"PaPaPeng" wrote in message =
...
On Mon, 27 Sep 2004 14:13:59 -0400, Nancy Young
wrote:
=20
PaPaPeng wrote:

I have been to all three coasts of the US , Atlantic, Pacific and =
the
Gulf. The seafood life is abundant and varied. Tuna, mackeral,
swordfish, lobsters, crabs, shrimps, more. Fresh from the sea. =
Then
what do your Americans do? Ruin perfectly good fish by roasting =
them
or some other culinary disaster that leaves them dry and tasting =
like
fiber roughage. Go to a good Chinese restaurant an order steamed
fish. It will be a whole new eating experience.

Oh, steamed fish!!! WHERE, oh WHERE do I sign. Yuck.

nancy
=20
=20
The Oriental method (Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, etc.) of cooking
seafood

Excuse me, you know I have a problem with you using the term "we =
orientals" as
if you speak for people outside of your own ethnic group.
Frankly I have my doubts that you are "oriental" at all.
The approach to fish in China (where of course it makes a big difference =
if we are
talking about inland or near the coasts) and in Japan are really =
entirely different.

is to preserve its freshness and natural body juices that
roasting and frying will destroy.

As in crispy rockfish?
Or anago tenpura?

The cooking time for fish is
critical and extremely short. The fish is done as soon as the flesh
turns white. The smooth texture and distinctive flavor of almost raw
flesh is preserved.

Not when cooked. It's a completely different taste experiemce even with
the same fish.

Raw fish is a delicacy. But this needs fish that
is very, very fresh and therefore only specialty restaurants serve
them.


In Japan fish designated for raw consumption are sold in Supermarkets.

The best dishes use fresh seafood that has never been frozen as
freezing breaks the cells to let out the meat juices.

Did you know that US Law requires all fish that is to be served in raw =
form
requires prior freezing?
Are you aware that over 90% of the Tuna that is sold in Japan are fish =
caught far away
and flash frozen?

Really fresh
seafood doesn' t smell or taste of stale fish, a past best by date
condition we orientals distinctly dislike. =20

Like others don't?

Anything more than a few
days old will start smelling and tasting fishy. We toss those out or
disguise the taste some other way. =20


Anything past the second day generally gets the "for cooking" label.
Anything that "smells and tastes fishy" is tossed out. Once fish reach
that point you can't disguise it easily.

We will never dream of roasting or baking fresh fish as it overcooks
it and dry out the flesh turning the flesh tasteless, tough, rough and
fibrous to the tongue.=20
=20

No we bake roast and bake fish as well as grill them more often than eat =
it in raw form
in Japan. The trick is the timing. That's all.

We steam our fresh fish in soy sauce with a hint of shortening and
garnish it with ginger and onion sprouts to take out what little fishy
taste there is. Steaming allows the flavor of the light sauce to
permeate right into the flesh and the flesh just melts in your mouth.
Delicious. Heavenly.

Steamed whole fish served with thin sliced scallions and a light ginger =
soy based
sauce is a CHINESE favorite everywhere in the world. Because the =
original Rockfish
is not available, the Chinese restaurants in Japan use farmed Tai (Sea =
Bream), in
the UK they use European Sea Bass, in the Northeast US they use the =
Black Seabass,
all of which have a light white subtle flavored flesh.

Soft smooth tasty meat that melts right in you
mouth. Because it is soft and melts in you mouth its very easy to
seperate even the smallest bones from the flesh buy sucking at the
morsel in your mouth. Sucking to separate the bones from carp is
child's play. Spit out the bones.

Japanese do not eat carp in general. One needs to go to a specialty =
restaurant
to enjoy that.

