Chinese banquet

My partner just came back from Toronto where we used to live with 2 full bags of groceries... She loves Chinese food and took the opportunity of a business trip there to splurge on some delicacies that are hard to find here: marinated pig feet, braised pig ears, ready-cooked fish, etc.

Using these dishes along with some leftovers and a few extra dishes, we managed to fill our table with an overabundance of food worthy of the best Chinese banquets.

This is a picture of my partner's watercress and tofu soup... in this one she added tomatoes but she often adds shrimps or bay scallops instead. It has become a classic at home because it is so easy to prepare and so good to eat. We actually make the broth with a powdered Chinese seafood broth... probably not the best base to use but its easy and cheap so we stick to it for everyday cooking.

The next picture shows my own interpretation of what could be a sichuan dish... I bought a big pork loin the other day and decided to trim it a bit in order to make a better roast. I chopped very finely some of the trimmings to make some sort of ground pork that I marinated in some store bought Chinese black bean sauce, a bit of oil and soy sauce as well as a huge quantity of ground sichuan peppers. I fried the meat, reserved it... cooked the (canned) bamboo shoots in the same pan with a little bit of water and then arranged the whole thing in a nice bowl. To be honest, the bamboo shoots were not that good... I should have added much more flavors to the broth in which I poached them and cooked them a bit longer. On the other hand, those little bits of pork and spices on top were just fabulous! We'll try them on noodle later this week.