"chinese cuisine" news and stories

Under a new law against animal abuse in China, individuals caught eating either cat or dog meat could face a fine of 5,000 yuan (approximately $735) or up to 15 days in prison. Businesses involved in the practice could be fined up to 500,000 yuan (or $7,325), according to the Times Online.

The draft going to Parliament in April would be the first law against animal abuse by a new, increasingly animal-loving Chinese society that no longer has the taste for canine and feline meat.

Last week CNN reported (and we posted about it) that food vendors in Bejing, China were selling steamed buns filled with a combination of "chopped cardboard, softened with an industrial chemical and flavored with fatty pork and powdered seasoning."

On the heels of reports of contaminated toothpaste, dog food and frozen fish from China, news agencies from around the world were willing to believe these reports of tainted street food. However, it seems now that the story was fabricated by an employee at Bejing TV in order to get a ratings boost. I've heard of folks in the TV world taking extreme measures for ratings, but this seems to be a bit much.

Hey, we're not just talking about that take-out chow mein from the hole-in-the-wall on the corner that just tastes like cardboard.

Apparently, small, usually illegally-run operations across China have been cutting costs by using cheap ingredients, and in State TV's undercover investigation, sometimes substituting with things that aren't even food. In the Chaoyang district of Beijing, steamed buns called bao were filled with cardboard that had been softened with an industrial chemical and flavored with fatty pork and powdered seasoning. The article over at CNN has more graphic details of how the cardboard is collected from the ground and "made" into the bao's filling.

Kind of makes you thankful for the regulations we have here in the US, huh?

Source

There are many foods that are traditionally served during the Chinese New Year, all of which have some symbolic meaning, sometimes because of the ingredients, sometimes because of their physical characteristics, and sometimes because of the way they affect health. One of the most common things that we'll see this weekend during the celebration is the dumpling.

Dumplings are served because they represent good luck, fortune, and family togetherness. Often, families get together to make dumplings, which makes it a family affair. If you have it in you to make dumplings from scratch rather than stopping at the local Chinese restaurant to pick up a take-out order, food blog Plate of the Day has a recipe for jiaozi, made with pork (perfect for the year of the pig!) and leek. The most helpful part of the post is, of course, the pictures, which show how to fold and close the dumplings.

There's going to be a lot of rice cooking going on in the kitchen this weekend for Chinese New Year, and unless you've got the technique down to steam rice in a regular pot, you're better off using an electric rice cooker.

Rice cookers range from low to high-end, with prices going anywhere from $20 to over $100 for cookers that can be described with terms like "fuzzy logic," a technology by which the rice cooker can gauge temperature and type of rice to cook rice perfectly. However, the most sophisticated, luxurious rice cooker I have come across yet -- the Ferrari of rice cookers, if you will -- is the NJ-WS10 by Mitsubishi.

The machine is sleek and black, but it's not the design that makes it the ultimate rice cooking machine. The inner pot is 100% rock solid carbon, and though I have no idea what that means, I do know that it makes this rice cooker almost $1,000.

Quite a lump of change for the perfect bowl of rice!