• Andrzej3K [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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    29 天前

    Hot take but I personally find the way most westerners relate to Asian cooking kind of fetishistic. Trust Americans to reduce entire culinary cultures to a shopping list

    • Krem [he/him, they/them]@hexbear.net
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      29 天前

      western food is pretty annoying to make, you have to go to specialty stores to buy stuff like sundried tomatoes and parsley. how many days of the week would you want to eat western food anyway, like seriously could you eat standard western food like new orleans chicken wings, or white sauce italian noodles more than once per month? their food is not like normal people food

  • mickey [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    29 天前

    I don’t think this is racist this is just cooking ignorance. Playing Virgil’s ethnicity as a trump card when he has been in the wind over allegations for years is wild, and I absolutely stan a messy queen.

    Since apparently Asian ingredient discourse is a thing now (?), can anyone tell me what I need to get?
    I have

    • rice vinegar
    • toasted sesame seed oil
    • sriracha
    • fish sauce
    • Everything But the Bagel seasoning used in place of sesame seeds

    And I need to obtain

    • mirin rice seasoning
    • chili oil
    • GladimirLenin [comrade/them, he/him]@hexbear.net
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      29 天前

      Dark and light soy, Shaoxing wine, chilli bean paste/doubanjiang, black rice vinegar, gochujang. I cook loads of asian food, its so good because most use very similar ingredients that are either shelf stable or will keep in the fridge for ages. Also i do a home made chilli oil which is a great staple to have in the cupboard.

      • I have all of these except for shaoxing wine… My white whale. I’ve been looking in every local asian food store for it but I can’t find it anywhere!!! Is it like an actual wine, or specifically a cooking thing? Alcohol laws are fairly strict here so they might not be allowed to sell it in regular stores…

          • CloutAtlas [he/him]@hexbear.net
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            29 天前

            Other rice wines are a decent sub. Shaoxing arbitrarily contains wheat due to traditions that has very little effect on the end product, which became an issue when I started cooking for a celiac.

        • It does have alcohol, i think like 11% or something so it could be alcohol laws. Funnily enough we also have strict alcohol sale laws but its always available in every asian grocer, but never in the main supermarkets. i imagine it tastes like absolute shit straight

        • Satanic_Mills [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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          29 天前

          Look for Liao Jiu, the proper name for cooking wine.

          Shaoxing wine technically just refers to any wine from Shaoxing, including those for drinking. It caught on as the western name as it the main wine imported.

      • mickey [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        29 天前

        Nice, hell yeah, I realize now I’m mostly looking at Japanese-inspired soups and noodle dishes, but just these few ingredients are a big, big roadmap to branching out to Chinese and Korean dishes doggirl-thumbsup

            • Dan dan noodles are amazing and ive been meaning to do a mapu tofu for ages. My go to for Chinese food are a Sichuan soup and a Sichuan stir fry, both would be super easy to veganise. Ill write up the recipes and post them. Also the chilli oil is so good, i give jars of away as gifts and everyone always asks when im doing up another batch.

          • mickey [he/him]@hexbear.net
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            29 天前

            Hell yeah. I think the next branch in my trajectory is kimchi and gochujang, but I am not lying when I say I appreciate your signpost into Chinese cuisine.

    • LaughingLion [any, any]@hexbear.net
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      29 天前

      thats about it.

      chinese holy trinity is ginger, garlic, and green onions.

      maybe add

      • soy sauce
      • hoisin sauce

      with all these sauces you can make a ton of chinese recipes or just experiment and make stuff you find good. asian cooking is a lot of that. taking what you got and making something you find tasty

      • mickey [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        29 天前

        I finally grew in to keeping green onions on hand, and by the firm yet gentle coaxing of a friend have gotten comfortable tripling the amount of garlic I put in anything, I need to get in the habit of using fresh ginger so I can harness this power you speak of.

          • mickey [he/him]@hexbear.net
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            28 天前

            Probably. They’re quite long-suffering in efforts to civilize me. It’s only been a couple years since I got away from using strict recipes for everything I cook. Baby steps.

        • The_Grinch [he/him]@hexbear.net
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          27 天前

          Try to get some of the smaller younger “hands” of ginger if you can find them. They’re younger, less fibrous, and have a less intense flavor. You can just throw it in the freezer and grate it frozen straight into the pan. A microplane grater is best if you have one, but the box grater will do. Even a mandolin works.

          • mickey [he/him]@hexbear.net
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            27 天前

            I’ll use this tip, keeping it around and not using it is a thing that discourages me but knowing that it’ll last in the freezer and can be used directly is EZ-PZ.

