Chinese Chicken Recipes for Busy People

What a week! Busy, busy.  People were sending me email late at night and telling me that this and that was urgent.  I am also struggling with finishing the school assignment.  It was really crazy.  I got about 35 minutes for lunch today.  I usually would make ramen noodles when I was in a rush.  Today I made Pan Fried Tofu with some veggie instead.  I was trying cut back on the starch.  Tofu with veggie is probably the most simple and bland food ever.  Tofu itself doesn’t have much taste.  But a bland dish like this is good for complementing a meat or a spicy dish.  I am eating this to be healthier and cut down the amount of meat and starch.  Ya, I’m trying to lose weight.  Since the dish is so simple, and the ingredients are pretty cheap, I don’t usually order it at a restaurant because I would feel that I got ripped off or something.  LOL.  But one time I did order this dish when I had dinner with my vegetarian friend.  I ordered some meat dishes for myself and couple veggie dishes for her.  I forgot the exact name of the dish on the menu.  It could be just called something like Steamed Tofu and Chinese Vegetable.  When the dish came, it had a few pieces of tofu, and couple of veggie, and some soy sauce poured over the dish.  That was it.  And they charged like $15 for a simple, inexpensive dish like this just because we ate at a fancy Chinese restaurant!  Really, what a rip off!  I could have made the same dish at home for less than $2.  My vegetarian friend felt bad since it was my treat.  It was alright, I did enjoy the dish. The tofu was silken. The veggie was yummy, and soy sauce was nice with a slight sweetness.  Plus the company, priceless!  I kind of made the same dish today except I pan fried it instead of steamed it.

Cut tofu and pat dry each piece

Pan fry tofu for 5 mins each side

Pan Fried Tofu with Bok Choy

Ingredients (Serves 2):

• Tofu, 1 pack medium or soft firm. Don’t get the silken, it will be too soft to pan fry.  (I only made half of the tofu just for myself at lunch)
• Chinese vegetable, a small bunch (You can use any leafy veggie like Choy Sum.  I used baby Bok Choy)
• Garlic Powder, a dash
• Salt, a dash
• Soy sauce, 1 tsp
• Oyster sauce, 1 tsp
• Sugar, ¼ tsp
• Cornstarch, 5 Tbsp

Steps:

1. Wash the veggie for couple of times.  Drain and put it aside.
2. Prepare the sauce:  Put soy sauce, oyster sauce and sugar in a bowl. Mix it well. Put it aside.
3. Cut tofu into thick pieces less than an inch thick.  Use a paper towel to pat dry the tofu.
4. Put the cornstarch on a plate.  Coat tofu with the cornstarch.
5. In a non-stick frying pan, spray cooking oil on it.  Use medium heat. Add tofu to the pan. Make sure they don’t touch each other.  Let it cook on one side for 5 to 7 minutes or until it is golden in color.  Flip it over to the other side, and cook it for another 5-7 mins.  Remove it from the pan.  Put it on a serving plate.
6. Add a little bit oil in the pan.  Put the baby Bok Choy (or other leafy veggie) and stir fry it.  Add a dash of salt and garlic powder. Mix it well.  Cook it for 2 or 3 minutes or until it is cooked.  Remove the veggie from the pan.  Put it on the side of the tofu on the serving plate.
7. Add some sauce to the tofu.  Serve hot.

