beXnlog

Cravings for Cold Weather

As i was laying in bed last night trying to fall asleep, for some reason all i could think about was fermented tofu. I love eating it with spinach or other greens, but be absolutely hates it. It's an acquired taste, sort of like stinky, runny cheese. It adds a really rich flavor to sauces and is indescribable and distinctive. The jar i have in the fridge is the kind with sesame oil. It lasts a really long time because i only use 1/2 or 1 cube for each dish; i'm not the type to eat whole cubes on their own.

Some people eat fermented tofu cubes with jook, or rice porridge/congee. When we were in Hong Kong in 2002, my mom and i could not get enough of it. She asked a random stranger at McDonald's for the best jook joint in Kowloon, and the woman did not lie. Every morning we wanted to eat jook and fried bread, aka yu ja guei or "oil fried devils." I could down 1 or 2 of the fried bread sticks, easily. You could dip the bread into the jook or order it wrapped with a thin rice flour sheet (like at dim sum), sliced into rounds and drizzled with sauce. So good!

My Mom and Her Loves

The great thing about jook is the calming blandness of it; you can add whatever toppings and ingredients you want to create your favorite combinations and flavors. I love jook with salted peanuts, cilantro and pickled vegetables with chile. A lot of people like scallions, thousand-year-old eggs and meat. Most of the places in New York make jook with chicken stock, don't have the fried bread or have a non-existent selection of toppings to place into your bowl. VDSH makes a nice corn jook you can add chile oil to while Buddha Bodai makes a yummy jook with fake pork and peanuts, but neither restaurant has a good supply of freshly made fried bread. I guess it's time to lug out the heavy pot and make my own batch of jook, but as for that fried bread, i'll have to buy 1, or 5.

Mmmm, real Chinese food.

posted by beXn @ 1:46 PM