Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

80 percent fat? I'm guessing it's typo.

Have you tried microwaving the noodles wrapped in a damp towel? Usually, this gets refrigerated wide rice noodles pliable again. On occasion I'll over nuke them and some sections will start to fry/fuse, but since I'm stir frying them dry-style anyways it doesn't really matter.

I typically make "gon chao ngau ho" using sliced marniated beef (soy sauce, shaoxing wine, sugar and a touch of roasted sesame oil), scallions and mung bean sprouts, plus a little soy sauce on the side to flavor/color the noodles during the stir-fry.

The stuff reheats okay in the microwave as long as they've been nuked until the noodles are pliable again which is key with any of the rice based noodle whether originally fresh or dry.

But as tasty as the homemade versions can be, it's hard to compete with a food stall or restaurant making this stuff with the traditional wok burner: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjxxrrHt7P0&NR=1

From my understanding and what's on Wikipedia, authentic Peking duck is served with tian mian jiang (literal translation: sweet noodle sauce, common translation: sweet bean sauce), scallions, and steamed pancakes aka a form of mantou.

Hoisin (romanized Cantonese for "seafood) sauce, however, is often substituted from my experience. The sauces are similar since they are technically variation on sweet bean sauces with hoisin being the sweeter of the two. Also hoisin has an acidic component that I believe is normally not found in tian mian jiang. Furthermore, unless the asian grocery store caters towards northern style cooking, I've had a hard time finding it while it's quite easy to find hoisin in gallon amounts. Personally, I've only tried tian mian jiang out of a bottle once and it was on the least sweet end. Until I get a chance to try several more brands, I don't have enough info on what to expect.

In regards to what type of pancake to use. I do prefer the mantou over the bing, when more skin than meat is served (with the rest of the meat served in another dish). However, when proportions of meat to skin are reversed then I prefer a thin bing a la moo shu pork style. On a side note, I've also wondered if moo shu should be served with tian mian jiang rather than hoisin as well.

Personally, I prefer Cantonese roast duck, especially HK style and will eat it psuedo Peking duck style in the form of a taco using fresh flour tortillas to change things up. Fortunately, for me I can get a good HK duck even in Austin, TX.

A variation on the theme of asian style tacos I like to make is using chinese roast pork (the one with the crackly skin) served with scallions and a sweetened Szechuan style bean or chili sauce.

P.S. Ah the memories of maltose found in those bulbous jars. When I was young we would dip a chopstick and twirl to gather a ball at the end and then eat it like a lolipop.

I was under the impression that bitter melon got more bitter as it ripened based on my childhood memories when we actually grew some and the information on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitter_melon supports it. Of course I could be recollecting incorrectly and Wikipedia could be wrong, but it might be worth double-checking.

The ones I do buy at the market all tend to be fairly immature with the seeds soft like in the photos, so I haven't had a chance to compare in recent memory.

For some reason I find the bitterness in bitter melon more palatable than Brussels sprouts, but then again I haven't tried cooking the sprouts in this manner yet. Maybe I should try that one day.

When it comes to metal alloys the key characteristics are strength, toughness, and abrasive resistance. The stronger the metal, the harder it is while the tougher the metal the softer it is. Soft doesn't imply weak.

In regards to blades, most manufacturers seem to favor a stainless steel alloy these days, probably a high carbon stainless steel alloy since it's hard enough to hold a usable edge. Unlike carbon steel, stainless doesn't need to be oiled for proper maintenance. Seriously, who wants to oil their blades on a periodic basis. I'll season my wok, but I'll stick to stainless steel for my knives and leave the carbon steel blades to the hardcore, especially considering those expensive and exotic high carbon steel alloys coming out these days can compare and perhaps rival carbon steel blades if you believe in brands such as global

However, stainless steel is quite soft; it's pretty easy bend silverware since it typically hasn't been hardened. When you combine the two you get something that's going to be in between the hardness of carbon and stainless. But really, it's not that hard considering even the pros often use a honing steel for their fancy knives. If you're using "hard" steel it won't get rolled over and thus need a honing steel to straighten the edge. Granted, I haven't handled many high end knives, but the ones I have all have some flex making them less hard than say my stainless steel wok spatula which doesn't flex.

Generally speaking, the harder the metal the better it edge it can hold; however, with modern alloys it's possible to have a tough alloy with similar edge holding capabilities of a harder alloy. This has an added benefit in that the tougher alloy will be easier to sharpen and maintain relative to a hard alloy, plus you run a lesser chance of chipping the blade. Therefore, when it comes to knives, alloy is going to trump whether the blade is forged vs stamped. If forged knives were really that superior you'd see them marketed more at restaurant supply stores, which seem to push predominantly stamped blades. Both methods employ grinding for final shaping anyways. Also I wouldn't be surprised if many of the forged blades on the market started off with a stamped blank thus only requiring the bolster to be formed.

