Hey guys, a few notes: 1. I usually try to have some sourcing notes inside the description box recipe, but unfortunately I was hitting the character limit there. MSG is available at most supermarkets under the brand name “Accent”. The Lao Gan Ma Chili Crisp that we used in the first recipe is this one: bit.ly/3g85Mx1 and the Lao Gan Ma Chili Oil with Black Bean is this one: bit.ly/3HuWhEp . For the red oil chili bean paste, this is the product we’re referring to: bit.ly/3rdwB9v . Specific products that we link here have a tendency to sell out at times - all of these products are also available on Amazon and at the Mala Market. For the Thai Prik Bon, this was available on Amazon: amzn.to/3rbYheK If you’re ok with an extra spicy toasted chili oil, you could also simply use this product to make the Toasted Chili Oil dip from the first recipe. 2. So really, as Steph said in the outro, there’s basically as many douhua dipping sauces as there are douhua restaurants. That said, the three dipping sauces that we made here would be more on the simpler end of the spectrum - for more complex versions, do check out our older video for a Luzhou style as well as Wang Gang’s for a Fushun style. 3. You can do the salt water soak twenty minutes before eating, or you could alternatively start the salt water soak in the morning and leave it soaking until lunchtime - there’s not *too* much of an upper limit there (24 hours, perhaps?). We were split on which way to show in the video. 4. The purpose of adding more hot water in right before eating was to heat up the tofu. At douhua restaurants in Sichuan, the douhua is steaming hot when you get it. With the extra hot water, the tofu will at least be warm. You *can* also nuke tofu, but it has a tendency to get a bit crumbly - just don’t push it. 5. When you’re toasting your chili flakes for the toasted chili oil, the exact timing will depend on how fresh your dried chilis are. If your chilis have been sitting around the supply chain for god knows how long… don’t push it, as you can easily scorch the chilis. While more deeply toasted chilis are definitely a bit more fragrant, making sure that they’re brittle enough to pound is the more critical bit. I’m about to Zoom with my parents, so the notes’ve gotta stop here for now. I’ll edit some more in later. We’re driving over to Steph’s parent’s place in Zhaoqing for Spring Festival today, so apologies if I’m slow in editing more notes in/slow to get back to you guys :) Happy Spring Festival!
What do you think of removing celery strings like this? The key for doing it this way is to go both directions. th-cam.com/video/vs7z2kYR08E/w-d-xo.html
I love this way of doing recipes, simplified and altered but explaining why and how, and how simplifying in this case can be truer to the context in which the dish is eaten. So interesting and practical but not obscuring the original ways of doing it. Brilliant. Hope you do more in this kind of format (and I love that this is vegan-friendly) and will look through your previous videos to see if I can find more like this. Thank you!
A small note: Something not mentioned in the video that I just found out while trying this recipe. If you sub the LaoGanMa instead making your own, (like me) you don’t need to add any salt or msg. There is already plenty in the jarred stuff, so between that and the soy sauce there’s plenty there. I made the sauce a second time with no added msg or salt, and a large tblspoon of LaoGanMa and it was plenty seasoned. This receptor was delicious. Super simple, and a great excuse to eat some tofu and vegetables.
It's been a few months now since this video, and I can say with certainty that it has changed my approach to quick meals/lunches pretty much completely. At least for me, the initiative was a huge success.
I like the conceit of showing the preparation of the dish in an office setting, given that you're not merely stepping thru a recipe, but more giving us an idea for a genre of lunch food.
As a spaniard, I was so happy about substituting the toasted chilly flakes for smoked paprika and normal chilly flakes! Mainly because last week I was attempting a version of your crispy chhilly recipe and thought "maybe smoked paprika helps me here". Nice!!
Honestly, just a simple thank you for sharing your passion, knowledge, and truly "demystifying" a cuisine as complex and as rich as the ones found in China.
I couldn't agree more. Not to get too into it but, I think this style of cooking+eating is so much more reflective of peoples realities: their work day, their living situation, their resources, and the reality that we all need and deserve to eat well during the day. We don't have these types of quick lunch stalls to stop at, sadly, but invoking that spirit through a little quick prep is a perfect alternative for home.
@@meganalexandra6604 so true. Where I live, the easy to access lunch places are terrible both at work and at school. Plenty deep fried dish, tasteless, overcooked vegetable on the minimum, if there is any at all. Mushy pasta, too much salt to balance out the lack of taste. I had to learn to box my lunch and I am always happy to learn simply but delicious, box-friendly recipes.
After you published your sichuan tofu rice recipe, I started basically doing this! I wasn't ever going to make my own tofu, so I started just pouring chili oil over microwaved packaged tofu and eating it over rice!
I fell asleep while watching this video late at night, had a dream I was eating douhuafan, and then when I woke up I was very sad it wasn't actually the case. Needless to say, I will be making the tofu and veggie sides for lunch at least a few times this week! :)
I don't know if you all still take requests from youtube comments, but I'd love to see more vegetable dishes -- not necessarily vegetarian, but vegetable-based for sure! And I'd be really remiss if I didn't say this, so thanks, Steph & Chris, for 5 (wow, it's been this long) years of really good recipes & educational videos.