Wait till you see a Chinese party
order fish head (referenced to in Kill Bill 2)

An incredibly stupid movie that few if any real "orientals" would bother =
watching.

and you will see a
plie of bones spat out on the plate after the diner had lovingly
sucked out all the flavor and what little flesh there was. Don't be
surprised a good fish head order costs a lot more than regular fish.
=20
Lemon juice is a no no for it completely masks the taste of fresh
seafood.=20


Yet in Japan we have Ponzu.
=20
There will be some fish dishes that will be deep fried. The deep
fried breaded crispy skin and brittle fins is a delicacy. Only a few
fish, mostly flat fish, qualify to be deep fried. Do notice that
once the skin is peeled back the flesh is fresh and juicy and just as
tasty as steamed fish.
=20
There are other methods of cooking seafood the oriental way. I am no
culinary expert and can't give a deserving description of the art.
But I sure know what's good eating.

There is no one "Oriental way" of cooking Fish, or anything.

On Tue, 28 Sep 2004 15:17:00 GMT, "Musashi"
wrote:

There is no one "Oriental way" of cooking Fish, or anything.



I concede that your details of Japanese way of cooking fish is way
more knowledgeable than mine. The fish I get to eat in Japanese
restaurants is little more than finger food sized appetizers. For
some reason the little dishes with any form of meat that is minimally
garnished is priced sky high. Its just too expensive to have a full
meal and I am a hearty eater. I visit Japanese reataurants perhaps
once or twice a year and only because a guest wants to.

I don't get raw fish dishes in my city. In the old days when I lived
in the East I would love to order this dish and it was around this
time of the year, the Mooncake Festival, when restaurants serve raw
fish slices. The best fish for this is barracuda or some fish that
looks like it. The other fish used is carp but I would be leary of
ordering that as carp is a fresh water fish capable of harboring
parasites harmful to humans if not properly cooked.

As for fish we bought for the home, these are kept fresh with ice,
never the frozen solid kind. Go to any chinatown seafood grocery shop
in North America. The most desirable and expensive fish and shellfish
are kept alive in tanks. Then comes the iced ones. Solid frozen ones
nobody really wants. When I moved to Canada I once saw a delicious
looking Pomfret (a compressed bodied torpical China Sea fish) in a
freezer. Bought that and thawed it. The flesh turned mushy and it
reallly smelled because it was not gutted and cleaned before freezing.
What a waste of a good fish for want of basic pre-preparation when
caught. After a few such experiences with frozen whole fish I never
bought frozen fish except as fillets. In any case if I want gourmet
seafood I go to a restaurant as the cook is a professional chef. My
cooking skills are minimal and I live alone not to care to spend much
time home cooking. I don't want exotic cooking smells in my home
anyway.

You mentioned past two day old fish as highly undesirable. Exactly
and that's why fish is always brought fresh and cooked immediately.
However on occasion one will have kept fish longer than desirable.
The way to disguise the lack of freshness is to deep fry it or
otherwise cook it thick sauce with gourds or okra, or cook it in
curry. I don't think Japanese tastes are into curry.

And yup. Japanese cooking must be quite distinctive from other Asian
cusines. I wouldn't know since I haven't tried any Japanese home
cooking. The teeny bland Japanese restaurant stuff we all know is
probably not representative of the richness of real Japanese cooking.

As for Vietnamese cooking the funny thing is that I can speak a few
southern Chinese dialects and invariably a number of the Vietnamese
restaurant staff will be ethnic Chinese from Vietnam. I had also
travelled around Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Indonesia and
Malaysia-Singapore and tried their cusines as done by streetside food
stalls and the non-tourist restaurants, aka the genuine stuff. The
basic conclusion is that North American style cooking does ruin their
seafood.

"PaPaPeng" wrote in message =
...
On Tue, 28 Sep 2004 15:17:00 GMT, "Musashi"
wrote:
=20
There is no one "Oriental way" of cooking Fish, or anything.
=20
=20
=20
I concede that your details of Japanese way of cooking fish is way
more knowledgeable than mine. The fish I get to eat in Japanese
restaurants is little more than finger food sized appetizers. For
some reason the little dishes with any form of meat that is minimally
garnished is priced sky high. Its just too expensive to have a full
meal and I am a hearty eater. I visit Japanese reataurants perhaps
once or twice a year and only because a guest wants to.
=20

