Chinese Cooking 101

After almost 3 months of being in China, I was finally ready to try my hand at Chinese cooking. I even went to Carrefour today and bought a wok. Not an easy thing to do when there were well over 100 choices. I purchased all of my ingredients for the recipe found in my new asian cookbook and could taste the sweet and sour pork all day.

I chopped the meat and vegetables in the afternoon and by evening I was ready to cook. I asked Sophia for some help. My first clue that this was going to be less than tasty was when she asked me if I had any "MSG". Yep....you heard it right....MSG. Which by the way is sold in Carrefour. An entire aisle dedicated to the less than healthful substance. I told her no that we don't cook with it and showed her our regular salt.

She proceeded to cook the pork in the new wok and to my dismay removed it and placed it back into the same bowl it was originally stored in. My heart sank. I new this meal was ruined. I would have a hard time serving this in the US let alone in a country whose meat I don't quite trust unless I overcook it. Next she quick-cooked the veggies, then added the meat back to the pan. She put a few tablespoons of ketchup in the pot and tossed it all together. This, by the way, was not part of the recipe. She removed the "meal" from the wok and this time placed it in the bowl used to store the veggies. But then, took the original bowl that held the raw meat and turned it over the dish, spilling the raw meat juices on top of the cooked mixture.

Not only was the meal covered in raw meat juices, but the pork was raw as well. The meal was ruined. The only thing salvagable was the stickly white rice still steaming in the rice maker. As Sophia was stepping out the door to go home, I quickly put some Kraft Mac n' Cheese on the stove. Then hid the evidence.

Morgan had her heart so set on having a Chinese meal tonight, that she insisted on eating her all-American dinner with chopsticks. And this is how Molly eats most meals....one hand on a utensil, the other shoving food in her mouth. She will use a spoon/fork ocassionally, but usually she just fists her way through it.