I got into cooking when i was 9/10 years old because of i fell in love with “chinese” restaurant food here in italy (seams strange right?) and now i am discovering so much about the whole cousine…thank you guys !!!
I have soft tofu in my fridge as well as some of the chili bean pastes you’re mentioning here! Looks like lunch for the week is set. Thank you so so so much for explaining everything so clearly and honestly. I love your channel!
I get anxiety if I don’t have at least two jars of Laoganma chili oil in my pantry/fridge at all times. It’s probably my favorite condiment of all time - despite having made my own chili oil before.
I only recently graduated to the 700g jar…but I still only have one in the house. Since I use it pretty much every day…I’m either going to have to stock up or learn to make my own. 😆
@@LBellatrix I only buy the big jars 🤫 Have you tried all the varieties yet? I just discovered a new one, Tomato Chili Sauce (tomato, garlic, msg, salt, sugar).
Same, but I also love thai Nam Phrik (50/50 mix of fish sauce and lime juice plus diced thai chilies, garlic, and cilantro). I add one of those 2 to at least 1 meal a day, the Nam Phrik works best with foods that are already greasy or oily (the acid helps countrt balance it) and fish
This guy is the DEFINITION of a good youtuber... and yetI can't shake the speech similarities with ben shapiro, to the point where it actually affects my viewing experience. Not sure if my weird bias is to blame or if it's just age we live in, but either way my appreciation of someone's pure passion for a subject is being affected by a vague comparison. *disclaimer: I am not sober, my sincerest apologies if this is incoherent*.
I find his speaking very very similar to another youtuber specialist in chemestry. His youtube channel is Nilered. Check him out, maybe it helps you to shake off the similarities to Ben Shapiro, and you can start assimilating it to Nilered? I hope this helps you!
@@laramunoz1609 The three of them do sound similar, but not to the point of me associating one or the other with each other when listening to them. Their content also helps to differentiate them a lot.
Really appreciate the amount of work you guys are doing, with explaining in detail why you do each step, substitutions, and even what experience you're trying to translate. Didn't realize this was for a quick lunch too, such a nice idea! Thank you so much! You've introduced me to so much dishes already. Can't wait to try this :)
nice! plenty of inspiration in this video. My usual go to was just a basic chilli oil like Lee Kum Kee, microwave rice and some protein, but while my methods are super quick, youve shown me i could be putting 20 mins of work during the week to really one up my current lunches xD
This has become one of my go-to weeknight meals when I don't really feel like cooking. I love experimenting with different chili crisps/sauces to make the best dipping sauce & veggie pairings. I like it best with medium firmness tofu, but I've also made it with firm and even extra-firm when that's all I have on hand, and it's still delicious.
It was a great touch adding the sounds of what the crispy chili bean paste should sound like. 👍 If you don't mind, do consider doing that more often; it's sometimes beneficial for us at home to have an idea of what the food should sound like when it isn't clear just by looking at things whether it's burning or not.
Thanks, will definately try that out since I've got a lot of that Chilli-Bean-Paste :) The dog is adorable, waiting in the back like "what about me? give me food and attention"
I love this kind of video. Teaching you how to kinda-recreate delicious dishes when you're in a time crunch, which (let's face it) is almost every weekday for many of us.
I just got all of the ingredients today, and I prepped to have version #3 tomorrow for wfh lunch. I had a little taste of the Lao Gan Ma Chili Oil with Black Bean and wow that stuff is *delicious*. This is a totally new kind of food to me, and I am very excited to have a different kind of lunch tomorrow. This weekend I'll work on preparing some chili oil so I can try the other recipes, too.
This office space CCD series (hopefully) is already being practiced on in my office.. On a unrelated note, the description about the fermented bean paste is the kind of "micro knowledge"that's really valuable. To know the precise attributes of a condiment/ingredient require exposure to either the language or very spotted content. I've seen a lot of people flaunder because they used the wrong bean paste/chilli/etc. This is the true value of CCD imo!
I'm going to use Sichuan chili oil, because I make a huge jar of it every month or two. I just learned from another channel that you can bloom your chili flakes and spices in a little bit of hot water before you pour the oil over, and it really helps the fruity notes in the flakes blossom!
@@NeverMind353 it's called being a gangster. Anyway you you can put the wet Chilli flakes into the oil with a 10 foot pole. Everyone has that in their home
My favourite video you guys have made to date, wondering if there is a typical Chinese meal for the tradesman eg carpenter, brick layer, landscaper, who usually doesn’t have access to even electricity?
Since I'm under the impression that eating out in China is more 'normal' and less of a 'treat' (see the episode on breakfast in China), my guess is that they'd hit up a street-food stand. That said, if there is a classic Chinese box lunch, I'd love to learn about it too!
@@thestrangegreenman yes it’s pretty much so, there’re a lot of places selling only lunch boxes in China, mostly near construction sites and hospitals, they’re also really cheap. Roughly 2 to 3 dollars you can get a decent portion meal, I remembered this from about 4 years ago.
