Big thanks to Kian for a beautiful meal, Jeff for organizing, and Talisa for this recap of the rooftop Hot Pot Ambassador Dinner.  Oh boy, I’m getting hungry again.
- Veronica

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When Jeff’s email blast arrived in my inbox announcing the next Ambassador Dinner — an evening of traditional Asian hot pot dining with Kian Lam Kho — it took me about fifteen seconds to send in my RSVP.

I love hot pot. It’s something I grew up doing with my family at home (somewhat infrequently, but with zest — usually in conjunction with a slew of sweet and savory fondue nights, the better to make use of the cooking equipment needed for such endeavors).

The concept of Hot Pot is simple: a pot of hot broth sits in the center of the table on a burner which keeps the broth simmering. Everyone at the table partakes in adding a variety of uncooked items (like veggies, meat, seafood, dumplings, and noodles), and fishing them out as they’re ready to eat. Since most of the ingredients aren’t seasoned, additional flavor is added via the broth during cooking, as well as with dipping sauces after cooking. At the end, everyone slurps up the remaining broth, which has been infused with the flavors of everything that’s been cooked in it throughout the night.

For me, Hot Pot embodies some of my favorite aspects of food: it’s engaging, it’s interactive, it’s social, and it’s a group effort, where everyone gets to be part of the cooking process, play with their food, and eat for hours and hours. And, if the chef on duty happens to be Kian, a master of traditional Chinese Cooking, it’s really, exceptionally delicious.

Kian and his partner, Warren prepared a magical night for the 25 lucky RSVP’ers, on Veronica’s rooftop in Long Island City, Queens. All the ingredients were freshly prepared and thoughtfully presented on beautiful tableware.

Kian

Menus! And delicious snacks of pickled vegetables, boiled peanuts, and ginko nuts. We were so spoiled.

Before the dinner, Kian prepped in the kitchen and held a cooking demonstration: making Southern-style egg dumplings. Kian had already prepared a batter of egg and cornstarch, which he then cooked and filled with a mixture of pork, scallions, and sesame oil, and sealed with finesse. According to Kian, the egg dumplings, which are often served in soup, are a common item at Taiwanese Chinese New Year Celebrations because of their golden color.

We onlookers also gave it a shot, with mixed results. Kian makes it look so easy! Apparently they are traditionally made in a shallow ladle over a flame — we definitely would have failed.

Egg dumpling action

Ta-da! No problem.

Veronica’s Attempt

Deborah

Jeff, under Kian’s watchful eye.

Okay, okay. Enough with the teasers. Time for dinner!

Before digging in, we each made our own personal dipping sauce, a combination of wet ingredients: peanut sauce, sesame paste, sesame oil, chili oil, soy sauce, black vinegar, and chili paste, as well as additional goodies: toasted sesame seeds, fresh garlic, fried garlic, scallions, cilantro, pickled peppers, and fermented tofu.

Dipping Sauce Spread

My first sauce attempt. Peanut-y, sesame-y, and spicy. YUM.

Then, we divided ourselves up into tables, each one with a pot divided in half to accomodate two broths: one Szechuan-infused, and one Chrysanthemum-infused. I know, I know. Aren’t you jealous already?

Prepping the spicy Szechuan soup stock

Hot Pot Stocks

Then it was time to get cooking!

Assorted Greens and Shrooms

Vegetable and Crab Dumplings

Rib-eye, chicken, and lamb

Fried Tofu Skins

Veronica with more shrooms and tofus!

Shrimp and Crab

Crab wonderment. Gary, Jeff, and Veronica

How can so many good things be in one pot?

Kian put fish paste into pastry bags. Pipe into simmering broth et voila! Fish Noodles! Here, Jim executes for the table.

Fish paste noodles! Airy and delicious.

Similar to the fish paste, we spooned shrimp paste into the broth and out came magical, squishy shrimp balls!

Hot pot means business.

Chowing Down.

NOODLES? There are noodles?! Two kinds?! This night keeps getting better.

And to finish… the best fruit platter you’ve ever had. Rambutan, starfruit, apple, longan, and dragonfruit.

Thank you to Jeff, for organizing, Veronica, for hosting, and especially Kian, for sharing such an amazing night with us and stuffing us with such delicious morsels. It truly was an experience. I can’t wait to go home for the holidays and have hot pot with my family.

–

See all the photos from the World to Table flickr set here.

About the Ambassador Program: The Ambassador Program has one expert of a cuisine lead a group of people for their dream meal in their favorite eating environment. The menu is entirely chosen by the ambassador. Guests pay for the ambassador’s portion and the results are written up somewhere on the internet. Everyone wins.

