Archive for the ‘Asian’ Category
Chinese Food, Food, gluten free, Recipes, side dishes
In Meat and Eggs on May 11, 2012 at am
Cooking with Alison’s Grandma (Part 3 of 4)
During my last visit with my grandma, she showed me how easy it is to make your own Chinese salted eggs! Chinese salted eggs are simple, delicious, cost-efficient side dishes. Personally, I find them addictive. They can be enjoyed as a side dish to compliment a plain bowl of white rice or congee, or they can be used to flavour many different Asian dishes; just to name a few: steamed egg dish, claypot rice, steamed minced pork, rice dumpling (joong/zhong zi), etc. You can even add salted eggs to simple Chinese vegetable soups. This recipe makes a very large amount, which is perfect for making a large batch of Chinese rice dumplings (joong / zhong zi). Feel free to scale it down if you’re not making rice dumplings. My family never has trouble finishing a batch.
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food; chinese food; recipes; side dishes, gluten free
In Meat and Eggs on April 24, 2012 at am
Bang bang chicken is a Chinese dish that originated in Szechuan. I really hope that you’ll try this recipe because I love it for many reasons:
1. The dipping sauce is delicious and addictive. It’s very flavourful and the perfect compliment to the otherwise bland chicken and cucumbers. My family and I can’t get enough of it.
2. This meal is cost effective to make, because you use chicken that has the skin on and bone in.
3. It’s healthy.
4. It’s easy to make.
5. This recipe makes a lot, so you can feed a lot of people or use the leftovers for tortilla wraps or rice paper rolls (see my rice paper rolls recipe here).
6. This can be served warm or cold, so it can be made in advance.
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Chinese Food, Food, gluten free, Recipes
In How To, Meat and Eggs, Poultry on April 19, 2012 at pm
Cooking chicken by boiling or poaching is easy and great for making healthy, oil-free, meals. It may sound bland, but this results in deliciously moist meat and a pot of chicken stock. When boiling or poaching chicken, you want to use meat that still has the skin on and the bone in, so you can purchase cheaper cuts of meat and save money while eating healthy. You can boil a whole chicken or pieces of chicken. Shred the cooked meat and use it in salads, sandwiches, wraps, soup or, my favourite, bang bang chicken (recipe here). Another healthy and simple way to cook chicken is by steaming (see recipe here).
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baking, breakfast, brunch, Food, gluten free, Recipes
In Breakfast, Rice and Noodle Dishes on March 7, 2012 at pm
These breakfast muffins may not look very appealing, but they’re tasty, easy to make, and great on-the-go snacks or breakfast. Also, if you use coconut flour instead of all purpose flour, you’ll be adding fiber and eating gluten free. I have my old housemate to thank for introducing me to cooking with coconut flour and for sharing this recipe.
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Chinese Food, Food, gluten free, Recipes
In Appetizers, Hors D'oeuvres, Snacks, How To, Other Asian Foods on January 11, 2012 at am
Shrimp chips (also known as prawn crackers) are light, puffed up, crunchy snacks that are very popular all around the world. In some North American Chinese restaurants, multi coloured (with food colouring) “shrimp chips” are served atop a deep fried whole chicken, but those shrimp chips almost never have any real shrimp in them. They taste like styrofoam and don’t resemble the real thing in flavour or in texture. The best shrimp chips in the world, in our opinion, are made in Brunei. It’s been many years since any of us were in Brunei, and I thought that I might never taste their shrimp chips again, until I discovered how easy they are to make at home. Malaysian shrimp chips are a very close second best in my opinion.
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Chinese Food, chinese recipes, Food, Recipes, side dishes
In Seafood on November 4, 2011 at am
I made this for my family recently and they thought that it tasted even better than the restaurant’s dish. My mom kept raving about how good it was and how even she can’t replicate that Chinese restaurant “flavour” (known as “wok hay”). My brother even suspected that I had used MSG! 
Just to be clear, I never use monosodium glutamate (MSG), because it is a neurotoxin and, clearly, you don’t need it to make great tasting food.
