# Asian Fusion



## kfeng (Aug 17, 2008)

I cook mainly cantonese style food.  In the past few years I have been playing around with the western and Eastern cultures to come up with new food excitement.  Anyone know of a good combo that I can tried?


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## LadyCook61 (Aug 18, 2008)

I don't know of any combos but want to welcome you to DC.  I lived in NJ until 
1989 .


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## kfeng (Aug 18, 2008)

*Thanks*

Hope to pick some brains and spark new ideas.


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## pdswife (Aug 18, 2008)

Hi, ya can pick my brain but I'm afraid that you won't find much this early in the AM.

Welcome to the group!


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## Callisto in NC (Aug 18, 2008)

It would help if you gave just a little more explanation as to what you are looking for.


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## kfeng (Aug 18, 2008)

*My Quest here*

Already feeling the friendliness of the site. I think I am already enjoying my stay here. 

Well...cantonese cooking consisted of 4 primary ingredients, Soy sauce, Oyster sauce, Sugar, and Cooking wine. What can I combined with these ingredients from a western (not too familiar, studying it) to created another flavor. Does this make sense?


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## babetoo (Aug 18, 2008)

i don't know either. just wanted to say howdy. 

babe


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## Callisto in NC (Aug 18, 2008)

By Western do you mean US cooking?  US cooking, at least to me, is a healthy blend of other countries.  Worchestshire Sauce and Soy Sauce combine nicely for a beef marinade.  Add some cracked black pepper and some garlic salt, marinate for a couple hours to overnight and you have a great steak or piece of beef.

Is that what you are looking for?


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## ironchef (Aug 18, 2008)

One of the easiest way to incorporate Asian fusion flavors is in a beurre blanc. Because most Asian cuisines don't use butter in sauce making, combining flavors with a beurre blanc gives it a different richness and depth. A recipe for a basic beurre blanc is here:

http://www.discusscooking.com/forums/f76/basic-beurre-blanc-12698.html

Once you get the base, you can pretty much go in whatever route you want. Some beurre blancs that I've done include:

Black Bean-Ginger
Ponzu
Koo Chu Jang
Thai Curry and Coconut
Soy-Mustard
Soy-Wasabi
Kaffir Lime
Kalbi
Sweet Chili
Madras Curry
Soy-Ginger
Miso Lime
Pickled Ginger

There's a lot more but I can't remember them all. Vinaigrettes are another way to fuse flavors together. Use the traditional egg yolk based style, and you can pretty much use most of the flavors that would work in a beurre blanc.


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## college_cook (Aug 18, 2008)

Unfortunately I haven't had  the opportunity to familiarize myself very much with traditional Asian flavors, and honestly the closest I've probably ever gotten to fusion is a homemade BBQ i made once that used a good amount of soy and fish sauce.

What IC mentioned about the buerre blanc is good though, and I've *sort of* done fusion of east/west flavor/technique.  I've never done a buerre blanc with Asian flavors, though I don't doubt that it would be superb, but things I have done are braises, pastas and risottos that use different global flavors.  Also, the only Asian technique that I really know anything about, stir fry, I change up by getting some good carmelization on my protein first, removing it, and then adding my vegetables and a little chicken glace to get the fond, and you get a really nice rich meat/chicken flavored base for sauce, to combine with your more Asian ingredients.


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## kitchenelf (Aug 18, 2008)

To add to IC's list - we used to reduce soy sauce (quite a bit) and add it to our beurre blanc - it was quite tasty!


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## college_cook (Aug 18, 2008)

kitchenelf said:


> To add to IC's list - we used to reduce soy sauce (quite a bit) and add it to our beurre blanc - it was quite tasty!



Thanks for jogging my memory!


I used to make a scallop appy,  sautee'd baby Bok choy, cripsy pancetta, topped with a soy-orange reduction.  Probably the most popular appy at the restaurant I used to work at.

I happen to have a picture of it, actually:


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## kitchenelf (Aug 18, 2008)

college cook - that looks awesome and quite edible! 

We also added shredded and thoroughly drained and dried cucumber.  Gave it a nice brightness.