I find the seafoods and cooking styles of China delicious.
And I have no doubt that the various southeast asian cuisines are =
excellent
in their own right.
But to claim that there is an "Oriental way" of cooking fish is like =
saying there
is a "European way" of cooking fish.
Can we lump a Boulliabaise from Marseille together with Pickled raw =
Herring
from Amsterdam to smoked Atlantic needlefish from Sweden, to a whole =
Monkfish
in tomato sauce from Italy, to a whole grilled Sea Bream from Greece =
served with=20
Olive oil, lemon and Oregano sauce? Have you ever tasted a smoked eel =
from
Germany?
Assuming that you are in the US, I would agree with you that in general
good Japanese restaurants tend to be expensive.

I don't get raw fish dishes in my city. In the old days when I lived
in the East I would love to order this dish and it was around this
time of the year, the Mooncake Festival, when restaurants serve raw
fish slices.

This must be a Chinese tradition?
We have geppei (moon-mochi(rice cake)) also but there is no connection
with raw fish at all.

The best fish for this is barracuda or some fish that
looks like it. The other fish used is carp but I would be leary of
ordering that as carp is a fresh water fish capable of harboring
parasites harmful to humans if not properly cooked.
=20

Must be the small pacific barracuda, which is eaten dried and grilled in =
Japan, not
usually in raw form. The big Great Barracuda of the Atlantic and =
Caribbean are usually
not eaten for fear of ciguatera poisoning.
What you say about raw carp is absolutely correct, however we do have a =
dish that
is Carp sashimi. But the thin slices are dropped into very hot water for =
a moment then
quickly into ice water to chill. This style of preparing sashimi is =
called "arai".
It weakens any possible parasites so that they can not be harmful to =
humans.
One must go to a specialty restaurant to eat this.

As for fish we bought for the home, these are kept fresh with ice,
never the frozen solid kind. Go to any chinatown seafood grocery shop
in North America. The most desirable and expensive fish and shellfish
are kept alive in tanks.

This is true. While the keeping of fish alive is a very good practice, I =
have seen plenty of
dirty fish tanks, especially in Chinatown. Some with dead or sick fish =
still in the tanks
with the healthy ones. The fish tanks in Chinese stores in the suburbs =
however are almost always
quite clean.

Then comes the iced ones. Solid frozen ones
nobody really wants. When I moved to Canada I once saw a delicious
looking Pomfret (a compressed bodied torpical China Sea fish) in a
freezer. Bought that and thawed it. The flesh turned mushy and it
reallly smelled because it was not gutted and cleaned before freezing.
What a waste of a good fish for want of basic pre-preparation when
caught. =20

That is an example of poor handling. And poor handling can destroy any =
fish
whether it is to be sold fresh or frozen.

After a few such experiences with frozen whole fish I never
bought frozen fish except as fillets. In any case if I want gourmet
seafood I go to a restaurant as the cook is a professional chef. My
cooking skills are minimal and I live alone not to care to spend much
time home cooking. I don't want exotic cooking smells in my home
anyway.
=20
You mentioned past two day old fish as highly undesirable. Exactly
and that's why fish is always brought fresh and cooked immediately.
However on occasion one will have kept fish longer than desirable.
The way to disguise the lack of freshness is to deep fry it or
otherwise cook it thick sauce with gourds or okra, or cook it in
curry. I don't think Japanese tastes are into curry.


Actually, Japanese eat alot of curry. Called Karee-Raisu (curry rice) it =
was introduced
from England in the very early 1900s and a very popular food in Japan. =
However it
is usually Beef or Pork. Curry flavoring rather than the roux is =
sometimes used on panfried fish.
=20
And yup. Japanese cooking must be quite distinctive from other Asian
cusines. I wouldn't know since I haven't tried any Japanese home
cooking. The teeny bland Japanese restaurant stuff we all know is
probably not representative of the richness of real Japanese cooking.

