or rice and then calling it a meal, so I love stuff like this! I want to learn quicker recipes I can whip up in under an hour and still feel like I'm eating my parents' cooking. I still love watching your more complex videos as a learning experience though! But I'd also really appreciate simpler recipes or ideas for cooking at home. Keep up the good stuff!
I’ve been trying to duplicate a “brown sauce” that I love from my favorite Chinese restaurant and could never get it right. Well, the diced pork and mushroom sauce is it! That’s the flavor I’m looking for. Can’t believe how simple it is. What a great easy recipe. Love the squash and black bean sauce too. And Lao gan ma has always been good over rice.
1:14 This is so underrated! "This dish can be made from the first cut of the knife to the last dish you scrub down." Meaning all the dishes should be washed and stacked to dry, so that the sink is empty by the time you're sitting down to eat.
When talking about xiafancai and 'student meals', I believe Stir-fried tomato and scrambled eggs should definitely be mentioned!! That's by far my #1 favorite, despite not being the most typical or 'authentic' type of xiafancai. I'd love a sequel video with another few recipes!
Love your channel! Please post more xiafancai recipes. I really appreciate the depth and the research you provide with your more involved recipes (I have learned so much, you guys are the best!) but sometimes an easy weeknight recipe is in order
Boy oh boy. Two days ago I saw your video on Lao Gan Ma. Yesterday I went to an Asia store and by accident found a jar of the Kohlrabi Tofu peanut kind. Today the jar is only half full. Had some Udon with it today and just added a little sesame oil for flavor and some leftover chicken and it was awesome
I really liked this one! I love cooking channels but it's easy to get overwhelmed, especially since a lot of the ingredients may count as specialty items in my home. I'm still in school as well so the quick stuff is my friend. But good-over-rice feels so comforting, I loved this
I made the egg and lao gan ma yesterday for lunch, and the squash (with butternut squash) today. Both extremely yummy. I’d love to see a lot more of this sort of quick over rice dish.
Rice, add Laoganma, and eat - this is what's going to happen with me this evening for the first time. I always lusted about this and held off so thanks for dignifying it for me! Good thing my wife's in Beijing now and would not see me doing this.
I don't know about you guys, but butchering a squash with a cleaver takes me about 50 minutes in addition to any cooking time. That being said, I am a huge fan of these easy to throw together week-night warrior dishes; I'd love to see more.
Xiafancai varies from family to family,for us it's leftover liquid from any stir-fried dishes lol...great works as always,keep it up!Also I would like to recommend a dish from my hometown Inner Mongolia,It called lamb Shaomai 羊肉烧麦 but It's a whole lot bifferenct from Guangdong version of Shaomai since It is filled with lamb and green onion and looks different too,In fact we call it 稍麦 or 稍卖 instead of 烧麦 to distinguish from the Cantonese Shaomai,but it works the same way as Cantonese 早茶 as people eating and drinking tea from early in the morning to noon,so check it out and you won't regret it!
Man, I love 羊肉稍麦. It's very interesting how shaomai is meat-filled from up north, then turn into rice filling, then became meat-filled again on the very southside~
@@thisissteph9834 Hi Steph!There's so many legends about how 羊肉稍麦 was invented,many insist it has nothing to do with 烧麦 while others consider it as some kind of bootleg but turned out to be surprisingly good...anyway I think it should be known to more people that we do have more “delicate” food in Inner Mongolia than whole roasted lamb😂
I have, as most of us western fools notice, increasingly less time to cook something and that let´s me resort to the comfort meals (unhealthy, lot´s of sugar etc etc) so I would like to see more of this type of recipes. BTW: great channel. It´s extremely interesting to see your approach on many recipes.
yesss, more like this please! also, i'd love some more vegetarian options :) great channel by the way! my mouth always begins to water when I watch one of your videos..
I really appreciate that two of these are veg! I love watching (but usually only watching, not making the dish) all your vids but I'm gonna actually make the two veg ones soon
Yeah it's only now that English language sources are *just* starting to have the guts to use MSG. You don't want to overuse it as it's a pretty strong taste, without it is like willfully tying one hand behind your back.
This is great! In a similar vein, would you consider doing some videos on weeknight meals? What are some simple - ideally veggie-heavy - dishes families might put together after work?