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Chinese Food, Food, gluten free, Recipes
In Other Asian Foods on October 30, 2011 at am
I love love love eating duck tongues, and I have no problem consuming an entire box in one sitting, despite the fact that they are pricey and high in calories. I also happen to be in love with this sauce. Duck tongues can be deep fried, braised, or stir fried. My favourite way to cook duck tongues is to stir fry them.
For those of you who have never tried a duck tongue, most of the tongue is edible. A thin piece of soft bone (I love eating the soft bone) runs up the middle of the tongue and connects to an inedible bone in the middle of the back end of the tongue. The flesh surrounding the bone is neither meaty nor tough like cow’s tongue. Rather, it is soft and slightly chewy, and rich and fatty without being greasy or oily. It’s the texture that makes these so popular. They are relatively neutral in taste, so flavourful sauces are often used.
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Chinese Food, Food, Recipes, side dishes, vegetarian
In Other Asian Foods on October 11, 2011 at am
Steamed tofu stuffed/topped with shrimp is a healthy dish that is very easy to make. Alternatively, you could top your tofu with marinated minced pork (with mushrooms and/or red chili peppers, etc.). If you are using pork for this dish, you can follow the method in the recipe below or you can steam the tofu and cook the pork separately in a pan. Then simply top your hot tofu with the cooked pork mixture and serve.
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Chinese Food, Food, Recipes, side dishes, vegetarian
In Seafood on September 21, 2011 at am
When eating in Chinese restaurants, my family often orders deep fried squid or deep fried octopus tentacles. We love the simplicity of the salty, peppery, and spicy coating. The tentacles (squid or octopus) are my favourite part, because they tend to be the crispiest and I love the chewy, almost crunchy, texture. You can easily make this at home. In fact, you can easily make it better than the restaurants. A few days after I made this dish for my sister, she ordered it from one of our favourite restaurants and she thought that my dish was better and crispier. If you feel intimidated by the tentacles or by working with fresh squid, you could use calamari rings instead.
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Chinese Food, Food, gardening, gluten free, Recipes, side dishes, vegan, vegetarian
In Other Asian Foods on September 12, 2011 at am
Living in an apartment that faces north prevented me from growing my own vegetables until now. This summer, I rented a community garden plot and tried gardening for the first time. I wasn’t as successful as I had hoped, because I was (too often) too lazy to make the trip to the plot and water it. I was the most excited when a single Japanese eggplant started to grow. I proudly inspected it for a couple of weeks while researching recipes that would be worthy of this adorable, surely to be delicious, eggplant. But before it was fully grown, a rabbit ate it. I was really disappointed. Luckily, I was able to enjoy a bunch of young and tender snow pea shoots.
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Chinese Food, Food, Recipes, side dishes
In Appetizers, Hors D'oeuvres, Snacks, Meat and Eggs on September 1, 2011 at am
This is a very easy and delicious recipe that comes from the famous momofuku restaurant’s cookbook by David Chang. I made this for Krystal and Ed as a late night snack the last time they visited, and they were still talking about these wings a few days after they had gone home. I usually prefer deep fried chicken wings over oven-baked wings, but this vinaigrette was so good, that I didn’t miss the deep fried at all.
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Chinese Food, Food, Korean food, Recipes, side dishes
In Meat and Eggs on August 8, 2011 at am
One of my favourite Korean foods is kalbi/galbi (BBQ beef short ribs). Luckily, these are incredibly easy to make at home, but it might take a few tries to master the timing for the perfect doneness, because these can be tough and too chewy if they are overcooked or undercooked (a tiny bit of pink is perfect in my opinion). These are best cooked over a charcoal BBQ, but any grill or cast iron pan will work too. Every home and restaurant makes their kalbi slightly differently (some even using Coke and/or Sprite) so adjust the sweetness and saltiness to your taste. This is best served with Japanese rice (sticky rice) and kimchi. The side shown above is chap chae, a Korean glass noodle dish (recipe here).
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