Asian | Cooking with Alison

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food, gluten-free, How-To, recipes

How to Render Lard

In Appetizers, Hors D'oeuvres, Snacks, Asian, Breakfast, Desserts, How-To, Main Course on August 18, 2013 at pm

I recently jumped onto the lard band wagon and I saved a seat for you. I know what you’ve heard about lard. I heard the same warnings about high cholesterol and clogged arteries. In fact, I grew up listening to my dad blame his blocked arteries on the use of lard in every day cooking during his youth. But the truth is that home rendered lard can actually be considered a healthy fat! (See here for more details.) It is better for you than butter and is a rich source of vitamin D. But I want to be very clear that only home rendered lard is good, and it’s best if the fat comes from naturally raised hogs. Processed store-bought lard, however, contains trans fats – the very bad fats – and preservatives.

Home rendered lard

I am so glad that we’ve cleared up that misunderstanding, because lard makes everything taste better. For example, it’s perfect for deep frying foods, because it has a high smoke point. This allows your food to cook more quickly, meaning that your food will be crispy on the outside and moist on the inside, all the while absorbing less oil. Also, lard is necessary for making the best flaky pastries. You may be surprised to know that lard is one of the secrets to many delicious Asian dishes as well. Cooking your stir fried noodles in lard will result in an inimitable flavor and silky texture.

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Chinese Chicken and Rice Wine Soup

In Asian, Drinks, Soups, Soups and Salads on June 24, 2012 at pm

Cooking with Alison’s Mom (Part 1)

I have always wanted to learn how to make traditional Chinese soups and health drinks. So this chicken and rice wine health drink/soup is the first of my new recipe series, Cooking with Alison’s Mom. (Be sure to check out the Cooking with Alison’s Grandma recipe series.)

This Chinese soup is often served to women who have just given birth as it is supposed to be nourishing and warming. I particularly like drinking this healthy soup in the winter. It’s also a great way to enjoy/use up homemade glutinous rice wine. This soup could be made using only 2 ingredients – chicken and glutinous rice wine, but my mom likes to add a few more ingredients to enhance the health benefits and flavour.

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Chinese food, food, gluten-free, recipes, vegan, vegetarian

Hot Chili Oil Recipe

In Other Asian Foods, Sides and Sauces on June 19, 2012 at pm

Chinese hot chili oil is versatile, delicious, and cheap and easy to make. Use this as a condiment (e.g. for dumplings), use it in sauces (see bang bang chicken recipe here), soups (hot and sour soup recipe here, Chinese borscht (lor sung tong) recipe here), add this to a noodle dish (even instant noodles), or use it as a substitute for cooking oil to add heat to any dish.

Normally, this is made using whole, dried red chilies, which gives the hot chili oil a red colour. However, I happened to have a lot of red chili flakes on hand, so I used that instead.

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Stir Fried Shanghai Noodles Recipe

In Rice and Noodle Dishes on June 8, 2012 at pm

Shanghai noodles are thick and chewy. At Chinese restaurants, they are usually darkly coloured and stir fried with thin strips of pork and cabbage. Since the noodles are so thick, they don’t tend to be as flavourful as they appear. That’s why I like eating this dish with Chinese red vinegar. I don’t know if anyone else does this, but I find that the red vinegar adds flavour, helps to cut the oil, and makes the dish feel less heavy. Try serving these noodles alongside sticky rice rolls (recipe here).

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Sticky Rice Rolls with Pork Floss

In Rice and Noodle Dishes on June 1, 2012 at am

Sticky rice rolls make delicious breakfasts and snacks. They are easy to make, can be filled with any flavourful toppings that you like, and can be eaten on the go. These originated in Shanghai but personally, I prefer the fillings that are more commonly used in Hong Kong. Strongly flavoured fillings work best in these glutinous rice rolls. Some common fillings include pork floss, preserved vegetables, and Chinese deep fried dough stick, etc.

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Chinese Salted Egg Recipe

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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Delicious Bang Bang Chicken Recipe (bang bang ji)

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.

Traditionally, this is served alongside other dishes with white rice. But if you wanted to turn this dish into a complete meal on its own, you could try this variation: Toss together the shredded chicken, sauce, and thinly julienned cucumbers, along with added cilantro, thinly julienned carrots, and thinly sliced green onions, and serve on top of boiled and drained, thin vermicelli rice noodles.

Update: I made this for my dad’s company pot luck and people from all different backgrounds loved it, even the two pickiest eaters there.

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How to Boil or Poach Chicken

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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food, gluten-free, recipes

Broccoli, Egg, and Cheese Breakfast Muffins (with a gluten free variation)

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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How to Make Shrimp Chips From Scratch

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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Stir Fried Snow Peas with Seafood (Chinese Restaurant Style)

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.