Recipes & Photos
My Taiwanese 'Eat Drink Man Woman' Dinner & a Movie exceeded all my expectations. The meal was one of the easiest and tastiest I've ever prepared, and the film was a delight. I served Shrimp & Water Chestnut Croquettes, Hot & Sour Soup, Baked Whole Tilapia Fish with Chinese Chili Sauce, Stir-Fried Pork with Chinese Vegetables, Shrimp in Spicy Sauce, San Pei Chicken, and Taiwan Fried Rice.

Here is a link to all the Recipes and Photos.

12:01 AM PDT Permalink |

A Tally of the Cost of Dinner
The cost of the ingredients for my 'Eat Drink Man Woman' Taiwanese dinner are listed below. Keep in mind that the prices are based on buying everything new rather than using ingredients that I already had in my pantry. Of course there were lots of things left over for future meals, so the actual cost of the dinner based on the quantities of the ingredients used to make the dishes will be much lower than the grand total of stocking a pantry from scratch for preparing Taiwanese cuisine.

Specialty Ingredients:

Chinese 5-Spice Powder - 1.79
Sesame Oil - 1.99
Dried Shitake Mushrooms - 2.49
Bamboo Shoots - .99
Water Chestnuts - .99
Rice Wine - 3.79
Rice Wine Vinegar - 2.29
Chili Paste - 1.69
Panko Bread Crumbs - 2.99
Tsingtao Beer - $6.99

Fresh Ingredients:

Ginger Root - .93
Onion - 1.01
Scalliions - .59
Whole White Fish - 1.76
Shrimp (2 lbs) - 9.96
Garlic - .56
Ham - 1.29
Bok Choy - 1.19
Celery - 1.29
Pineapple - 1.00
Green Peas - 1.79
Carrots - .56

Basics:

White Vinegar - 1.19
Soy Sauce - 2.99
Cooking Oil - 2.49
Corn Starch - .99
Eggs - 1.79
Sugar-1.19
Rice - 1.99

Total - $60.56 U.S.

02:32 AM PDT Permalink |

Tasty Leftovers
The leftovers from my Taiwanese dinner were almost as delicious as they were the night before...and plenty of 'em. Since Will couldn't be with us on Dinner & a Movie night, I made sure to save him a little of everything. He's in two choral groups at Vintage High: a small Men's Choir, and a large Concert Choir. On the evenings he has a performance, he gets all dressed up in a handsome tuxedo, and I always like to serve him a light meal before the show. So he enjoyed a tasty Taiwanese dinner before last night's performance. And after the show, when Rene and I got home, we had an encore of last night's meal as well. Everything warmed up just fine, and it was a welcome treat after an evening of beautiful choral music.
12:55 PM PDT Permalink |

My Eat Drink Man Woman Taiwanese Dinner... How Everything Turned Out
Last night's dinner was smooth as silk. All the prep work I did the night before went a long way toward making yesterday's cooking tasks a breeze. However, it still took me all day in the kitchen to get it on the table by eight.

The Shrimp & Water Chestnut croquettes were definitely my favorite. I rolled them in panko bread crumbs and they fried up crispy and golden. As an added bonus, I ended up with a dozen pork dumplings, which were originally intended for the Hot & Sour Soup. But the soup had enough other ingredients that it didn't need dumplings, so I baked them in the oven and they turned out crispy and savory. Both were so tasty that they didn't even need the Hoisin Sauce I served with them. The Hot & Sour Soup turned out just as I'd envisioned (minus the dumplings). Rene loved it.

The San Pei Chicken was an unexpected success. For such a simple recipe, it was one of the tastiest dishes on the table. All it took to prepare were two chicken leg quarters and equal parts of sesame oil, soy sauce and rice wine, simmered for 6 hours in the crock pot the night before. To prepare for serving, I thickened the sauce with a little cornstarch in a saucepan on the stove, and baked the chicken legs in the oven for half an hour. The sauce made a lovely brown glaze with a surprisingly complex flavor.

