Meals at home during Thanksgiving
Usually when I go home for Thanksgiving, it's time for catching up on shows and movies. Anything from the cinematic greatness like Monsters vs Aliens to shows like Glee. Actually I think Glee is one of the most enjoyable shows on TV right now. Sure it's cheesier than some triple creme cheese, that doesn't stop me from loving it though. The show's got a fake pregnancy, teen pregnancy, a delusional female lead, and a nimrod male lead. Clearly the show has everything I could possibly ask for. It's nearly as perfect as the Michael Bay Victoria's Secret commercial. Now obviously in between all that entertainment, I have to eat... and usually Mom will make sea cucumber once during Thanksgiving.
If you've never had sea cucumber, it's really difficult for me to explain it. When it's cooked properly it's really super soft. In fact, it's almost like fat in its consistency. It's usually dehydrated or frozen if you get it from a Chinese store. If you get it dehydrated, you have to soak it in water for three days or something crazy like that. After that I'm not sure exactly how my mom cooks it but it's super delicious. For the most part, I think it's nearly tasteless and you have to cook it with some broth of some kind to impart some flavor to the sea cucumber. It's quite delicious the way mom cooks it though. It's one of those things that I probably never want to attempt by myself.
We also tried this gluten dish that was just weird. Mom fried the gluten and then stir fried it with some sort of mushroom and basil. The basil and mushroom was really good but I can't get my mind around gluten. It just has a weird mouth feel and I can't help but wonder why people would choose to eat it.
And then we had some more mushrooms. This plate had some Enoki mushrooms and some wood ear mushrooms. I tried to look for the wikipedia page for the wood ear mushrooms since some of you might not know what it is... but no luck. The volunteers haven't really heard of it. It's a mushroom that's probably used more for texture than anything else. It's not really a meaty mushroom. This dish was really good though and went well with rice. Meals at home usually is pretty good and it's great to be able to relax, eat good food, and enjoy mindless television.
Oh man, those dishes remind me of home so badly. But as much I as try, I cannot seem to like sea cucumber. I actually hate it. By the way, my mom soaks the dehydrated kind, then braises it in a ceramic pot for a really long time.
Also, those wood ear mushrooms (which I love) and is a staple is any Chinese person's diet is also called 'cloud ear' fungus. Try wiki-ing that.
hungry
December 11, 2009 12:23 pm