**Making Hua Mei Huasang: A Sweet and Sour Peanuts Dish**

Hua mei huasang is a popular Chinese dish that originated from Guangzhou, known for its slightly spiced sweet and sourness. It's also a great snack on its own and can be enjoyed without any accompaniments. To make hua mei huasang, you'll need 350 grams of fresh peanuts, which should be cracked open to allow the flavor to absorb better. Before boiling, it's essential to blanch the peanuts in a pot of boiling water with sodium carbonate to remove any alkaline taste.

**Preparing the Peanuts**

Add 1 liter of boiling water to a pot and add 1 teaspoon of sodium carbonate. Then, add the peanuts to the boiling water and cover the pot. Let it cook on medium heat for 5 minutes. After 5 minutes, turn off the heat and let the peanuts soak in cool water for a couple of minutes to remove any excess alkalinity. Once cooled, drain the peanuts and set them aside.

**Boiling the Peanuts**

In a separate pot, combine three cups of cool water with the peanuts, along with a quarter teaspoon of cloves, a quarter teaspoon of fennel seeds, four pieces of dried liquorice, and 20 grams of dried Chinese plums (also known as candies). For the Chinese plums, use the salty, sour, and sweet candies that can be found at Asian supermarkets. Add three tablespoons of sugar, one tablespoon of salt, and half a tablespoon of white vinegar or white rice vinegar to the pot. Bring everything to a boil and then simmer on low for 45 minutes.

**Letting it Soak**

After boiling, shut off the heat and let the hua mei huasang soak in its own juices for four hours or overnight. This will allow the flavors to deepen and intensify. If desired, refrigerate the hua mei huasang after it cools down and enjoy it chilled or reheated.

**Nipae Hongwa: Smashed Cucumber with Garlic Sauce**

To make nipae hongwa, a refreshing snack that pairs well with beer on hot summer days, you'll need one cucumber about 300 grams in size. Peel and cut off both ends of the cucumber, then cut it in half lengthwise. Flatten the cucumber halves with a cleaver to create smashed cucumber sections. Cut each section into 1-inch pieces and set them aside.

**Chilling the Cucumber**

If you prefer a chilled or extremely cold snack, pop the cucumber pieces in the fridge for 30 minutes or the freezer for 15 minutes before serving.

**Assembling the Garlic Smashed Cucumber**

In a mixing bowl with the smashed cucumber, combine half a tablespoon of soy sauce, half a tablespoon of soft dark Chinese vinegar, half a tablespoon of Sichuan chili oil (which was made earlier), one tablespoon of sesame oil, an eighth of teaspoon salt, and an eighth of teaspoon MSG. Add two cloves of garlic that have been baked until softened and finely minced, as well as one sprig of cilantro roughly cut into 1-inch sections. Mix everything well together.

**Sponsorship: Robotic Vacuum Cleaner**

One of the creators' old friends works for a company that sells robotic vacuum cleaners, including the Narwhal model, which features advanced navigation and cleaning capabilities. The Narwhal robot vacuum can also mop floors and has a unique station that makes it easy to swap out water. If you're in the market for such a premium product, use the promo code "ccd" to receive $200 off your purchase.

**About Xiao Thai Snacks**

Xiao thai snacks are designed to be smaller portion sizes because they're typically served as accompaniments to larger meals or enjoyed on their own when drinking. While making hua mei huasang can be done in various ways, these snack recipes offer a unique way to experience the flavors of Chinese cuisine.

