When I was growing up, my parents used to throw a giant bbq every summer.  How I miss those bbqs, because I’ve never seen anyone serve anywhere near as much food (meat in particular) as they did.  I remember there always being hamburgers, hot dogs, sausages, beef short ribs, skewered fish/squid/beef balls, kebabs, and of course, chicken wings.  They would often throw in a few steaks, chicken breasts, salmon steaks and shrimp skewers too.  The beef short ribs and chicken wings were always my favourite.  I remember watching my dad brush honey onto the wings.  I’d get excited because that meant that they were almost done    I’ve never seen anyone else make wings this way, but I’m pretty sure it’s a Malaysian thing.  I use just a touch of honey for the subtlest sweetness because I think these wings are best when the flavour of the honey is barely recognizable.

Alternatively, you could bake the chicken wings in an oven until just cooked through, brush with honey, and finish them off on the grill.  Note:  I don’t own a bbq (yet) so I used my electric grill.  A grill pan would work better because electric grills have difficulty maintaining high heat consistently.  So adjust the suggested heat and cooking times according to your equipment.  Read the rest of this entry »

One of my family’s favourite Chinese restaurants in Markham, ON, has a stir fry dish where the chicken and peppers are cut into very small pieces.  I think this method enhances the flavour of the dry sauce.  This is my recreation of that chicken and pepper dish.  It is simple, colourful, and flavourful, and is best enjoyed with a hot bowl of white rice.

On a side note, my family always refers to that Chinese restaurant as “sketchy place”, because it’s such a dirty hole in the wall, but the food is unique, delicious and relatively low in price.  The best food often comes from the sketchiest establishments.  Someone will ask, “Where are we going for dinner tonight?”  The reply will literally be, “Sketchy place.”  We go there quite often and the family that runs the restaurant knows us well.

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This is served cold and can be eaten as an appetizer or part of the main course.

I made this several times using different concentrations of alcohol.  I tried shaoxing cooking wine, shaoxing cooking wine with 14% alcohol, and whiskey (40% alcohol).  In my opinion, the 14% shaoxing cooking wine was the best choice (strong enough to come through in the meat and not too strong like the whiskey was).  I’ve also found that it’s important to make the chicken noticeably salty (without overdoing it) to compliment the bitterness of the alcohol.

[I just found a recipe for Chinese drunken chicken served hot in a broth that uses mirin.  I can't wait to try it.  I have a feeling it will taste even better than cold drunken chicken.]

Note that I prefer my chicken to be JUST cooked through so I’ve adjusted the cooking time in the recipe (to 12 minutes) for those of you who prefer your chicken a bit more well done than this.

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I tried several different cashew chicken recipes in search of my favourite and came up with this one.  The best part about this recipe is that you don’t have to marinate the meat because the sauce is flavourful enough.  I like the simplicity of using sugar snap peas or snow peas.  Many people prefer to use a combination of peppers for the colour, so use any vegetables that you like.

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Beef and broccoli comes to mind for many North Americans when they think of Chinese food.  I have nothing against this dish, but my mom never made it when I was growing up.  You’ll never see me order it from a restaurant, either.  But since it’s so popular (and broccoli was on sale), I thought I’d make it because stir frying meat and vegetables is still in the spirit of Chinese cuisine.

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This Taiwanese popcorn chicken dish is called salt pepper chicken in Chinese (yan su ji).  It makes for a delicious snack or it can be served with rice for dinner.  My family used to order this every time we went to a particular Chinese restaurant in Markham, ON.  It was so good that we sometimes ordered two of them.  The best part of this dish is the garnish – deep fried thai basil leaves.  Even though I haven’t had it in a very long time, I still think about it from time to time.  So I finally got around to making it for myself.  In the authentic version, Asian five spice powder is dominant, but personally I prefer to reduce it.  Note:  This recipe was recently updated and improved!

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In Chiu Chow (Chinese) cuisine, a master sauce is used to make many delicious dishes.  Foods that range from boiled eggs to pork belly and whole ducks are cooked in a pot of this sauce.  It is called lo sui / lu shui, which translates to “old water”.  In restaurants, once the sauce is made up in a pot, it never gets replaced, only replenished.  The juices from the meats that are cooked in the sauce get added back to the pot and more spices are added as needed.  Some restaurants are said to have used the same old water sauce for more than 75 years.  The sauce tastes better with age.  Keep in mind that it’s boiled frequently, so there are no concerns over bacteria.  To recreate this master sauce at home, you should store your sauce in an airtight container in the refrigerator.  If you’re not using it regularly, then you should bring it to a boil for several minutes, once every three weeks.  Or you could freeze it.  I haven’t made my own lo sui / lu shui sauce from scratch yet.  Eventually I will.  Meanwhile, I use the store bought “Chinese Marinade” by the brand Lee Kum Kee as the base for my master sauce.  I love using this to make chicken wings and the wings taste great cold too.

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Pineapple beef is a delicious and simple Cantonese (Chinese) dish.  We order this often at Magic Wok – one of our favourite restaurants in Markham, ON.  But it’s really easy to make at home; you just need a very good quality, ripe pineapple.  I made this dish again recently using an organic pineapple and my family and I agreed that it was the best pineapple we had ever had, and it made this dish incredibly tasty.  If you carve a pineapple boat (which is also really easy to do), this is the perfect dish to serve to guests.  Note that the pineapple bowl looks prettier if you keep the leaves on, but I was in too much of a rush when I was making this.  Just be careful when you’re cutting through the stem because it can be tricky and the leaves are sharp.  If you want more colour in this dish, you could cut half of a green pepper and half of a red pepper into chunks and add them to the wok shortly after you’ve started cooking the beef.

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This is incredibly easy to make and tastes just like the Siu Yuk (roast pork belly) that you buy at the Chinese restaurants and grocery stores.  I suggest buying the meat from an Asian grocery store because it is much much cheaper there.  Make sure you buy the boneless pork belly with the skin/rind on.  Pork side also works.  You want to choose a cut of meat that has an even thickness so that the rind cooks evenly, otherwise sections of the skin will burn.  But if this happens you can always scrape the burnt parts off with a knife before serving.  I tested three different methods of making crispy siu yuk.  The simplest method involved brushing oil onto the rind prior to baking; the second method involved brushing the skin with vinegar before drying it out in the fridge; and the third method involved scalding the rind with vinegar and boiling water prior to refrigeration.  From my experience, the rind that had been brushed with vinegar crackled the soonest.  Scalding the rind resulted in a very crunchy, but tough, skin.  I have posted the method that, in my opinion, was the best.

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This dish is called three cups because it is traditionally made with equal proportions of three main ingredients: soy sauce, sesame oil and rice wine.  It is a one pot dish that is flavourful and very easy to make.  Although the authentic version has thai basil in it, I have also made this dish without it and it still tastes great.

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