Chinese Chicken Recipes for Busy People

I satisfied my meat craving last night with a bacon wrapped filet mignon.  Today I’m back to my no meat meals for lunch and breakfast.  I had a piece of whole wheat bread, an egg and a small cup of soy milk for breakfast. It was pretty good.  For lunch, I had ramen noodles.  It was a cheap and quick lunch but satisfying.  As mom always says, “Good meal is a meal. Bad meal is also a meal”.  It’s some deep stuff in my opinion.  We can’t always have the best thing cos we’ll take it for granted and we won’t appreciate it.  It also agrees with the Chinese Ying Yang thing.  It’s all about balance.  I don’t mind eating ramen noodles at all.  That’s one of my favorite food on earth.  I used to have plain ramen noodles almost everyday when I was in college.  Now, I had my favorite Nissin chicken flavor ramen with fake crab meat, seaweed and chopped scallion garnish. I felt rich. LOL…

My breakfast: egg, wheat toast, soy milk

Nissin chicken Flavored Ramen - my favorite ramen

Lunch: Chicken ramen with fake crab meat, seaweed and scallion dices. Super fancy

The weather is getting warm.  I lost a bit of appetite.  Maybe if I keep losing appetite for a while, it could be a good way to lose a few pounds. LOL.  The weirdest thing ever was that I wanted a salad!!!  I am not a salad kind of gal.  This was a very unusual thing.  My coworker used to tell me that if I didn’t find anything I would like to eat in the cafeteria, there was always salad.  So salad isn’t on top of my list if I have other options.  But today, I somehow wanted a salad.  I was also in a mood for some grilled shrimps.  Grilled Shrimp salad sounds refreshing for a hot humid day.  I also added some soybeans to the salad to make it more Chinese. LOL.  Soybeans are packed with tons of protein. They would be great for salad or fried rice.  The salad turned out to be pretty good.  I may put this as my regular meals.

Put shrimp on a stick first

Frozen soybeans

Stir fry mushrooms and soybeans

Grilled shrimp salad with soybeans

Ingredients (Serves 2):

• Shrimp, a pound
• 2 or 3 bamboo sticks.
• Mushrooms, sliced, 1 pack
• Soybeans, 1 cup
• Lettuce, 1 bag (about 9 oz)
• Baby carrots, a big handful
• Sweetcorn , 1/2 cup (optional)
• Extra virgin olive oil, 1 Tbsp
• Soy sauce, 1 Tbsp
• Honey, 1 Tbsp
• Vinegar, 1 Tbsp
• Chinese cooking wine, 1 tsp
• Sesame oil, a few drops
• Sugar, ½ tsp

Steps:

1. Cut baby carrots into small pieces.  I cut each carrot into 4 pieces.  Put it aside.
2. Spray a little bit of oil in a frying pan.  Put mushrooms and soybeans in the pan. Use high heat. Let it cook for 4 or 5 minutes.  Turn off the heat.  Put them on a plate and let it cool a little bit.
3. Make the dressing: Add olive oil, soy sauce, honey, vinegar, sugar, Chinese cooking wine, and sesame oil in a bowl.  Mix it well.  Add a dash of salt if desired.  Put it aside.
4. Soak bamboo sticks in water for a few minutes. Shell and clean shrimp.  Put them on a stick.  Then start the grill.  Spray a little bit of oil on the shrimp first before you cook it.  Cook the shrimp for 4 or 5 mins on each side or until it is fully cooked.  When the shrimp is done, remove it from the stick. Add a little bit of salad dressing to the shrimp. Mix it well.
5. To assemble the salad, put some lettuce on the bottom of a serving plate.  Then add some carrots, mushrooms, soybeans, and sweetcorn.  Add shrimp on top.  Drizzle some dressing over the lettuce.