We'd usually make one or two of this kind of dishes, and just blanch a big bunch of veggies, then eat. That's a full meal right there~ Or in some of this kind of over rice dishes, we'd do meat+veggie mixed stir fry, which is also a good choice for a quick+good meal formula~
I'm actually really happy about the authenticity of these dishes! But living in a small rural town I have to buy my ingedents online. Thanks for the videos
Nice over rice options however I prefer more sauce. Just the Louisiana and gravy over rice or as we say rice and gravy with meat veggies on the side vibe. Thanks for sharing and love this channel.
I got all the ingredients because I'd been slacking on home cooking. Diced pork and mushrooms were delicious, and so easy as long as you follow the flow exactly, don't skip the MSG! Going to try the squash and fermented black soybeans next, took a while to find the douchi though. It'll be in an aisle with other chinese spices (near the msg). It might be close to the floor.
So, today I've tried to cook the pork & mushrooms over the rice dish. What should i say? I messed it up! The dish is very easy to cook but forgetting to wash the rice and actually cook it, is priceless. So, pork & mushrooms is done and out, but where is the rice?! Anyway, It came out pretty perfect, the flavor profile is very balanced (I like that!). Thank you guys, for so much inspiration and pulling me into the chinese cuisine :-). One can not compare it to the westernised "version" of chinese cuisine.
This should be popular on Reddit. I'm certainly interested in more xiafancai dishes. I'm sort of with you on the mapo tofu. Mostly because letting it mix with rice makes it harder to eat with chopsticks. But also contrast/relief is nice.
Would honestly love another batch of these 50 minutes quick over rice recipes! Have done the pork and mushroom several times for the family when i need a quick mid week meal on rice and its alway top stuff! :D
I love this video, and all the videos in this series, to death. I just have one gripe - I always cut the pork before the veggies and so I have to do another step cleaning the cutting board between.
I really liked this kind of video. I have been using one of your recipes for pork fried rice a lot lately because I don't usually have much time to cook and I can make it quickly. More of these would be awesome!
Love the look of the pork dish (have to locate lau gan ma sauce to test) You should consider another video for the best quick beef, pork and chicken dishes over rice :)
I tend to make over rice meals with random stuff I have on hand, I don't have any real set in stone recipe. Eggs, meats, onions, mushrooms, potatoes, etc. Lots of possibilities on what this sort of a dish can be.
A tough thing for us with Taiwanese food is doing proper research - generally, we want to find *good* versions of dishes to eat here in China and do our very best to try to faithfully recreate them. The thing is - there ain't exactly a spread of Taiwanese restaurants here in mainland China. Not ideal but not a problem per se - we're at times faced with a similar situation with Guizhou food, and remedy the situation by doing some food-focused travelling there and taking our best notes :) The tough thing then with Taiwan is getting there. It's easy for me (Chris), but for Steph? She's legally mandated to go on one of those crappy (and overpriced) tour groups - not exactly any of our idea of a good time. So it gets pushed off. We'll probably tackle some Taiwanese stuff eventually - there's too much good stuff to *completely* leave it alone - it's just we have much less confidence in our ability to nail it authentically. Of course, research *is* our strong suit, so it wouldn't come from nowhere, but still. Perhaps in the context of a subsequent xiafancai vid would be a good idea :)
It takes (me) a little more than 50 min. to make, but it's such comfort food. We don't often make it, but when we do, we make lots and freeze it in vacuum bags for two or four portions.
I ONLY eat mapo tofu over the rice... it flavors the rice and is especially good when it's extra super spicy, the rice absorbs the heat and flavor really well...
Question... would y'all consider doing a series on quick to-go meals? I'm talking about the kind of stuff you would make specifically to eat on the way, or during a short break on a job... things that perhaps stand up well to being reheated (even in a microwave). I'm constantly on the hunt for simple, easy, to-go foods, and it'd be so cool to see y'all tackle that kind of thing (if you haven't already, of course).
Hey guys, a few notes:
1. To blanch the vegetable: pot of boiling water, squeeze in a touch of oil for a bit of sheen. Here we were doing Choy Sum, so that gets blanched for ~1 minute. The way I (Chris) learned to do crunchy veg like Choy Sum or Baby Bok Choy is to hold the thick stem in the bubbling water for about ~30-45 seconds (I usually do it until my hand gets too hot), then drop it in for 15-30 seconds then drain. Of course, Steph doesn’t bother with that… and she’s a better cook than the person that taught me that anyhow. I just like my blanched vegetable cooked *just* enough and no more I suppose.
