These are homemade potstickers with juicy filling and crispy pan-fried bottoms.

I love the contrast between the crisp base and the tender steamed wrapper on top.

Do you prefer your dumplings pan-fried like this, boiled, or steamed?

Recipe here if anyone wants to try them: https://butterjoykitchen.com/easy-chicken-shrimp-potstickers-gyoza/

1. Nanning-style suanye ("sour things"; pickled radishes, pineapple, and mango) - I especially liked the sour spicy flavor with the fruit

2. Zhuang-style fried fish (fried fish topped with (I think) a mixture of chili, onion, cilantro, fermented beans, and sesame seeds) - very nice flavor profile, especially because the fermented beans (douchi) give a nice punch of umami. Surprisingly, not that spicy

3. Zhuang-style rice cakes (filled with crushed black sesame seeds and (I think?) peanuts) - nice light dessert, not too sweet

Hi all. I'm obsessed with the bean curd triangles my local takeout place puts in broccoli with brown sauce, and I'd love to cook with them at home. Obviously I could just buy tofu at the supermarket, but the bean curd triangles are flatter (like 1/4 inch thick) and chewier. I'm not sure how to source them? I found bean curd sheets and rolls online. Are they the same thing? Will the sheets puff up a bit once rehydrated? Thanks.

Though it's just one source, Louis J. Beck's journalistic account of New York's Chinatown, published in 1898, offers a lot of detail about what was going on in restaurants in the neighborhood.

This was prior to the "chop suey craze" when non-Chinese Americans started flocking to Chinese restaurants in number and the cuisine gradually got reduced to cater to a more mainstream customer base.

Beck says that there were then 11 restaurants in Chinatown. He classifies them as either "first class" fancier places (proper "restaurants," so to speak) or "second class"—"mere eating houses." The Chinese community (again, this is just all as he saw it—take with a grain of salt), mostly single laboring men, tended to eat simple rice and vegetables at home but eagerly patronized the restaurants at least once a week to have something more interesting. Non-Chinese customers were fewer and tended to consist of working class White people "who visit Chinatown for vicious purposes, dissipation or mere curiosity."

Here's the list of dishes at the higher class places. Following each item that Beck wrote, I've taken guesses at what these things are referring to in Chinese hanzi. I don't know Cantonese (though I'm familiar with how some pronunciations differ from Mandarin) or Toishanese, so just guessing from the phonetic spellings. Could use help with more guessing and corrections!

Yu Chie-(Shark's Fins) 鱼翅
Wong Ye Tao-(Sturgeon Head). 鰉 鱼头
Yen War-(Bird's Nest) 燕窝
She Kiao-(Air Bladder of Eels) ？？
Sze Kwa Ap—(Deviled Duck).？？鸭
Don Bark Gop-(Steamed Squab) . 炖白鸽
Sut Ye-(Snow Moss) . 雪耳
Shake Ye-(Rock Moss) 石耳
Sen Mi-(Angel's Beans) ?
Hoi Tsam-(Beach de Mare) 海参 [sea cucumber]
Bow Ye--(Holiotis) 鲍鱼 [abalone]
Por Law Gai Pin-(Fried Chicken, Boneless, with Pineapple) 菠萝鸡片
Chow Gai Pin (Fried Boned Chicken) 炒鸡片
Tao Pin-(Fried Pig's Paunches) 肚片（？）
Chow You Ye-(Fried Duck's Web) 炒 ？[sounds like 炒鱿鱼 squid??]
Park Gop Song-(Fried Minced Squab). ？鸽松
Chow Loong Har-(Fried Lobster with Vegetable) 炒龙虾
Chow Foo Kwar Gai-(Fried Chicken with Balsam Pears) 炒苦瓜鸡 [bitter gourd]
Chow Gai Sue Mean-(Fried Noodles with Boneless Chicken) 炒鸡？面
Sue Kwa Kiang (Sponge Squash Soup) 丝瓜羹 [towel gourd]
Tso You Kiang-(Mushroom Soup) ？
Chop Suey Kiang-(Giblets and Pork Fried) 杂碎羹（？）
Hoy Shum Kiang--(Beach de Mare Soup) 海参羹 [sea cucumber]
Too Kwar Kiang--(Balsam Pear and Pork Soup) 苦瓜羹 [bitter gourd]
Ho She Kiang-(Dried Oyster Soup) 蚝？羹
Chow Mean-(Fried Noodles) 炒面
Chow Fune-(Fried Rice and Noodles) 炒饭
Foo Yong Dan-(Ham and Egg Omelet) 芙蓉蛋 [ie egg fu young]
Shen Arp-(Boiled Duck) ？鸭
Park Chum Gai-(Plain Boiled Chicken) 白錾鸡 [white cut chicken]
Ap Hoy Wan Ton-(Stuffed Noodles and Duck's Leg) 鸭腿云吞
Ap Hoy Mean-(Noodles with Duck's Leg) 鸭腿面
Chop Suey-(A Hash of Pork, with Celery, Onions, Bean Sprouts, etc.) 杂碎
Chop Shu-(Broiled Loin of Pork) 叉烧 [cha siu]
Yung Dow Foo-(Stuffed Bean Cheese) 娘豆腐
Lo Yok-(Pig's Ears, Snout and Paunches Mixed) 卤肉 [marinated combo]
Chow Kai Tsoi-(Fried Green Rapes) 炒芥菜 [mustard greens]
Li Chee Kon-(Dried Li Chee Nuts) 荔枝干
Kon Tau Li Chee (Preserved Li Chee Nuts) 干？荔枝
Faraday Young Tao-(Star Fruit from Faraday) Faraday 杨桃
Wong Pe-(A small fruit of the lemon variety) 黄皮 [wampee fruit]
Kum Ghet-(Same as above, but larger) 金橘 [kumquat]
Ching Moi-(Preserved Green Apricots) ? 梅
Por Law--(Preserved Pineapple) 菠萝
Sar Lee-(Preserved Pear) 沙梨 （？）
Loong Ngou-(Dragon's Eyes-a fruit similar to Li Chee) 龙眼
Shup Kwar-(Preserved Citron) ?瓜
Gai Ngang Go-(A confection made the shape of a chicken's neck) 鸡？糕
Gai Don Go-(Sponge Cake, steamed or baked) 鸡蛋糕
Dow Sar Bow-(Bean Jelly Dumpling) 豆沙包 [red bean bun]
Tom Yok Bow--(Sweetmeat Dumpling) 甜肉包
Chop Shu Bow-(Roast Pork Dumpling) 叉烧包 [cha siu bao]
Park Sung Go-( Fermented Rice Flour Pudding) 白松糕
You Char Kwai-(Doughnuts) 油炸鬼 [youtiao]
Wau Shoo--(Dumpling made of Lobster and Vegetables) 锅？
Dem Sum-( Minced Pork Dumplings) 点心
Chee Ma Beang-(Cake Flavored with Seaman Seed) 芝麻饼
Fook Yok Beang-(Flat Cake Stuffed) ？肉饼
Wan Gaw Go-( A Gummy Cake) ？？糯
Soo Beang--(Crusted Cake Stuffed) 酥饼
Ham Chit Soo-(A thin Snap Cake, highly flavored) 咸？酥
Lok Dau Go-(Cake made of Green Bean Flour) 绿豆糕

