Lahng Chiin

Just for a little bit I want to write about this Chinese cheese that I ate at the Rutherford's last Thursday and totally forgot about.

Sarah bought it in Burma - apparently you can't buy it here, it's very expensive, and it's VERY hard to make.  This will be, just as a forwarning, a totally foody post.

So this cheese looks, sort of, like a bunch of thick, yellowish pieces of paper clumped together in an uneven stack.  You can eat it like this; it just doesn't have much flavor, sort of like very brittle, very sharp cheddar.  Cheddar?  Some sort of dry, sharp cheese.  I don't know anything about cheese.  I asked Sarah how to make this cheese and she told me but I forgot. Ka tods. (Sorry).

Sarah, Atchoo and I took a pair of scissors to this, snapping off shreds of cheese about half the size of a sheet of notebook paper.  They break and chip away from each other once you cut the scissors into the very edge.  It's hard to describe.

Meanwhile, you heat up some vegetable or olive oil in a wok or any other pan you might have lying around until it is bubbling, or very very hot.  Take some chopsticks and use them to lay the cheese in the oil, where it will IMMEDIATELY start to soften and bubble.  Flip it a few times, bunch it up with your chopsticks, and lift it out.  It could be anywhere from dark golden brown to as pale as it was in the beginning.  Sprinkle it with some brown sugar.  Looks sort of like a surrealist's version of a fortune cookie, but 100 times thinner and 100 times cheesier ( AND SOOO DELICIOUS).  It's one of the best things I have ever had.  Especially heavy on the sugar. :)