I just wasn't sure if I had cut the pork right--the recipe says to cut the shoulder along the grain into long strips 1 1/2 to 2 inches wide. And even though I suck at shopping and cutting the ingredients for Chinese food (obviously) I am opinionated enough to tell you that unless you have a stove that looks like this:



...there's no point in cooking with a wok. God yes. The pork shoulder was about an inch tall--did that mean to cut it up into, say, 8 blocks of pork an inch tall and an inch and a half wide? (all the while I'm turning the pork this way and that, figuring out which way the grain went). The snow peas will not sneer at you, I promise.

On with the cooking. Would it be right? The older ones (I'm told) just had holes in the top of the stoves and the rounded bottoms were exposed to fire below.

Can you duplicate this on your little flat-top stove? Because the idea of a wok is that there is even HOT temperature on the bottom AND the sides. More anxiety. Would THAT be ok? In fact, I was thinking about not posting at all about them because I didn't think I had quite captured the essence of these recipes.

Asian food is where I feel at a disadvantage with no photos to emulate. In case your Chinese isn't up to snuff, I think that translates to "barbecued pork". Another thing I discovered: Stop n Shop, for some idiotic reason, stocks dried rice noodles in the fresh pasta section. Did I wake up at 5 am starving? Could that be considered a "strip"? It's standard stir-fry stuff--hot pan, cook ingredients in order of density, add sauce at end.

Hm. Why?

Being unfamiliar with these ingredients, I didn't cotton on to this fact until I was at home, saying Hmmm, these don't feel that pliable. Yes, I did, but that's ok. This is where my anxiety started. Sluuuuuuurp! No, I had to soak them in hot water. So, I left the cornstarch out--nothing to thicken up!

Here was the final dinner bowl:



Tasty? I'm not a photo-cookbook gal, but that's because most everything I cook is Western and I can visualize it easily.

Let's start with the Char Siu. That's what they do. Why? Like, a long list of ingredients, with one (or more!) being something like this: tomato sauce (page 117). No, you cannot. By the way, I have to stop for a moment and tell you that usually if I see a recipe embedded in a recipe, it's a deal-breaker. The whole time I was making both Char Siu and Chow Fun, I was pretty much convinced that I was doing it wrong. Yes, you can.



But it would be much less expensive for you to buy a wide, flat-bottomed pan that will heat evenly, that will fit YOUR stove. And I'll confess--those small pieces didn't make it very far out of the oven before they went into my mouth. I didn't think so.

Anyway, I went with my first notion, and after marinating and roasting it looked like this:



At this point I could see that the smaller pieces definitely looked better--crisper and more saucy--and I was regretting my earlier cutting decision. Also, this stuff is the equivalent of angel hair pasta, maybe even thinner. You can't buy peanut oil anymore. Well, also there's the whole "I"m cooking the entire book thing".

Anyway, here are some things I discovered while I was shopping for the Chow Fun. So Chow Fun lists the char sui as an embedded recipe, but the char siu looked so easy I went along. Mmm.

Well, on to the Chow Fun. And the next time I see fresh rice noodles--wherever I am (they must be somewhere)--I will snatch them up so I can try this again. If you were to go to Chinatown (I think I go once a year for dim sum in Boston) you might see these but they'd be scary bright red.

The recipe is pretty straightforward--marinate in tasty stuff, roast over water pan while basting. The sauce (which was supposed to be complemented shortly thereafter by a cornstarch mix) was instantly absorbed by the rice noodles. Now here I had some issues. Can you buy an expensive stove to replicate a Chinese restaurant kitchen stove? Notice how all those woks are sitting in nest-type things? Why? Where has it gone??

I have a lovely deep wide flat pan that is perfect for stir-fries.