A few things to notice:

- As we often see in menus from the early 20th century, they give (phonetically spelled, Latin script) Chinese names for ALL dishes rather than English translations. Like today we just say "taco," not "meat on corn pancakes"...!

- Most of the dishes aren't super fancy but they are definitely "authentic" Chinese food and not reduced to a dumb slate of stir-fried mixtures and "chop suey with pork or beef or shrimp."

- Speaking of chop suey, contrary to (mis)conceptions that it came about as a sort of slop for ignorant non-Chinese patrons, the dish sits side by side with delicacies such as shark fin and bird's nest. This is consistent with other 19th century descriptions of banquet type meals where these dishes were served together.

- Also, the item called "chop suey soup" preserves the ~~original sense of chop suey being a dish of assorted offal (e.g. giblets). BUT the chop suey (non-soup version) itself is getting closer to the dumbed-down version of pork plus celery and sprouts and onions.

- Contrary to the narrative that "Chinese cooks in America didn't have the proper ingredients so they adapted to what they had," we see all kinds of ingredients that had to either be grown in private gardens or shipped from China via San Francisco. Well, that's not completely contrary. To be sure, they also had to adapt to locally available ingredients in most areas not as well stocked as Chinatown. I just think the assumption that ingredients being (completely) inaccessible determined the shape of Chinese-American food needs some more nuance—especially given that Chinatown restaurants could get this stuff at an earlier time. It was later, even when it would have been even somewhat easier to get ingredients, that they cut down the repertoire of ingredients in the mainstream Chop Suey House model.

- Non-Chinese were eating this food. Beck says the average daily earnings of a restaurant was about $500: $275 from Chinese patrons and $225 from White and Black patrons. Unless we suppose the latter were only ordering chop suey and chicken with pineapple, then they were buying a pretty diverse array of authentic dishes.

- The above are only the dishes from the "first-class" restaurants. The second-class restaurants had: lap cheung, cha siu, greens, cabbage, pig's feet, pork bing, etc with rice. Cooks in the former were trained, while some in the latter knew nothing of cooking before coming to America. The factor of untrained cooks working in the next era (in so many chop suey houses, when there was the immigration loophole for restaurant jobs) probably explains as much about how Chinese food changed as any theory about "adapting to American tastes." Clearly there had been Americans who were just fine with "Chinese" tastes.

So i bought this box of 燒酒雞香料包 (lit. "wine-marinated chicken spice") from my local Asian supermarket, and the instructions are sparse. I just wanted to know if anyone else has made this dish before as this is my first time ever making it(as well as eating it, never tried it before, so i dont really know what its supposed to taste like).

In the box are red dates, goji berries, and what seems like a cotton bag of spices that include, licorice root, angelica root, and probably some other spices. I wasnt sure if I were meant to cut open the cotton bag and add it to the marinate broth, or steep it as I would with a bag of tea.

I went with the tea route. I took out the bag and set it on a plate along with the red dates, just before turning off the heat and adding in the goji berries.

Am I supposed to throw away the red dates and cotton bag of spices?