So my friend who's house I stayed at for Chinese New Years in Phoenix Ancient Town just sent me a box of fresh bamboo shoots that grandpa picked from the mountain. Normally I avoid cooking at ECNU because I don't have a kitchen but I dedided to make an exception. I mean, how hard can cooking using only a electric kettle, thermos, chopsticks, a pocket knife, and a glass be. As it turns out it is very possible although I did have some issues and suggestions for anyone who wants to try this dish at home. I did do some research on how to cook quail eggs and bamboo shoots but I didn't research the recipe, which might have been a mistake. The bamboo shoots themselves came out nice so that is good. Cooking the bamboo worked. I cut the bamboo in half, put in the the thermos, and pored boiling water over it. This would have been easier if I had a constant heat source however; during the one hour of cooking I had to replace the water in the thermos with freshly boiled water just to keep everything hot enough. Many of the bamboo shoot recipes online add some optional dried hot pepper to the cooking which would have significantly improved the dish, everything ended up a bit too bland. For some reason though, TESCO didn't sell any dried spices at all so I didn't end up doing that. The hot sauce I added at the end wasn't enough to correct this. I then pealed the bamboo, which was easy, and threw it back for the noodle cooking. I ended up overcooking the noodles but this is because I really messed up cooking the eggs. I was hoping to make basically quail eggs Benedict for my dinner but I ended up making quail egg soup. As it turns out, the quail eggs had a film on the inside that didn't always break open when I cracked the eggs, so I ended up squirting egg everywhere while any of the egg that actually go into the thermos ended up scrambled. I found that running the eggs under cold water prevented this but I didn't learn that until late in the process. Also, some of the eggs I bought came broken. You really have to pay attention to the eggs before buying them but, because of the basket, even the most observant egg buyer won't catch all the broken eggs. They did cause some of the eggs to stick together and to stick to the filler materiel in the basket. By the time I finished dealing with the eggs, the noodles were already over cooked. I also didn't remove the noodle water, which resulted in me making more of an egg soup than I was planning on. I would actually cut the amount of noodles I used in half and double the amounts of both egg and bamboo shoots if I was to make this again. I would also add some more spice to the dish. But still, you can make a OK and very filling dinner with only the things you would have around in a typical Chinese hotel room.
2 Comments
Dad
5/5/2017 08:44:30 pm
I laud your ingenuity and NJ chutzpah. Not sure I want to eat over at your apartment, however.
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Mom
5/6/2017 09:51:33 am
Wat??
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AuthorI am a junior at Juniata College spending a year studying abroad at East China Normal University. Please feel free to join my on my journey to China and beyond. Archives
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