The more I learn about Chinese cooking, the less I know. Except that I KNOW when my Chinese cooking is BAD. According to the best Chinese cooks, American Chinese food is "gloopy and gloppy." Yes, yes, it is. And in that tradition, I made some very gloopy and gloppy mu shu pork.
Texture is extremely important in Chinese food. It must be balanced, and it must be equal in flavor to the experience of eating. How food FEELS in your mouth is very much a part of the success of a dish.
I have not mastered this.
Not that I really need to MASTER it. But, I mean, now that I know what I know, I can't help but seriously criticize my Chinese cooking.
It is very discouraging. Some things should just be saved for the experts.
Like, when I had to decide whether or not to immunize my child. I read a book about it and got seriously freaked out. I decided that her pediatrician (also a friend of the family's) had the authority to decide, and I will just go along with it. I am not a pediatrician.
However, really good Chinese food is very, very difficult to find in a restaurant in the U.S. I have only had it at The Golden Buddha, in Capitola, California. Eating there with groups of friends sharing dishes, I had to stop being a vegetarian, just so I could experience all the wonders of meat dishes (my friends would roll their eyes at me when I said I wouldn't share a meat dish -- sometimes I would rather have friends than ethics). The mu shu at Golden Buddha was unforgettable. I would link you to their website, but as I have said before, restaurant websites are terrible.
P.S. No picture of gloopy, gloppy mu shu. I am sparing you the grossness of bad food photography.
Gloppy glop galapagos. It was still really, really good. I had three MuShu burritos to almost finish it off. Ricardo
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