It’s a lazy Sunday, and I’m not playing golf today.  I played yesterday, I totally sucked.  It’s alright, I’ll keep doing it cos I need some regular exercise anyway.  I weighed myself the other day, and I wasn’t happy about it.  I have to do something.  I am going to eat more fish or seafood and cut back on the meat.  I was so tempted to get a piece of steak at the grocery store yesterday but I talked myself out of it.  I haven’t made salmon for a long time.  So I got a piece of salmon, and some veggie.  I usually cook the salmon on a grill or pan fried it.  That was very yummy and juicy.  One time my coworker went to a grocery store near work.  He told me that we can get cooked fish from the fish counter. I was shocked.  We went there, we each picked a piece of fish (uncooked, of course), then the guy at the fish counter would cook it for us with no extra cost, either deep fried, or steamed.  I bought a piece of salmon there, and I had it deep fried.  I was worried that they steamed it too long and make it dry.  I have never had steamed salmon before. I wasn’t sure if it would be good or not.  My coworker had his salmon steamed with some spices.  He cut a small piece for me to try.  It was not bad, a little bit dry as I predicted. LOL.  Yesterday I thought I may try to steam the fish myself, and add some Chinese flavor in it.  I added some black bean sauce, and steamed it for just under 10 mins.  The fish was very moist.  I liked it.  This morning, I put some leftover in the congee.  It was really delicious and healthy.  Besides, I did kick my own ass and did an hour p90x. I felt GREAT!!

Add black bean sauce mixture

Add scallion after the fish is cooked

Steamed Salmon with Black Bean Sauce

Ingredients (Serves 2):

• Salmon, about 1 pound
• Black bean sauce, 1 tsp
• Oyster sauce, 1 Tbsp
• Soy Sauce, 1 tsp
• Water, 1 tsp
• Black pepper, a dash
• Cornstarch, 1 tsp
• Scallion, 2 stalks

Steps:

1. Prepare the sauce first.  Finely chop the garlic. Put it on a bowl.  Add black bean sauce, oyster sauce, soy sauce, black pepper, water and cornstarch to the bowl.  Mix them well.
2. Prepare a steamer:  Add enough water to a pot.  Bring it to a boil.
3. If the fish filet is very thick (say an inch thick) like the one I got, you can use a knife to cut a few slit on the fish so that it will get cooked faster.  Put salmon on a plate that will fit into the steamer/pot.  I just fold a piece of aluminum foil as a container.  It works too.
4. Pour the sauce onto the fish.
5. When the water boils in the steamer, put the fish in the steamer and let it steam with a lid on for 9 mins.
6. While the fish is steaming, cut the scallion into thin strips or dices.  Put it aside.
7. After 9 minutes, add scallion to the fish.  Put the lid back on.  Count 30 seconds. Turn off the heat immediately and serve.

I saw an article on NPR that talks about meals for the lazy cook today. That’s for me! LOL.  Between my day job and part-time school, I don’t really have much time to cook complicated meals.  In the article, it mentioned about shredded salads that doesn’t need to be cooked.  Oh well, salad is certainly not my thing unless I’m desperate to lose weight.  But I do believe that lazy cook like me will find ways to cut short the cooking.  For example, I use ready made food from the frozen section of a grocery store sometimes.  Tonight, I got some ready made Eggplant Cutlets from Trader Joe’s.  I just needed to heat it up in a pan.  No big deal.  Meanwhile, I also lazy-ized my Garlic Shrimp recipe.  I used to make Garlic Shrimp with the shell on. But then it is too troublesome to peel the shell when I eat it.  So I made shelled garlic shrimp instead.  I got peeled shrimp from the grocery store, ie. I didn’t need to clean or shell it. I just need to butterfly it.  No big deal again.  I served the shrimp with the eggplant and some brown rice.  I heated up some pasta sauce to serve with the eggplant.  It was kind of a weird Chinese/Italian combo, but it was not bad at all.  In fact, the shrimp was so good that there was not leftover left.  The eggplant was ok. I finished it all as well. :p

