Comfort healthy food-peasant/home Asian style

[shootingstar]

: Ginger tends to sit a long, long time between orders in our local grocery, so I like to buy a lot when it's fresh and freeze it.

Reason I ask, is it's a long drive to the Asian market in the "big city" and they don't always have fresh wasabi when I go there. I might be able to get it once or twice a year tops. Eden Foods has powdered dried real wasabi, but obviously fresh is way better.

It does surprise me at least in many medium-sized or small cities in Canada that fresh ginger root can be found at least in a national/large grocery chain store. But your area may be different.

We've done alot of cycling through different parts of Canada and including a long drawn out car trip across Canada when I moved to Vancouver, where we hit alot of smaller cities. We often go to grocery stores to save some money (or get fresh fruit, etc.) instead of constantly eating out at restaurants /cafes.

Methinks my tastebuds have become overly acclimatized to ginger root. We use it nearly daily for Asian and non-Asian dishes. We buy approx. 1 pound since it's cheap for us locals, which sits on kitchen counter up to over 1 month before getting too dried out. As a teen, I used to slice finely and mince 3-4 slices for a dish serving 8 people since ginger root used to be hardly available. I could really taste the ginger then. Now same amount of ginger for dish serving 1-2 people, I barely taste it.

I seldom use Sezchuan pepper simply because I haven't taken time to explore the whole breadth of Chinese cooking. Parents are from the province southwest of Sezhuan province where cuisine is less spicy/chili hot.

Interesting info bits in this thread ...on some stuff I didn't know what I knew all along.

N.B.: This steamed egg savory custard dish which can be a steamed only chicken breast dish..same steaming technique used for steamed sliced chicken liver, kidney, etc. that I did have as a kid. No, I don't prepare these dishes now.