Chinese Chicken Recipes for Busy People

I stopped by the Chinese grocery store on Saturday.  While I was on my way out, I suddenly saw a bunch of tin boxes near the cookies aisle.  I was like OMG… MOONCAKES!  I was so surprised to find the brand that I like.  I’m super picky about mooncakes.  I only like a very traditional Hong Kong brand called “Wing Wah”.  I couldn’t help and bought a box.  I love mooncakes since I was a kid.  It’s a kind of food that I got to enjoy only once a year. You won’t find mooncakes any other time of the year.  I got home and looked up the Chinese Lunar calendar and found out the actual date for the Chinese Mid Autumn Festival (aka the Moon Festival) is next Wed, September 22 of the Western calendar.  The Moon Festival is on August 15 of the Chinese Lunar calendar. 

Mooncakes are must-haves.  I don’t remember exactly why it’s a tradition to have mooncakes on the Moon Festival.  A full moon somehow symbolizes completeness or reunion.  There was a Chinese folk story about two lovers that got separated, and they could only meet each other on the day of the Moon Festival.  Romantic and yet sad.  Anyway, mooncakes are very dense with sweet lotus seed paste, and each has a preserved duck egg yolk in it.  The egg yolk looks like a moon.  It could be a weird combination if you are trying it out for the first time.  The lotus seed paste is very sweet, and the preserved duck egg yolk has a slight savory taste.  There are a variety of mooncakes available these days.  Some of them have one yolk, two yolks, or no yolk.  Some of them are made with regular lotus seed paste, some better ones are made with white lotus seed paste.  My favorite is Wing Wah’s white lotus seed paste with one yolk.  Supreme!  One time my Beijing coworkers gave me a no-brand mooncake.  I appreciated the gesture, but the mooncake was yucky, a total waste of calories.  Mooncakes are fattening.  Even though I’m on diet now, I would make an exception for mooncakes since they are soooo good.  The only thing is that I would only consume yummy calories.  I don’t sacrifice anything other than Wing Wah.  BTW, I forgot to mention that mooncakes are very expensive.  A box of good mooncakes is like $40 after tax, like $10 per mooncake.  But it all worth it cos it’s so good.

Wing Wah mooncakes

Each box has 4 mooncakes

Pretty mooncake

Mooncake has a preserved duck egg yolk in it

YUMMY, YUMMY mooncake!

Today is one of those days that I carved something sweet.  It could be a rebounce action that my body is hungering for more to sweet stuff since I put myself on diet, or I was exhausted after a long work day and I need something to make me feel good.  I made Salmon for dinner. That was a quick, and easy to make.  While I waited for the fish to be cooked, I boiled some water, and cut a couple of sweet potatoes, and got ready to make Sweet Potato Soup.  I haven’t had this for years.  I have almost forgotten about this.  As I mentioned before, you don’t see too many desserts from any Chinese menus.  And you shouldn’t expect to have cakes or ice-cream as Chinese desserts.  Instead, most Chinese desserts are “Tong Shui”.  Tong means sugar, shui means water, ie sugar water.  I found it very soothing to have a bowl of Sweet Potato Ginger Soup especially in winter as the subtle heat of ginger could help to warm me up.  In fact, sweet potato is very nutritious, it contains vitamin A and C and a lot of fiber that can help with bad digestion.  Ginger helps with the digestive system as well.  Mom always told me that ginger helps to release the gas from the body… hehheh.. you know what I mean.   If you have never tried Chinese Tong Shui or sweet soup before, this is a classic one that you should try.  Again, it’s super easy to make or I won’t put it here   

Cut sweet potatoes into cubes

Add sweet potato to the pot

Sweet Potato Ginger Soup, so simple and yet so good

 Ingredients (Serves 2):

• Sweet Potatoes, 2 small ones
• Brown sugar, 2 Tbsp
• Water, 5 cups
• Salt, a pinch

Steps:

1. Put water in a pot and boil it.  Use high heat.
2. While you are waiting for the water to boil, cut about 7 or 8 slices of ginger.  You can use less if you prefer. I like the heat   Put the ginger slices into the pot. 
3. Peel and cut sweet potatoes into cubes, about 1 inch length.  Add them to the pot.  Add a pinch of salt.
4. Use high heat and bring it to a boil.  Then lower the heat to medium.  Let it cook for 20 minutes or so.
5. Add brown sugar to the pot. Let it cook for another 5 minutes.  Taste it.

Serve HOT.

It’s not “damn tart”, it’s “dan tart”, Egg Tart.  “Dan” in Cantonese means egg.

I wasn”t crazy about Egg Tarts when I was young.  It was one of those food that I would eat it but I didn”t have any special craving for it.  One year my childhood best friend got a summer job in a bakery shop.  I visited her a few times that summer.  Every time I visited her, she was making egg tarts.  They smelled so good.  I saw her poured the liquid to the tart shells.  She said it was so easy to make egg tarts.  Of course, back then I had no clue how to cook.  Now I don”t live anywhere near any bakery that serves egg tarts.  And I do crave egg tarts once in a while, I don’t know why.   I probably crave the smell of it more than the taste.  Now I would order it whenever I have dim sum in a Chinese restaurant.  One time, I had lunch with my sister and a bunch of friends at a dim sum place.  We ordered egg tarts as desserts.  The waiter told us that their egg tarts were very special.  My sister asked him “How special?”  He said, “especially small”  What a surprising and stupid answer!  We all laughed.