The Pork Stir-Fry with Chinese Vegetables was perfect. The sauce was velvety and delicious, and the vegetables were cooked just right. It was a nice complement to the Fried Rice, which included diced ham, pineapple, carrots, peas, scallions, garlic and ginger.

The baked Tilapia fish with Chinese Chili Sauce was another success. I'd never baked a whole fish before, so it was a new culinary experience for me. The fish was moist, tender and flavorful, and the sauce was translucent, slightly sweet and spicy. It was another dish that Rene especially enjoyed.

The Spicy Shrimp Stir-Fry was also tasty, but it wasn't extraordiinary. I had hoped that it would be more crispy, however, the recipe called for 3/4 cup of stock, so it was much more saucy than I'd envisioned. Nevertheless, it was delicious.

Needless to say, with all that food, we didn't make it to the Lychee Fruits and Pineapple in Rice Wine that I'd planned for dessert. But they will keep until another evening when we're not so overstuffed.

Amazingly, I managed to keep the dishes done throughout the meal preparation, so my kitchen wasn't a disaster area. Tidying up and putting away the leftovers was quick and easy, and the rest of the clean-up was not a huge chore today.

We also enjoyed the film Eat Drink Man Woman. Of course, we'd already seen Tortilla Soup, which is a Latino version of the same screenplay by director Ang Lee, so we were familiar with the plot. We're undecided as to which one we liked better, so we're going to watch Tortilla Soup again this evening.

All things considered, my Eat Drink Man Woman Taiwanese dinner was one of the easiest and tastiest Dinner & a Movie projects to date. So be sure to check back in the next couple of days for my photos, recipes and film review.
03:22 AM PDT Permalink |

Eat Drink Man Woman
My Taiwanese dinner was a feast! ...and Eat Drink Man Woman was a delight. I think I'm finally getting the hang of this Dinner & a Movie thing. Nevertheless, it took eight hours to prepare, so I'm definitely ready to call it a day. I can't wait to tell all about it tomorrow.
03:37 AM PDT Permalink |

Preparing the Kitchen and Prepping Dishes Ahead
Today, I finished shopping for my fresh ingredients. Napa doesn't have an Asian market, but I got incredibly lucky with the meats and seafood at a little Mexican market not far from my house. They have an old-fashioned butcher shop, and for the unbelievably low price of $15.80, I bought two pounds of shrimp, a whole tilapia fish, a pound of nicely trimmed pork loin and two whole chicken leg quarters. I definitely know where I'm buying all my meats and seafood from now on.

As predicted, there was no Taiwan Beer to be had anywhere in town, but I did find Tsing Tao at Cost Plus, along with a bag of dried mushrooms for the hot and sour soup. So...it looks like I'm good to go with all my ingredients for my Eat Drink Man Woman Taiwanese dinner.

When I got home, I set about the task of cleaning the fridge, doing the dishes and clearing the countertops for tomorrow's cooking extravaganza. Last week, I gave the kitchen a thorough cleaning, which included two hours just scrubbing the stove. So it's clean and organized in there for this month's dinner.

I also washed and prepped all my vegetables, cleaned and de-veined the shrimp, made soup stock, and cooked the San Pei Chicken in the crock pot. That's about all I can prepare ahead this time, since most of the dishes are stir-fried, and I want all the vegetables to be cooked to perfection.

As always, I'm excited at the prospect of trying my hand at another Asian cuisine, and I'm already getting an appetite for all that delicious food.
12:28 AM PDT Permalink |

Shopping for Fresh Ingredients
Today I shopped for all my fresh produce, and since none of the recipes call for anything exotic, I was able to buy it at my neighborhood Safeway. However, I'm still missing a few things, namely the chicken and fresh seafood. It's still two days til my Dinner & a Movie, so I wanted to wait until tomorrow or even the day of the dinner to buy the shrimp and fish, but it may be somewhat of a challenge to find a whole fish that's small enough to suit my purposes.