About Me: I like stories, science, and snacks. You can find me on the interwebs at Rocketships, Jellyfish.

Back from London and tired from bland British food, Hope had only one request when I asked her where she wanted to go out for lunch.  “I need some SPICE!”, she pleaded.  Somehow I managed to convince Hope and Davis to wake up early on a cold day and venture into the inner depths of Queens for a taste of Sichuan cuisine.

I wanted to ensure a good meal for their inaugural visit to Flushing, so I consulted with our friend Gary for some recommendations.  “What should I order?” I texted him.  An hour later, I got an email listing with instructions on what to order, divided into “cold apps” and “main dishes”.  One of the main dishes included one that was mysteriously called “enhanced pork”, which we sadly didn’t order.  I guess that’s for next time.  Just as I was closing the email, my eyes caught a glimpse of the last sentence — a few words of caution indicated by an asterisk:

*beware of the stinky tofu!  smells like someone stepped in dog shit

Taking Gary’s suggestions — and warning — into consideration, we picked out a bunch of dishes to try and share.  We started out with some cold appetizers, which were laid out in the display case towards the front of the restaurant.  This part of the ordering process was easy. I simply pointed and said “this one” with my limited Mandarin vocabulary.

Shredded fried bean curd with celery drizzled with garlicky sesame oil.

Having grown up eating beef ligaments with hot chili oil, a staple at restaurants serving Northern Chinese cuisine, I am accustomed to the texture and taste of them.  Served cold with a dense but chewy texture, the beef tendon accompanied by chili oil is not immediately spicy, although if you start eating mouthfuls of tendon the spiciness can start to creep up on you.  Although I’ve grown to like this taste and texture, Hope and Davis were not as fond of it, admitting that this was their least favorite dish.

Bamboo shoots with chili oil had a crunchy texture and nutty flavor.

Tea smoked duck with Hoisin sauce came with a crunchy skin and a beautifully smoky taste that was complimented by the hoisin sauce and scallion shreds.

The dry sauteed stringbeans were stir-fried in super high heat from wok cooking, (in Chinese the term is literally translated into “wok air”) browning the garlic and creating had a crisp crunchy exterior while maintaining the beans’ juiciness.

Submerged in a healthy amount of chili oil and fresh chilies, the fish fillet in fresh hot pepper was perfectly cooked and spiced with plenty of Sichuan peppers and spices.  Most of the hot chilies were hidden in the middle of the dish, which were intended to be stirred in.  Instead, we just worked our way towards the middle, each piece getting hotter and hotter.

Sichuan spiciness is different from that of salsa or curry, so even the spicier middle parts of the dish were not painfully spicy. Rather, these dishes are mildly hot and flavorfully spicy, which will at most make you feel a bit flushed and produce a few drops of perspiration but not dole out a full, mouth-on-fire sensation like that of strong Indian curries such as Vindaloo.

Last but not least were the peanut butter sweet sticky rice balls — a special request by Hope, who immediately was drawn to the peanut butter component (this came as no surprise; some of our favorite snacks freshman year consisted of bananas smothered with spoonfuls of peanut butter. Yes, I had a wholesale-sized jar of Skippy peanut butter from Costco).

These black sesame-filled glutinous rice balls were powdered with sugar and drizzled with a peanut butter sauce. Though I did find that they were not as hot (temperature-wise) as I’d like them to be.

Davis contemplatively ate his sticky rice ball..

Across the table, Hope took an unorthodox approach — eating it on an upside down spoon while simultaneously texting on her Blackberry.

Slurp

Although I am a seasoned eater of sticky rice balls and a self-professed lover of all things made from glutinous rice, I somehow encountered more difficulty eating them than both Hope and Davis.  Simply put, laughing and eating is a lethal combination. In this case, it resulted in a black sesame explosion that spilled into my spoon and onto my face.

Meanwhile, amidst all the sticky rice ball commotion, the staff sat at the table next to us, calmly unpacking and prepping a mountain of Chinese celery straight from the crate.

Spicy & Tasty
37-09 Prince Street, 1H
Flushing, NY 11354
718-359-1601

Hello World (to-Table fans). My name is Kelly, and I’m writing to you from my home away from home, Poughkeepsie, NY. My real home is actually in an apartment with my sister Veronica, creator of this blog. But I currently live with three friends in a house near Vassar College, where I am a student.

That’s enough about me. What about FOOD? Like my sister, I have acquired quite a refined palate, which is a blessing and a curse, as the dining hall that “nourished” me for four semesters is not cutting it anymore. Good-bye meal plan and hello kitchen!