Cut a slit on each shrimp, add chopped garlic and scallion on top

Steamed shelled garlic shrimp cooked in less than 10 mins

Ready-made frozen Eggplant Cutlet

Pan fry the frozen eggplant cutlets

Serving Garlic Shrimp and Eggplant Cutlet with Brown Rice

What the hail??!!  I mean hail, not hell.  It was rain and hail when I drove home today.  I couldn’t believe that. Why would we have hail in summer?  There were so many cars pulled over on the side of the highway.  I made it home safe.  I didn’t take a look at my car to see if the hail made any dents or not.  Oh well, I’ll find out tomorrow.  My dinner plan certainly had to change due to the weather.  I was planning to grill a bunch of chicken drumsticks, which would not work as it rained like crazy.  I looked for other ingredients I had in the fridge.  I decided to make Egg Foo Young.  I have not made this before.  Heheheh..  But this is one of those basic dishes that I can’t screw up much.  I had tried good Egg Foo Young, and bad Egg Foo Young before.  The good ones, of course, made from my mom.  The bad ones are from various Chinese take out restaurants.  Most take-out places deep fry the dish.  Not kidding.  It was like eating fried eggs in oil.  Yucky.  On top of that, they usually serve the egg with some brownish looking gravy that doesn’t have much taste but looks very pukey to me.  Sorry, I really couldn’t stand the visual part of the sauce, and I asked the chef to skip the sauce or I couldn’t eat it. LOL.  Anyway, those are all modified or Americanized Egg Foo Young.  The real Chinese version tastes much better. It is not deep fried and it doesn’t serve with any brown sauce.  Egg Foo Young dishes are like omelette except that is no cheese.  The most common Egg Foo Young is cooked with shrimp.  It’s another traditional Cantonese dish.

Beat egg and add chopped scallion

Cook shrimp first

Add egg mixture, then cooked shrimp to the pan

Stir a little bit

Shrimp egg Foo Young

Ingredients (Serves 2):

• Shrimp, ½ pound (I used the small ones.  If you are using big or medium size shrimp, you can cut them into smaller pieces first)
• Eggs, 4
• Scallion, 2 or 3 stalks (I used 3 tonight)
• Chicken powder, ½ tsp
• Oyster sauce, ½ tsp (optional. I added a little bit to make it yummier)
• Water, 2 Tbsp
• Salt, a dash
• White Pepper, a dash (I prefer white pepper. Black pepper is ok too)

Steps:

1. In a large bowl/container, add 4 eggs, a pinch of salt, chicken powder, oyster sauce, 2 Tbsp of water and white pepper.  Mix them well while beating the eggs.
2. Cut scallion into dices.  Add to the scallion dices to the egg mixture.  Mix it well.
3. Use a non-stick pan.  Spray cooking oil.  Cook the shrimp first.  Stir fry the shrimp for a few minutes or until it is cooked.  Dish it up on a container for now.
4. Spray more oil on the pan.  Add the egg mixture to the pan.  Then add the shrimp.
5. Stir a little bit as if you are making omlette.  Then let it cook untouched for a couple of minutes.  Flip the egg to the other side and cook it for another minute or so or until the egg is fully cooked, ie not more liquid comes out.  Serve Hot.

I have been grilling a lot.  It’s a summer thing.  I usually grilled a lot meat like steak, chicken, wings, hamburgers, hot dog stuff.  Today I grilled some veggie for a change. Hehehehe.  I want to eat healthy and exercise more.  Tonight, I grilled some shrimp and zucchini.  I like zucchini.  It has a subtle sweetness and it is very juicy.   Zucchini is not a Chinese veggie.  I thought it may taste like a cucumber until a friend introduced it to me back when I was in college.  A Chinese coworker of mine grows zucchini in his garden.  But he doesn’t like it at all.  He gave it away.  Why does he bother to grow it if he and his family don’t like it?  What a weird guy! :p  I usually stir fry it with some garlic and oyster sauce.  Tonight, I decided to put it on the grill together with the shrimp even though I have never grilled any veggie before.  It was easier. I didn’t have to cook two things in two places.  LOL.  That was the lazy me’s logic.  I made an oyster sauce dressing.  It was YUMMY.  This will sure be one of my regular meals.  It only took me like 20 mins or so for fixing the dinner.  Awesome!