It's the sad fact, really, that MOST of "3rd world" SE Asia & China's working class eats WAY better, nutrition-wise as well as taste-wise, than the working class of the "1st world" cursed with fast "food".
This dish is one of the few I've learned from the internet that I've integrated to my everyday life. I have it at least once every two weeks and it's always a hit! Thank you for revisiting it
I think my favorite part about this is in the end where you're showing how to eat it. It's such a "duh, of course this is how you eat this food" thing, but to people from the west it's actually kind of important. I wouldn't know how to tackle this dish without it!
I really can't express how revolutionary a lunch regimen such as this would be for us in the US. Just the ability to consume anything but fast food as a midday meal is oftentimes difficult, particularly among working people on the clock.
Would you like to try other tofu recipes? If you're interesting in them ,below tofu recipes for your reference. wakame tofu soup recipes:th-cam.com/video/JScDN4t5SSU/w-d-xo.html protein vegan soup白菜豆腐煲: th-cam.com/video/zq9oEOPxKao/w-d-xo.html
I can't believe the perfect timing on this. I was just watching the douhafan video and lamenting how difficult it seemed to make for lunch, and lo and behold you come out with this one. A word of warning: BE VERY CAREFUL if you want to blitz a bunch of dried chilis in a food processor. The last time I did this for your chili oil recipe I literally had to evacuate the apartment from the fumes. I'm not talking about fumes like "oh it smells really spicy and my eyes water a bit", I'm talking "I've been tear gassed before and this was roughly as bad as that". BE CAREFUL. Use a mortar and pestle, or at the very least maybe there's a way to do this without causing a HAZMAT biohazard, but just "put a few handfuls of wok-toasted arbols in the food processor" is a recipe for disaster.
Maybe a coffee grinder is better for this job. I made chili powder with my coffee grinder before, it's well sealed, just be careful when you open it up to get the chili powder. Definitely avoid a tool that isn't sealed...
Thanks for the optional substitutions, its much more likely I'll try these out because of them. The pup is hilarious, tapping on Steph to remind her for a snack.
For the chili black bean one, I usually have some homemade chili crisp or chili oil, can I just add some fermented black beans to it? Should I toast the black beans in the chili oil? Also, if I were to add black beans next time I make chili oil, where would I add them in the process?
I love the inflection there "mix it in with some of your...hot??? rice". Totally gave the game away 😋 Great recipes, I love it! Healthy vegan lunch options. I like doing a dish like this with the beancurd skin sticks, rehydrated, and dipping sauce.
Would love to have a video of you two having the meal after making it :)) sort of mukbang style but not necessarily asmr, just having you enjoy the fruits of your labor and talking ❤️ Love you & your videos, have a beautiful day
Ever since seeing your dou hua video I’ve been doing just this for an easy no cook lunch, in your other video you used xiang la jiang and I found a lao gan ma xiang la jiang, I don’t know if it’s the same as what you meant but I mix it with some chopped lemon grass to sub the impossible to find oil and it’s the most delicious easiest tofu dish ever
just a FYI for anyone worried about MSG, it has been in common use for about 50 years now, has been exhaustively studied and there is ZERO evidence that it is harmful in any way.
Haha cold rice clumps up and is generally not recommended. We were nearing the end of a long day filming, and Steph was like 'eh, don't bother heating up the rice, I'll be fine'. Ended up definitely being a bit *too* cold...
@@ChineseCookingDemystified interested in your take on the american "don't dare eat rice that's been @ room temperature for over an hour" saying. It feels like a big exaggeration. Do people in china abide by this, because I'd love to make this for a cold lunch someday
@@redpotionz Pretty much anything an American says about food safety is an exaggeration. When you learn how to cook from chefs on TV instead of your parents, you end up with a lot of attitudes that - while they might make sense from a liability perspective for a restaurant - often aren't very applicable to home kitchens. Yes, you can eat room temperature rice.
@@ChineseCookingDemystified American food safety is really quite excessive tbh. Its so wasteful. Printed expiration dates on American products are usually weeks earlier than needed.
Thanks for your videos. I have access to many excellent Chinese and Vietnamese groceries and even have done some work in a Cantonese-American restaurant for a bit, but Chinese cooking has always been a bit of an Achilles heel for me. You've really helped me improve in this area and I can now better enjoy foods like these.
0:15 I wish we did. The food supermarkets we got where I live, a small town near to London but in Essex, we got more in the way of middle Eastern and African food shops, while are great in their own right it isn't good when I watch these videos and want to try all the dishes xD
could you make an ingredient video specifically on chilly and beans paste? I get so lost on that. also the various type of preserved vegetable could really help
Those are Sichuan Red Braised Beef noodles, commonly referred to as Taiwan Beef Noodle soup outside of China (it's a dish that originally came from Sichuan, and then was adapted/became popular in the 50s and 60s in Taiwan). We're planning on covering it this month, but ChinaSichuanFood has a recipe for the Sichuan style in the meantime if you can't wait: www.chinasichuanfood.com/braised-beef-noodles/ For the Taiwan style, there are many results if you meander around TH-cam.
