Chow Mein

I don't eat out at a lot of Chinese food places. They tend to be buffet oriented and generally look the same. They food also tends to be really high in sodium which is something I've paid attention to since my Mamaw was diagnosed with congestive heart failure and placed on a low sodium diet several years ago. Genetics can be a powerful thing.

I have eaten at maybe two or three Chinese restaurants with Jason but, he wasn't pleased with the quality of any of them. He lived in Taiwan for a while and has very particular standards. Plus, he loathes buffets.

He has however made some very nice homemade Chinese food including chow mein. The vegetables are fresher, the taste is lighter and I don't feel like my arteries are dying after the experience. This dish contained: celery, carrots, bell pepper, onion, fresh mung bean sprouts, noodles and chicken. I've been making an effort to eat this style of food with chopsticks and my skills are thankfully improving.

When It Doesn't Quite Work

I have been lucky in that most of my cooking experiments have turned out reasonably well. I did once singe a bunch of sweet potato fries but that's a different story. Tonight, I attempted to make "Catfish in Salty-Sweet Caramel Sauce". The recipe is straight forward - add this, mix that. It's also a really brief process compared to a lot of things. The entire list of ingredients and instructions only consumes half a page. Somewhere along the way, something must have gone wonky. The sauce refused to thicken. I gave it more time. Nothing. Adjusted the heat. Still no luck. After maybe 15 extra minutes of cook time I had to face that this was the best it was going to get. What resulted was decidedly Asian tasting and Asian smelling (as it was supposed to be) but, I can't help but feel I missed a certain glow that would have gone with a well thickened caramel sauce.