Peel and slice zucchini

Put zucchini on a grill

Drizzle sauce to the zucchini when it is cooked

Grilled Zucchini with an Oyster Sauce Dressing

Ingredients (serves 2):

• Zucchini, 2
• Oyster sauce, 1 Tbsp
• Soy Sauce, 1 Tbsp
• Olive oil, 1 Tbsp
• Sesame oil, a few drops

 Steps:

1. Prepare the dressing first.  Add oyster sauce, soy sauce, olive oil and a few drops of sesame oil into a small bowl.  Mix it well.  Put it aside.
2. Peel zucchini.  This is optional.  I prefer it peeled. But just be careful because it is very slippery when it is peeled.
3. Cut zucchini into big slices, about 1 cm or less in thickness. 
4. Start the grill.  Put the zucchini slices on the grill.  Let it cook for 5-6 minutes.  Flip it over and cook the other side for another 5-6 minutes or until it softens.  Remove the zucchini from the grill.
5. Drizzle or mix the sauce with zucchini.  Serve hot.

Sitting in class waiting for the professor to give out the exam. I did make myself a big fancy Ramen Noodle with seaweed, fake crab meat, chopped scallion and a drizzle of sesame oil for breakfast.  Hopefully that gives me enough brain food to get over this exam.   I can’t wait till this is over and I’ll go buy tons of food for a big dinner tonight

Big fancy ramen noodles as my brain food this morning

I came across a video that showed the fancy Wolf Integrated Steamer in the kitchen.  I wish I could afford a Wolf stove. But you know what? As fancy as this steaming device is built into the kitchen, it somehow looks complicated to me.  Steaming doesn’t need to be this complicated.  I’m not a gadget queen.  I stick with very basic pots and pans.  That reminded me that I owe my friend Sally a Steamed Water Egg recipe.  She asked me a few months ago when I just started this blog.  I made this dish last night.  It was a good timing for me to make more steamed dishes cos now I decided to exercise again and get healthy.  I literally translated the name of the Cantonese dish into English.  You can guess that it is a very basic dish – steam the water and egg mixture, that’s pretty much it.  But it is a very authentic and comforting Cantonese dish.  If you add sugar instead of salt to the dish, it’s like the egg custard, which could be a dessert.  I only learned how to make this dish a few years back from my mom.  She was fuzzy about the look of the dish, making sure that there were no bubbles when pouring the egg mixture to the serving plate for steaming….  Mom, I don’t care about these!  LOL.  I made this dish like a dozen of times now.  But I didn’t write down any recipe, so the results were inconsistent.  Sometimes the eggs get too overcooked, sometimes I added too much water,  sometimes the surface got too many bubbles, sometimes the dish was no taste,… So I made the dish again last night and it turned out very good, and I got to write down what I did.  I modified mom’s recipe.  I skipped the “getting rid of the bubbles” step. LOL.  I added some diced scallion on the surface.  The weight of the scallion killed the bubbles.  Pretty smart, right? ;p  The texture was very good too. It was like silken tofu.

Put eggs in a container. Use the eggshell as measuring unit.

Pour egg mixture in a serving bowl

Put egg mixture in a pot for steaming

Add soy sauce when it is done

Steamed Water Eggs

Ingredients (Serves 2):

• Large eggs, 3
• Hon Dashi or chicken powder, 1 tsp (I used Hon Dashi last night. Hon Dashi is a Japanese Fish Stock powder)
• Scallion, 1 or 2 stalks (optional, it’s perfectly fine if you skip this)
• Water, 9 units (each unit is a half eggshell)
• Salt, a dash
• Cornstarch, ¼ tsp
• Soy sauce, 1 tsp

Steps:

