User Comments - outdoorsross
outdoorsross
Posted on: Cold Cucumbers in Sauce
March 25, 2011, 07:17 AMWant to make the Sichuanese version of this? Try this recipie for Spicy Smacked Cucumber. It's a recipie used by Fuscia Dunlop, who wrote the splendid Land of Plenty: A Treasury of Authentic Sichuan Cooking. If you're trying to cook authentic Sichuan cuisine, it's the best english resource. I had to cook my way through 10 different English cookbooks in order to find this one and get the Sichuan taste that I love here in China.
Here are four of her books - all great fun to read, even if you can't tell a Wok Brush from a Toothbrush.
I'm with @toianw - a few more recipie lessons would be great fun.
Posted on: Dinosaurs
August 26, 2009, 06:12 AMYou should come to our 云南 dinosaur park. It's along the highway between 楚雄 and 昆明。 It has an ambitious sign saying "北有兵马俑，南有恐龙园." Literally: The north has the Xian soldiers, but the south has the Dragon park."
I haven't been, but I think they've overbilled it a bit.
Posted on: Cold Cucumbers in Sauce
March 27, 2011, 06:32 AM@bodawei: I completely understand what you're saying - there's very good reason to be suspicious about recipies written by westerners for westerners. The only reason I had to resort to that link is that another location where Dunlop wrote her own, complete recipie has been taken down.
Still, for those without access to a knowledgeable Chinese friend or cook, I still think her cookbook is one closest-to-authentic that can be found in the West.
Of course, if someone truly wants a Chinese-language challenge, type the Chinese-character name of your favorite dish into a Chinese search engine like Baidu.com and plenty of recipies written by Chinese netizens will pop up. They're lots of fun to try, and make lots of good practice for learning characters.