老外厨房

老外厨房将会以这个博客为平台，给大家介绍不同的西餐和一些西餐的做法。

我很喜欢烹饪而且也很喜欢吃中国菜，可是做为“门外汉”的我，是不敢鲁班门前耍大刀，介绍中餐做法的。

我把这个网站命名为“美式厨房”，因为我是美国人。但是美国菜很难归类。美国菜可以看成是各国菜肴的大交汇。因为美国是个移民国家，所以我们的菜式也是来自世界各地，但是有时各式菜肴会融合。因为当移民来到美国后，他们把自己家乡菜式的菜谱也带到了美国，可是有时候，他们可能找不到所需要的食材，所以这就使得原有的菜谱发生了变化。有时候，你会发现很多菜已经完全找不到它最初的影子了。比如说，在美国的中餐馆里，几乎美国人所熟知的“炒杂碎”和“左宗鸡”。可是在中国的时候，我却从来没有见过这两道菜。

The Laowai Kitchen is here to teach you about foreign food and cooking methods. I love cooking and eating Chinese food, but you probably already know all about Chinese cooking.

We could call this site “American Kitchen” because I am American, but American food is too difficult to classify. American food is fusion food. Because America is a country of immigrants we have foods from around the world, and sometimes these foods get mixed together. When immigrants come to America, they bring recipes for familiar food, but they can’t always find the right ingredients. This leads to substitutions in recipes. In some cases, the food is nothing like its country of origin–chop suey and General Tso’s Chicken are in every Chinese restaurant, but I never found anything like them in China.

在美国这个移民国家里，大家来自不同的地方，但是这并不意味着每个人的口味仅仅只局限于自己的“家乡味”。世世代代的移民来到这片大陆，接受着各种文化的熏陶，这其中也包括来自各地的饮食文化。我们不断的尝试新的菜肴，就好像我们从未停止过对世界的探索一样。

Just because our families come from one country or another does not mean our tastes are limited to that country’s food. As we assimilate into American culture over generations we branch out and try the food of other countries and regions. Sometimes we enjoy the food and other times we don’t. We just keep trying new things to broaden our palates.

烹饪也是一样，需要不断探求新的东西。我们在厨房里，从错误的经验中总结。我做饭的时候，我不喜欢用量勺之类的东西，有时候我也不遵循菜谱。一个好的厨师，有时候是需要自己不断尝试创新的。我在中国的时候，很多食材和一些厨房用品很难买到，或者太贵了，因此我就会改进我的菜谱，用一些可以找到的其他食材代替。这样的话，每个人都可以做。总之，烹饪有时就像中国的哲学所倡导的一样，要“因时因地”制宜。

The same can be said about cooking–sometimes the food comes out good. We learn from mistakes in the kitchen. I don’t measure every ingredient and don’t follow every recipe. A good cook needs to experiment sometimes. I know that some ingredients and cooking utensils aren’t available or are expensive in China, therefore, I will try to adapt all my recipes so everyone can cook. And if you can’t find the exact ingredients or utensils where you live, improvise with what you can find.