2. I’m guessing my opinion on Mapo Tofu with rice might… have some strong disagreement lol. Here’s the way I look at it. A proper Mapo Tofu can be pretty intensely flavored… and I feel like for something as strong a taste as Mala, I personally want my white rice to be a break from that, a respite. Having it on the side gives the meal a bit of contrast. Obviously though, if you like your Mapo Tofu over rice, most of the world seems to agree with you. I guess I seem to be the weird one :)
3. So I promise we weren’t trying to pull a fast one on you or anything by labelling “Lao Gan Ma on white rice” as a ‘recipe’. Here’s the thing - a number of things that people might think of as xiafan (i.e. good over rice) here are basically prepared products. Another example might be fermented tofu, or perhaps Sichuan pickles. We wanted to include that sub-category of “good-over-rice” stuff in the video, and Lao Gan Ma is certainly the king of that sub-category…
4. Generally, I think most people in the West equate ‘good over rice’ as ‘saucy’. And saucy stuff *is* good over rice, no doubt… but there’s definitely stuff beyond that. So yeah. The whole concept here was ‘something saucy’, ‘something not saucy’, and ‘something prepared’.
5. Another contentious opinion I hold: *definitely* make your black soybean garlic sauce yourself… it’s so, so much better than that bottled LKK. I compared the difference to mayo, but in hindsight I think a better analogy might be whipped cream - i.e. homemade = awesome, store-bought = kinda gross. To my taste buds at least, the bottled stuff just isn’t a substitute for that chocolately richness that douchi brings.
6. So “xiafan” in an interesting word, because it seems that different people here have different concepts of what the word means. For some, it means basically anything salty/flavorful that you want to eat a lot of rice with *in the same meal*. For others (and how we used it here), it means something that you toss on/in your rice and eat it *in the same bite*. I can’t seem to put together if it’s a regional thing or not. It’s a kind of interesting dynamic because you could theoretically have people from the former group be talking about ‘xiafan’ dishes with the latter without much hiccup, as often there’s a big overlap there.
Lastly, if you like this sort of stuff… let us know. We do have a comparative shortage of ‘weeknight cooking’ kind of things on this channel, and we quite like the concept of “a handful of good-over-rice dishes” in that 50 minute time limit (30 minutes is the cliché ‘quick and easy’ time limit, but I think 50 minutes is more realistic for proper cooking). It was fun for us to conceptualize & test too. We’d love to circle back around to “over rice dishes” every ~3 months or so, but only if you guys are into it. I know it’s not quite that hardcore foodie content that y’all might expect from us by now.
I'll just say that while I enjoy watching the extremely elaborate fancy videos, the quick dinner videos are the ones that I actually make :) Anyway, absolutely going to try the squash this weekend!
More weeknight meals please!
OH! And I enjoy the he'll out of the history-centered ones. And more Dawei!
I concur with what other people have said. Please make a video using Chu Hou Jiang.
Both are interesting. I think a large part of the interest for me at least here is the fact that here in the US, we just don't have home style Chinese cooking. Luckily where I am I can FIND authentic Chinese food, but home cooking... is well HOME cooking. Amazing videos, but definitely the simpler more home cooking style foods are the ones I would actually make at home. So more home cooking please.
Ah yes the classic Lao Gan Ma on rice, keeping me alive over this exam period
Welcome to the club!
Instant noodles but cheaper and tastier has gotten me through some very lean times.
Would love more recipes like these. Way more likely to actually cook these. (not that there is anything wrong with the more complex recipes)
Agreed. Sometimes you want something simple to eat, and this is it.
Yes, something I can make in the morning and leave out to eat for lunch or when I get back from work and starving
Americans are a special kind
Look up Gai Ma Fan 盖码饭 recipes from Xiang cuisine 湘菜，all over-rice one bowl wonders ready in 20 min.
辣椒炒肉盖码饭
番茄炒蛋盖码饭
孜然牛肉盖码饭
酸豆角炒肉末盖码饭
雪里红盖码饭
雪菜小笋盖码饭
麻婆豆腐盖码饭
鱼香肉丝盖码饭
盖饭 is abbr for 盖码饭
唐人神香肠盖饭
肉炒肉盖码饭
香菜牛肉盖码饭
萝卜炒肉丝盖饭
农家一碗香盖饭
腊肉笋片盖码饭 or 大蒜炒腊肉盖饭
Hey gang - long time listener, first time caller. This channel is absolutely the best English-language source for learning Chinese cooking ever done, full stop, and it really has me appreciating NYC's Chinatowns in a way most people don't get to. This video reminds me of a question (or maybe just 'topic') that's been burning my brain, and I can't seem to find a great source for answers. The headline is "what does a full home-cooked family meal look like day-to-day, in China, and how might that vary regionally, or how might it vary from a big meal at a decent restaurant?" So what I mean to get at is things like: "is rice a always a must with dinner, or if some noodles are involved in dinner, does rice go by the wayside?" "are there particular chili condiments you might nearly always see at a home table in Hunan or Sichuan?" "How many dishes might be made for say, a weekend meal when company is over?" I'd love to see a video on what the guidelines and traditions for home-cooked meals are!