1. Chop scallion into small dices, put them aside.
2. We’ll be steaming the dish. You need to prepare a big pot with a lid, and a serving bowl that will fit into the pot.  If you have a fancy steamer, then you’ll all set.  Add sufficient water in the pot.  Boil the water first.
3. While waiting for the steamer to get reader, prepare the egg mixture.  Use a large bowl or container, break 3 eggs and add them in it.  Save a half eggshell and use it as measuring unit.  For each egg, add 3 half eggshell of water to the container.  So we have 3 eggs here, total of 9 half eggshell of water.
4. Add Hon Dashi or chicken powder, cornstarch and a very small pinch of salt to the mixture.  Mix it well.  Yes, you’ll see bubbles while mixing it.
5. Get a shallow serving bowl.  Pour egg mixture to the bowl.  If you are fuzzy about the bubbles of the mixture, you can get rid of them with a spoon.  I didn’t do that cos it didn’t bother me.
6. Sprinkle scallion dices to the surface of the mixture.  Put it aside.
7. When the water boils, BE CAREFUL of the heat, put the bowl into the pot.  Cover it with a lid (or a piece of aluminum foil if you don’t find a lid that fits).  Let it steamed for 15 minutes on medium heat.  After 15 minutes is due, turn off the heat.  Let the dish sit in the pot with the lid on for another 5 mins before taking it out.
8. To check if the dish is cooked or not, run a small knife through the mixture and pull the knife out.   The knife should not have any egg stick to it.
9. Add a teaspoon of soy sauce to the surface of the dish.  Serve hot.

It’s a lazy Sunday.  I didn’t play golf.  I’m suffering from golfer’s elbow.  I didn’t hit the ball right. I hit the ground a lot before my club hit the ball, and now my elbow hurts like hell.  That’s the price of not being a good golfer.  It looks so easy when I saw professional golfers hit their balls on TV, it is really a very difficult thing to learn to swing the club right.  I’m resting at home today. I started my cooking early.  I made chicken on a stick for lunch and ate some of the leftover Singapore Noodles that I made last night.  I’ve been thinking about chicken on a stick for a while since I watched Andrew Zimmern’s Bizarre Foods episode in Japan.  He learned how to make the Japanese version of chicken on a stick.  I missed this dish too.  Instead of the Japanese version, I missed more of the Malaysian chicken on a stick, Chicken Satay that is served with peanut sauce.  Every time I had Malaysian food, I would order half a dozen of combo satays (6 sticks) that had 2 beef, 2 chicken and 2 pork.  They were served with peanut sauce and pickled cucumber.  What a great appetizer to start a meal. YUM.

Put seasoned chicken meat on a stick

Grill chicken on a stick

Chicken Satay with Peanut Sauce

Ingredients (Make about 6 sticks):

• Chicken meat, 1 pound (boneless, I used chicken fingers breast meat. You can use thigh meat too)
• Soy sauce, 1 tsp
• Ginger, 3 slices
• Garlic, 1 clove
• Chicken powder, 1 tsp
• Cooking oil, 1 tsp
• Bamboo skewers, about 6 or 7 sticks (or you can use the metal skewers)

Peanut sauce:

• Chunky peanut butter, 1 cup
• Brown sugar, 2 Tbsp
• Hot chili sauce, 1 tsp
• Garlic, 2 cloves, finely chopped
• Honey, 3 Tbsp
• Soy sauce, 1 Tbsp
• Hot water, ½ cup
• Lime, 1

Pickled Cucumber (Optional):

• Cucumber, 1
• Vinegar, 1 Tbsp
• Sugar, 1 Tbsp
• Salt, a dash
• Water, 2 Tbsp

Steps:

1. If you are using the bamboo skewers, soak them in water first.  They will not get burnt.
2. Finely chop 1 clove of garlic and ginger.  Put both in a big mixing bowl.
3. 1 tsp of soy sauce, 1 tsp of chicken powder into the bowl.
4. Cut chicken into cubes like 1.5 inches.  Put the chicken cubes into the mixing bowl.  Mix them well with the seasoning.  Add a tsp of cooling oil to the mixture.  Mix it well.  Cover the mixing bowl with a lid or plastic wrap, and let it marinated in the fridge for at least 20 mins.  I also tried the lazy person’s version of not cutting the chicken at all, ie just put the whole piece on a stick. They didn’t cook as nice as the ones that are cut.  See the picture.
5. Prepare the pickled cucumber if you are getting fancy:  Peel the cucumber, remove big seeds if there are any.  Cut cucumber into small cubes like 2 cm long.  Add vinegar, sugar, water, and a pinch of salt to the cucumber. Mix them well.  Let it get marinated for at least 20 mins in a refrigerator.
6. Prepare the sauce: mix all the sauce ingredients in a small serving bowl.  Cut the lime in halves and squeeze the juice in.  Mix it well.
7. When the chicken is marinated.  Put chicken cubes in the skewers.
8. Start the grill.  Cook the chicken for 5 -7 minutes on one side.  Flip it over to cook the other side for another 5-7 minutes or until it is fully cooked.
9. Serve hot with the peanut sauce.