After eleven hours of epic cleaning, the kitchen we inherited bloomed from a museum of ancient pot lids and broken George Foreman products to the real heart of the house. We cleaned and restocked the fridge, stuffed our pantry with bags of pasta and rice, and hung up new cutting boards and pans. This is where raspberry flapjacks are made at two in the morning, borscht is stewed between classes, and tea and coffee flow endlessly. Here is where the magic happens!

Last night, instead of reading books, I was thinking about the magnificent stock of produce we had in our refrigerator. My housemates and I purchased a farm share from the Poughkeepsie Farm, so every Saturday, we bring our tote bags to the farm and pick out ten pounds of fresh vegetables and then excitedly brainstorm recipes on the short car ride home. Having chosen three plump long Chinese eggplants, I was moved to introduce some of my mom’s home cooking to the house. One of my favorite dishes is incredibly simple: steamed eggplant stuffed with chopped scallions and drizzled with soy sauce and hot oil.

So I pushed all books and syllabuses aside, descended to the kitchen, turned on the radio, and began making dinner. I sliced our eggplants in half and steamed the halves for twelve minutes, making sure to also tend to the pot of Thai rice cooking away on the adjacent burner. After steaming the eggplants, I arranged them on a dish and gently cut each half longitudinally like a hot dog bun, creating a piping hot opening for me to stuff with chopped scallions. Then I heated up a couple teaspoons of canola oil. Having had a recent bad experience with oil while frying arepas, I made my housemate David spoon the oil over the dish of eggplant while I delighted in the sizzle of scallions instantly cooking upon impact from a distance. I then whisked up a mixture of soy sauce and chili sauce and poured it over each eggplant half.

The dish was served up with another simple favorite of mine: tomato and egg stir-fry. I sliced up an assortment of tomatoes from the farm and sautéed them in canola oil with a little salt and a sprinkle of sugar. While they cooked, I beat three eggs together and then added them to the wok, making sure to turn down the heat a little so that they didn’t cook too quickly. This way, the scrambled eggs mix with the juices of the tomatoes and develop a soft, silky texture.

For a third dish, I drained one can of baby corn, cut them into more manageable, even more baby-like pieces, and sautéed them lightly with garlic, spinach and a little bit of chicken stock. When the final dish was done, we brought them all out to the porch with a big steaming pot of rice and a pitcher full of Poughkeepsie’s finest tap water.

The vegetables from the farm were amazingly sweet. The steamed eggplants came out soft yet firm. They soaked up the sauce on the plate, leaving not quite enough for all of us to spoon over our rice. The juices from the cherry tomatoes flavored each tuft of scrambled egg, and the spinach and corn retained a crispness that accompanied the other dishes wonderfully. My housemate Lily declared this was “way better than Hunan Village!”

Eating these dishes (and hearing the clinking of chopsticks against rice bowls) reminded me of having dinner with my own family. As the four of us chowed down, I felt so contented that I had left the dorms to come live in this house. Here, I can evoke the comforts of home and share them with friends. And better yet, my friends did all the dishes and I was gifted an ice cream sandwich for dessert.

When I asked Kian how he had accumulated such a wealth of knowledge about Chinese cooking and cuisine, he told me, “I do lots of research.  I read Chinese cookbooks, go online… the online forums are very helpful.”

Over the course of four hours, Kian bustled back and forth between the dining table and the kitchen, meticulously prepping and presenting us with course after course.  Meanwhile, we shared stories about gritty pizza joints, trips to outerboroughs, and our passionate love or hate for durian fruit, all between bites of food.

We gathered around Kian as he was finishing prepping his first course, waiting with eager anticipation for the ten-course marathon to begin.

The menu was on the fridge

Assorted cold appetizers (Clockwise from the top: Prawn Salad with Mustard Mayonnaise, Preserved Egg with Ginger Vinegar, Jujube Dates and Ginko Nuts, Bitter Melon with Goji Berries, Braised Bran Dough)

Bitter Melon Salad with Goji Berries–the bitterness was surprisingly refreshing

Preserved Egg with Ginger Vinegar

Stir-fried Beef with Leeks–super tender and juicy

Sichuan Fragrant Crispy Duck

Shelley says no to durian.  I say yes!

