Surveys in China 5: Starchy food (17/09/2015-25/09/2015)

These are some of dishes I had during my stay in China (17/09-25/09). As a starch researcher, I was very interested in some Chinese starchy dishes. I'm sorry that I cannot remember the following names.

The white material was mochi (sticky rice cake). We had it in Yuyao city. The taste was like Korean Tteok, but this was cooked with sliced eggplants and oyster sauce.

This dish contained potato dumplings. We had it in Hangzhou city. Its taste was like English chips. Another dish contained fried fishes, and so we called both dishes as "Chinese fish and chips".

The dish at the bottom right contained starch noodle (Funpic 粉皮). Its texture was similar to kudzu-kiri (kudzu starch noodles) or harusame (bean-starch vermicelli). We enjoyed this at the excavation office of the Guafulin site.

This was similar to the above dish including starch noodle (Funpic 粉皮). It was seemed to be a local dish in Hangzhou.

This was fried sweet potato rolled with yam flower (山葯巻) which we enjoyed at a local restaurant in Hangzhou. It was a kind of sweet dessert.

This was another Funpic (粉皮) dish we had in Pinghu city. It looked like Japanese konjac, but the taste was similar to Hangzhou's one.

Steamed maize, pumpkin, taro, and sweet potato which we had in Pinghu.

Fried fish and yam flower cup which we had in Hangzhou. The yellowish colour was seemed to be curry powder.

Indeed, some dishes contained Funpic 粉皮. According to my Chinese colleagues, these noodle are made from taro, yam, kudzu, or others, and they vary considerably from one region to another. I bouhgt this Funpic at the local market in Hangzhou privately (no interpreters...). Like dried kudzu-kiri (kudzu starch noodles) or harusame (bean-starch vermicelli), before cooking, we need to soak it in warm water for 10 minutes or so.