Mike's Chomping Cheesy Chinese Chow Challenge #9 – Sweet Potato

Disclaimer: That is a sweet potato and not a Christmas poo...

The temperatures are plummeting and the Beijing skyline is full of feathery white snowflakes. The city may be transforming into a winter wonderland, but of course that will not stop me from continuing my cheesy Chinese chow challenge.

At this time of year, you would be foolish not to seize the opportunity of scoffing a baked sweet potato. There are a number street vendors selling these winter warmers all around Beijing. If you see someone standing next to a metal drum, then it’s likely they are baking a batch of sweet potatoes! Once you choose the potato you desire, the seller will weigh it and tell you the cost - but don't worry, you can buy a spud the size of your face and it will still be a pretty cheap snack.

Many happy customers can be seen gnawing on a freshly baked potato straight out of the serving bag. I decided to give my sweet potato a cheesy challenge upgrade. After I selected the most scrumptious-looking spud, I took it back to my apartment. I then sliced it open and added baked beans with grated cheese on top.

I was instantly transported back home to the UK, with memories of jacket potatoes, bonfire nights and cosy autumnal evenings flooding back in a delightful nostalgic daydream.

The baked beans and melting cheese were the perfect companions to the fluffy, warm potato. This is a seasonal treat that cannot be limited to just once a year. I feel confident that a cheesy baked bean sweet potato will be a regular item on my winter menu.

Mike's Chomping Cheesy Chinese Chow Challenge #8 – Harbin Kao Leng Mian

Recently, my work load has intensified. However, this has not kept me off the bustling streets of Beijing. If anything, being so busy has just increased my hunger and subsequently deepened my dedication to finding delicious Chinese street food and adorn it with tasty cheese.

Sometimes, the street sellers have to take zoom off on their little frying-snack-stalls-on-wheels (henceforth known as fry-mobiles) when there are police in the neighbourhood. But when the police are preoccupied with doing policey-type-things in other parts of the city, there's generally quite a gaggle of fry-mobiles that cluster around the subway station. This provides me with ample opportunities to select a new snack and combine it with dairy products in a controversial yet fulfilling experiment.

One of the many snack stalls on wheels

With the temperature getting cooler, I decided that this time I would opt for 哈尔滨烤冷面 (Harbin Kao Leng Mian)。This is a wide, flat noodle that looks very similar to a lasagne pasta sheet. It is then coated in cooking oil and fried with onions, coriander and slathered in a paste of your choice. It can be made with a spicy, savoury or even a sweet flavour. Once it has been fried, it will then get folded over and sliced into bite-size chunks. 

Once I'd bought my warm cup of kao leng mian, I took it back to the safety of my apartment where I added a fine cheddar. As I have found with other Chinese street snacks, grated cheese works so well with food that's been coated with chili. It cooled down the heat of the chili and the melted cheddar tasted great with the fried noodle (unlike when I've dabbled with parmesan cheese in the past). 

I decided that I would also add a healthy dollop of red onion chutney to the cheesy fried noodle concoction. Some people may say that this would make the meal far too oniony (especially people within close proximity to me after I finished eating it). However, I think that the onion chutney gave the fresh onions a wonderfully tangy boost and it wasn't too overpowering. 

I am already plotting my next Chinese Chow Challenge...stay tuned!

Mike's Chomping Cheesy Chinese Chow Challenge #7 – Donkey Burger

August has been a very busy month so far, I have been settling back to life in Beijing and beginning a new school year. However, I was able to celebrate my 3 year Chinaversary with a traditional snack while also keeping up with my mission of adding cheese to Chinese cuisine.
I decided that the next snack to get the cheesy makeover treatment would involve donkey meat. I had already tried donkey meat last year in the form of donkey meat soup. The soup was really tasty and had a peppery tang to it. I also tried a donkey burger (驴肉火烧). When I think of a burger, I picture a fluffy bap, with a sprinkling of sesame seeds on the bun. But a donkey burger is quite different; the donkey meat is served inside a flaky bread pocket and usually has green peppers inside. The meat was quite nice although there were some jelly bits that I was less appreciative of. Nevertheless, I felt that the donkey burger would be the perfect addition to my cheese challenge.

Donkey soup

There is a saying in China, "天上龙肉，地上驴肉" which roughly translates to, "In Heaven there is dragon meat, on Earth there is donkey meat." With donkey meat being held in such high esteem, I knew that adding cheese to such a delicacy could leave me red-faced if I didn't take this seriously. I didn't want to make an ass of myself by ruining a donkey burger. A mule fool is not cool.
After buying a freshly made donkey burger, I carefully cut up some Monterey Jack cheese with jalapeño peppers. But looking at my donkey burger, I knew that I could add even more to make this mule munching experience even greater.