    • Sam [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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      29 天前

      Tom Yum paste is pretty much the antithesis of that twitter arguement, you can literally throw it in water and make a fairly decent instant soup. Theres lots of actual dishes you can make with it but tbh my most common usage for it is just to improve some lazy ramen.

      • mickey [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        29 天前

        I’ve had tom yum at my favorite Thai place, you’re catching me out that by Asian I really meant Japanese, I probably won’t invest in this but I’m definitely trying to develop my game of “cook instant ramen, toss the flavoring pack in the trash, and throw a lot of real ingredients at it.”

      • mickey [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        29 天前

        That actually is something I knew I should have but I wasn’t thinking of in this context. For when the darkness is all around me and I need those three pound bags of frozen dumplings.

      • mickey [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        29 天前

        theory-gary Swear I used to have a set of chopsticks, I’m gonna find some for the next time I make spaghetti and blow these people’s whole mentalitites.

    • Zezzy [she/her]@hexbear.net
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      29 天前

      I like douchi a lot. It’s fermented black soybeans that becomes kinda dry and playdough like. Vegan, super savory, keeps for a long time, and used in a lot of different foods. I mostly use it in Sichuan food (like mapo tofu. yim yum).

      • mickey [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        29 天前

        Old Godmother? Say less queen. I am not cultured enough to differentiate b/w dark and light shoyu, I literally just got up to speed on having regular and low-sodium in the fridge, but I will look into this.

        • LaughingLion [any, any]@hexbear.net
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          29 天前

          the fermented soybean version is super good, too, and very tasty to the western taste. only difference in flavor is the saltiness due to the natural msg in it.

            • LaGG_3 [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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              29 天前

              I’ll be candid and tell you that I substitute different soy sauces in a pinch. Sure, it’s not perfect or whatever - but my family has a decent enough home made meal on the table so that’s a W to chalk up.

              If I’m planning on experimenting with a specific type of cuisine for a while, I’ll go and grab the right kinds of soy sauce for the recipes I’m planning to try.

        • CloutAtlas [he/him]@hexbear.net
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          29 天前

          Dark soy just has a deeper colour and a lighter flavour, really. A tiny bit sweeter, too. So many Chinese recipes will be like “and add dark soy for colour!” and I’m like… I’m not doing that.

          • built_on_hope [she/her]@hexbear.net
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            29 天前

            It has a lighter salt flavour but a much deeper umami flavour. You don’t need much, just a small glug. I actually add a little to some western dishes as well like chilli and ragu to give a depth boost

          • mickey [he/him]@hexbear.net
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            29 天前

            So you deploy the “I ain’t readin’ all that but I’m happy for you, or I’m sorry that happened,” but for condiments. That is interesting that it is lighter and sweeter, I certainly assumed the opposite.

            • CloutAtlas [he/him]@hexbear.net
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              28 天前

              As soy sauce is a fermentation, aging actually rounds out the flavour. It’s got more glutemate which is good but in the modern day you can just add MSG for that.

              It’s like seeing a recipe call for homemade stock. Stock cubes will do fine, I’m not getting a Michelin star whilst drunk at 3 am

        • built_on_hope [she/her]@hexbear.net
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          29 天前

          Shoyu is Japanese style soy sauce, they don’t differentiate between dark and light. But for Chinese cooking you need both, they serve very different functions. Light is for adding salt and a little soy flavour, you would use it as a full or partial replacement for salt in many dishes like stir fries and fried rice. Dark is for adding depth of umami flavour and colour - when you see braised dishes in Chinese cooking with that beautiful deep brown colour it comes from dark soy sauce. For example, a very easy and classic vegan broth for noodles can be made with just a tiny bit of dark soy sauce, sesame oil, salt, and hot water.

          For laoganma make sure you get the chilli bean version, it’s the original and best imo :)

    • SpookyBogMonster@lemmy.ml
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      29 天前

      Mirin, soy sauce, and Sake are the base of a Teriyaki sauce.

      And those, plus a dashi (a stock made of kombu and Smoked/fermented fish flakes. Or shitake mushrooms instead of fish, if you’re vegan) make up the base of a ton of Japanese dishes.

      On the Chinese side of things, you can’t go wrong with a chili crisp, or a Tobanjian

      • mickey [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        29 天前

        Oooh nice, yeah I will say the anti-MSG bandwagon is low-key racist. I have a container of miso that makes a very tasty appetizer. Online I’m seeing something called dashi recommended as a partner to that? What I really want it for is to make a chanko stew, sumo wrestler style.

    • hellinkilla [they/them, they/them]@hexbear.net
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      29 天前

      Asia is like ?3 billion people with many cuisines.

      non vegan

      My fav Chinatown ingredients are shrimp paste, pork fluff, dried shrimp, Sichuan pepper oil, chilli in oil, peanut oil, fried bean curd, tofu noodles, the sausage for cooking in rice. ETA fermented black beans.