I was planning to make Steamed Garlic Shrimp tonight.  I went to the grocery store and tried to get some jumbo shrimp for that.  Guess what? All the jumbo shrimp were all sold out.  How could that be?  Oh well… my dinner plan had to change.  I got some medium sized cooked shrimp. I was going to make Shrimp Chow Mei Fun instead.  Then when I got home, I really felt like making some Singapore Noodles instead.  Crap.  My mind changed too much, and I didn’t have all the ingredients to make the dish. I improvise. Hahahha..  I didn’t have Cha Siu (Roast Pork) and green peppers.  I added some bacon strips instead of Cha Siu, and I skipped the green peppers.  The result was still very yummy.  I had so many Singapore Noodles dishes when I grew up.  That was one of my favorite lunch dishes.  I like mei fun, and I like the curry taste.  Singapore noodles have my favorite combo.  I liked it so much that I could eat two lunch boxes of Singapore Noodles back then.  I could probably still eat this much, but I had to watch out for the amount of food I have these days. You know, old people have slower metabolism. Whatever I eat gets stored. LOL.

Mei Fun (rice noodles)

Cook roast pork (or bacon), carrot and onion first.

Add mushroom, celery.

Add noodles

Add shrimp and sauce

Singapore noodles. Yummy!!

Ingredients (serves 3 – 4):

• Rice noodles, 1 pack (about 1 pound). You can get this from any Chinese grocery store.
• Cha Siu/roast pork, ½ pound (I didn’t have it tonight. I used 4 pieces of bacon instead)
• Cooked shrimp, 1 pound
• Celery, 4 stalks
• Carrot, 3 stalks
• Onion, 1
• Mushroom, 1 pack
• Scallion, 3 stalks
• Garlic, 2 cloves
• Ginger, 3 slices
• Chinese wine, 1 tsp
• Oyster sauce, 1 Tbsp
• Fish sauce, 1 Tbsp
• Cornstarch, 1 tsp
• Chicken powder, 1 tsp
• Curry powder, 1 Tbsp
• Water, 5 Tbsp

Steps:

1. Boil a big pot of water.  Use high heat.  When the water boils, add the dried mei fun noodles in the pot.  Use a pair of chopsticks or a fork to separate the noodles.  Cook it for 3 or 4 minutes.  Turn off the heat.  Discard the hot water from the pot.  Add cold running water to the pot to rinse the noodles.  Put the noodles in a colander and let it drain well.
2. If you are using frozen cooked shrimp (which I did), defrost them first.
3. Cut carrots into thin strips about 3 inches long.  Put it aside.
4. Peel and cut carrots into thin strips about 3 inches long.  Put it aside.
5. Cut onion into thin strips, put it aside.
6. Cut mushrooms into slices, put them aside.
7. Finely chop garlic and ginger.  Put both aside.
8. Cut scallions into strips, put them aside.
9. Cut roast pork into thin strips about 2 inches long, put it aside. I used bacon as substitutes, I cut the bacon into thin strips.
10. In a small bowl, prepare for the sauce.  Mix oyster sauce, fish sauce, chicken powder, Chinese cooking wine, cornstarch, water and half of the curry powder to the bowl.  Mix them well.  The reason of only adding half of the curry powder is that I wasn’t sure if the curry powder will make the dish too spicy or not.  Different brand of curry powder have different spiciness.  I could add the rest of the curry powder later.
11. In a large non-stick frying pan or shallow non-stick pan, spray oil to the pan.  Add the roast pork (I added bacon), garlic, ginger, and stir fry for a minute or so.  Add the carrot, celery, onion, and mushroom, and stir fry it for 3 or 4 minutes.  Then add green pepper.  Add a pinch of salt.  Stir fry it for a minute.
12. Add mei fun to the pot.  Spray or add a little bit more oil.  Mix it well with the ingredients.  Let if cook for couple of minutes.
13. Add cooked shrimp and pour sauce to the noodles.  Mix it well.  Let it cook for 3 or 4 minutes.  Taste it.  Add a pinch of salt or more curry powder if desired.  Turn off the heat.  Add scallion.  Mix it well.  Serve hot.