It's cold in new england and I would love to have sichuan style sour hot firepot. Can you do a video on it? I've had it before when I was young, but in new england there's no place that makes it.
So here I'm thinking I know my Sichuan food inside and out, and now I learn that there are TWO varieties of douban. Had no idea. Is there a way to move between the two types? Do you simply need to fry in more oil for longer to get the same result? And in regards to the earlier CCD recipes using douban: are these all using the red oil variety as well?
I had to laugh at "the UK's favourite chili" because it's so true. There's one kind of (vegetable) pepper which is the sweet bell pepper, possibly in different shapes and sizes but all tasting the same. Then the most prevalent chillies in supermarkets are labelled solely by colour: you can get red, green or mixed. I think they might be jalapenos. And as per the video, dried chillies are generic too. In bigger supermarkets you will find scotch bonnet and Thai bird's eye chillies, in very small packets at quite high prices. And in the posher supermarkets you may be lucky to find Mexican dried chillies at eye watering prices (that's before you open the package and touch your eyes after touching the chillies!).
Thanks, and I'd definitely appreciate more videos like this. As someone who lives alone and has 12 hour days, I don't usually have the energy to cook a more involved meal.
Hi there, love this quick but flavorful (and vegetarian!) type of recipe(: Last time I did a homemade chili oil, after a few weeks in the fridge it completely gelatinized, forming some sort of goop instead of a runny or slightly thick oil. Is that something you have noticed too in the past, or my chili oil turned bad ? I should mention I used the "poor over" boiling oil method and I added sesame seed which I suspect is the culprit here.
I used to live near that 99 ranch that you showed at the start of your vid. That must be a very old pic you found because it hasn't been 99 ranch for a very very long time lol
Hi Chris and Stephanie, I know this probably gets asked quite a bit, but are you two planning to ever publish a cookbook in the future featuring the recipes from this channel?
Hey guys, a few notes:
1. I usually try to have some sourcing notes inside the description box recipe, but unfortunately I was hitting the character limit there. MSG is available at most supermarkets under the brand name “Accent”. The Lao Gan Ma Chili Crisp that we used in the first recipe is this one: bit.ly/3g85Mx1 and the Lao Gan Ma Chili Oil with Black Bean is this one: bit.ly/3HuWhEp . For the red oil chili bean paste, this is the product we’re referring to: bit.ly/3rdwB9v . Specific products that we link here have a tendency to sell out at times - all of these products are also available on Amazon and at the Mala Market. For the Thai Prik Bon, this was available on Amazon: amzn.to/3rbYheK If you’re ok with an extra spicy toasted chili oil, you could also simply use this product to make the Toasted Chili Oil dip from the first recipe.
2. So really, as Steph said in the outro, there’s basically as many douhua dipping sauces as there are douhua restaurants. That said, the three dipping sauces that we made here would be more on the simpler end of the spectrum - for more complex versions, do check out our older video for a Luzhou style as well as Wang Gang’s for a Fushun style.
3. You can do the salt water soak twenty minutes before eating, or you could alternatively start the salt water soak in the morning and leave it soaking until lunchtime - there’s not *too* much of an upper limit there (24 hours, perhaps?). We were split on which way to show in the video.
4. The purpose of adding more hot water in right before eating was to heat up the tofu. At douhua restaurants in Sichuan, the douhua is steaming hot when you get it. With the extra hot water, the tofu will at least be warm. You *can* also nuke tofu, but it has a tendency to get a bit crumbly - just don’t push it.
5. When you’re toasting your chili flakes for the toasted chili oil, the exact timing will depend on how fresh your dried chilis are. If your chilis have been sitting around the supply chain for god knows how long… don’t push it, as you can easily scorch the chilis. While more deeply toasted chilis are definitely a bit more fragrant, making sure that they’re brittle enough to pound is the more critical bit.
I’m about to Zoom with my parents, so the notes’ve gotta stop here for now. I’ll edit some more in later. We’re driving over to Steph’s parent’s place in Zhaoqing for Spring Festival today, so apologies if I’m slow in editing more notes in/slow to get back to you guys :) Happy Spring Festival!
Thanks vm for the detailed explanation / information that you provided! 💯 👍🙂
What do you think of removing celery strings like this? The key for doing it this way is to go both directions. th-cam.com/video/vs7z2kYR08E/w-d-xo.html
Eat chili more tofu
@@AerysBat Ha, however you want to crack that nut! For us, peeling it is simply easier.
@@ChineseCookingDemystified your dog is adorable... 🥺
This "Lunchtime Integration Initiative" should be a series of sort. Classic Chinese lunches that can be easily done on your kitchen or workplace.
Yes I would love that. It would give the essence of Chinese quick home meals
totally, it's a great idea!
This would be amazing!
Absolutely great idea
Yes please!