**Support Us**

If you enjoy our content and would like to support us, consider checking out our Patreon page or subscribing to our channel for more Chinese cooking videos.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enthis video is brought to you by narwhal more on them at the end of the video china has food and china has rice wine so the natural question to ask might be does china have wine pairing well the answer is kind of not really in the western sense here in china speaking in really broad generality people usually don't choose certain wine to pair their food but rather in the opposite direction they will choose certain food to pair their wine and these dishes are called shajo thai food that goes down really well with alcohol you can think of them as drinking food they're usually very light snackable wouldn't filter up that much and the flavor goes really well with your alcoholic beverage of choice and just like food that goes well with beer is different than food that goes well with sparkling wine what you eat as shaju thai is probably going to be different depend on what you drink in china the three most popular alcohols are first by jiu which is sorghum liquor second huang jio that is a sticky rice wine of which xiao xin wine is most famous off and third of course it's beer so to be a little bit more comprehensive in this video we're gonna show you three kinds of chinese drinking foods that would go really well with these three categories of chinese strengths so first up baijil baiji like her can be a little bit infamous because this stuff is pungent and also really strong here's the bottom river it's about like 40 alcohol and sometimes this stuff can go up to 50 60 or even over 70 percent they come in several varieties are the four major types that are distinct by the flavors are ching chang zhang jiang nong zhang and jian zhang it needs a whole documentary series to talk about it so we're not going to dwell on it today but for whatever reason lu niro that is beef braised in some kind of master stock goes really well with the baijo flavor so today we'll be showing you a citron gangbang new roll as the baijiu drinking food first let's braise the beef here we're using 350 grams of beef shen here put it in a pot with one liters of cool water this can actually brace for up to 1 kilograms of beef we're only doing 350 here because we already have a bunch of test batches in our fridge now bring it to a boil skim if needed during the process and once it's at a boil turn the heat to low and now we can add in our spices here we're using three star anise six bay leaf one teaspoons of fennel seed one tablespoons of sichuan peppercorn and optionally 3 to 4 pieces of sand ginger aka kachori plus we'll be using some dried chili for heat and flavor here's 10 grams of dry herbs in tao chile you can sub it with a cayenne or kashmiri and plus we'll be adding in five grams of dried chao tanjiao chili uh then here you can sub this with dry thai bird side as for aromatics we'll be adding in one two inch ginger and a two inch sections of welsh onion you can stop this with a sprig of scallion instead and then adding in the seasoning of three tablespoons of salt half tablespoons of chicken bouillon powder plus three tablespoons of leojo aka shousing wine now keep it covered and let it break for 40 minutes or until a chopstick can easily pierce through the beef now 40 minutes later come back and check to see if your beef is done if it's done then take it out put it on the drying rack or a makeshift drying rack make with a pair of chopstick and let it completely cool down and let the surface moisture evaporate when the beef is cooling down let's make some sultron shuyola or cooked chili oil for the sauce here we have 25 grams of dried oregan cow chili and again you can stop them with cayenne or kashmiri cut them into sections if they are too long and now we need to toast them now turn the heat to low and keep stirring the chilies until they turn into this kind of deepish brown color and then take it out let it cool down and wait till it turns kind of crispy and then take a mortar and press so put the chilies in give it a rough pound and turn it into a coarse powder and now set that aside next heat up 80 grams of tajio chinese rapeseed oil or peanut oil to smoking point about 220 degrees celsius once it reached the smoking points just shut off the heat let the oil temperature come down to about 180 and then we'll be adding in our aromatics here it's half an inch of ginger a two inch section of welsh onion and plus an eighth of an onion now turn the heat back on low and fry the aromatics till they are golden brown and then take it out now bring the oil temperature back to 150 degrees celsius then shut off the heat toss the coarse chili powder in give it a mix let it slightly cool down and jar it up and now your citron yo lots of cooked chili oil is done when the beef completely cools down after a couple hours and now we can assemble take 100 grams of the cooked beef thinly slice it against the grain and turn it into really thin slices and set it aside next grab a mixing bowl thousand 1.5 tablespoons of soy sauce 1 tablespoons of the shuyola the chili oil that we just made two teaspoons of toasted sesame oil an eighth of teaspoons of salt half a teaspoon of sugar and half teaspoons of sichuan peppercorn powder plus an eighth of