Our 10 most popular recipes for the month delivered right to your inbox!
Hello, I am new to the forum. I saw a post back in 2005 about tiny dried shrimp bought in an oriental market. I also have bought some, but mine seem to have the shells still on them. I can't imagine trying to deshell these little guys. Can someone give me some advise about how to use them? The chore would discourage me from even trying. Thanks for any help.
This is only a GUESS, but I'd say you don't actually eat them. Bet the Asians use them to make a broth.....you know, simmer them and then strain well before making a soup or something similar.
Marilyn
Motorhomegirl s correct, Asians do use them in broth but they don't strain them, at least the people I have known did not strain them out. Most of the little guys are shelled but the few that are not are still eaten because: they are so tiny the shell is not really hard.
II love shrimp but those dry ones are too smelly for my taste and who knows how they were processed. Asians do not use very many in a broth, just enough for a subtle flavor.
Yes, boiing would sanitize them but it is the smell of them that gets me, too much like dead, rotten dry fish. I have done my share of Asian cooking but I do draw the line at a few things: Korean Kimchi and those smelly little dried shrimp.
The Japanese also use very tiny dried fish, they are only about 1 1/2 " long and have everything on and in them that they had when they were alive. They cook them in broth and eat the whole hing.
One person I will never forget, a Chinese girl married to an Army Sergeant stationed at Fort Greeley/Alaska. She did not speak English very well and one day she asked me"you know people go fish Salmon?"
I said yes I do, and she told me to ask them if they would save the fish heads and give them to her. When I asked why she wanted what other people threw in the garden as fertilizer she said: "Me and Korea friend cook the head and chew they eye-ball".
Well, to each his/her own..........
If I can help it I don't eat headcheese either. My grandmothe's German Cookbook from 1870 has a recipe for head cheese: take the pig's head, take pliers and break off all the teeth...........like I said, there are a few things I draw a line at (unless I was lost and starving), no matter what country the recipe or food is from.
Grelo, I love headcheese.I don't think anybody makes their own anymore. Our German butcher and meat company who make headcheese use some other meat. The one at our butcher has the right spicing .It also comes with hot spicing,but I like the mild one.
Sauregurke, don't know how old you are but when I was a child you saw all kinds of junk in head cheese. Pug skin with the hair roots in it was one example. Nobody in my family would eat it but we loved and made our own Suelze. Even had forms for it, like pork chop shaped, lined bottom with hard boiled egg slice,paper thin slices of pickles, parsley, a decorative slice of carrot, it looked like small arrangement of flowers. Then we put diced cooked lean pork and veal in and covered with aspic (calf foot jelly). Turned oyr of the form the decorations were on top. The whole thing looked and tasted GREAT..
There are onlty very few things I draw the line at when it comes to eating and head cheese is one of them. I would eat it if I were starving but would still be picky about what is in it and avoid certain thinngs like skin with hair and hair roots in it.Schwartemagen is not too bad but Presskopf reminds me too much of head cheese.
Give me any kind of good Leberwurst, Fleischwurst, Schinkenwurst, geraeuchrte Mettwurst, Jagdwurst, Zungenwurst, Blutwurst, Leberkaese, Bockwurst, Weisswurst, Wienerle or Frankfurter made from pure meat and i all wurst in natural casing and I am in hog heaven but all would have to be made WITHOUT fillers, just from meat. You just cannot find that anywhere today and if I had any eye teeth left I would give them for some good German "Gekochten Schinken" fuer Aufschnitt.
Oh, the good old days are gone forever.
Grelo, I am pretty up in age ,but I never saw head cheese as you prescribed it. It always had a sliced egg ,maybe Carrots and aspic and very good meat. For as the good old days are not gone forever in respect of the wonderful German cold cuts.,but we are fortunate to live in a big city.We have a German butcher here and his Leberwurst,Fleischwurst,Leberkäse and so on,are excellent and have the right spicing. I even can buy the right meat for rouladen. Also in Denver is a butcher with fantastic German Aufschnitt and Cheeses. Closer to us ,at the Farmers Market or the Global Market, I can buy Usingers or Schaller&Weber lets say Mettwurst,Teawurst and Leberwurst. I know you can order sausages and cold cute from those places. Maybe in winter it would be better.They pack them in dry ice and they are shipped overnight.
Renate