The Particular Danger of Man-handled Chicken

Walking through the open air market a few blocks from my apartment complex tonight, I picked up some veggies for a home-cooked dinner. Mostly red peppers because they are basically the best vegetable created. I'm a little biased...my nickname when I was an international school kid was "pepper" because I was known for bringing fresh red and yellow peppers for a snack. 

My mission to create a broccoli and red pepper stir-fry in mind, I picked up some cooking supplies, including soy sauce and rice vinegar. Then, on an impulse, I paused at one of the meat windows, eyeing the chicken breasts. Cooking meat is a daunting prospect to me, especially chicken. One of my very few irrational fears is poisoning myself or dying from salmonella. Honestly I'm not sure how likely those risks are, but I've always been nervous handling chicken. 

My hesitation halted momentarily, though, and I asked the man behind the cooler for one chicken breast. Without hesitation he grabbed the biggest hunk of raw chicken with his bare hand, threw it in a plastic bag, and gave me the price. Let me repeat that: with his bare hand. I'm trying to imagine what would happen if I was in Whole Foods and the man behind the deli counter grabbed the deli meat, sliced it, and put in in a bag with his bare hand. There would definitely be some kind of outrage, maybe even a lawsuit. But nothing really phases me anymore so I collected my bag o' breast and headed home, more anxious about actually killing myself in the cooking process than the man-handled meat. 

So finished product turned out pretty well, though I need to work on my perfect seasoning mix. I sat down to eat while I finished reading the last few pages of The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, a book about a girl who discovers she has the ability to taste how people are feeling through the food they make. No spoilers but I will say the book is pretty sad, even though a "superpower" like that could be used for so many good things. I can't say I would be particularly excited by having to eat everyone else's depression or anger or insecurity, but it can't be all bad! 

If I had that skill tonight, I probably would have tasted the weary hands of the farmers who grew my broccoli and red pepper, the cold factory that made my noodles out of distant flour and eggs, and the jolly but bored hands of the meat seller living oblivious to the world of food safety regulations. Oh and the taste of my own anxious cooking as I cut the chicken smaller and smaller to make sure it was cooked through! We'll see if I make it to tomorrow :)

For when I am in the mood for Starbucks but there is none to be found...

Sometimes you just gotta have a super sugary, hot drink. And although there is coffee in China, I like to try more local specialties when I can. This year, to carry me through the winter and into the spring, my go-to beverage was hot milk tea (奶茶). You can buy it at any supermarket, and it comes in many, many flavors. I'm a sucker for the classic so I love Original Milk Tea, but you can choose from flavors like coffee, blueberry, mango, and strawberry.

The cups come with the ingredients packaged inside. When you open up the lid, you will see a straw, a package of the milk tea powder, a packet of sugar, and a cup of little jellies which make a great textural addition to the mix. Simply dump them in and add hot water, mix it up and enjoy!

Living in Tianjin, I have spent a lot of time traveling to Beijing on the high speed railway (which practically flies down the tracks at upwards of 300 km/hr). You can use the hot water machine right on the train and the 30 minute ride is the perfect length of time for the hot water to cool enough to drink. These milk teas have been the perfect treat to sip while watching 京津冀 blur by me!

Jintian Xiabu le me?

Hotpot is legendary. It is normally a meal consisting of raw meats and veggies which you dunk into a pot of boiling water and oil. Honestly, though, I hesitate to even define it as that, since many regions of China have their own versions of hotpot. I’ll delve into the plethora of hotpot varieties over the course of this blog but for now I want to start with the best basic hotpot chain in China, 呷哺呷哺 (Xiabu Xiabu).

It is the closest thing to fast food hotpot you could find, with a winding bar of individual hotpots, heating up to a boil on their individual hot plates. There is one in almost every major Chinese mall. At lunch time during the work week, the high chairs are filled with young people on their lunch breaks, and sometimes in the evening you will even see a young couple out for dinner in their PJs. True story.

On the menu they have the usual hotpot meats, but I would recommend the lamb. It is thinly sliced and cooks incredibly quickly. Xiabu has also been known to have little hotpot dumplings, although not every store carries them. If you can find the 火锅饺, though, they are amazing.

Balla picks: 1 plate of half potato and half sweet potato, 1 plate of lotus roots, 1 order of noodles, one plate of greens. Additional picks might include tofu skin, meatballs, needle mushrooms, and bailuobuo.

Once you order the combination of foods you want to cook, you have to pick what kind of boiling broth you want to cook your food in. There are 3 options at Xiabu, 清汤 (qingtang, a clear broth with light seasoning), 麻辣 (mala,
numbingly spicy), and a curry based broth (which I confess I have never actually tried). I go for the spicy one!

The final step is to prepare your sauce for dipping once your food comes out of the pot! The standard is a sesame paste (芝麻酱), which is given to you in a plastic packet that you have to squeeze into a bowl yourself. Weird but worth it. The sauce makes the meal. If you like cilantro, it is typical to be given a bowl of it to add to your sauce.

Oh and listen up for Xiabu’s spinoff version of the old “Numa Numa song” which is perpetually playing in restaurants across China!

Let the boiling, dunking, and eating begin!

For the broke college student who loves good grub...

I struggled with where to start. So rather than begin with an extravagant or completely unexpected food, I'm starting with something basic, seemingly boring, but ultimately completely addicting.

This food is 麻辣烫 (ma4la4tang4).

It is but a bowl of veggies, meats, and noodles, hand picked by the consumer, cooked in broth by the chef, and dowsed with sesame paste and maybe some hot pepper oil if you so please. Basically, malatang is hotpot made simple and cheap.

Malatang restaurants are almost exclusively hole in the wall restaurants. When you find one you will know it by the wall of raw ingredients and the cheap stools and tables filling the *usually* rundown joint. There will be a stack of metal bowls and a hook with metal tongs so you can go down the line and pick out the foods you want in your bowl. Usually the options consist of some green veggies, like spinach and cabbage, and then broccoli, cauliflower, potatoes, mushrooms, rice cakes, melons, meat balls, fish balls, little sausages, tons of noodle options, and my personal favorite, lotus root.

Once you fill your bowl, the laoban weighs your food and then sends it back to be prepared in a cylindrical basket that is dunked into a giant pot of boiling broth. Make sure to tell them if you want it spicy or nah, because the spice can kick your tail if you aren't prepared for it! The completed bowl of malatang comes out in a nice broth with a spoon of sesame sauce on top.

And the best part...it usually costs between $2 and $3 (depending on how much you load into your bowl!)! Can you beat that price?? I would live at a malatang restaurant if it existed this way in the U.S.! Alas, malatang will probably only ever make it State side as a hipster fusion cuisine or a classed up food truck food.

Balla bowl: spinach, potatoes, sweet potatoes, rice cakes, bailuobuo (the clear melon), broccoli, cauliflower, lotus root, and a nice clump of noodles. Extra spicy! And I am no meat eater but Mom will forever vouch for the meat balls and little sausage links.