Vegetarian Cha'o Ga` / Chicken Congee

Cha'o Ga` Chay / Vietnamese Chicken Congee 

 For the congee:

1 Cup of Rice

1-2 gallon(s) of Water

1 Medium Onion  slice in 4

Mushroom Seasoning 

Rinse the rice, add water & onion in a big pot and leave it on the stove at high heat till boils.  Then turn heat down to a medium and stirring occasionally so that the rice would not settle at the bottom which could burnt...we don't want to do that!

I suggest using a non-stick pot so that when the rice settles in your pot before you get a chance to stir them up, you could scoop them up without a problem! 

Keep it on the stove until the mixture thickens usually an hour is good.  Depending on how thick of a soup base you want while it boils, you can add in more water to get the right medium that you prefer (add only while it's cooking).  

Once you get to the right texture and medium, add in the mushroom seasoning to taste ( this simply is just your own preference so I can't say how much you need to put in!), just like adding SALT to anything... do it in small amount each time until you get to the taste that you want!!!! DON'T POUR a large amount in at once cuz... well you know how that goes! LOL 

  

YOU'RE DONE ... with your congee!!!!

The other part is the chicken and cabbage salad that comes on the side of this congee... you'd need....

 Gluten Sausage

 Shred them to long thin pieces like this just like you would a piece of chicken breast.... except it's cleaner and doesn't have a meaty smell ...yay! This time I've only used 3 pieces of the gluten sausage... 

 Once that's done, add in Sesame oil (1 tbsp) and mushroom seasoning (1-2 depends on you), use your hand to toss and squeez everything together so that the gluten can absorbs the seasonings.  Pick a little piece and try to taste if it's tasty enough... you can choose to add more of the mushroom seasoning... no need to add more oil. Set aside ... =0)

 

Then you'd need white cabbage, slice them as thin as possible (or as thick as you can possibly enjoy chewing LOL), for this I have used 3/4 of a small cabbage.  

And the most important ingredient in a chicken salad is this "herb" called Rau Ram or "Vietnamese Coriander" and this is what the leaves would look like.  It usually comes with the stem but you'd need to separate the leaves and throw away the stems.  

Once rinsed and clean, chop them sparingly ... and add it along with the cabbage in the mixing bowl with the seasoned gluten.

 Then add in 2 limes juice, mushroom seasoning, 2 tbsp of sugar, and grind black pepper and give them a good toss.  Again... personal preference on how it taste... like it more sour? Add lime juice.  Sweeter? Sugar... etc.  But keep in mind that if you want the saltier... add ONLY mushroom seasoning, I swear by mushroom seasoning because first of all it's not as salty as salt therefore much easier to work with and easier to fix even when you go overboard, and MOST IMPORTANTLY it does not make your veggies wilt!!!! Which I think is so important when you're preparing salads because you want them to look and taste fresh! ( I made this the night before and the next day the cabbage are still crunchy and taste just as FRESH!)

So here is what you'd expect it to turns out...

AND THERE YOU GO!!! YOUR CHICKEN CONGEE IS DONE AND READY TO SERVE!!! 

 Here I topped of my congee with some chops cilantro, dried onions, and black pepper.

<3 this is my very first "recipe" post... I'm not sure of how good of a job I did in describing the process to you but I hope that it's not too confusing... if you have any questions feel free to ask me on the comment section or email me ... I'd do my best to answer.  I hope you'd enjoy it after you're done because I really did! And so does my husband! <3 

We both love the original Chicken Congee but with him being a vegetarian, I tried to be as creative as possible with our food and try to bring it back to our normal days of eating and this somewhat came pretty close.  You savvy eaters might questions why is there no onions in the salad which is in the original viet chicken congee recipe... but the answer to that is simple... my husband HATES onions so I have to minimize that to the max! 

If you don't mind onions, then you'd just slice them like the cabbage and add them in along with the cabbage!  It adds an extra punch to the taste of the salad which is wonderful!!!!! 

 HAPPY THANKSGIVING AND HAPPY COOKING!!!! <3

Chinese Breadsticks or Gio Chao Quay

Many of us are very familiar with this breadstick and probably eaten it all our lives... so did we! But to our surprise this little dough has a very good story behind its making.  And we learned of it in Hangzhou, China when we visited Mieu Nhac Phi or Yue Fie's Temple.  