teaspoons of msg and now mix that all together then toss in the beef plus 30 grams of roughly pounded roasted peanuts 10 grams or about one tablespoons of toasted white sesame seeds 25 grams of cilantro roughly cut into one inch sections and 15 grams of scallion cut into the same size mix everything together put it on the plate and now your ganba new niro is done i know that baijiu sometimes get a bad rap of being unpalatable but with this kind of beef dishes even a 1.5 dollars of our guard hole like baiju liquor can be surprisingly okay to enjoy so do give it a try there's some kind of black magic in there okay moving on let's make something for huangzhou hanzo it's a kind of sticky rice wine and it's a popular choice of alcohol around jiangnan area and it's commonly known as shaoxing wine so for more information about it check out our shaoxin vine video here so we have this huamei hua zheng or boiled peanuts with dry plums at our favorite under the bridge restaurant in xiaoxing the slightly spiced sweet and sourness goes really well with the mild fragrance of guangzhou and it's also a great snack just even on its own so to make hua me huasang you need peanuts uh here's 350 grams of fresh peanuts and then crack open each peanut to let the flavor absorbed better later but before the boil we need to blanch the peanut first so to a pot of 1 liter boiling water add in 1 teaspoon of sodium carbonate and then add your peanut to the boiling water cover let it cook on medium for 5 minutes 5 minutes later show off the heat take out the peanuts and let it soak in cool water for a couple minutes to get rid of that alkaline taste now we can start boiling our peanuts here's we have three cups of cool water put in your peanuts together with a quarter teaspoon clove a quarter teaspoon fennel seeds four pieces of dry liquid shorts and 20 grams of dried chinese plums so for the chinese dry plums we are using the candies right here they are salty sour and sweet at the same time you should be able to get them at asian supermarkets as they are a classic export item from early on for seasoning add in three tablespoons of sugar one tablespoon of salt a half tablespoons of white rice vinegar or just white vinegar is fine bring everything to a boil and let it simmer on low for 45 minutes now 45 minutes later come back shut off the heat just let it soak for four hours or overnight to let the flavor deepen you can also put it in the fridge after it cools down and next day now your huamei peanut is done scoop some out when you are ready to drink some hong joo it's good either serve chilled or reheated it really just depends on the weather and your mood now let's make something for beer well i guess i don't need to tell you what beer is so let's jump to the food itself so we'll be making some nipae hongwa or smashed cucumber with a garlic sauce today the cucumber it's really crunchy it's slightly spicy and is the best refreshing snack to have a cold beer in a hot summer day so we'll be using one cucumber here about 300 grams peel it and cut off both ends and then cut it in half and then half it lengthwise now flat side down use a cleaver and really smash your cucumber and then cut it into one inch section work through the whole cucumber and then set them aside in a mixing bowl so because chris is very weird and licensed cucumber very cold if you're like that too you can pop the cucumber in the fridge for 30 minutes or the freezer for 15 minutes before serving a bit later now the cucumber is properly chilled and now we can assemble and mix everything together now to the mixing bowl with the cucumber add in half a tablespoon of soy sauce half a tablespoon soft dark chinese vinegar half a tablespoons of the sichuan lots of chili oil that we just made plus one tablespoons of sesame oil an eighth of teaspoon salt and an eighth of teaspoon msg for aromatics and herbs chosen 2 baked cloves of garlic finely mince 1 sprigs of cilantro roughly cut into 1 inch sections now mix everything well together put it on the plate and then your garlic smashed cucumber it's done best enjoy while it's cold so uh narwhal i know that we don't usually really do sponsorship so let me explain one of steph's old friends works for this company that sells these robotic vacuums and a while back they were like hey do you want one if you like it you can give us a shout on your channel if we ever expand abroad and we did really like it and now they're entering the american market so we are on the hook so narwhal is this kind of like super premium robot vacuum it can even do a great job mopping and unique to narwhal it comes with this station that completely swaps water out for you it's super easy we've really liked it it's undeniably a premium sort of vacuum though so if you're in the market for this kind of product you can use the promo code ccd and get 200 bucks off link in the description we make the dishes here uh in relatively smaller portion size because xiao thai is not something that's supposed to fill you up but if you are drinking in the context of a bigger meal you will see other bigger main dishes on the table alongside with this kind of drinking snack so you can either make them just as snack to go along with your alcohol or you can make it as a part of a bigger meal just depends on what you want to do with it so right check out the recipe in the description box a big