EAT CHILLY MORE TOFU
- Chinese Cooking Demystified 2022
That's exactly how I read it. 😂😂
Yup, that's how I read it too 🤣
Same, lol
EAT CHILLY, more tofu
I only clicked on the video to look for this comment lol
I love this way of doing recipes, simplified and altered but explaining why and how, and how simplifying in this case can be truer to the context in which the dish is eaten. So interesting and practical but not obscuring the original ways of doing it. Brilliant. Hope you do more in this kind of format (and I love that this is vegan-friendly) and will look through your previous videos to see if I can find more like this. Thank you!
A small note: Something not mentioned in the video that I just found out while trying this recipe. If you sub the LaoGanMa instead making your own, (like me) you don’t need to add any salt or msg. There is already plenty in the jarred stuff, so between that and the soy sauce there’s plenty there. I made the sauce a second time with no added msg or salt, and a large tblspoon of LaoGanMa and it was plenty seasoned. This receptor was delicious. Super simple, and a great excuse to eat some tofu and vegetables.
I will second this. My first go at the recipe using the Lao Gan Ma with black bean was very salty. I'll be scaling it back for round 2.
Oh thanks for pointing that out! I usually add some salt/msg to my chili crisp
"Capsicum annum var. cheapus whateverus" LOL. Welcome to the UK.
It's been a few months now since this video, and I can say with certainty that it has changed my approach to quick meals/lunches pretty much completely. At least for me, the initiative was a huge success.
Take a break if you need to, your current archive is phenomenal.
EAT CHILI MORE TOFU!
You misunderstood the assignment but still completed it correctly.
sasa lele
don't dead open inside
Pls send tofu need more
Despite not the most like, TH-cam knew which comment had to be on top 😊
I like the conceit of showing the preparation of the dish in an office setting, given that you're not merely stepping thru a recipe, but more giving us an idea for a genre of lunch food.
Concept?
see video description box 👀😜
As a spaniard, I was so happy about substituting the toasted chilly flakes for smoked paprika and normal chilly flakes! Mainly because last week I was attempting a version of your crispy chhilly recipe and thought "maybe smoked paprika helps me here". Nice!!
Honestly, just a simple thank you for sharing your passion, knowledge, and truly "demystifying" a cuisine as complex and as rich as the ones found in China.
I think the world needs more of these lunch box style recipes. Thank you!
I couldn't agree more. Not to get too into it but, I think this style of cooking+eating is so much more reflective of peoples realities: their work day, their living situation, their resources, and the reality that we all need and deserve to eat well during the day. We don't have these types of quick lunch stalls to stop at, sadly, but invoking that spirit through a little quick prep is a perfect alternative for home.
@@meganalexandra6604 so true. Where I live, the easy to access lunch places are terrible both at work and at school. Plenty deep fried dish, tasteless, overcooked vegetable on the minimum, if there is any at all. Mushy pasta, too much salt to balance out the lack of taste. I had to learn to box my lunch and I am always happy to learn simply but delicious, box-friendly recipes.
11:04 “You see, for the unaware-”
I LEARNED IT BY WATCHING YOU, DAD.
After you published your sichuan tofu rice recipe, I started basically doing this! I wasn't ever going to make my own tofu, so I started just pouring chili oil over microwaved packaged tofu and eating it over rice!
I fell asleep while watching this video late at night, had a dream I was eating douhuafan, and then when I woke up I was very sad it wasn't actually the case. Needless to say, I will be making the tofu and veggie sides for lunch at least a few times this week! :)
I don't know if you all still take requests from youtube comments, but I'd love to see more vegetable dishes -- not necessarily vegetarian, but vegetable-based for sure! And I'd be really remiss if I didn't say this, so thanks, Steph & Chris, for 5 (wow, it's been this long) years of really good recipes & educational videos.
I got into cooking when i was 9/10 years old because of i fell in love with “chinese” restaurant food here in italy (seams strange right?) and now i am discovering so much about the whole cousine…thank you guys !!!
LOL what's Chinese Italian food like?
@@Jumpoable Mapo Tofu Pizza
"EAT CHILI MORE TOFU"
I have soft tofu in my fridge as well as some of the chili bean pastes you’re mentioning here! Looks like lunch for the week is set. Thank you so so so much for explaining everything so clearly and honestly. I love your channel!
I get anxiety if I don’t have at least two jars of Laoganma chili oil in my pantry/fridge at all times. It’s probably my favorite condiment of all time - despite having made my own chili oil before.
I thought the same thing and bought some today.
I only recently graduated to the 700g jar…but I still only have one in the house. Since I use it pretty much every day…I’m either going to have to stock up or learn to make my own. 😆
@@LBellatrix I only buy the big jars 🤫
Have you tried all the varieties yet? I just discovered a new one, Tomato Chili Sauce (tomato, garlic, msg, salt, sugar).
@@asherbeal8357 I'm still luxuriating in the glorious original. 🤣🤣 My body's not ready for the others yet!