Yue Fei (March 24, 1103 – January 27, 1142), Pengju, was a military general of the Southern Song Dynasty. He is best known for leading the defense of Southern Song against invaders from the Jurchen-ruled Jin Dynasty in northern China, before being put to death by the Southern Song government.^[2] He was granted the posthumous name of Wumu by Emperor Xiaozong in 1169, and later granted the posthumous title of Prince of E (鄂王) by Emperor Ningzong in 1211. Widely seen as a patriot and national hero in China, since after his death, Yue Fei has evolved into a standard epitome of loyalty in Chinese culture.

In 1126, several years before Yue became a general, the Jurchen-ruled Jin Dynasty invaded northern China, forcing the Song Dynasty out of its capital Kaifeng and capturing Emperor Qinzong of Song, who was sent into captivity in Manchuria. This marked the end of the Northern Song Dynasty, and the beginning of the Southern Song Dynasty under Emperor Gaozong.

Yue fought a long campaign against the invading Jurchens in an effort to retake northern China. Just when he was threatening to attack and retake Kaifeng, corrupt officials advised Emperor Gaozong to recall Yue to the capital and sue for peace with the Jurchens. Fearing that a defeat at Kaifeng might cause the Jurchens to release Emperor Qinzong, threatening his claim to the throne, Emperor Gaozong followed their advice, sending 12 orders in the form of 12 gold plaques to Yue Fei, recalling him back to the capital. Knowing that a success at Kaifeng could lead to internal strife, Yue submitted to the emperor's orders and returned to the capital, where he was imprisoned and where Qin Hui would eventually arrange for him to be executed on false charges.^[10]

Shuo Yue Quanzhuan states after having Yue Fei, Yue Yun, Zhang Xian arrested under false charges, Qin Hui and his wife, Lady Wang (王氏), were sitting by the "eastern window", warming themselves by the fire, when he received a letter from the people calling for the release of Yue Fei. Qin was worried because after nearly two months of torture, he could not get Yue to admit to treason and would eventually have to let him go. However, after a servant girl brought fresh oranges into the room, Lady Wang devised a plan to execute Yue. She told Qin to slip an execution notice inside the skin of an orange and send it to the judge presiding over Yue's case. This way, Yue and his companions would be put to death before the emperor or Qin himself would have to rescind an open order of execution.^[10] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yue_Fei

^{People of the land were sad and angry for they had really admire the General and hated the Official and his wife for their bad deed.  One of the food stall owner who sells cakes was so upset and he just couldn't find a way to express how he felt.  As he looked around his shop and saw some left-over bread dough.  So after he pound the dough for a while and mold it into two human figures stuck together (the Official and his wife).  After that owner was still not please so he threw the dough into the frying pan to fry them until they were golden brown.  As a customer came in asking for his regular cakes, the owner said there's no cake today and he's only selling these breadsticks or you char kway meaning corrupted Offcial or Giang Than.  As words gets out people really love the breadsticks and that had carried on till today!}

^{Whether it's really true or not I'm not sure ... but it's quite interesting don't you think?} 

^{Oh!!! At Yue Fei's Temple there are kneeling statues of the couple in front of his grave and people who comes in there can freely hit them however they like... from what we have heard, they were made of stones at first but they were severely damaged by people beating them so they then got cast in iron... even as iron, the Official's head has a mended dent!}  

Shopping in China ... its ups and down...

Shopping in China is quite nice since everything is so cheap!!! But beware ... it might not be at all pleasant especially in the flea market or in the tourist area ...

From what we were told by our tour guide.... everything you see at the tourist shops could be half as much outside in the streets if not...even less than that! We had to learn the very hard way...