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## kfeng (Aug 18, 2008)

Callisto, Ironchef, College_cook.  Thanks for the idea. There is a lot of good mix to go with. I was thinking about this one most of my day at work, should be working though.  Let me run it through you guys.  Generally we associated Curry with Chicken.  What do think of marinating curry (powder) with steak and a touch of Michu (cooking wine), a little soy, sugar, salt and pepper.  I'll definitely give all the suggestion a tried.  From the words of the Terminator:  I'll be BACK!


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## kfeng (Aug 18, 2008)

College_cook..don't want to be rude.  Judging from the picture, looks a bit dried.  I think a little bit more sauce would make it nicer.  Perhaps it's just the picture. Aside from the cucumber, I'll probably add a bundle of carrot strings to brighten it up.  Certainly looks pleasing thus far.


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## college_cook (Aug 18, 2008)

No worries 

You can't see it so much here- but the scallops are actually surrounded by a few rings of sauce.  Since you're not familiar with Western cuisine, this may be a different take on preparation/presentation for you.  There's plenty of moisture in the dish- sauce, scallop (cooked MR - M, not well) and in the bok choy also.  You may find that with some western dishes, like this one, not much sauce is needed because the flavor is very very concentrated.

Again, not knowing much of Asian cuisine at large, I think there are quite a few cases where  you'll find western dishes that are much more dry looking.  However, I'm not sure if it's still customary to cook all proteins to well done in the eastern hemisphere.  We have pretty strict health and cleanliness standards over here now, so it makes it ok to eat pretty much anything rare- beef, duck, pork (though I won't do below medium pork, the texture isn't so great), and fish.


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## ironchef (Aug 18, 2008)

kfeng said:


> I was thinking about this one most of my day at work, should be working though.  Let me run it through you guys.  Generally we associated Curry with Chicken.  What do think of marinating curry (powder) with steak and a touch of Michu (cooking wine), a little soy, sugar, salt and pepper.



That sounds fine, but there's nothing fusion about it.


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## Michael in FtW (Aug 18, 2008)

Ok - I'll admit it - I'm lost here!

As I understand it ... _Fusion_ food can be either food from one cuisine being cooked in the style of another (humm ... Asian stir fry cooked in the style of a French Sauté) - or substituting ingredients from one cuisine in another (adding slices of avacado to a sushi roll to make a California Roll out of a Nori Sushi Roll).



> Well...cantonese cooking consisted of 4 primary ingredients, Soy sauce, Oyster sauce, Sugar, and Cooking wine.


 
If you are looking for condiments that are also used as ingredients in Western cooking:

Prepared yellow, brown or Creole mustards, ketchup, Worcestershire sauce, BBQ sauces (tomato or mustard based), various vinegars, tabasco pepper sauces ...

Again ... not sure what you are asking or where this is headed.


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## black chef (Oct 26, 2008)

well, for the last 3 months or so, i've been experimenting with vietnamese food and "mildly" incorporating the south louisiana trinity of 2:1:1 onion, bell pepper and celery.

the results so far have been "eeeh..." nothing to cheer about.

however, when i reversed the fusion and used the asian trinity of garlic + ginger + scallion (or shallot) my asian chicken fricasee came out spectacular!!!

my kitchen is slowly turning into a laboratory.


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## Claire (Nov 13, 2008)

By their very nature, many Vietnamese (because of the French influence) and almost all Hawaiian recipes are what is now called "fusion". You might start there.


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## kathrynb23 (Oct 21, 2012)

I recently made a Pandan Creme Brulee(I didn't come up with this, it's been around for sometime already).


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## Snip 13 (Oct 22, 2012)

I'm not a pro but I love trying new things. 
I salt and pepper firm slices of paneer, grill on both sides till golden and yielding  and serve with Thai chili and lime dipping sauce and sprout salad.

I make Spring rolls with fresh mozzarella filling served with sundried tomato and red pepper pesto.

I also like making wontons with a Greek style filling of blended cheese, egg yolks and chopped mint and cook them in chicken broth. This one sounds odd but it tastes great.

P.S I bought some rice paper sheets by mistake, thought they were rice paper wrappers for Vietnamese Spring rolls. They are much thinner than the wrappers. Can I still soak and use them or could you perhaps suggest a use for them?