It's definitely a *big* topic. I know we tend towards more 'restaurant' dishes on this channel... it's definitely a topic we want to cover but I'm not sure the best way to approach it. It's a huge country after all.
I can answer a couple questions now though :)
>is rice a always a must with dinner, or if some noodles are involved in dinner, does rice go by the wayside?
In general, yes. Usually it's only one starch.
>[How does day-to-day homecooking vary] from a big meal at a decent restaurant?
Generally it's the same structure, it's just the complexity of the dishes that changes. Homecooking's usually simpler/quicker. Even if you have someone like Steph's Dad (who's a proudly good cook) when he's cooking it's usually one complex dish together with a handful of simple dishes. I'd say it's usually only around festivals when you have more than one complex dish.
>How many dishes might be made for say, a weekend meal when company is over
Equal to the number of people eating, give or take one dish. Plus white rice. There's a sort of silly, not-overly common saying that "three people eating, make two dishes; two people eating, make one dish; one person eating, order delivery" (it rhymes in Mandarin 三个人吃两个菜，两个人吃一个菜，一人吃叫外卖) . So... that number, plus white rice, plus (depending where you are) a soup.
So pretty similar to the structure of ordering at a restaurant, really.
If you're interested, we did a bit of a collab with the channel Blondie In China where we made a sort of standard homecooking meal if you're curious: ua-cam.com/video/0fv0un2FduY/v-deo.html
Obviously though, this's kinda the type of thing you could write a thesis on :)
Good questions. Being from southern china, I can only speak from my experience, because it varies so much by region, and even by family, cuz nowadays people come from all over. My parents are from different regions (central south and extreme south) and live in the extreme south. For us the staple is rice. In a family of three+ situation, for either lunch or dinner we would typically have rice and about two or three dishes to go with it. One with protein and vegetable, stir fried. One just vegetables, stir fried (typical of the extreme south, Guangdong and Guangxi). And often also a soup, which is more common in the south. For breakfast in Guangxi where I come from we often go out and eat rice noodles, like in South East Asia. The type varies from city to city, usually involving some kind of bone/meat broth. Cantonese speaking people don't eat that much chili, but since there are also a lot of people with other backgrounds in the mix, spicy foods are very common. I personally also like wheat based noodles, and unlike a lot of southerners I can live without rice and just eat any other sort of starch. For the staple you'll see more steamed buns in the North-east, and in the north-west they eat a lot of wheat noodles. Then you have minority groups who have completely different food cultures depending on their own histories. Nowadays as I live alone there's no point in doing a proper meal for myself, I can't possibly use my rice cooker to cook just one bowl of rice and make three dishes. More often than not I just throw everything together in a stew. Not worth the pain cooking the traditional way when you're alone...
@@ChineseCookingDemystified Why not just pick one day a week where you upload a video of a "Family dinner night"? Since most western familes these days have a family dinner night, you could just pick a region and make a traditional family dinner from that area for family dinner night on your YT channel.
I didn't know there was a school of dishes of this distinction, but as it turns out, I happen to have a favorite breakfast, nearly like the last entry in your video:
On low to medium heat, fry 1/4 cup chopped peanuts, one clove of chopped garlic, and one small chopped chili of your choice in a wok or standard frying pan, with 2 tbsp oil, until just barely browned. Next, crank the heat for only as long as it takes to crack in two large eggs. Immediately cover and remove the pan from the heat, allowing the residual heat to cook the eggs to your liking. This will vary (I like mine about 30 seconds past the free running yolk stage, or about 2 minutes covered).
I serve the eggs over rice, with the yolks facing down. The underside of the eggs are beautifully studded with garlic, peanuts, and chili pieces, and the yolks, and soft albumin flow down into the rice. I like to splash a bit of black vinegar, light soy sauce, and the occasional lash of hoisin sauce over the top, and devour.
I suspect some pickled veg work well with this as well. Hard to source where I am.
