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Chinese Dishes

NOTE:- The Chinese eat but two hearty meals a day, while at noon they take only a light lunch which may consist of steam patties, conge, a bowl of noodles, or some small cakes and fruit. At the main meal, rice is the principal food and is eaten with all the other dishes. Ordinarily (banquets excepted) there is but one course, there being no dessert, and all the food is set on the table at the same time the rice is served: no matter whether these dishes be soups, vegetables, fish, eggs, meat, or poultry.

RICE The Chinese cook rice until it is dry and each grain stands out -(138)from the others. While Americans pour water over cooked rice to wash out the starch, the Chinese do all the washing before cooking. The rice to be cooked is washed in several waters by being stirred round and round the pot either with the hand or a perforated cook spoon until the water becomes white, when it is poured off and the water changed. This process is repeated some ten or twelve times until the water pours off clear. All the cold water is then drained off and boiling water in the proportion of two cups to one cup of rice is added. After the rice has come to a boil, the fire is turned very low, and the rice allowed to cook (or rather steam) a half hour or more until firm and dry. A heavy Chinese porcelain-lined, iron pot is best, but a double boiler also serves the purpose.

SHRIMP OMELET (FU YUNG HA) I cup small, picked shrimps. 1 small onion, sliced. 5 or 6 dried mushrooms, washed, soaked till soft, and sliced into strips.

Fry shrimps, mushrooms and onion in oil over slow fire. Pour in 4 well-beaten eggs and mix.

Add a teaspoonful of Chinese Sauce (Pak Yau) and salt to taste. Fry quickly until light brown.