We bought this one stone massager tool, so before I bought it I asked the shop where we had tour how much it costed so I know what to expect to pay outside.  Price in the shop was 20 Yuan.  Saw it in the flee market and the seller told us that it's 89 Yuan... HELL NO! that's insane ...as we walked away he asked how much we want to buy it for and we made an offer of 10 yuan... and SOLD!  That's the kind of bs #s that they'd throw at you!!! So be very careful!!! And they are usually very rude but don't mind it at all... don't feel bad even if you low ball it because hey... if they sell it to you then they're definitely made enough money.  And if you're uncomfortable with the price and think it's not worth it, then it's usually is! =0)

Another incident that we got ripped-off good. Since things are so darn cheap, we didn't think twice about buying food and that's when they shelled us out knowing that we are foreigners.  

We went to this food stall that sells fried banana and ordered two! Turns out it cost us 30 Yuan! That's $5 for two piece of dough! That's just ridiculous and it's not even good! We were like "WHAT?" the guy had pointed out to the sign in the back with the # 15 with a bunch of chinese written next to it ... as if we could read them... but we went ahead and paid him since we already ordered! $5 for two piece of dough! So we learned... always asked how much it is before buying anything!!!!! 

There you go! $5 for that...  

Then there's this ... crabs stick... lesson learned ... asked for the price before you buy!!! So we were told that it's 20 Yuan each.  So we were like okay that's not bad so while they drop it in the deep frying pan and chatted us up.  When it's ready they hand it over and  asked for 60 YUAN!  WHAT THE HELL? they said that it's 20 Yuan per crab and since it's three on a stick so it's 60 Yuan... and again with the pointing to the  board with the # BS!!!! And we swore to never eat street food again... first of all, people is out there to grill you and the quality is not even good enough for a fraction of the price!!! Well, not even good enough to eat to be honest!!! 

Not WORTH IT!!!! 

But then again... we got tons of other stuffs for cheap that's really worth it too! 

Like  these!!! 

Seller asked for $20 we offered $6.5 and SOLD!!!  =0) This kite expands out to 6ft. long and it's very well made! My husband loved it!!!! And we had to carry it on the plane cuz we can't stuff it in our luggage even though the wings can be folded down!

One of my favorite is this doll set... I use to think that if I travel I'd try to collect ethnic costumes but only to find out from my other trips that they end up in a box somewhere in the house.  It's impossible to display all of them in our place... so I changed my collections to dolls ... which is great because they have their ethnic clothes on and they're awfully cute and it doesn't take up too much room!!!

I bought this at the Forbidden City for 80 Yuan in the shops there... so no bargain although at some shops you could still do that ... it's was our first purchase so we didn't know better ... so that turns out to be about $12 ... but then I found the exact same thing on the street shop for 90 Yuan but it was much better quality... they're supposedly soft plastic piggy banks but the ones I bought were hard plastic ... one of the head broke off in my jammed luggage ... but there's nothing a little glue can't fix!!!! =0)

I also got this really cute pair of shoes for $5!!! 

It's not something you could really wear everyday and chances are you have about a week to wear them down to rags, but they're just so darn cute and cheap.... so whatever! LOL

Those purchases are chump change but fun! 

My husband got into some serious shopping at the tea and tea pot places where he spend $500 on one of his tea sets among others as gifts, I haven't seen anyone who's into tea as much as he is so I didn't care how much he spends on them (yes... we found out now that the tea pot he bought is not worth $500! surprise!!!! not really)

So overall it was fun shopping there!!! 

EXCEPT for this one place we went to that produce and sell REAL SILK!!! They claimed to sell only REAL SILK and everything in that place is REAL!!!! and that's just BS!!! 

I bought two pillow covers similar to these except in yellow shelling out $40 for them... turns out they're FAKE!!! It's not real silk!!! How did I know??? See... there's a trick... if you burn real silk there should be a smooth line where the burn is, unlike plastic where the burn mark would have plastic bubbled up and feels rough! So once I got home and wanted to see if it's really true so I burned a corner of the inside of the case and tah dah!!! IT'S F... POLYESTER...PLASTIC!!!! The same thing cost $3 on the streets!!! ARGGGGGGG and this was so called "GOVERNMENT OWN AND OPERATE!!!" It's was an F... scam!!!!! Also bought a fancy scarf for my mother in law... I think I'd cough up blood to find that fake too... but I don't think I can deal with the disappointment.... plus I can't really burn a corner of it and not have it noticed!