I love that you are honest about how long these take to cook. Way too many recipes claim to cook in 20 minutes to seem more appealing, but they just exclude the prep time to get that number.
Honestly laoganma plus egg over rice is one of my most frequent lunches. It’s so easy and delicious. I also like to try all the different sauces - I love the laoganma with mince pork and Sichuan pepper plus egg over rice. So thank you for introducing me to the amazing world of laoganma
My fave would be mapo dofu. It has always felt like the perfect over-rice dish to me - even more so than the Indian dishes I grew up with
Too soupy.
@@BigHenFor Then cook it thicker.
@@Hyvexx even if it is soupy, it's delicious. soupy rice is absolute gold. as a nicaraguan kid, i have nostalgia for soupy rice.
@@whatskraken3886 Yeah I agree but BigHenFor was complaining about it being too soupy when the consistency is something that you can personally adjust.
Im also in the mapo dofu with rice club; I make mine pretty thick then do about 60:40 dofu to rice.
the diced pork with shiitake 香菇肉丁 is FANTASTIC. Thanks for a new favorite family recipe！
Very I interested. Love your purist approach and learn a lot but it's wonderful to see straight forward, over rice options - increases confidence to move from watching to actually cooking something. Thank you
I would watch a series of "Over Rice" recipes weekly, for sure!
Big fan of the over rice dishes. Also love the multiple recipes per vid. You two are building up quite the repertoire!
As someone who rarely feels compelled to comment on videos, lemme say OMG, YES, PLEASE MAKE MORE VIDEOS ABOUT STUFF ON RICE! That is possibly my favorite category of food. I love your in-depth videos explaining Chinese cooking techniques in microscopic detail (and Chinese food culture in general), but I'm also kinda lazy and unlikely to actually make a lot of the things in your videos (also I live in Norway and I can't find all the right ingredients here). I mean, I WANT to make all your recipes, but I also want to not cry when my version doesn't come out as good as yours due to my lackluster kitchen skills and ingredient substitutions. Anyhoo, simpler "over rice" recipes are so up my alley.
I really enjoy the pace and content of your show. Please continue to also insert proper chinese naming! I also love using rice for many quick and easy meals and am intrigued to discover new ways to enjoy the basics. Thanks for your effort & expertise in delivery!
YES PLEASE!!!!!! more Xiafancai!!!!! & Ms Annie says she wants to see more of the cute puppy too!!!! Definitely more dog time needed ....I could have used this Tuesday night after 2 back to back snowstorms which left us with a foot of snow EACH and about 4 hrs of snowblowing AFTER the guy plowed out the driveway.... I was too tired & sore to make anything for dinner....I should have made the corn chowder I wanted BEFORE I went out to clear snow.... Lesson for next time....& keeping these in my "back pocket" recipes when I want something REALLY good & quick!!!!
i literally just ate laoganma over rice just yesterday, Used the same brand and type aswell lol. Just instead of egg i just ate some silken tofu cubes alongside it. provides a nice hot/cold-contrast
Laoganma is the brand. crisp chili is the type. Laoganma literally means "Old Godmother".
if you can, try mexican "panela" cheese in place of tofu, its basically, the same consistency as tofu but a little bit saltier, its an interesting combo
I do the same thing with thai Nam Pla, dump some of that over rice with a little egg, meat, or tofu is dynamite
@@johnnyyu7294 I'm not sure if I want crispy fried grandma on my rice
A simple and easy meal for any student or a single person to eat a healthy home cook meal. Good to teach someone to stay away from instant noodles. A useful lesson for me too. Thanks
omg. i didn't know macanese minchi was an actual thing. my late grandma used to make it for us like 30 years ago and it was the yummiest "french fries" and mince dish... She was the last tie we had to the chinese culinary world. I've been trying to find out how to make it -- seeing the image with the potatoes totally took me back! and now I know it's got a name. THANK YOU. you don't know how much you've just totally filled a void. And just found your recipe video. :)
Cheers! Minchi's one of those things where often every family'll have their own way of doing it, so word of warning that you might find it a bit difficult. The basis of that recipe was from a (Portuguese to Chinese) translation project Steph worked on years ago which was an oral history of Macanese food. So while that recipe's authentic to *somebody's* family, you might need to play around with it to get closer to what you remember. Hopefully our video can at least get you close :)
Cheers from Germany, you guys are one of my favorite cooking Channel... even my downy Daughter likes your Recipes... and that very rare
I really just want to say thank you for bringing Laoganma into my life, this stuff is just delightful, and will probably end up being a staple in my house.
