Nothing to My Name : Ants climbing on a Tree

I'm going to eat ants!?

No. As many strange things as my journey has taken me to: not ants.

At least not today. Today's food is cellophane noodles. These noodles are common through Asia, typically made from Mung Bean Starch (and sometimes known as 'Bean Thread Noodles'). They are also known as Glass Noodles in the West.

As for our "Ants", the Chinese sometimes name dishes "poetically"instead of "literally". For this famous Sichuan dish, minced or ground beef is cooked and mixed with cellophane noodles, and the somebody, somewhere felt this made him think of ants climbing along branches.

I look at this dish and think of one word: delicious.

Ants Climbing on a Tree

100g Cellophane/Beanthread/Mung Bean Noodles
3 tsp Rice Wine
Salt
100g minced or ground beef
2 tbsp oil
3 tsp light soy sauce
1 1/2 tbsp chili paste
350 ml chicken stock
1/2 tsp dark soy sauce
3 Scallions

Soak the noodles in hot water for ten minutes, then drain.

Mix beef with rice wine and a dash of salt, and let soak for a couple of minutes.

Heat a wok or pan with 2 tbsp of oil, then add the minced beef mixture and fry for several minutes. Then add the Soy Sauce and Chili Paste and sautee for another minute.

Add the stock and noodles for the wok, along with Dark Soy Sauce, and simmer until the broth is mostly gone. Add the Scallions, stir, and serve with rice.

This dish was fantastic. Spicy, delicious, and despite being pasta fairly low in calorie.

It's also the last Chinese article we have to offer for now. We head to our next destination, a place stranger and more alien, the inhabitants of which create dishes unequaled in their unique flavor. That place is: Louisiana?

The Chinese Eggplant

Long, shiny and purple, the eggplant crept slowly from the heart of India, across China and Japan to the East, and Westward, along Afghanistan and Turkey, to reach Europe.

Some varieties actually are white and round, giving the plant its seemingly ill-fitting name, though thick, round, baseball bat shaped varieities are common to America. The Chinese Eggplant is recognizably an Eggplant still, just longer and thinner, with a less bitter and more delicate flavor, yet the same shiny, vibrant purple skin.

Rarely do I find a recipe that looks perfect online, but this one was an exception. A simple stir-fry, Katrina rifled through the refrigerator to find a few other "must use"foods that couldn't wait until the next day, including some Red Bell Pepper, Zucchini, and Jerusalem Artichoke (which next season I certainly hope to explore better).

The final result was pleasant, not too bitter, and contained a nice mix of eggplant flavor, oil flavor, and ginger. Well, except for the ginger pieces Katrina was picking out of it, and I was eagerly searching for.

Chinese Eggplant Stiry-Fry

2-4 Eggplants
2 large pieces of ginger (about the size of a chicken wing)
2 tbsp olive oil
Sprinkle of Dark Soy Sauce
Dash of Sugar
Dash of Salt

Step 1: Cut your eggplants into pieces (about 1 inch across)

Step 2: Heat olive oil on a large wok or frying pan. Seasoned is better, but if you don't have that a normal, preferably iron or stainless steel, pan will do.

Step 3: Once hot, begin frying the ginger for a couple of minutes. The ginger adds flavor, but you may not want to eat it when you're done (unless you like intense ginger flavor)

Step 4: Add the Eggplant. Fry until it is soft, and slightly brownish.

Step 5: Add soy sauce, sugar, and salt to taste.

And you're done! Enjoy!

Next Time: Peanut Butter isn't just for Sandwiches anymore!

Attack of the Snow Fungus!

Of the many odd foods our journey has taken it, perhaps no name has generated so much shock as "snow fungus". An entire "fruiting body"of snow fungus vaguely resembles a human brain, white and full of folds, and it has a spongy, gelatinous texture. The snow fungus is found on trees, but it doesn't feed on the wood, in fact it feeds on other fungus, devouring its brethren to grow. This bizarre member of the same family that gives us yeast and mushrooms, its seaweed-like branches reach outward several inches from its host. Clearly, it is not of this world!

Snow fungus can be found dried in Chinese and other Asian grocery stores looking like dried, slightly yellowed balls of... stuff. Once reconstituted it is oddly flavorless, ye pleasant. One could feel as if chewing on nothing, but a jelly-textured nothing. It is valued in Chinese medicine, and nutritionally rich in vitamins, minerals, and protein, and can be used in a variety of ways. Most often, it is used for deserts and soups, although it is pictured above as an entree, cooked with shredded chicken, sesame chili oil, and an unflavored one adorns the rice (with enoki and oyster mushrooms as sides). Adapted from this recipe, which I'm not entirely sure we understood, but nevertheless delicious, here is a fantastic way to enjoy this spongy food.