Red Cooked Pork with Steamed Buns (the white steamed buns are not pictured)

Stir-Fried Shrimp with Fresh Lychee–Savory and sweet, it was one of my favorite dishes of the night

Young Coconut Chicken Soup..Light, fruity, and with a kick of white pepper, it was perfect for a warm summer day.  Kian also said this was the most popular dish at his ICE class

Baby Bok Choy in Conpoy Sauce (conpoy is dried scallop)

Oil Poached Catfish with a mean underbite and a wonky stare.  It was dressed with carmelized soy sauce and topped with cilantro, green onions, and a red pepper

Kian decapitating the catfish

Chinese Sausage Fried Rice–a Chinese banquet always ends with a starchy last course

Fried Milk, the final course of the night

Crispy coconut on the outside and a rich, gooey jelly-like milk inside.  The New York Times did a piece about fried milk which I enjoyed

Red Velvet Cake from Cannelle Patisserie (our contribution for the night)

Kian will be teaching a dumpling-making class at the Institute of Culinary Education on July 24th which you should totally check out if you’re in New York!  In the meantime, visit Redcook.net for Kian’s latest authentic Chinese recipes.

So we took his suggestion and started off our early morning with a big bowl of preserved egg and pork loin congee with a side of you tiao, a salty Chinese donut, from House of Gourmet.  When he said “they have everything”, he wasn’t lying.  The vast menu at House of Gourmet had a total of 426 menu items, and in the congee section alone there were 45 variations. Of the 45 variations of congee offered at the House of Gourmet, the contents mixed into the congee ranged from seafood, such as crab, abalone, and lobster, to more daring options such as pig’s blood pudding and other delectable offals.

Preserved egg and pork loin congee

You tiao

Congee is a soupy rice porridge with multifarious permutations depending on what part of Asia you are in.  Chinese congee, also called “jook”, is generally eaten during two occasions, either for breakfast or when you are sick–think of it as a Chinese equivalent to chicken soup.  As a child, my mother would cook up a batch of plain congee as a remedy to settle my upset stomach, while other times we’d have congee for breakfast and mix in various condiments, side dishes, and sometimes some of the leftovers from the night before.  Traditionally, the Cantonese version is a bit more watery and boiled through than congee from other regions of China.  Other regional variations use different ratios of water and rice and sometimes even substitute or mix the rice with other grains.

To prepare congee, boil rice several times until it breaks down into a soupy, viscous consistency.  This can be done simply with a big pot or a rice cooker.  Check back shortly for a tutorial on homemade congee, but for now, you can go savor some here:

The House of Gourmet
484 Dundas Street West
Toronto, Ontario M5T 1G9
(416)217-0167

And if you’re in New York, try:

Congee Village (Allen)
100 Allen Street
New York, NY 10002
(212) 941-1818

Congee Village (Bowery)
207 Bowery
New York, NY 10002
(212) 766-2828

Bitter melon (green) in the front and some sort of rotund brown gourd in the back

A box of fresh produce

A creaky elevator delivers a mountain of crates from the refrigerated storage on the second floor. Looming above the work area is a Buddhist shrine, with offerings of oranges and a small bottle of Johnny Walker. No wonder this place is blessed with such flawless leafy greens!

The orange-johnny walker equipped shrine hanging above the crates of vegetables

The elevator.. (that’s a dinosaur toy stapled to the wall, not a rat)

Besides the fruits and vegetables that are flown in from Central and South America, much of the produce offered in the warmer months is grown on their very own farm in southern New Jersey. SSL Produce, Inc distributes to Asian supermarkets and groceries in Manhattan as well as some in Flushing, Queens.

Sun Lam, the founder and owner of SSL, gave me a quick tour of the facilities, starting at one of two walk-in refrigerators. As we passed by the long corridor of one refrigerator, he pointed to each cluster of boxes and told me what fruits and vegetables were inside. Like a proud father introducing his children, he opened the crates to let me examine the fresh mangos, bitter melons, baby bok choi.

The entrance to the refrigerator (the view from inside the refrigerator)

Cilantro

Da dou miu (Big Pea Shoot)

Thai eggplant

Baby bok choy

Curious of what was in a huge cardboard box near the entrance of the refrigerator, I asked Sun. He lifted up the flaps to unveil…a big mound of cream colored mush. “Tofu!” he exclaimed. Straight from a nearby factory, this box of tofu byproduct, normally thrown away, is saved to be used later as fertilizer on the farm. Yes, another secret is revealed.

Soy pulp, a by-product from the tofu factory, stored to be used as fertilizer at SSL’s farm in New Jersey

At the end of our tour, Sun tells me in Chinese, “The best time of year on the farm is in the summer in July, when all the vegetable and fruits are ready to be harvested” and extends an invitation to visit the farm, which I of course happily accept.  As we exchange farewells, he gives us a plastic bag of vegetables. “Some vegetables for dinner” he says, with a big toothy grin.

Bitter melon, Chinese eggplant, winter melon, and greens from SSL Produce, Inc.

Stay tuned for a recipe for Chinese eggplant!