Love this! Excited to try the squash with black bean sauce-not something I would have come up with on my own, but now craving it. Glad I have all the ingredients!
Yes more please, this is a lifesaver for single people cooking for themselves.
The pumpkin was stellar. I tried the same concept today but with freshly dug sweet potatoes (in season right now in North Carolina). Equally good results, just needed to steam for a few minutes longer. Thanks again for a another fast and healthy vegetable dish.
I made the pork and mushroom one and it was really good! i added a little extra soy sauce bc i wanted a bit more saltiness.
I don't know what UA-cam is doing recommending me food videos, but it's doing a good job of it.
lol the algorithm in its almighty wisdom has always been good to food/cooking channels
Yor guys videos are the best! Thank you soooooo much! You guys rule!
So glad you made a dish with squash, I been looking for good recipes.
the garbage bowl one has been a staple of mine for years. it's so good
This was really interesting. Basically 90% of Iranian cooking is over rice stews and meats so I grew up heavily with those kinds of meals so seeing this trend in other cultures is so cool and interesting to watch
One of the wonderful things about your channel is you show dishes people actually eat - not some idealized version that's gussied up (that much). I'm wondering about the terminology "ding" in your pork and mushroom dish. I've read that a "ding" is a type of dish in itself... usually a stir fry that has some crunchy component like a cashew, peanut, or even jicama. Would love to see you guys address this topic in the future.
These times make over rice dishes are must ! Thank you.
Love this video!! More! More! Good simple tasty comfort food at an uncomfortable time. Hope you two are staying safe.😊
I love the last one, big fan of simple, fast, and healthy, recently discovered Lao Gan Ma (from this channel!), and throwing a fried egg in with everything!
Although I really love your other, more complicated videos, i really hope you upload more videos like these in the future! Recipes like these are perfekt after a long day of work
I am very guilty of just adding lao gan ma on noodles or rice and then calling it a meal, so I love stuff like this! I want to learn quicker recipes I can whip up in under an hour and still feel like I'm eating my parents' cooking.
I still love watching your more complex videos as a learning experience though! But I'd also really appreciate simpler recipes or ideas for cooking at home. Keep up the good stuff!
Would be awesome to have a series of these! Feel like I need to get started with simple stuff before moving onto your more complicated recipes
I’ve been trying to duplicate a “brown sauce” that I love from my favorite Chinese restaurant and could never get it right. Well, the diced pork and mushroom sauce is it! That’s the flavor I’m looking for. Can’t believe how simple it is. What a great easy recipe. Love the squash and black bean sauce too. And Lao gan ma has always been good over rice.
1:14 This is so underrated!
"This dish can be made from the first cut of the knife to the last dish you scrub down."
Meaning all the dishes should be washed and stacked to dry, so that the sink is empty by the time you're sitting down to eat.
Finally amounts of garlic that actually make sense :D All these recipes sound delicious!
I wish you guys would make more of these week night meals. These look great!
I personally love over rice dishes so I would love a part 2 of this!
You made the pumpkin one didnt you.....
More of these please! I am learning so much from your channel.
When talking about xiafancai and 'student meals', I believe Stir-fried tomato and scrambled eggs should definitely be mentioned!! That's by far my #1 favorite, despite not being the most typical or 'authentic' type of xiafancai.
I'd love a sequel video with another few recipes!
How is it not "authentic"?
Yeah tomato & egg is totally xiafan :)
Love your channel! Please post more xiafancai recipes. I really appreciate the depth and the research you provide with your more involved recipes (I have learned so much, you guys are the best!) but sometimes an easy weeknight recipe is in order
Boy oh boy. Two days ago I saw your video on Lao Gan Ma. Yesterday I went to an Asia store and by accident found a jar of the Kohlrabi Tofu peanut kind. Today the jar is only half full. Had some Udon with it today and just added a little sesame oil for flavor and some leftover chicken and it was awesome
BTW I didn't add half the jar only to that one dish so don't judge me:D
I really liked this one! I love cooking channels but it's easy to get overwhelmed, especially since a lot of the ingredients may count as specialty items in my home. I'm still in school as well so the quick stuff is my friend. But good-over-rice feels so comforting, I loved this
I made the egg and lao gan ma yesterday for lunch, and the squash (with butternut squash) today. Both extremely yummy. I’d love to see a lot more of this sort of quick over rice dish.
Love it how he went from English then bang Chinese loved it made me laugh a little
More weekday/simple and tasty dishes would be much appreciated, thanks for your work!