While preparing the cheese, I noticed the roasted pepper and paprika chutney, patiently waiting to be used. Not only could I add another alliterative word to my challenge, but I could also add some more flavour. I had unintentionally raised the game. Mike's Chomping Chutney, Cheesy Chinese Chow Challenge just got even more interesting!

Once all the added ingredients were sitting nicely in the soft, flaky bread pouch, I knew that I held a wonderful creation in my hands. The heat from the chutney and cheese was a delicious accompaniment to the bread, meat and peppers.

This could well be my greatest achievement in China since learning how to top-up my electricity meter all by myself.

But how am I going to top this deliciously delectable donkey delight? I will need some time to mull (mule?) this one over...

Mike's Chomping Cheesy Chinese Chow Challenge #6 – Shou Zhua Bing

Do not be alarmed. My cartoon picture for this blog post does make the Shou Zhua Bing (手抓饼) look like a deranged, evil clown with a skin problem. But I can assure you that the delectable shou zhua bing is one of my favourite street food snacks. Originally from Taiwan, the shou zhua bing is a soft and chewy pancake yet also crispy and flaky in all the right places.

There is usually a shou zhua bing vendor loitering outside my local subway station, making it a tasty and convenient pit stop before getting home. It should not be confused with the Ji Dan Guan Bing (鸡蛋灌饼) which is more commonly eaten as a breakfast wrap. Perhaps that will be a cheesy challenge for the future.

Once the shou zhua bing is heated and grilled, there are a number of ingredients that can be added before it gets wrapped and handed to you (inside a small handy bag in a vain attempt to stop the oil and other ingredients coating your hands). I decided to have an egg, chicken, lettuce and a ketchup-like sauce added to my bing (my Chinese teacher later explained to me that I should avoid choosing cheap meat in the future as it’s probably not a healthy option, so from now on it will probably be a vegetarian snack in the future).

On this particular momentously cutting-edge day I decided to embrace my inner-Blumenthal and add a new culinary masterpiece to my trailblazing cheesy challenge. I could have taken the easy route of grating cheese in my wrap. But grated cheese was already a successful pairing with my jian bing experiment. This time I wanted to be radical and revolutionise my shou zhua bing experience. I added actual slices of cheddar to my bing, before returning it to it’s rightful tortilla-esque wrap shape. Yes you read that correctly. I ADDED SLICED CHEDDAR.

It is difficult to express in words how wonderful this cheesy pancake encounter was. I suddenly felt overwhelmed by the taste sensation yet devastatingly desolate for people that will forever be eating cheese-less shou zhua bings. I almost ran back to the street vendor and slapped him with the remaining block of mature cheddar in the futile hope that he would see the future: cheesy bings.  Luckily, I calmed down and decided to get my priorities in check – I had to finish this cheesy shou zhua bing immediately before discussing it with others.

For now, I will keep this amazing discovery to myself (and anyone else lucky enough to stumble across this blog post. You’re welcome).

Gần đây tôi đã ăn shǒu zhuā bǐng và phô mai dày. Nó rất đậm đà! Nó có vị ngon đấy~

Mike's Chomping Cheesy Chinese Chow Challenge #5 – Chao Bing

Following the disappointment of my noodle and Parmesan Cheese experiment, I decided to go back to basics and use a mild cheddar cheese with one of my favourite fast food dishes; chao bing (炒饼). It may look like a noodle dish, but it is in fact strips of shredded pancake stir-fried with cabbage, egg, peppers and bean sprouts. It can also be stir fried with meat (肉炒饼). If you want chao bing without meat, ask for su chao bing (素炒饼). 

I collected a portion of chao bing from a local street stall and quickly made my way back to the apartment while the food was still hot. The chao bing from this particular stall is always tasty and a little bit spicy.

Once I grated the cheese onto the chao bing, I instantly knew that cheddar was the better choice of cheese in this situation. The Parmesan cheese would have to wait for another opportunity to redeem itself. The cheddar began to melt and after I had the first delicious bite, I breathed a sigh of relief – I had discovered a great pairing! My Cheesy Chinese Chow Mojo had returned!

After gobbling up the remaining cheesy chao bing, I made a promise to continue on the never-ending quest to find other Chinese cuisine that can be enhanced with the addition of cheese. 

Until next time, my fromage friends!

Tôi không biết “炒饼” bằng tiếng Việt là gì, nhưng nó là một món ngon.
炒饼 và phô mai bào ngon lắm!