Next time you're at the fish market, pay attention the the filet knives they're employing. Chances are, it's going to be a NSF certified blade which typically means that it's going to be stamped. If you don't believe me, ask Alton Brown.

Full tang vs partial/embedded tang. It really doesn't matter. Personally, I do not prefer the full tang, since I own the Fine Edge Pro set (10+ yrs), most of my knives are full tang. However, my boning knife which is a Henckels Five Star does not have a full tang, but it does have a bolster. Consider this, most NSF certified knives are not full tang, but rather partial/embedded tang. I wish I had discovered the local restaurant supply store before I picked up that Five Star because it was the most flexible blade I could find at Bed Bath and Beyond.

I call hogwash on balance. Seriously, what balance. You often see well or better yet perfectly balanced in descriptions, but that's just marketing fluff. I have yet to see a culinary technique affected by a knife's balance. Seriously, is there a see-sawing technique I'm just completely ignorant of?

While some stamped blades are light, there are also stamped blades that are hefty. However, the few I've tried do seem to be made from the lower carbon stainless steel to compensate for the extra metal and thus more prone to rolled edges. Personally, I keep the knives I use pretty sharp, shave off part of the finger nail when not being attentive enough sharp, and I use a blade grip on most knives so weight only factors in how fast it generates fatigue.

The way I see it, forged knives are generally speaking luxury items. Sure they work great, but the price to performance ratio has much to be desired when compared to the stamped knives targeted at the food services industry. But in many ways they are like cars, where that ratio is not necessarily the most important thing to the consumer. Some of us won't settle for anything less than a Porshe, others will be perfectly content with a Camry, and finally there are those of us that will think that the Civic is appropriate for one's transportation needs.

There are all kinds of "traditional" tofu which includes silken. The Wikipedia entry is pretty thorough on this topic. BTW, the Wiki lists silken/soft, firm, and dry for types of fresh tofu; however, in the US fresh tofus are often labelled silken/soft, medium and firm. As a result medium equals firm, while firm equals dry for the most part. What's labelled as dried tofu in US markets is what the Wiki calls a processed tofu.

The Mori-Nu silken extra firm contains isolated soy protein which probably gives it the extra firmness you won't be able to get with traditional methods. However, like @J. Kenji pointed out silken can be "firm". House brand silken tofu for example holds up pretty well to gentle stir-frying unlike Vitasoy. Currently, House is my favorite brand as far as taste and texture across their soft, medium and hard varieties.

Actually, I'm a bit surprise that House and Vitasoy labels weren't included since they're suppose to be in widest distribution. They're readily available in Austin, TX which shouldn't be near any of their factories. Vitasoy does own Azumaya and Nasoya, so that might be a reason why I haven't seen the ethnic Vitasoy label outside ethnic supermarkets.

@MichaelNatkin medium firmness is usually firm enough to pan fry yet still have a smooth texture. Cantonese restaurants often use a medium and occasionally, they use soft, but I rarely encounter firm tofu since it's typically lacks the smooth texture most Cantonese patrons expect. Firm tofu isn't as popular as evident by the shelf space allocated at Asian markets.

"The customer is always right" is not license to entitlement. It's a phrase that was used to train retail employees to be polite regardless of the customers behavior to make the customer feel special, but has since been misappropriated to champion self entitlement beyond what is customary.

The banning of books seems to target individuals using the business as a place of study like if they were in a library with food service. I've seen individuals take a booth rather than a 2 person table since their books wouldn't fit on the small table, never mind that the place was busy. Since they didn't think they were being rude, we get places instituting such bans when it becomes more common than naught.

I've known places that "banned" reading material long before laptops were common. One such place was a coffee shop in Evanston, IL. They even had signs up like that deli in the article. I don't think I ever saw anyone offended by the rule, rather I saw people apologize, me included when I was asked to abide by their rules after failing to notice the signage banning reading/studying. This was a college town so it was a bit unexpected, Light reading was tolerated, but you were expected to move on when you were finished eating/drinking; ordering refills was not encouraged, may not have even been allowed unless to go. At first I thought it was weird, but after seeing how busy the place was over time I could see why they had that rule.

lemons said: "So when are they going to start asking people to leave if they carry on a conversation with their tablemates too long? Do they have a timer they start when dessert is delivered?". FYI, When they bring you the bill without being prompted that's a fairly universal sign that the restaurant is waiting for you to leave.

But I digress. Is "the customer is always right" sense of entitlement becoming more predominant than say being civil towards and conscientious of others (the business and other customers)? Is etiquette really passe now, as a recent 20/20 suggests so, thus resulting in businesses taking plausibly draconian actions to control customer behavior? That would be tragic indeed.