      I don’t think they all belong to a specific cuisine though.

  • sexywheat [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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    29 天前

    I FUCKIN LOVE FISH SAUCE LONG LIVE GOLDEN BOY THE BEST FISH SAUCE AND IF ANYBODY TRIES TO INVADE MY HOME IT CAN DOUBLE AS A WEAPON BECAUSE I LIVE IN CANADA AND WE’RE NOT ALLOWED TO USE ACTUAL WEAPONS lets-fucking-go

    • mickey [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      29 天前

      That baby has a man’s face 'cause his parents spiked his milk bottle with fish sauce. I’m using that Red Boat out of Vietnam but would cop the Soviet fish sauce if I saw it. Big bonus points for having a logo that features your product’s logo recursively to infinity.

  • XiaCobolt [she/her]@hexbear.net
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    29 天前

    Virgil mentioned…43 comments…and we’re discussing what ingredients to have stocked oh cool. I thought there was a new struggle session.

    • LeninWeave [none/use name, any]@hexbear.net
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      29 天前

      I don’t think it’s really racist (beyond apparently not realizing that many of these ingredients are usually staples in their respective cuisines and she only needs to buy so many to cook one dish because it’s the first one she’s cooked, and it’s not something specific to Asian food), but in the replies she categorizes any dish with a sauce as complicated so it’s definitely ridiculous.

      • mrfugu [he/him, any]@hexbear.net
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        29 天前

        Every culinary culture has its staple ingredients and its niche ingredients. Have I gone to a korean supermarket to buy a very specific sauce/paste for a recipe and then not use it again? Yeah definitely but also I use my Worcestershire sauce like twice a year at most and you’ll have to pry my sesame oil from my cold dead hands.

      • oscardejarjayes [comrade/them]@hexbear.netM
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        28 天前

        I mean, she also said she avoids basically all sauces since they tend not to be healthy, she just seems to have something of a preference for “simple” food.

        She also did literally address that different people have different staples, and she’s repeated that she’s talking about around her, in America

  • homhom9000 [she/her]@hexbear.net
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    29 天前

    I cook (east)Asian like food nearly twice a week because I love the flavor, I have a good amount of the sauces too but we don’t need to act like this is typical. We don’t expect people to eat Indian food every week, I think it’s fine if someone doesn’t have the ingredients and doesn’t know what to do with it and doesn’t have a taste for it.

    Not me though, I can eat Indian food 8 times out of the week, no breaks.

  • Beaver [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    29 天前

    I always imagine Virgil lurking in the dark depths of Briahna’s basement like the Phantom of the Podcast, awaiting the hour of return.

    • Philosoraptor [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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      29 天前

      After departing Chapo Trap House, where he was one of the original hosts, Virgil Texas went on to co-host the Bad Faith podcast with Briahna Joy Gray (who herself was press secretary for the Bernie Sanders campaign). After allegations that Virgil had groomed a teenager via DMs surfaced on Twitter, he vanished from the face of the earth and was never heard from again. Nobody has ever addressed it, and he’s still technically a co-host of Bad Faith, despite having done like two episodes and then disappearing. Chapo also never addressed any of it, but announced his departure via a written statement that was very polite and boilerplate, then never spoke his name again. It was all very weird, and the allegations were never resolved as far as I know.

  • oscardejarjayes [comrade/them]@hexbear.netM
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    29 天前

    I don’t understand people telling her that White People tacos aren’t a thing, and that nobody puts black olives in their tacos. Refried beans and black olives in tacos is something I’ve had family, friends, and family friends do for literal decades. We didn’t call it White People tacos, but they definitely weren’t anything like original tacos.

    Her takes are a little weird, but I think Twitter has wildly blown it out of proportion. The original thing was mostly just her saying she barely seasons her food. A lot of people have put words in her mouth too, like “high end”. I don’t think any of this Twitter drama matters, at all. It’s been going on for days.

    • oscardejarjayes [comrade/them]@hexbear.netM
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      28 天前

      New people also keep showing up to the argument, and so they miss all of the context, and do things like criticize things she didn’t say, or give criticisms that she already addressed.

      Like one of her very first food posts that started this long chain was recommending making rice in a cheap rice cooker.

  • infuziSporg [e/em/eir]@hexbear.net
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    28 天前

    The only thing that’s close to “weirdly racist” is saying she wouldn’t have it more than once a week. The rest is just unfamiliarity and maybe a skill issue.

    The glamorous Asian dishes tend to have a longer ingredient list that does not overlap as much with a typical American pantry.