Mike's Chomping Cheesy Chinese Chow Challenge #4 - Noodles

Bolstered by my successful baozi and cheese experiment, I felt it was time to try something wild and dangerous. A new and exciting taste sensation cannot be created if I always play it safe and never think outside the box. It’s not always cheap or easy to locate different types of cheese here in Beijing, but perhaps I was limiting myself by using cheddar in many of my investigations. I decided to put my tube of Parmesan cheese to good use. It had been sitting on my shelf for far too long.

I like a generous sprinkle of Parmesan cheese on a delicious pasta dish, so I felt quite certain that it could enhance a snacking experience if used appropriately. Noodles are not so different to pasta, so once I had mentally prepared myself for this challenge, I went on a noodle hunt. 

My local noodle restaurant were unfortunately not selling 拉面 (hand-pulled noodles), however they did have 拌面 (board/block noodles) which is a tasty noodle soup with egg, meat and vegetables. 

I hungrily placed the noodles in a bowl and watched as the Parmesan cheese rained down on the flat noodles. I felt sure that I had a winning combination.

Slurping up the noodles, I have to admit that I was rather disappointed. The noodles are already full of flavour, unfortunately the Parmesan cheese became clumpy in the soup. The cheesy gloop helped me to understand that perhaps I should go back to cheddar cheese for my next cheesy challenge. It wasn't exactly a terrible taste, but it just didn't ignite my tastebuds in the way that I had hoped. I may have had a minor setback this time, but this small failure can only encourage me to continue on this cheesy mission.

Gần đây tôi đã ăn mì sợi và pho mát pác-ma. Vị của nó lạ quá! Lần tới tôi sẽ dùng pho mát dày!

Mike's Chomping Cheesy Chinese Chow Challenge #3 - Baozi

Despite being immensely busy with the end of academic year looming, I have gallantly continued on my adventure to add cheese to Chinese food. I shall not leave any snack “un-fromaged” until I have found the perfectly delicious combination. 

Following the successful yet rancid research into the unification of stinky tofu and blue cheese, I decided to try a slightly less nauseating experiment. 

Baozi (包子) are steamed bread-like buns which can have a variety of fillings. My personal favourite filling has to be pork. What is not to like about a bready, porky, cheap snack. But what harm could come from adding cheese into this equation? 

I carefully escorted my newly purchased baozi back to the safety of my apartment and cautiously placed it on a plate. Then I realised I had almost committed a rookie mistake and still needed to remove the nappy-like paper from the bottom of the bun. 

I didn’t just want a cheese-coated baozi, so I decided to get all up in that baozi and cut it in half, allowing me to stuff some grated cheese inside.

After much deliberation, I came to the conclusion: the perfect ratio of meat to cheddar is achieved by taking half of the baozi and filling it until it is completely crammed with a cheesy-pork mixture. 

Had I transformed this fluffy baozi into a cloud-like burger? A baoger perhaps? 

I had no doubt that the cheese would taste great with the pork filling – after all, I was playing it safe after my previous stinky experiment. However, I hadn't prepared myself for how delicious it really was!

This will not be the last time I grate some cheese into my baozi...

Tháng trước tôi đã ăn bánh bao nhân thịt và phô mát bào. Nó rất đậm đà!

Mike's Chomping Cheesy Chinese Chow Challenge #2 - Stinky Tofu

Spurred on by the success of my previous cheesy endeavour, I decided to take the Cheesy Chinese Chow Challenge to a new level. 

First of all, let me set the scene: If you walk around the streets of Beijing, it is highly likely that at some point you will encounter a smell that is displeasing to the nose. The unfriendly, uninviting and unenticing odour could stem from a smorgasbord of sources, but one strong contender for the overpowering smell may well be the unforgettable fragrance of stinky tofu. 

Stinky tofu (臭豆腐) is given its name for a good reason. The smell of the fermented tofu can be considered unappealing to many people. I have eaten it on a couple of occasions and the taste is far better than the smell suggests. It could almost be likened to the oxymoron of a terribly delicious smelly cheese. 

This idea got me thinking. Why just add cheddar to this smelly snack? Why have a stink when you can have a stench? I knew what had to be done. I bravely took the stinky tofu back to my apartment and carefully added slices of smelly blue cheese to the bowl. This experiment was not for the faint-hearted…or anyone with a sense of smell. 

As the cheese began to melt in the stinky tofu soup, the pong was almost unbearably overwhelming. My nose did not appreciate the situation I had created. I gingerly took a bite of tofu and a sip of the broth. To my astonishment, I had struck malodorous gold. It may have had a putrid aroma, but the taste was peculiarly palatable.

It has certainly given me food for thought. I will continue on my quest to add cheese to Chinese street food and snacks. Although perhaps next time, in order to give my poor nose some respite, I will try something with a slightly less offensive reek.

Gần đây, tôi đã ăn đậu phụ thối và pho mát xanh. Hôi quá...nhưng ngon =))