thank you for everyone that's supporting us on patreon and of course subscribe for more chinese cooking videos herethis video is brought to you by narwhal more on them at the end of the video china has food and china has rice wine so the natural question to ask might be does china have wine pairing well the answer is kind of not really in the western sense here in china speaking in really broad generality people usually don't choose certain wine to pair their food but rather in the opposite direction they will choose certain food to pair their wine and these dishes are called shajo thai food that goes down really well with alcohol you can think of them as drinking food they're usually very light snackable wouldn't filter up that much and the flavor goes really well with your alcoholic beverage of choice and just like food that goes well with beer is different than food that goes well with sparkling wine what you eat as shaju thai is probably going to be different depend on what you drink in china the three most popular alcohols are first by jiu which is sorghum liquor second huang jio that is a sticky rice wine of which xiao xin wine is most famous off and third of course it's beer so to be a little bit more comprehensive in this video we're gonna show you three kinds of chinese drinking foods that would go really well with these three categories of chinese strengths so first up baijil baiji like her can be a little bit infamous because this stuff is pungent and also really strong here's the bottom river it's about like 40 alcohol and sometimes this stuff can go up to 50 60 or even over 70 percent they come in several varieties are the four major types that are distinct by the flavors are ching chang zhang jiang nong zhang and jian zhang it needs a whole documentary series to talk about it so we're not going to dwell on it today but for whatever reason lu niro that is beef braised in some kind of master stock goes really well with the baijo flavor so today we'll be showing you a citron gangbang new roll as the baijiu drinking food first let's braise the beef here we're using 350 grams of beef shen here put it in a pot with one liters of cool water this can actually brace for up to 1 kilograms of beef we're only doing 350 here because we already have a bunch of test batches in our fridge now bring it to a boil skim if needed during the process and once it's at a boil turn the heat to low and now we can add in our spices here we're using three star anise six bay leaf one teaspoons of fennel seed one tablespoons of sichuan peppercorn and optionally 3 to 4 pieces of sand ginger aka kachori plus we'll be using some dried chili for heat and flavor here's 10 grams of dry herbs in tao chile you can sub it with a cayenne or kashmiri and plus we'll be adding in five grams of dried chao tanjiao chili uh then here you can sub this with dry thai bird side as for aromatics we'll be adding in one two inch ginger and a two inch sections of welsh onion you can stop this with a sprig of scallion instead and then adding in the seasoning of three tablespoons of salt half tablespoons of chicken bouillon powder plus three tablespoons of leojo aka shousing wine now keep it covered and let it break for 40 minutes or until a chopstick can easily pierce through the beef now 40 minutes later come back and check to see if your beef is done if it's done then take it out put it on the drying rack or a makeshift drying rack make with a pair of chopstick and let it completely cool down and let the surface moisture evaporate when the beef is cooling down let's make some sultron shuyola or cooked chili oil for the sauce here we have 25 grams of dried oregan cow chili and again you can stop them with cayenne or kashmiri cut them into sections if they are too long and now we need to toast them now turn the heat to low and keep stirring the chilies until they turn into this kind of deepish brown color and then take it out let it cool down and wait till it turns kind of crispy and then take a mortar and press so put the chilies in give it a rough pound and turn it into a coarse powder and now set that aside next heat up 80 grams of tajio chinese rapeseed oil or peanut oil to smoking point about 220 degrees celsius once it reached the smoking points just shut off the heat let the oil temperature come down to about 180 and then we'll be adding in our aromatics here it's half an inch of ginger a two inch section of welsh onion and plus an eighth of an onion now turn the heat back on low and fry the aromatics till they are golden brown and then take it out now bring the oil temperature back to 150 degrees celsius then shut off the heat toss the coarse chili powder in give it a mix let it slightly cool down and jar it up and now your citron yo lots of cooked chili oil is done when the beef completely cools down after a couple hours and now we can assemble take 100 grams of the cooked beef thinly slice it against the grain and turn it into really thin slices and set it aside next grab a mixing bowl thousand 1.5 tablespoons of soy sauce 1 tablespoons of the shuyola the chili oil that we just made two teaspoons of toasted sesame oil an eighth of teaspoons of salt half a teaspoon of sugar and half teaspoons of sichuan peppercorn powder plus an eighth of teaspoons of msg and now mix that all together then toss in the beef plus 30 grams of roughly pounded roasted peanuts 