Japanese cooking is distinctive because of the use of Dashi, a stock =
which is a common
denominator in most Japanese cooking, and the emphasis on a wide variety =
of seafood
and the practice of eating nama-mono (raw things).
What Japanese cooking does not have is the rather complex flavorings, =
and the very
strong use of pork and shrimp that is found in Chinese cooking.

As for Vietnamese cooking the funny thing is that I can speak a few
southern Chinese dialects and invariably a number of the Vietnamese
restaurant staff will be ethnic Chinese from Vietnam. I had also
travelled around Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Indonesia and
Malaysia-Singapore and tried their cusines as done by streetside food
stalls and the non-tourist restaurants, aka the genuine stuff. The
basic conclusion is that North American style cooking does ruin their
seafood.


I do agree with that as a general statement. The vast majority of =
America prefers
a fried filet of white meat fish, and the less it tastes anything like =
fish, the better.
However, I find that the New England area has seafoods that are =
remarkable good.
First the American lobster, not found in the pacific. A taste distinct =
from the spiny lobsters
we know. Next, the practice of eating raw clams, the quahogs. This is a =
unique taste even
to an addicted sashimi & sushi eater like myself. Not to mention the =
varieties of oysters
that are eaten raw. Further south, the practice of eating soft-shelled =
crabs! Every Japanese
person that I have introduced to this wonderful seasonal dish has been =
stunned, since we
eat alot of crab in Japan but all in hard shell form. I suspect that the =
US pacific, from
California up to Washington, as well as the Gulf (New Orleans) also have =
distinct=20
seafoods.

Musashi

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Wait till you see a Chinese party
order fish head (referenced to in Kill Bill 2)

An incredibly stupid movie that few if any real "orientals" would
bother watching.

Ang Lee's "Eat, Drink, Man, Woman" (Yin shi nan nu), 1994 has
some great Chinese food / banquet scenes in it. Come to think
of it, Lee also had great food / kitchen scenes in his "Wedding
Banquet" (Hsi Yen) and "Pushing Hands" (Tui shou).


(Sorry, I couldn't get this cross posted to the other groups:
rec.food.cooking, soc.culture.china, soc.culture.japan . If you
reply, please restore all groups.)

An Metet wrote:

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No effort was made to verify the identity of the sender.
--------------------------------------------------------


Wait till you see a Chinese party
order fish head (referenced to in Kill Bill 2)

An incredibly stupid movie that few if any real "orientals" would
bother watching.


Ang Lee's "Eat, Drink, Man, Woman" (Yin shi nan nu), 1994 has
some great Chinese food / banquet scenes in it. Come to think
of it, Lee also had great food / kitchen scenes in his "Wedding
Banquet" (Hsi Yen) and "Pushing Hands" (Tui shou).

I've seen the first two.. and I was dying for a taste of everything.

--
Dan

On Wed, 29 Sep 2004 06:45:41 +0200, Fritz Wuehler
wrote:

Wait till you see a Chinese party
order fish head (referenced to in Kill Bill 2)

An incredibly stupid movie that few if any real "orientals" would
bother watching.

Ang Lee's "Eat, Drink, Man, Woman" (Yin shi nan nu), 1994 has
some great Chinese food / banquet scenes in it. Come to think
of it, Lee also had great food / kitchen scenes in his "Wedding
Banquet" (Hsi Yen) and "Pushing Hands" (Tui shou).



Actually I found Kill Bill 2 immensely entertaining. It stripped off
a lot of nonsense dished out in the Kungfu movie genre. Especially
about that pretentious bully Sifu Pai Mei (as Gordon Liu.) I grew up
on a steady diet of kunfu flicks and I did always wonder why the
kungfu apprentices, the ninja types too, would put up with all that
BS. Anyone giving me that crap would have done what the young Elle
Driver(Daryl Hannah) did. Kill the *******. Likelwise Budd
(Sidewinder) did what any sensible person should have done to a
martial arts enemy. Nothing a shotgun blast won't fix to invalidate
20 years of kungfu training.

Oh I enjoy watching martial arts as an art form, the incredible feats
of strength, speed, grace and dance that comes with it. But the story
lines really suck.