We have a nice little Mexican market in town with an old-fashioned butcher shop, where the meats, poultry and seafood are considerably cheaper than at our gourmet grocery stores, so I'm hoping to find my fish, shrimp, pork and chicken there. A little fish market a few blocks from my house is another possibility for the seafood items. Otherwise, I will have to make do with some fresh fish filets. Either way, I'm sure it will all be delicious.
01:26 AM PDT Permalink |

Beverages To Go With My Taiwanese Dinner
When I eat Asian food of any kind, I always crave a nice cold beer to go with it. Afterwards, I like to enjoy a sip of rice wine or sweet plum wine with dessert. Taiwan produces a local brew called (what else?) Taiwan Beer. There's also another local beverage called Shaohsing wine, served warm. First produced in southern China during the Ming dynasty (1386-1644), Shaohsing wine is made with glutinous rice, fermented in earthen jars before bottling.

In Taiwan, all alcoholic beverages are produced by the Taiwan Tobacco and Wine Monopoly Bureau (TTWMB), which was created when Taiwan was returned to China at the end of World War II, after 50 years of occupation by the Japanese. The TTWMB also produces whiskey and brandy, including Tea Brandy, flavored with Oolong tea, as well as a blend of brandy and grape juice called Pineau. Other wines include lychee wine, plum wine, white wine, red wine, rose wine, sparkling wine, and honey wine.

Alas, I hold little hope of finding beverages produced in Taiwan at any of our local retailers. So unless I can squeeze in a trip to San Francisco in the next few days, I will have to settle for the next best thing: a six-pack of China's Tsing Tao beer, and a bottle of Sho Chiku Bai plum wine. And of course, no Chinese dinner would be complete without a steaming pot of Oolong tea.
01:14 AM PDT Permalink |

About the Fresh Ingredients
The fresh ingredients for my 'Eat Drink Man Woman' dinner are quite common, so there's no need to go traipsing all over town in search of some esoteric item that we country mice have never seen or heard of. They include Ginger Root, Onion, Scalliions, Tofu, Whole White Fish, Shrimp, Garlic, Ham, Bok Choy, Celery, Basil, Parsley or Cilantro, Pineapple, Green Peas, Mushrooms, and Carrots. All inexpensive and readily available at my local market.

Of course, I like to shop as close to the day of the dinner as possible to ensure that they will be poppin' fresh when I use them to cook all those tasty Taiwan recipes. I usually try to do it the day before the dinner so I can prepare some elements of the dinner the night before. I find that if I get a head start on the eve of the dinner, the following day, I'm much more relaxed and organized, and a lot less overwhelmed by the thousand tasks it takes to produce an elaborate Asian meal.
12:08 AM PDT Permalink |

Taking Pictures of My 'Eat Drink Man Woman' Dinner
My 'Eat Drink Man Woman' Dinner & a Movie is going to take place on a week night this month. Recently I've been scheduling it on the last Saturday of the month. But since it's the Halloween season, Rene has to work on weekends through the end of October. So, we've decided to have it on a Wednesday instead, which means that, since it's a school night, my son Will won't be able to attend and serve as my photographer. Rene has generously volunteered for the job, which is great, because he's gotten really good at digital photography. No doubt, he will make me look like a pro!
12:04 AM PDT Permalink |

Special Cookware
For my 'Eat Drink Man Woman' Taiwanese Dinner I'm going to serve it buffet style. The Hot and Sour Soup will be prepared and served in a crock pot. I will steam the rice in an electric rice cooker, use it to make Taiwan Fried Rice, and then return it to the rice cooker to keep it warm on the buffet. The main dishes will be cooked in a large wok, and as the stir-fry dishes come off the stove, I wiil transfer them to serving dishes and keep them warm on an electric hot tray. Of course, none of these special cookware items is absolutely necessary, however they will enable me to sit down to dinner with my guests, instead of spending the entire time going back and forth to the kitchen to prepare each course. But with adequate preparation and a good sense of timing, this meal could easily be prepared using only a wok, a saucepan and a soup kettle.
12:01 AM PDT Permalink |