Snow Fungus and Shredded Chicken

1 Chicken Breasts, grilled
1 oz Snow Fungus
1/2 tbsp Sesame Oil
1/2 tbsp Sesame Chili Oil
1/2 tsp Powdered Chicken Base
2 tbsp Light Soy Sauce (light in color, not salt)
1/2 tsp Sugar
1/4 tsp Salt
1/2 tsp Lemon Juice
2 tbsp Sesame Seeds

Step 1: Soak the Snow Fungus in water for an hour.

Step 2: Rinse off, and then remove the tough center. Then shred the Snow Fungus into pieces.

Step 3: Boil the Snow Fungus for 10 minutes. Drain well.

Step 4: Wile the Fungus is boiling, grill a chicken breast. Any method will do, we used a Foreman Grill. Shred the chicken when finished.

Step 5: Mix the Snow Fungus and Sesame Oil, Sesame Chili Oil, Chicken Base, Light Soy Sauce, Sugar, Salt, and Lemon Juice. Light stand for 5 minutes, then mix in shredded chicken.

The result will be a delicious, spongy feast, which is far more filling than you might expect, so don't let the name throw you off this delightful food.

Next Time: Sean and Katrina confront the great purple vegetable, the terrifying Eggplant!

Peking? Beijing? Quack? - Peking Duck

Every country in the world has its own quintessential dish, something that wraps up everything about a country's culture and peoples into one mouth-watering adventure, baked in their pride. Mexico has the taco. America has apple pie. Britain has spotted dick. Or maybe Britain's was fish and chips... I forget.

But China's national dish is Peking Duck, a specially raised quaking extravaganza of flavor, cooked in a unique oven that you'll never see, and you'll only ever taste it by shelling out a few extra of those capitalist dollars the communists deplore.

Therefore, making an approximation of Peking Duck is more than a little challenging. I found a recipe, but it didn't seem to quite make the skin of the duck crispy enough as outlined, so sometime in the future I will revisit this with my own recipe, but for now I will say this:

If you get your duck from an asian grocery store, do not be surprised when you open the package and the still attached head rolls away from the body and looks up at you. It was only Katrina's fast meat-cleaving skills that saved me from the undead horror.

It Came From Beyond : Aloe Vera Drink

Where: Korea

While exploring new foods is often scary, the most terrifying concepts in beverages are easily dispelled by one simple fact: no matter the country it's all sweetened until it is mostly harmless. Katrina has long been a fan of this odd, translucent drink full of chunks of aloe vera drink (a plant primarily used for hand lotion here in the US). I had my doubts about it, but found a Sugar-free version that approximated that taste of hers and decided to give it a go.

The texture is odd, with little "bits"floating around it. I've experienced this trend before, like grass jelly drink, but the insubstantial bits of Aloe take on a very different tone. It's not all together bad, but quite unlike anything western. The alien-green of the bottle is deceptive, once poured it really looks quite normal, save for the "bits". If you're in the mood for something different, it's pleasant, and definitely worth a try.

Sesame Candy

Sesame seeds in the US are used primarily for decorting buns, and all too often Americans forget its range of uses. Over in Vietnam, and much of the world, sesame is ground into an array of products like Sesame Candy, an odd sesame and peanut snack with a taffy-like consistency. These Vietnamese sesame candy are sweet and delicious, though, and more than once I found myself sleep walking to the kitchen, in search of their sweet, rich goodness. They did not last long enough.

Royal Family Food's Coffee Mochi

Attempting to open a bag of chips is simple enough. Just tear open the bag, reach your hand in, and go. Maybe that's why they are so bad for you, I wonder. What if eating every bite took effort, with each chip individually wrapped for freshness. Surely, the extra effort, and calories burned, would make mowing down on a bag of Lays a more healthful, fresher experience. Best of all you wouldn't have to eat the entire bag, since every last chip would be perfectly fresh, every time.

My application to work for FritoLay wasn't just rejected: when he was done reading my ideas the head of HR set my resume on fire. But Japan agrees with me. Oh no, not one company, the entire island. The Japanese obsessively wrap their snacks, plastic inside plastic, all destined to bulk up landfills and continental shelves.

Mochi is itself one of Japan's more intriguing snacks. It's a ball or so of crushed rice paste filled with different flavors of jelly, typically red bean, and then wrapped with various leaves, depending on time of year and flavor.

Royal Family Food's bite-sized Coffee Mochi is stuffed with a brownish coffee filling that's not quite as tasty as the typical red bean paste, and makes the entire snack muddy, and the coffee flavor itself is so mild that one hardly tastes anything except the sweetened rice. Not that that's a bad thing. I think I'll just have one more.

And another.