Soft Egg Tart Filling

Chinese Egg Tart

Ingredients: (make 12-15)

Dough:

• Confectioners” sugar, 1 cup
• All-purpose flour, 3 cup
• Butter, 1 cup
• Egg, 1 beaten

Filling:

• Sugar, 2/3 cup
• Water 1.5 cups
• Eggs, 5 beaten
• Vanilla extract, a dash
• Evaporated milk or half and half, 1 cup

Steps:

1. In a  mixing bowl, add confectioners” sugar, flour, and butter.  Use a fork or two knives to cut the butter into small crumbs.  Mix well with the flour mixture. If you have one of those fancy gadget that can cut the butter into small crumbs, use that instead of a fork or knives.
2. Add egg to the mixture.  Mix well and form a dough.   The dough should be moist.  If it is too dry, you can add some more butter.  If  it is too moist, add some more flour.  Knead the dough a few times.  Form a big ball.
3. Shape dough into 1.5 inches balls.  Press it flat with a rolling pin.  Lay it on a tart mold/paper shell.  Make sure if covers the whole mold, ie bottom and side.  Finsih the rest of the molds.  Put them aside.
4. To make the filling, combine the sugar and water in a small saucepan.  Use low heat, cook until the sugar is dissolved.  Turn off the heat.  Let it cool (this step is important!).
5. Wait till the sugar mixture is cool.  Beat the eggs in a bowl.  Strain it through a sieve to remove lumps. Add the egg into the sugar mixture.  Mix well.  Add evaporated milk and a dash of vanilla.   You can strain the whole mixture through a sieve the second time to make sure the mxiture has no lumps.
6. Pour the mixture to the shells.
7. Preheat the oven to 400F.  Bake for 25-30 minutes in a preheated oven, or until they turn golden brown.

Cheesecake probably doesn’t belong here.  But today my classmate was talking about cheesecake and he said the one at school was good. I said no.  Then I told him that even though I just learned how to make cheesecake, mine was a lot better than that ;p  So now, I have no choice but to post the recipe.  

My first cheesecake was both a failure and success.  I followed Tyler Florence’s recipe exactly on every step.  He said the cheesecake should be jiggly after 45 mins in a 325 F oven.  I was wondering how jiggly was jiggly because mine was very jiggly!  Of course, since I had no experience in making any cheesecake, I wouldn’t know.  So I took it out of the oven, let it cool, then chill it in the refridgerator.  The next day when I cut a piece of it, it was like pudding, yucky!  So I dropped Tyler Florence a bad review!  Sorry, someone got to be honest!  Meanwhile, I read twenty or so reviews of his receipe, and I found out that people gave him 5 stars on the recipe after they set the oven temperature higher, the cooking time longer, skip some ingredients etc. I was like WTH???!!  Then people shouldn’t gave him a 5 stars on the recipe if they have to change his recipe so much.  Oh well… looking at my not so edible cheesecake, I decided to bake it again in the oven even though it has been chilled!  What do I got to lose, right?  After rebaking it for another hour, the texture was much richer.  Out of my surprise, it was actually delicious!  My coworker teased me that this was a Double-Baked Cheesecake. If you know the Chinese dish called “Double Cooked Pork”, you’ll get what I’m saying.  I Chinkinize the cheesecake!  LOL.

Anyway, I made this cheesecake 3 times now, they were very edible   Of course, I modified Tyler Florence’s recipe.

Cheesecake Mixture

My Chinese Cheesecake

Ingredients (make a 9-inch cake):

Crust:

• Graham crackers, 2 cup, finely ground
• Melted butter, 3 Tbsp

Filling:

• Cream cheese, 1 pound (= 2 blocks)
• Large eggs, 3
• Sugar, 1 cup
• Sour cream, 1 pint
• Lemon juice, 3 drops
• vanilla extract, 2 drops

Steps:

1. Note that all ingredients should be in room temperature before you make it.  Just leave them on the counter for an hour before you start cooking.
2. Lightly coat an 9-inch springform pan with non-stick spray oil.
3. Mixed the grounded crackers and melted butter.  Lightly coat the bottom and half an inch of the side of the pan.  Press the crumbs down.
4. Preheat the oven to 350F. 
5. When the oven reaches 350F, put the cake pan in the oven and bake it for 5 mins.  This will cook the crust a little bit and gives a nice crispy texture.  Take the cake pan out when the time is up.  Put it aside, let it cool down.
6. In a larger mixing bowl, add all the cream cheese to the bowl. Use an electric mixer, use low speed and beat the cream cheese for 5 or 6 minutes until it becomes soft. Periodically scrape down the sides of the bowl and the beaters.
7. Add sugar a little bit at a time.  Continue to beat it slowly for a few more minutes or until it is combined and the mixture becomes creamy.  Periodically scrape down the side of the bowl adn the beaters to make sure it is well incorporated.
8. Add an egg at a time. Continue to beat slowly until combined.
9. Add sour cream, a couple drops of lemon juice, and a dash of vanilla extract.  Beat slowly until it is combined.  Scrape down the side of the mixture periodically.
10. Set the cake pan on a large piece of aluminum foil, and fold up the sides around it.  Place the cake pan in a large roasting pan.  Pour the cake mixture in the cake pan. 
11. Put the cake in a 350 F oven (it should be preheated before to reach the temperature).  Pour water into the roasting pan until the water is about an inch up the sides of the cake pan.  The foil will keep the water from seeping into the pan.  Bake it for 1 hour.  Turn off the oven.  Crack the oven door open, let it sit in the oven for another 20 minutes.  Take it out of the oven, let it cool in the pan for an hour.

Chill the cake in the refrigerator over night.