Same, but I also love thai Nam Phrik (50/50 mix of fish sauce and lime juice plus diced thai chilies, garlic, and cilantro). I add one of those 2 to at least 1 meal a day, the Nam Phrik works best with foods that are already greasy or oily (the acid helps countrt balance it) and fish
This guy is the DEFINITION of a good youtuber... and yetI can't shake the speech similarities with ben shapiro, to the point where it actually affects my viewing experience. Not sure if my weird bias is to blame or if it's just age we live in, but either way my appreciation of someone's pure passion for a subject is being affected by a vague comparison. *disclaimer: I am not sober, my sincerest apologies if this is incoherent*.
I find his speaking very very similar to another youtuber specialist in chemestry. His youtube channel is Nilered.
Check him out, maybe it helps you to shake off the similarities to Ben Shapiro, and you can start assimilating it to Nilered? I hope this helps you!
@@laramunoz1609 The three of them do sound similar, but not to the point of me associating one or the other with each other when listening to them. Their content also helps to differentiate them a lot.
I think this is legitimately one of your best videos
Really appreciate the amount of work you guys are doing, with explaining in detail why you do each step, substitutions, and even what experience you're trying to translate. Didn't realize this was for a quick lunch too, such a nice idea! Thank you so much! You've introduced me to so much dishes already. Can't wait to try this :)
CCD is honestly the best cooking show on the internet.
"eat more chili tofu"
Also me: "EAT CHILI MORE TOFU"
Damn it man! Give that dog some; he's dying! I'm salivating myself! Too cute, as always thank you for your top grade videos🥰 Happy Chinese New Year!
nice! plenty of inspiration in this video.
My usual go to was just a basic chilli oil like Lee Kum Kee, microwave rice and some protein, but while my methods are super quick, youve shown me i could be putting 20 mins of work during the week to really one up my current lunches xD
This has become one of my go-to weeknight meals when I don't really feel like cooking. I love experimenting with different chili crisps/sauces to make the best dipping sauce & veggie pairings. I like it best with medium firmness tofu, but I've also made it with firm and even extra-firm when that's all I have on hand, and it's still delicious.
It was a great touch adding the sounds of what the crispy chili bean paste should sound like. 👍
If you don't mind, do consider doing that more often; it's sometimes beneficial for us at home to have an idea of what the food should sound like when it isn't clear just by looking at things whether it's burning or not.
I'm a stupid caveman when it comes to cooking, so I was overjoyed when you told me to sub out homemade oil for Lao Gan Ma. Absolutely adore the stuff.
Right? I’m seriously obsessed with the stuff even though I’ve made my own chili oil before.
This is one time I don't mind doing what the thumbnails says with no questions asked
Eat chili more tofu?
@@luuk6741 or eat more chili tofu. Either or sounds good to me :-)
vegan gang assemble!
@@mjstecyk vegang
Finally one for the vegans 😁
Thanks, will definately try that out since I've got a lot of that Chilli-Bean-Paste :)
The dog is adorable, waiting in the back like "what about me? give me food and attention"
Ur videos are so intricate and calculated it's truly lovely to see this effort
I love this kind of video. Teaching you how to kinda-recreate delicious dishes when you're in a time crunch, which (let's face it) is almost every weekday for many of us.
I just got all of the ingredients today, and I prepped to have version #3 tomorrow for wfh lunch. I had a little taste of the Lao Gan Ma Chili Oil with Black Bean and wow that stuff is *delicious*. This is a totally new kind of food to me, and I am very excited to have a different kind of lunch tomorrow. This weekend I'll work on preparing some chili oil so I can try the other recipes, too.
This office space CCD series (hopefully) is already being practiced on in my office..
On a unrelated note, the description about the fermented bean paste is the kind of "micro knowledge"that's really valuable. To know the precise attributes of a condiment/ingredient require exposure to either the language or very spotted content. I've seen a lot of people flaunder because they used the wrong bean paste/chilli/etc.
This is the true value of CCD imo!
I'm going to use Sichuan chili oil, because I make a huge jar of it every month or two. I just learned from another channel that you can bloom your chili flakes and spices in a little bit of hot water before you pour the oil over, and it really helps the fruity notes in the flakes blossom!
I really hope your chili flakes are dry after that water bath, don't want the hot oil to splatter
@@NeverMind353 it's called being a gangster. Anyway you you can put the wet Chilli flakes into the oil with a 10 foot pole. Everyone has that in their home
This has become a lunchtime staple in my kitchen. Delicious every time!
My favourite video you guys have made to date, wondering if there is a typical Chinese meal for the tradesman eg carpenter, brick layer, landscaper, who usually doesn’t have access to even electricity?
Since I'm under the impression that eating out in China is more 'normal' and less of a 'treat' (see the episode on breakfast in China), my guess is that they'd hit up a street-food stand. That said, if there is a classic Chinese box lunch, I'd love to learn about it too!
@@thestrangegreenman yes it’s pretty much so, there’re a lot of places selling only lunch boxes in China, mostly near construction sites and hospitals, they’re also really cheap. Roughly 2 to 3 dollars you can get a decent portion meal, I remembered this from about 4 years ago.
It's the sad fact, really, that MOST of "3rd world" SE Asia & China's working class eats WAY better, nutrition-wise as well as taste-wise, than the working class of the "1st world" cursed with fast "food".
