Posts Tagged ‘Chinese food’
Chinese food, food, gluten-free, recipes
In Rice and Noodle Dishes on August 13, 2010 at pm
Rice vermicelli soup bowls are very easy and quick to make. They’re perfect for cold days. [I made it this summer because I caught a cold and wanted something hot and comforting that didn’t require any effort. This was exactly what I needed, despite the blazing sun and humidity outside. But seriously… who catches a cold in the middle of a heat stroke? It’s embarrassing haha]
To make this, you only need one pot and you can use any combination of meats and vegetables that you like. Most people marinate the meat like they would for any other Chinese dish (ie. with soy sauce), but I prefer to keep it Very simple. I use a little bit of salt because I like to keep the colour of the soup as clear as possible and because the pickled cabbage adds enough flavour.
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Chinese food, food, gluten-free, recipes
In Meat and Eggs on August 4, 2010 at pm
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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Chinese food, food, recipes
In Dim Sum on July 23, 2010 at pm
One of my favourite dim sum dishes is steamed rice noodle rolls with prawns (har cheong fun). We order this every time we go to yum cha (“drinking tea time”) which is a Chinese meal that can be enjoyed any time between really early in the morning and early afternoon. You could easily substitute the shrimp with Chinese BBQ pork or ground beef or stir fried snow pea shoots to make other popular dim sum cheong fun dishes. Personally, I’ve always preferred the texture of dim sum cheong fun to the cheong fun with dried shrimp and green onions (recipe here). For plain cheong fun and sweet sauce (teem cheong / timzheong) recipes, see here.
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Chinese food, food, gluten-free, recipes
In Meat and Eggs on July 10, 2010 at pm
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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Chinese food, food, recipes
In Dim Sum, Other Asian Foods on June 24, 2010 at pm
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.
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Chinese food, food, recipes, vegan, vegetarian
In Dim Sum, Other Asian Foods on June 8, 2010 at pm
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.)
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Chinese food, food, gluten-free, recipes
In Meat and Eggs on May 30, 2010 at pm
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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Chinese food, food, gluten-free, recipes
In Meat and Eggs, Seafood on May 20, 2010 at pm
It is not uncommon to see egg dishes served at dinner in Chinese homes. This Chinese scrambled eggs with shrimp dish is one of my favourite dishes. As simple as it is, it might take you a few tries to get it right. The only difficulty lies in not overcooking the eggs (or the shrimp). It tastes best when the eggs are in thin sheets that are still wet and slightly runny. I like to keep the seasoning very light to enjoy the taste and simplicity of the two main ingredients.
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Chinese food, food, gluten-free, recipes
In Meat and Eggs on May 17, 2010 at pm
This is the simplest steamed whole chicken recipe. Not only is it incredibly healthy, it results in meat that is moist, smooth, and tender. Since this is served with flavourful dipping sauces, there is no need to pre-marinate the chicken, so it makes for an easy weeknight dinner. The ginger scallion dip (recipe below) is also very healthy. Update: Someone asked me how to steam cook a larger chicken – I recommend doing two or more rounds (as necessary) of steaming with the heat on followed by steaming with the heat off.
I can’t help but think of my family (and laugh) whenever I make this. This almost never makes it to the table when my mom makes it for dinner. I have to give her credit for being persistent; She spent years trying to fight us off of the chicken while she prepared the other dishes. Whenever her attention was diverted, the four of us would descend like savages and run off with large chunks of chicken. She finally gave up a few years ago, and started steaming 2 chickens – one as an appetizer and one to last through dinner. 🙂 Read the rest of this entry »
Chinese food, food, recipes
In Baked Bread on May 10, 2010 at pm
Baked Chinese BBQ pork buns (char siu bao) are sold in all Asian bakeries. These were the first Chinese baked breads that I ever tried making from scratch. They are very easy to make. For the steamed BBQ pork buns that you get at dim sum, see here.
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Chinese food, food, gluten-free, recipes
In Meat and Eggs on May 6, 2010 at pm
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 or duck wings and the wings taste great cold too.
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Chinese food, food, gluten-free, recipes
In Meat and Eggs on April 30, 2010 at pm
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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Cooking with Alison 
