Already Bean Thread
Joy of joys, there's a new Asian market around the corner from my house. It's just been open a few days so they still have a lot of stock to get. But I know it will be a regular haunt.
I always get overexcited in specialty markets and end up buying some weird food that I can never figure out how to make - Usually, I can't even figure out how to make them taste good. Once I purchased rice cake from the super Chinese grocery on Chinastreet in the city centre. I sort of boiled it and tossed it in with a regular stir-fry of chicken and veg. Needless to say, it looked like I had dumped a bunch of rubber erasers in the stir-fry and they were like sticky lumps of congealed fat.
There are not many good Chinese restos in Belgium. Chinese food is still in the egg foo yung stages here. Belgians think real Chinese food is stir-fried rice and lo mein. Luckily, due to the French influence in the region - southeast Asian restos like Vietnamese, and Laotian are pretty good. Thai and Malaysian restaurants are excellent. And due to the Dutch colonisation of Indonesia - there are plenty of Indonesian restos with rice tables or rijsttafels as the traditional meals are called.
I don't want orange-coloured sweet-and-sour glop suffocating pieces of dried-up fried meat. I don't want bone dry (really spare) ribs and I don't want huge chucks of onion and cabbage thrown in to every dish. I don't want slimy mushrooms from a can. I don't want leftovers re-fashioned in to a special lunch buffet.
I want whole steamed fish with ginger and lemon, crabs in their shells sauteed with black beans and garlic, fresh bok choi stir-fried with garlic and hot peppers, turnip cake, razor clams with oyster sauce, I want what the Chinese are eating!
By the way - I am always on the look out for rice crepe - so if any of you see them. Grab them. Rice crepes are my very favourite dim sum and I cannot find them over here.
So, at my new store, I grabbed a few items on the cheap. They haven't figured out how much to charge people yet. They are the only Asian supermarket for many blocks and they could charge a bit more. A ketchup-sized bottle of black rice vinegar for 90 cents. Have I stepped back to the 70's?? A standard package of rice vermicelli (Usually called rice noodle or rice stick) for 85 cents...really.
I also grabbed a packet of rice paper wrappers thinking 'Hallelujah! I have found rice crepes!'. But no. They are those things you use for wrapping spring rolls - the cold ones that are translucent and usually have cold cooked shrimp, coriander and rice vermicelli inside - usually served with a hoisin dipping sauce.
Bean thread is so fun and for me represents the whole point of Chinese food. The textures. Rice cake aside, food has to have character and taste. Textures are celebrated as importantly as flavour. The crunch of just stir-fried Chinese broccoli, the wobble of rice crepes as they slither into your mouth, the way black beans make you pucker and swirl your tongue around the salty grainy bits stuck in your teeth, the feel of steamed rice and a solid piece of meat in the same bite.
Transparent bean thread has all that fun and takes on any flavour because it has none of it's own. It's satisfying to slither up the light thin strands coated in soy and sesame and ginger and because the mung beans they are made from make for a slightly gelatinous texture. Biting into bean thread is like the perfect al dente pasta. So pleasing to the tooth. Soften in water and throw in to stir-fry dishes, soups, spring rolls. Have in cold salads.
So. Here's my one tip for bean thread, cellophane noodle, glass noodles - whatever noodle. If the noodles are not in sticks - You need to cook the whole package. Trust me on this. There is no way to cook only part of the noodles. They come from very long strands that are twined around and twisted in to the packet. There's no beginning and end and you will have to cut them somehow if you want to use only part. My suggestion is that this should not be attempted. The noodles prior to being softened in hot water are like plastic twigs that are strong enough to keep Superman tied down.
Bunny Dog rarely shies away from me. Last night he was watching me through the sides of his eyes from halfway up the stairs so he could be a safe distance away. I attempted to separate some of the dried noodles and make only a portion. Within seconds thousands of dried noodle bits where snapping off and projecting in all directions of my kitchen. The noodles turned in to a mass of insane knots. It was so frustrating - how could all these little hard, sharp bits be flying all over the place, when I couldn't break, twist, cut or sever the tangled mess to get one portion off. I got a knife and a pair of scissors stuck in the nest of noodles and finally gave up. It was like trying to cut up a coil of steel enforced copper twine. Whew.
Just do all of the damned noodles and save what you don't eat for the next day. Never was a bowl of noodles so deserved and so delicious.....
:-))
posted by Brussels Confidential @ 11:11 AM
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