@@Jumpoable thats true.
I only clicked on this video to make sure I wasn't the only one to read
"Eat chili more tofu"
This dish is one of the few I've learned from the internet that I've integrated to my everyday life. I have it at least once every two weeks and it's always a hit! Thank you for revisiting it
I think my favorite part about this is in the end where you're showing how to eat it. It's such a "duh, of course this is how you eat this food" thing, but to people from the west it's actually kind of important. I wouldn't know how to tackle this dish without it!
I really can't express how revolutionary a lunch regimen such as this would be for us in the US. Just the ability to consume anything but fast food as a midday meal is oftentimes difficult, particularly among working people on the clock.
I’ve never seen someone peel celery. I’m amazed
Definitely a game changer for me. I really like the flavor of celery but I don’t like the strings. Idk why I never thought of peeling it. So smart!!
@@autumnmontoya221 Chinese ppl have never thought of NOT peeling celery. White people so lazy!! LOL
So good even the dog loves it!
Made for an awesome lunch, thank you so much for sharing the beauty of Chinese cooking!
Excellent. This is such a simple and light lunch full of protein and flavour. Thanks for an excellent video how-to!
I made this last night and it was SO GOOD, definetly adding this to my regular rotation!
Would you like to try other tofu recipes? If you're interesting in them ,below tofu recipes for your reference.
wakame tofu soup recipes:th-cam.com/video/JScDN4t5SSU/w-d-xo.html
protein vegan soup白菜豆腐煲: th-cam.com/video/zq9oEOPxKao/w-d-xo.html
10:30 the Ball Mason jars are one of America's greatest contributions to the culinary world and I'll fight anyone who disagrees with me
Pup's cuter than ever today hahaha. Really impatiently waiting for snacks
Fantastic video. I loved the added context and shortcuts.
I don't think I ever do the from scratch version but thus has definitely peaked my interest. Thanks Chris and Steph
Made this for lunch every day this week-still absolutely delicious every time!
I just made this and it’s soooo goooodddd, thank you for the amazing recipe ideas!!
This dog lives some happy life!
I can't believe the perfect timing on this. I was just watching the douhafan video and lamenting how difficult it seemed to make for lunch, and lo and behold you come out with this one.
A word of warning: BE VERY CAREFUL if you want to blitz a bunch of dried chilis in a food processor. The last time I did this for your chili oil recipe I literally had to evacuate the apartment from the fumes. I'm not talking about fumes like "oh it smells really spicy and my eyes water a bit", I'm talking "I've been tear gassed before and this was roughly as bad as that". BE CAREFUL. Use a mortar and pestle, or at the very least maybe there's a way to do this without causing a HAZMAT biohazard, but just "put a few handfuls of wok-toasted arbols in the food processor" is a recipe for disaster.
Maybe a coffee grinder is better for this job. I made chili powder with my coffee grinder before, it's well sealed, just be careful when you open it up to get the chili powder. Definitely avoid a tool that isn't sealed...
More of this please! Just made this for dinner and loved it. Looking forward to lunch tomorrow 😋
Thanks for the optional substitutions, its much more likely I'll try these out because of them. The pup is hilarious, tapping on Steph to remind her for a snack.
That chili oil looks so good. Tofu dipping in chili oil . Oh so satisfying
that dog at the end of the video is basically how I'm feeling after watching this video with a fairly empty pantry. off to the shops!
Great video thank you so much! I’ve tried adding fermented bamboo shoots to LGM black bean chilli sauce - it goes so well! I’m sure also with tofu.
Love to see recipes that are traditionally vegan. Thanks for sharing this one.
Seeing VLOOKUP on the screen is giving me flashbacks. Love your channel!
Is no one really going to talk about that guy dancing at 0:06?
13:10 so cute the dog asking for food
For the chili black bean one, I usually have some homemade chili crisp or chili oil, can I just add some fermented black beans to it? Should I toast the black beans in the chili oil?
Also, if I were to add black beans next time I make chili oil, where would I add them in the process?
I love the inflection there "mix it in with some of your...hot??? rice". Totally gave the game away 😋
Great recipes, I love it! Healthy vegan lunch options. I like doing a dish like this with the beancurd skin sticks, rehydrated, and dipping sauce.
Would love to have a video of you two having the meal after making it :)) sort of mukbang style but not necessarily asmr, just having you enjoy the fruits of your labor and talking ❤️ Love you & your videos, have a beautiful day
Ever since seeing your dou hua video I’ve been doing just this for an easy no cook lunch, in your other video you used xiang la jiang and I found a lao gan ma xiang la jiang, I don’t know if it’s the same as what you meant but I mix it with some chopped lemon grass to sub the impossible to find oil and it’s the most delicious easiest tofu dish ever
The uncle in blue at the beginning is vibing
just a FYI for anyone worried about MSG, it has been in common use for about 50 years now, has been exhaustively studied and there is ZERO evidence that it is harmful in any way.