I’ve been busy playing golf for the July 4^th weekend. Hahhaha.  It depends on how fast/slow the day goes, 18 holes of golf could go from anything like 4 hours to 6 hours.  Sometimes if we got stuck behind some slow players like people who take 5 or 6 practice swings before they hit anything, that would take forever.  Golf is certainly a game to test my patience.  Can I tolerate slow people like that, or can I tolerate my own frustration when I don’t play well?  Anyway, I still enjoy it.  I needed a big breakfast for the days that I played golf.  I don’t like breaking for lunch.  Saturday I made some Lap Cheong Sticky Rice for dinner, and I got leftovers.  I ate it as breakfast on Sunday morning before a round of golf.  It was satisfying, and it filled me up for a few hours till I was done with the game.  Besides, I really like Lap Cheong.  They are Chinese sausages.  They have a nice sweet and savory taste.  It’s one of my all time favorites.  One of my Japanese friend was crazy about Lap Cheong.  One time we went out for dim sum.  I ordered Steamed Lap Cheong.  My Japanese friend tried it, and felt in love with the dish.  From then onwards, he would order Lap Cheong Buns everything he went for dim sum.  Hm.. may be I’ll make some Lap Cheong Buns when I get a chance.

Sweet Rice (aka sticky rice or glutinous rice)

Soak dried mushrooms and shrimps, overnight

Lap Cheong Chinese Sausage

 

 

 

Add rice, mushroom and dried shrimp first. Then add lap cheong to the rice.

Lap Cheong Sweet Sticky Rice

Ingredients:

• Lap Cheong, 2 or 3 links
• Sweet rice (aka glutinous rice or sticky rice), 1.5 cups
• Water, 2 cups (or according to the cooking instruction on the sweet rice package)
• Dried shrimps, a small handful (like 2 or 3 Tbsp)
• Dried shiitake mushrooms, 5 or 6
• Scallion
• Dark soy sauce (or you can use regular soy sauce), 1.5 Tbsp
• Sugar, ½ tsp

Steps:

1. You need to pre-soak these ingredients the night before:
   1. Put sweet rice in a container, and add cold water in it.  Soak it over night first.
   2. Put dried mushrooms and dried shrimp in a container, and add some cold water in it.  Soak it over night as well.
2. Slice the mushrooms into thin slices after they are soaked overnight.  Put it aside.
3. Cut scallion into dices, put it aside.
4. In a small bowl, mix dark soy sauce and sugar.  Put it aside.
5. Use a non-stick pan.  This is important because the rice is so sticky.  If you use regular pan, you will have a hard time cleaning the pot afterwards.  Spray non-stick cooking oil on the pan.
6. For sweet rice, discard the water from the container.  Put the sweet rice in the pan.  Then add appropriate amount of water to the pan (I used 2 cups of water, you can add less to begin with and see if it is moist enough first before you added the rest).
7. Add mushroom and dried shrimp to the rice.  Use high heat, bring it to a boil.  Then lower the heat to the lowest.  Add lap cheong on the rice.  Put a lid or a piece of aluminum foil on the pot.  Let it simmer for another 15 mins or until the rice is fully cooked.
8. If the rice is too dry, add a little bit more of water, cover the lid, and let it simmer for another few minutes.  Turn off the heat.  Let the rice sit for 5 mins or so.
9. Take out the lap cheong, and cut it into slices.  Mix it well with the rice.  Add scallion dices on top.
10. When served, add a bit of dark soy sauce and sugar mixture.