Calling all requests! Plus, a note about requests.

Hi guys. You have alluded to it in a few videos but I'd love to learn the differences between the various pickled mustards yacai style, zhacai, etc. My poor western tongue has trouble pronouncing the difference but would love to learn more. I have found a few different styles in my local store in the US.

One other request I'd forgotten to mention earlier: I'd love to see a video on how to do homemade pickles, in particular sichuanese pickled chiles, since those are impossible to find here

Hendrik de Kock

I'm obsessed with luo bo gao / 蘿蔔糕. I'd love to see any sort of recipe on it from the very basic to the dynamic uses of it in dishes. You guys are probably my favorite cooking channel on YouTube. Thanks for all you do on spreading the word on Chinese cooking.

This's so interesting - how old's the book? I'm going to need to chat with Steph on it. You know what it's called in Chinese? "麻辣鸡丁", Mala Jiding - that is, numbing-and-spicy chicken cubes. I'm wondering if the black pepper was what the Chinese diaspora in America used before Sichuan peppercorn could be sourced? My personal conception of a dish that's called "Mala Jiding" is something akin to one of these two first pictures: https://bit.ly/2Ol2BqG That is, either something that follows the method for Kungpao chicken but goes with the Mala flavor profile in place of the Lychee Burnt spice flavor profile (i.e. Kung Pao)... or a crispy chicken dish that's similar to Laziji but uses boneless chicken (the latter might be a good idea & a nice way to revisit Laziji without upsetting our friend Adam). Honestly, what'd be really interesting would be a well-research series on "the foods of the Chinese diaspora". Look at the historical dishes in China, see where people moved and how things evolved over time. Unfortunately, we're obviously not the right people to make that series but SOMEONE should - and whoever that person is they should totally get in contact with Steph and make use of her badass research skills for the historical mainland China portions ;) Oh! And re black pepper, something that we were surprised was how much it was used in Yangzhou/Jiangsu "Tucai". While I'd still venture that overall white pepper's more common, after travelling a bit again that statement feels a bit more regional than we'd anticipated.

Stephanie Li and Chris Thomas

In these threads actually. I'll write stuff down outside of the threads, but it's easiest for us to have things centralized. So I'll have the "Calling for Requests" threads, which I'll try to start doing monthly again (and then sometimes we'll also refer to the requests thread under the YouTube community tab for inspiration too).

Stephanie Li and Chris Thomas

I’d like to request Cantonese tongshui please, starting with 白果腐竹糖水 (soy gingko nut dessert soup) where the soy sheets are fully emulsified into the soup. I use a pressure cooker or blender to get that effect, but wondering what are more traditional methods to achieve emulsification? Much appreciated!

This seems unusual with the heavy use of pepper. So is this a traditional dish, or something more "modern"? We really like it, but the results vary too much. Any comments or suggestions would be welcome.

I'm interested the the recipe for Seseme Pepper chicken. I put a link to a scanned copy of the recipe on Discord at https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/435982180510990339/574685077032796210/Scanned_Document.pdf

I would like to rather see home cooking dishes than restaurant dishes too! Some ideas: * Feng Ji (wind chicken?) - it's steamed with roasted sichuan pepper, and eaten cold, I think. My grandmother used to make it, I still remember the overpowering sichuan pepper smell it caused in the house. * Tea smoked chicken (I did it successfully in a alu-foil covered dutch oven, but curious to see your take on it). * Vegetarian dishes (e.g. Luo han cai?). I know you can make everything tasty by adding meat to dishes, but how to make things tasty without meat?

You guys are great! I’d love to see more recipes for chili pastes or foundational ingredients that can be used in lots of dishes.

Mr. Martini

Where would be the best place to send requests? Patreon DM?

If I make it to Brandy Ho's, is there anything I MUST try?

I'd love to see more tofu and tofu techniques - especially soups and stews, as I think you mentioned you were saving that for another video already.

phillip_mk

100% endorse the “home cooking” idea - a few dishes that are what Chinese moms throw on for the kids after school! I’ve already added a few of your dishes to my own weeknight repertoire and would love more. Alternatively, anything that can be made in gigantic batches, or prepped well in advance. Any Chinese equivalents to Japanese bentos or Korean dosiraks?

old boomer has new excitement in life.. trying to do what y’all do and i thank you for the fun.

lulu & tazzy

So, I know you can't do it at your apartment. There's a Restaurant in San Francisco called Brandy Ho's Hunan. If you want, find a park or wherever outside, get some foil for your work and do tea smoked anything.

First and foremost, I am curious to know more about basic staples of home cooking. Many of the dishes you feature are street or restaurant dishes. I'd like to know more about what simple dishes are common in a typical Chinese household. I'd like to build a repertoire of dishes I can cook on week-nights (qingjiao rousi and mapo tofu have been perfect for this). Some more ideas include xiao long bao (I know you have mentioned it before), crab in black bean sauce, or stir-fried long beans in garlic. Long beans might be suitable for one-among-several dishes in Stir Fry 102.... similar format as you did with fried rice. Thanks again for all your great work!

How about more tiers? $10 is a bit much, given how many channels I contribute to, but I’d like to give more than $1. $2 would be a good place to start.

Michael Edelman

If you guys could make 三味茄子 I would love to see how you guys would approach it.

I know I requested that dry pot cauliflower earlier this summer.. not sure if it got lost in the shuffle or if it’s in progress :)

Cecily K Janzen

I'd really like to see a dish that makes a use of the wok-smoking technique. I read about it quite a bit in recipe books (Fuchsia Dunlop talks about it a lot) but it's a technique that would be super helpful to see in a video. Don't really have a specific dish there (tea smoked duck? The smoked beef version of the beef with yeshanjiao?) but I know it's a technique I see discussed a lot. I do a fair bit of this now, but a primer on basic soup noodle technique would also be wonderful. I hope these requests aren't too bad

Hendrik de Kock

I have been planning a project to cook a whole hog's head. I love the cheeks, tongue, ears and brain separately, but am looking for a recipe to prepare the head as a whole. This might be beyond what you seek, but at the least I would appreciate any advice you could share.

Thanks for your work!! I recently discovered you guys and will be exploring your dishes for awhile. Off the top of my head, consider a beef noodle soup and a treatment on tea. Thank you!!! Chris