I think we're already past that. At this point, I see way more comments like yours than I see about the "dangers of msg"
That dog was gaming at the end
I honestly never thought that tofu could taste could until I saw this vid. I'll definitely have to give it a try now!
To be honest, cold rice sounds like a fantastic variant for the summer heat. Amazing as always!
Haha cold rice clumps up and is generally not recommended. We were nearing the end of a long day filming, and Steph was like 'eh, don't bother heating up the rice, I'll be fine'. Ended up definitely being a bit *too* cold...
@@ChineseCookingDemystified interested in your take on the american "don't dare eat rice that's been @ room temperature for over an hour" saying. It feels like a big exaggeration. Do people in china abide by this, because I'd love to make this for a cold lunch someday
@@redpotionz Pretty much anything an American says about food safety is an exaggeration. When you learn how to cook from chefs on TV instead of your parents, you end up with a lot of attitudes that - while they might make sense from a liability perspective for a restaurant - often aren't very applicable to home kitchens.
Yes, you can eat room temperature rice.
@@ChineseCookingDemystified American food safety is really quite excessive tbh. Its so wasteful. Printed expiration dates on American products are usually weeks earlier than needed.
at the 9:00 mark, describing the chilis crisping up, i was taught to call this sound "papery"
Thanks for your videos. I have access to many excellent Chinese and Vietnamese groceries and even have done some work in a Cantonese-American restaurant for a bit, but Chinese cooking has always been a bit of an Achilles heel for me. You've really helped me improve in this area and I can now better enjoy foods like these.
very smart and mindful video concept
oh the dog at the end is priceless , I hope the dog got something to eat
What dish is shown at 0:10?
0:15 I wish we did. The food supermarkets we got where I live, a small town near to London but in Essex, we got more in the way of middle Eastern and African food shops, while are great in their own right it isn't good when I watch these videos and want to try all the dishes xD
This is seriously some New York Times' worthy recipe.
The vlookup on the word doc list sent me back to trauma I didn't know I had
This looks so good! Thanks for sharing!
This video changed my life
could you make an ingredient video specifically on chilly and beans paste?
I get so lost on that.
also the various type of preserved vegetable could really help
Would love to have the recepie of the noodle dishes at the begining of the video, or at least their name for research purposes
Those are Sichuan Red Braised Beef noodles, commonly referred to as Taiwan Beef Noodle soup outside of China (it's a dish that originally came from Sichuan, and then was adapted/became popular in the 50s and 60s in Taiwan). We're planning on covering it this month, but ChinaSichuanFood has a recipe for the Sichuan style in the meantime if you can't wait: www.chinasichuanfood.com/braised-beef-noodles/
For the Taiwan style, there are many results if you meander around TH-cam.
@@ChineseCookingDemystified thx a lot 😀
3:52; Cheapus Whateverus… nice touch.
Is the chili bean paste the same item as pixian douban Jiang?
Yep!
It's cold in new england and I would love to have sichuan style sour hot firepot. Can you do a video on it? I've had it before when I was young, but in new england there's no place that makes it.
This sounds amazing!! Chili Tofu Rice for dinner tomorrow!
So here I'm thinking I know my Sichuan food inside and out, and now I learn that there are TWO varieties of douban. Had no idea. Is there a way to move between the two types? Do you simply need to fry in more oil for longer to get the same result? And in regards to the earlier CCD recipes using douban: are these all using the red oil variety as well?
This channel is great. Is a cook book on the horizon?
Two of my favourite food groups: tofu and hot chilli 😍
I had to laugh at "the UK's favourite chili" because it's so true. There's one kind of (vegetable) pepper which is the sweet bell pepper, possibly in different shapes and sizes but all tasting the same. Then the most prevalent chillies in supermarkets are labelled solely by colour: you can get red, green or mixed. I think they might be jalapenos. And as per the video, dried chillies are generic too. In bigger supermarkets you will find scotch bonnet and Thai bird's eye chillies, in very small packets at quite high prices. And in the posher supermarkets you may be lucky to find Mexican dried chillies at eye watering prices (that's before you open the package and touch your eyes after touching the chillies!).
Thanks, and I'd definitely appreciate more videos like this. As someone who lives alone and has 12 hour days, I don't usually have the energy to cook a more involved meal.
Hi there, love this quick but flavorful (and vegetarian!) type of recipe(: Last time I did a homemade chili oil, after a few weeks in the fridge it completely gelatinized, forming some sort of goop instead of a runny or slightly thick oil. Is that something you have noticed too in the past, or my chili oil turned bad ? I should mention I used the "poor over" boiling oil method and I added sesame seed which I suspect is the culprit here.
Yep, still good, just heat it up before consuming.
I used to live near that 99 ranch that you showed at the start of your vid. That must be a very old pic you found because it hasn't been 99 ranch for a very very long time lol
Hi Chris and Stephanie, I know this probably gets asked quite a bit, but are you two planning to ever publish a cookbook in the future featuring the recipes from this channel?
What happened to your patreon posts? Everything shows 404. Do you have all your recipes documented online somewhere? Happy to donate.