Designing a Table Setting
Last month, I was so pleased with my relaxed buffet presentation that I'm going to do something similar for my Eat Drink Man Woman Taiwanese dinner. The dishes I've chosen all lend themselves quite nicely to family-style service, and last week, I was lucky enough to find a really nice electric warming tray in perfect condition at my local thrift shop for the modest price of two dollars. I already have lots of beautiful Chinese-style serving dishes, and a decorative Chinese scroll to use as a table runner, so putting together an attractive buffet should be a breeze.
12:09 AM PDT Permalink |

Deciding What to Wear
The only Chinese garment I have is a red brocade Mandarin jacket...much too fancy for a casual dinner at home. So, if I can find them, I may treat myself to a pair of silk pajamas for the sake of comfort and practicality. It's always hot in the kitchen when I'm cooking and the weather has been quite warm and dry these past few days, with a balmy zephyr blowing through the Napa Valley. But by the time the day of my Dinner & a Movie rolls around, I expect it to be somewhat cooler. The weather forecasters have been promising rain and lower temperatures, but we've yet to see either. Today, there is a wildfire burning out of contol in the northeastern corner of the county, covering the whole Bay Area with a blanket of smoke and ashes.
12:00 AM PDT Permalink |

A Newfound Cookbook
In one last attempt to find a cookbook with recipes unique to Taiwan, I turned to my local library, which, by the way, I can see from my front door. There I found a copy of Martin Yan's Asian Favorites, with recipes from Taiwan, Hong Kong and Thailand. I had high hopes for finding some extra recipes from Taiwan, but alas, none of them appealed to me. Perhaps because there were so many soups among them, and the main dishes called for things like quail, pig's feet, and squid, all of which I've eaten and enjoyed, but for my 'Eat Drink Man Woman' Taiwan dinner, I would prefer lots of seafood for the menu. So I'm going to stick with the six recipes I found on the Internet.

The good news is that Martin Yan's Asian Favorites containes a tempting array of recipes from Hong Kong. So many that I'm going to find it hard to choose when the time comes for my Hong Kong Dinner & a Movie. His cookbook also contains 77 Thai recipes. Wish I'd known about this cookbook last month. I've already ordered a copy for my collection and can't wait to try out some new recipes.
12:14 AM PDT Permalink |

A Little Background on the Film
Known in Taiwan as Yin Shi Nan Nu, the 1994 film Eat Drink Man Woman, directed by Ang Lee is a family tale, centered around a retired Taipei chef and his three unmarried daughters. Jia-Jen, the eldest is a chemistry teacher, newly indoctrinated into the Christian faith. Daughter number two, Jia-Chien, is a high-ranking executive in the airline industry, and the youngest, Jia-Ning, is a university student who moonlights at a fast food restaurant. Every Sunday, they gather around the family dinner table to share the latest developments in the romance department.

I've often seen this film on the shelves of my local video store and have been keen to see it. It's a little idiosyncracy of mine never to read movie reviews or the description of a film on the back of the box before I watch it. I like to form my own opinions as the movie unfolds, rather than being influenced by critics or having certain surprises spoiled by knowing too much about the film beforehand. But in this case, for the sake of the weblog, I had to do a little advance research to make sure it was appropriate fare for my Dinner & a Movie project, and to be able to synopsize it for my readers. My impression of Eat Drink Man Woman is reminding me of two other films: 'Tortilla Soup', Maria Ripoll's adaptation of Ang Lee's Eat Drink Man Woman screenplay, and George Tillman's 'Soul Food', both of which seem to have similar themes and use the dinner table as a venue for family drama.

Other films by Ang Lee include Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, and The Hulk.
01:43 PM PDT Permalink |