10 grams or about one tablespoons of toasted white sesame seeds 25 grams of cilantro roughly cut into one inch sections and 15 grams of scallion cut into the same size mix everything together put it on the plate and now your ganba new niro is done i know that baijiu sometimes get a bad rap of being unpalatable but with this kind of beef dishes even a 1.5 dollars of our guard hole like baiju liquor can be surprisingly okay to enjoy so do give it a try there's some kind of black magic in there okay moving on let's make something for huangzhou hanzo it's a kind of sticky rice wine and it's a popular choice of alcohol around jiangnan area and it's commonly known as shaoxing wine so for more information about it check out our shaoxin vine video here so we have this huamei hua zheng or boiled peanuts with dry plums at our favorite under the bridge restaurant in xiaoxing the slightly spiced sweet and sourness goes really well with the mild fragrance of guangzhou and it's also a great snack just even on its own so to make hua me huasang you need peanuts uh here's 350 grams of fresh peanuts and then crack open each peanut to let the flavor absorbed better later but before the boil we need to blanch the peanut first so to a pot of 1 liter boiling water add in 1 teaspoon of sodium carbonate and then add your peanut to the boiling water cover let it cook on medium for 5 minutes 5 minutes later show off the heat take out the peanuts and let it soak in cool water for a couple minutes to get rid of that alkaline taste now we can start boiling our peanuts here's we have three cups of cool water put in your peanuts together with a quarter teaspoon clove a quarter teaspoon fennel seeds four pieces of dry liquid shorts and 20 grams of dried chinese plums so for the chinese dry plums we are using the candies right here they are salty sour and sweet at the same time you should be able to get them at asian supermarkets as they are a classic export item from early on for seasoning add in three tablespoons of sugar one tablespoon of salt a half tablespoons of white rice vinegar or just white vinegar is fine bring everything to a boil and let it simmer on low for 45 minutes now 45 minutes later come back shut off the heat just let it soak for four hours or overnight to let the flavor deepen you can also put it in the fridge after it cools down and next day now your huamei peanut is done scoop some out when you are ready to drink some hong joo it's good either serve chilled or reheated it really just depends on the weather and your mood now let's make something for beer well i guess i don't need to tell you what beer is so let's jump to the food itself so we'll be making some nipae hongwa or smashed cucumber with a garlic sauce today the cucumber it's really crunchy it's slightly spicy and is the best refreshing snack to have a cold beer in a hot summer day so we'll be using one cucumber here about 300 grams peel it and cut off both ends and then cut it in half and then half it lengthwise now flat side down use a cleaver and really smash your cucumber and then cut it into one inch section work through the whole cucumber and then set them aside in a mixing bowl so because chris is very weird and licensed cucumber very cold if you're like that too you can pop the cucumber in the fridge for 30 minutes or the freezer for 15 minutes before serving a bit later now the cucumber is properly chilled and now we can assemble and mix everything together now to the mixing bowl with the cucumber add in half a tablespoon of soy sauce half a tablespoon soft dark chinese vinegar half a tablespoons of the sichuan lots of chili oil that we just made plus one tablespoons of sesame oil an eighth of teaspoon salt and an eighth of teaspoon msg for aromatics and herbs chosen 2 baked cloves of garlic finely mince 1 sprigs of cilantro roughly cut into 1 inch sections now mix everything well together put it on the plate and then your garlic smashed cucumber it's done best enjoy while it's cold so uh narwhal i know that we don't usually really do sponsorship so let me explain one of steph's old friends works for this company that sells these robotic vacuums and a while back they were like hey do you want one if you like it you can give us a shout on your channel if we ever expand abroad and we did really like it and now they're entering the american market so we are on the hook so narwhal is this kind of like super premium robot vacuum it can even do a great job mopping and unique to narwhal it comes with this station that completely swaps water out for you it's super easy we've really liked it it's undeniably a premium sort of vacuum though so if you're in the market for this kind of product you can use the promo code ccd and get 200 bucks off link in the description we make the dishes here uh in relatively smaller portion size because xiao thai is not something that's supposed to fill you up but if you are drinking in the context of a bigger meal you will see other bigger main dishes on the table alongside with this kind of drinking snack so you can either make them just as snack to go along with your alcohol or you can make it as a part of a bigger meal just depends on what you want to do with it so right check out the recipe in the description box a big thank you for everyone that's supporting us on patreon and of course subscribe for more chinese cooking videos here\n"