This is Ed’s favourite fried rice dish, so we order it often but it’s really simple to make. Note that fried rice is always supposed to be made with day old rice, because the moisture from fresh rice may result in a mushy dish. In some restaurants, the rice is darkly coloured and in others, the rice is still white (my preference). You can adjust the soy sauce or dark soy sauce to your preference.
This soup takes less than 10 minutes to make. When my mom makes this, she only uses broth, water, baby bok choy, and ginger. So it can be as simple as that. Just be sure to wash the vegetables very very well, especially if you’re using shanghai bok choy because a lot of dirt and bugs collect between the leaves. Although full sized bok choy will work, I much prefer the taste and texture of baby bok choy.
Note: I used baby shanghai bok choy for the soup in the photo below.
I used a combination of asian mushrooms (fresh and dried) to make a hearty Chinese gravy that is quick and easy to make. I served it over a plate of steamed soft tofu. You could also serve this mushroom gravy over steamed broccoli or a plate of stir fried Chinese vegetables.
Photo below: This dish would have been more visually appealing if I had used fresh shimeji (aka beech) mushrooms, but they weren’t in season at the time.
Chinese rice noodle rolls (chee cheong fun) are steamed and can have various fillings. (For plain cheong fun and sweet sauce (teem cheong / timzheong) recipes, see here. For cheong fun with shrimp, see here.) My parents used to buy cheong fun with dried shrimp from the grocery stores quite often until they heard that they contain the harmful additive borax. Now that I know how easy they are to make from scratch, minus the additives, my parents can enjoy these again.
I love Chinese rice noodle rolls (chee cheong fun). These are steamed and can have various fillings such as shrimp, Chinese BBQ pork, ground beef, or dried shrimp and green onions. They are also delicious plain when served with the flavourful sweet sauce (teem cheong / timzheong) and sesame paste. We order this a lot in Hong Kong restaurants, so I was ecstatic when I learned how easy it is to make. I love making food from scratch to avoid the added preservatives and chemicals. I’ve heard that the cheong fun sold in grocery stores (and used by the restaurants) contain a particularly harmful additive – borax. (For cheong fun with shrimp, see here. For cheong fun with dried shrimp and green onions, see here.)
These are enoki mushrooms rolled in thinly sliced pork and grilled or cooked on a griddle (you could also pan fry or bake these). All of my favourite Japanese restaurants in Markham, ON serve these. But since I rarely eat there now, I tried making my own, and they turned out really well. 
Eating Chinese “Hot Pot” is when everyone cooks their own food in a large pot of boiling water that is heated from below and placed in the middle of the table. The pot has to be heated throughout the meal by flame or an electric burner to keep the temperature of the water at a boil. Since different foods require different cooking times and since everyone is putting new raw food in and taking cooked food out at all different times, it’s important to keep the water hot enough to kill any bacteria. As long as your water keeps boiling, you have nothing to worry about, so don’t let this scare you out of trying hot pot Oh and don’t forget to keep two sets of utensils separate, one for handling raw food and one for removing and eating the cooked food. I Love eating hot pot! The water is often flavoured with a soup base (I prefer the spicy variations). Typically, you have a selection of thinly sliced raw meat (ie. beef, pork, lamb), raw seafood (ie. shrimp, fish balls, squid, mussels), vegetables (ie. mushrooms, daikon radish, lettuce, other chinese veggies), tofu, beef balls, etc. You can buy meat that has been sliced for the purpose of hot pot in asian grocery stores. You select what you want and then you cook it in the pot. The meats take seconds to cook since they’re sliced so thinly. When your food’s ready, you remove it from the boiling water and eat it with various dipping sauces. Dipping sauces differ widely from region to region in China and are often very flavourful to compliment the blandly cooked food. It is also common to add a whole raw egg to the dipping sauces. I love that but with rising concerns about bacteria in eggs, my family and I are a bit more hesitant to do it now. I haven’t had hot pot in a few years now so I’m not sure if restaurants still supply raw eggs for their dipping sauces.
Thai green curry is spicier than the red and yellow curries. (See my Thai Red Curry post.) I know this green curry doesn’t look very appetizing – in fact, I served it as “swamp sludge” at a Halloween party once 
– but it’s my personal favourite thai dish. Sometimes I make this vegetarian and it’s the only vegetarian dish that doesn’t leave me craving meat. I ate the eggplant and bamboo shoot green curry dish at a local Thai and Cambodian restaurant every day for about a month before I finally stopped being lazy and figured out how to make it myself. Thai curries are incredibly easy to make at home and, like a Chinese stir fry, you can use any combination of meat and vegetables you happen to have on hand. These freeze well too.
Hot and sour soup originated in Szechuan, a region in China. It’s one of my sister’s favourite foods and unfortunately, it’s incredibly difficult to find a restaurant that serves a truly authentic (and delicious) hot and sour soup. Luckily, it’s very easy to make at home. My family loves it when I make this soup and they can’t get enough of it. You could easily make this a vegetarian or vegan soup by omitting the pork and egg, and by using vegetable broth instead of chicken broth.
Thai red curry is spicier than yellow curry but milder than the green (link to my green curry recipe here). These are incredibly easy to make and like Chinese stir fries, you can pretty much throw in any meat and/or vegetables that you happen to have around. I like to make these with chicken and at least 2 types of differently coloured vegetables. Personally, my favourite thing to put into a thai red curry is fresh Japanese enoki mushrooms. This curry is great when made to be vegetarian/vegan too.
I caught a really bad flu in the winter of 2009. Maybe it was the 3 day fever, but I had a huge craving for preserved duck egg and macaroni and cheese. You might not be so impressed, but at the time I thought I had come up with an ingenious combination, haha
When working with preserved duck eggs, there’s no need to cook them and remember to wash them very well before serving.
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