If would be great to see a few more videos in this vein. Great channel. Great content. Greetings from cold rural England
Over rice 🍚 yes I like the ideas especially the egg with chili 🌶 sauce. BTW the dog 🐕 is so cute!!! We loved seeing it peaking at the food!!
Rice, add Laoganma, and eat - this is what's going to happen with me this evening for the first time. I always lusted about this and held off so thanks for dignifying it for me! Good thing my wife's in Beijing now and would not see me doing this.
I don't know about you guys, but butchering a squash with a cleaver takes me about 50 minutes in addition to any cooking time. That being said, I am a huge fan of these easy to throw together week-night warrior dishes; I'd love to see more.
That looks yummy!!! I might make the first one. I miss eating over rice dishes.
please make more of these style meals. I love the simplicity.
Xiafancai varies from family to family,for us it's leftover liquid from any stir-fried dishes lol...great works as always,keep it up!Also I would like to recommend a dish from my hometown Inner Mongolia,It called lamb Shaomai 羊肉烧麦 but It's a whole lot bifferenct from Guangdong version of Shaomai since It is filled with lamb and green onion and looks different too,In fact we call it 稍麦 or 稍卖 instead of 烧麦 to distinguish from the Cantonese Shaomai,but it works the same way as Cantonese 早茶 as people eating and drinking tea from early in the morning to noon,so check it out and you won't regret it!
Man, I love 羊肉稍麦. It's very interesting how shaomai is meat-filled from up north, then turn into rice filling, then became meat-filled again on the very southside~
@@thisissteph9834 Hi Steph!There's so many legends about how 羊肉稍麦 was invented,many insist it has nothing to do with 烧麦 while others consider it as some kind of bootleg but turned out to be surprisingly good...anyway I think it should be known to more people that we do have more “delicate” food in Inner Mongolia than whole roasted lamb😂
The pork and mushrooms look awesome!
I have, as most of us western fools notice, increasingly less time to cook something and that let´s me resort to the comfort meals (unhealthy, lot´s of sugar etc etc) so I would like to see more of this type of recipes.
BTW: great channel. It´s extremely interesting to see your approach on many recipes.
yesss, more like this please! also, i'd love some more vegetarian options :) great channel by the way! my mouth always begins to water when I watch one of your videos..
I really appreciate that two of these are veg! I love watching (but usually only watching, not making the dish) all your vids but I'm gonna actually make the two veg ones soon
Love this. Please do more of these quick rice recipes!!!
Yep interested, please maken more. These recipes help me think up dishes for leftover vegetables 😄
I'm so glad you're not against using msg. It's really great for cooking.
Yeah it's only now that English language sources are *just* starting to have the guts to use MSG. You don't want to overuse it as it's a pretty strong taste, without it is like willfully tying one hand behind your back.
"until bubbles form around chopsticks" is the most Chinese measurement of temperature I've ever heard.
I would love more of these ideas.
More recipes please. Over the rice dishes are the best
I always love to see more simple recipes on this channel.
Second recipe for me on Sunday ! Very good channel, I love it. Thank you.
This is great! In a similar vein, would you consider doing some videos on weeknight meals? What are some simple - ideally veggie-heavy - dishes families might put together after work?
We'd usually make one or two of this kind of dishes, and just blanch a big bunch of veggies, then eat. That's a full meal right there~ Or in some of this kind of over rice dishes, we'd do meat+veggie mixed stir fry, which is also a good choice for a quick+good meal formula~
Pork and mushroom is so nice. Will make it again 😊
I'm actually really happy about the authenticity of these dishes! But living in a small rural town I have to buy my ingedents online. Thanks for the videos
Made the mushroom & pork dish recently.... It's so good 😭👌🏼😋 thanks for the recipe
Please show more recipes like this, They are easy to cook and looks delicious ! 😁
Nice over rice options however I prefer more sauce. Just the Louisiana and gravy over rice or as we say rice and gravy with meat veggies on the side vibe. Thanks for sharing and love this channel.
yes please i would love more xiafan cai! these look great and easy and perfect for a college student like me!
7:03 A wild doggo appears! Its cuteness is super effective!
More recipes like this. I am a lazy college student, and love to see low labor recipes.
Great great video!
Would like more of this kind
The recipes look really delish. Yum 👌
I got all the ingredients because I'd been slacking on home cooking.
Diced pork and mushrooms were delicious, and so easy as long as you follow the flow exactly, don't skip the MSG!
