100. A typical Northeast Chinese dish --- “mess stew” with beef, tomato, aubergine and potato

As I was writing this post,  I realized that this my 100th recipe. :) I remember when I started writing, I was very worried if I was going to run out of recipes very shortly, but, hey, this is the number 100 now. :)) So thanks for my friends’ and family’s encouragement, and hope you enjoyed these recipes. :)

Ok, today’s recipe, a stewed dish. As I mentioned before, not everything in northeast Chinese cuisine is about stir-frying; the most representative dishes are actually stews. So here is one of the most common one -- “mess stew”.

-- Ha.. “Mess stew” is a direct translation from its original name in Chinese, “Luan dun”, which literally means "to put everything together to stew", without any particular "rules".
Different people, however, cook it differently. For example, if you look a bit around in the internet, you will find recipes that mix potato, pork, aubergine, green beans, cabbage, and many more things together. I have to admit that I have never tried this kind of mix before, in restaurants, it is almost impossible to find this dish, as it is so ‘homey’, so it is really difficult to say which ingredients are more ‘standard’.

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97. Stewed Chinese style sauerkraut pickled Chinese leaves with frozen tofu (V)

Stewed Chinese leaves with tofu

Yesterday, at the German Christmas market in Verona, the smell of sauerkraut was everywhere. I swear my mouth was watering :)), and I really wished I could squeeze through the queuing crowd to grab a portion --- o, o, if only they serve without pork sausage.

Chinese "sauerkraut"

My love towards sauerkraut is all because of its similar taste to pickled Chinese leaves, which makes many northern Chinese ‘emotionally’ attached to. As I said in a previous post, when I found out that I could actually use sauerkraut as pickled Chinese leaves to cook those typical northeast Chinese winter dishes, I was over the moon, especially, you can get sauerkraut in the supermarkets anytime in the year, not like northern pickled Chinese leaves --- you have to wait until winter comes. :)

I used to eat sauerkraut with my dear friend Zhenya in Manchester, she is also a big fan, and she can tell even the slightest differences between sauerkraut made in different countries. She introduced it to me as kind of pickled salad thing, I remember she used to take a big portion of it from its jar for each of us, sometimes it was too sour, we had to almost wink our eyes, but it was really nice --- and it was a really nice time.

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Culture note: Not all about stir-frying

A few days ago, when I was randomly browsing the internet, (this is how I normally waste my time, really bad:((, I know), saw a few questions such as “why do Chinese people always stir-fry?”. I could not help nodding - yes, stir-frying is one of the distinguishing features of Chinese food.

Stir-frying is a good healthy way of cooking and eating. For example, stir-frying requires strong fire, not much oil (although different people might opt for different amounts), can quickly get food done, and keep the nutrients well at the same time. In this case, it is certainly better than the boiling or stewing, because long cooking times could make the vegetables lose their vitamins -- well, of course, it depends on what ingredients you are cooking, some foods are good for cooking longer times, so the vitamins can actually be released and easily absorbed by the body. And some other foods, for example, those ‘healthy’ soups, need to be cooked for long time.

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