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## Greg Who Cooks (Oct 22, 2012)

kfeng said:


> *Already feeling the friendliness of the site. I think I am already enjoying my stay here. *
> 
> Well...cantonese cooking consisted of 4 primary ingredients, Soy sauce, Oyster sauce, Sugar, and Cooking wine. What can I combined with these ingredients from a western (not too familiar, studying it) to created another flavor. Does this make sense?





kfeng said:


> Callisto, Ironchef, College_cook.  Thanks for the  idea. There is a lot of good mix to go with. I was thinking about this  one most of my day at work, should be working though.  Let me run it  through you guys.  Generally we associated Curry with Chicken.  What do  think of marinating curry (powder) with steak and a touch of Michu  (cooking wine), a little soy, sugar, salt and pepper.  *I'll definitely  give all the suggestion a tried.  From the words of the Terminator:   I'll be BACK!*





kfeng said:


> College_cook..don't want to be rude.  Judging from the picture, looks a bit dried.  I think a little bit more sauce would make it nicer.  Perhaps it's just the picture. Aside from the cucumber, I'll probably add a bundle of carrot strings to brighten it up.  Certainly looks pleasing thus far.



This is an old topic dug up from DC's bone pile, and I find the above posts particularly ironic since evidently the latter post was the last visit Kfeng ever made to DC. (The 3 quotes above were all on Kfeng's final visit day here at DC. CC last posted a few years later, 7-22-2010. Kathryn recently joined us, welcome Kathryn!)

Actually I really like CC's Asian fusion scallops recipe. I'll have to consider doing something like that myself. It's sometimes nice to dig up these old topics and recirculate the ideas, kind of like tilling the soil to plant a new crop.

(The topic would be even more ironic if today was my last visit here but I totally expect to post something tomorrow! )


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## CharlieD (Oct 22, 2012)

Greg you should start your asian recipe thread.


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## Greg Who Cooks (Oct 23, 2012)

CharlieD said:


> Greg you should start your asian recipe thread.



I'm sorry to say, but no can do. I enjoy participating in informal chats here at DC, but I'm also working on my own personal recipe website--one I've been working on for a dozen years in one form or another. In fact it started out in the late '90s at Geocities, before I eventually moved on to my own domain.

I sometimes post my recipes at DC, but within a few days DC pushes me out in the page ranks and the traffic goes to DC instead of to my own site. (Page rank is when you google something the first item in your results is page rank 1, second is rank 2, etc.) Some of my recipes (particularly my Thai recipes) occupy #2 or #3 page ranks which both pleases me and mystifies me, because I'm higher in the page ranks (for specific recipes) than some of the big professional sites!

So I prefer to not post my own recipes at DC in order to not kill my own website. From time to time I post my recipes at DC anyway but the more I post the lower my website ranks and traffic gets. I also have a policy of not promoting my website on other websites such as DC which is why you see only a very occasional link to my site. I'm sure most of you can figure out my website, or otherwise those who are interested can PM me for the URL.

Meanwhile I really enjoy exchanging recipe ideas and food talk here at Discuss Cooking, and in fact in my opinion it's the best cooking site on the Internet. 

p.s. I'm happy to post my recipe pictures here at DC. When I get the pictures for each recipe perfected they're going on my website. At present I have almost no pictures at all. I'm working to eventually have a picture for every recipe, currently about 80 recipes posted. Anybody who wants my recipes corresponding to the pictures can google it or send me a PM for the exact URL of that recipe. Something must be working right because google will get you to most of my recipes. However some things like Twice Baked Potatoes are so popular that you'll never find my site because even I can't find my site. I think last time I googled the competition for Twice Baked Potatoes I was out to #80-#90 and still hadn't found my page. I got tired of looking.


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## Sir_Loin_of_Beef (Oct 23, 2012)

Just about everything you'll find on a Chinese restaurant menu is fusion, having been bastardized by Chinese not able to find the same ingredients they had in China in the United States. There used to be a restaurant in San Diego called China Camp that specialized in cooking Chinese food with American ingredients, but I heard they closed down.

One of my favorite fusions is German/Mexican.


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