Going to try the squash and fermented black soybeans next, took a while to find the douchi though. It'll be in an aisle with other chinese spices (near the msg). It might be close to the floor.
So, today I've tried to cook the pork & mushrooms over the rice dish. What should i say? I messed it up! The dish is very easy to cook but forgetting to wash the rice and actually cook it, is priceless. So, pork & mushrooms is done and out, but where is the rice?! Anyway, It came out pretty perfect, the flavor profile is very balanced (I like that!). Thank you guys, for so much inspiration and pulling me into the chinese cuisine :-). One can not compare it to the westernised "version" of chinese cuisine.
We definitely need more dog screentime. Like the whole episode. Maybe one hour
^^^this^^^
Have you tried the channel Cooking With Dog?
Intensely love ma po dofu. That being said your three are possibly nice. Thank you.
This should be popular on Reddit. I'm certainly interested in more xiafancai dishes.
I'm sort of with you on the mapo tofu. Mostly because letting it mix with rice makes it harder to eat with chopsticks. But also contrast/relief is nice.
Would honestly love another batch of these 50 minutes quick over rice recipes! Have done the pork and mushroom several times for the family when i need a quick mid week meal on rice and its alway top stuff! :D
I needed this 3 years ago for college
I love this video, and all the videos in this series, to death. I just have one gripe - I always cut the pork before the veggies and so I have to do another step cleaning the cutting board between.
I really liked this kind of video. I have been using one of your recipes for pork fried rice a lot lately because I don't usually have much time to cook and I can make it quickly. More of these would be awesome!
7:04 where did that dog come from? We want to see more of the dog in the future.
in the dish?
Cute puppy
He went over rice ! 🐕 😋
hes so cuuute
Mmmm tasty
Made the pork and mushrooms, came out good.
I love this series and can’t wait to learn more. Thanks for sharing
Love the look of the pork dish (have to locate lau gan ma sauce to test) You should consider another video for the best quick beef, pork and chicken dishes over rice :)
Agreeing with what people are saying about mapo tofu. My favorite over rice dish.
3:03:
Chris: "Give those a slice and toss on a plate"
Also Chris: *tosses them in a bowl*
I'm gonna give that pork + mushroom sauce a try! I have so much pork loin so I'm trying out different ways to prepare it :)
I tend to make over rice meals with random stuff I have on hand, I don't have any real set in stone recipe. Eggs, meats, onions, mushrooms, potatoes, etc. Lots of possibilities on what this sort of a dish can be.
The best "over rice" recipe is braised pork rice (lu rou fan). Also, it'd be awesome if you showcased some Taiwanese recipes.
A tough thing for us with Taiwanese food is doing proper research - generally, we want to find *good* versions of dishes to eat here in China and do our very best to try to faithfully recreate them.
The thing is - there ain't exactly a spread of Taiwanese restaurants here in mainland China. Not ideal but not a problem per se - we're at times faced with a similar situation with Guizhou food, and remedy the situation by doing some food-focused travelling there and taking our best notes :)
The tough thing then with Taiwan is getting there. It's easy for me (Chris), but for Steph? She's legally mandated to go on one of those crappy (and overpriced) tour groups - not exactly any of our idea of a good time. So it gets pushed off.
We'll probably tackle some Taiwanese stuff eventually - there's too much good stuff to *completely* leave it alone - it's just we have much less confidence in our ability to nail it authentically. Of course, research *is* our strong suit, so it wouldn't come from nowhere, but still. Perhaps in the context of a subsequent xiafancai vid would be a good idea :)
It takes (me) a little more than 50 min. to make, but it's such comfort food. We don't often make it, but when we do, we make lots and freeze it in vacuum bags for two or four portions.
I ONLY eat mapo tofu over the rice... it flavors the rice and is especially good when it's extra super spicy, the rice absorbs the heat and flavor really well...
アップルパイ I NEVER eat mapo tofu with rice, noodle ONLY
Question... would y'all consider doing a series on quick to-go meals? I'm talking about the kind of stuff you would make specifically to eat on the way, or during a short break on a job... things that perhaps stand up well to being reheated (even in a microwave).
I'm constantly on the hunt for simple, easy, to-go foods, and it'd be so cool to see y'all tackle that kind of thing (if you haven't already, of course).
What's wrong with mapo doufu over rice? It's pretty pretty pretty pretty good.
Carloshache gets too dry as the rice absorbs the sauce. Better to serve it with rice _next_ to it, not _beneath_ it. :)