Help with traditional Chinese food please!?!
Answers: I work with several men from China, some of whom do not speak English, but I am very fond of them. As a show of friendship I would like to make them a SPECIAL, and TRADITIONAL Chinese dish not available in the states. Any advice or recipes to share would be appreciated!
Chinese New Year is coming up February 7th.
Where are you located? If you are not in a major metropolitan area, then you probably do not have any place that serves dim sum or have a Chinese bakery.
Goodies sold at either of those places would be fantastic. For savory dishes consider sticky rice in banana leaves with mung bean and pork and shitake mushroom filling, har gao (shrimp dumplings), sieu mai (pork dumplings).
Or consider steamed milk pudding or egg custard tarts. What region of China are they from? Foods can vary greatly between them.
There are lots of traditional Chinese New Year goodies like pineapple tarts, almond cakes (that are more like a cookie/biscuit), Nian Gao (Chinese New Year Cake), kueh lapis (Thousand Layer Cake), Kueh Bangkit (Fragrant Coconut Cookies), there are many more if you search.
If you really want to impress them, try making "turnip cake aka Chinese radish cake". Tons of recipes here:
http://www.google.com/search?client=safa...
Edit your post if you have questions.
Make steamboat for them...It is Chinese version of hot pot or fondue.
Let your guests dip their food into the pot to cook, you can serve them with any type of vegetables (plenty) or seafoods or meats, cut into bite size pieces...you just need to make a very good stock by boiling pork bones and carrots in a large pot of water, removing the bones and carrots before transferring the stock into the steamboat/hotpot and add more water if stock runs low. Using light soya sauce and sweet chili sauce as dips for your guests as flavourings and serve with steaming hot rice.
You can get the steamboat set from any Asian supermarkets.
It will be very impressive, cheap and easy to prepare.
There are many "styles" of Chinese cuisine: Beijing or Northern, Shanghai or Southern, the Guandong (aka Cantonese), Hunan, Shichuan, Mongolian, etc. You better find out what region/city these people are from!
In the Western Hemisphere generic Chinese food is NOT what is eaten in China!
This is a good website for starters:
http://www.index-china-food.com/