I’m getting stressed out with the amount of work I have to deliver this week.   It’s not even funny.  Plus I got a final exam next week.  Back in my college days, we made Ginseng Chicken Soup all the time.  We were all foreign students. Our parents all gave us Ginseng and made sure that we had ingredients to make some Ginseng Chicken Soup once in a while.  Ginseng has the power of rejuveation and reduce fatigue.  So whenever our exams were approaching, we would make Ginseng Chicken soup to get the last minute energy boost.  One of my friend tried Ginseng Chinese Soup for the very first time, and he said he was wide awake the whole night, and he wasn’t tired. So he couldn’t fall asleep.  I’m totally the opposite now. I can fall asleep anytime. My brain is so tried.  I certainly can use a little bit of energy boost for this coming week.  I don’t even know if I would survive these few days.  I looked at the soup mix that mom gave me.  Besides Ginseng, she also put fish maws in it.  Fish maws are some funky stuff that Chinese cherish.  It’s basically gas bladder of large fish.  It sounds pretty crazy just thinking about it.  But it is one of those expensive delicacies.  It is high in collagen.  If you can afford making fish maw for daily consumption for two weeks or so, you can definitely tell the difference in your skin.   So combining the Ginseng and fish maw, this soup can boost your energy while keeping you pretty.  LOL.

Ginseng

Fish Maws

Put all ingredients in a crock pot

Ginseng Chicken with Fish Maw Soup

Ingredients:

• Ginseng, a handful
• Fish maws, 3 or 4 pieces
• Chicken, 1.5 pounds, I used about 6 chicken drumsticks.
• Dioscorea Opposita, a big handful (Optional, these are japanese dried yam, white in color, you can get them from Chinese grocery stores at the soup mix aisle)
• A lot of water
• Salt

Steps:

1. Pre-soak the dried fish maw over night first.
2. Add ginseng, fish maws, chicken in a crock pot.  Add hot water in it.  Leave about 1 inch room on top. Don’t over fill the water.
3. Turn the heat to be high. 
4. Set your timer.  After 6 or 7 hours, the soup is done.  Note I put all the ingredients in the crock pot, and then went to bed, and the soup is done the next day when I woke up.
5. Add a pinch of salt for taste.

Soy Milk, my favorite drink

6 months and not much exercise is really turning me into a Fatty.  The more I feel frustrated, the more food I consumed.  I’m sure some of you would understand what I’m saying.  Will there be a moment when I feel I hit my lowest and I am determined to do something about it?  I finally kicked my own butt this morning and exercised.  Thanks to my coworker, John and my childhood friend, Louisa that motivated me.  While I see others are trying hard to get healthy and get in shape, I can’t be sitting on the couch no more.  I did my Cardio X this morning.  I struggled, but I managed to get it done.  I feel great!!!  I do feel like a million bucks as Tony Horton said.  I don’t have any fancy green stuff as my recovery drink, but I do have some plain soy milk.  I looked at the label of the bottle. It has 7g of protein for every 8-oz and 1g sugar only. That would do it.  Most of the soy drink I found from regular American grocery stores taste awful. I won’t name brands here, but most of them are really yucky.  They added a bunch of artificial taste like vanilla and tons of sugar in it.  If you would like to try real soy drink, you need to get it from a Chinese or Japanese grocery store.  I’m gonna try using soy milk as my recovery drink from now on, and see how that goes.  I need to get back my strength, get in shape, and get ready for golf season.

It’s still feel like Chinese New Year to me even though the week is over.  Traditionally, Chinese New Year Day 7 is considered as everyone’s birthday.  And mom would usually make some sweet rice balls.  It’s symbolic to have these sweet round treats to symbolize a sense of  completeness.  I love rice balls since I was a kid.  I only got to have that around new year.  We didn’t usually have desserts after dinner.  If you haven’t realized yet, there are not too many Chinese desserts.  Even if you order some, don’t expect they are anywhere near as sweet as the western desserts.  One time I invited my American buddy and his wife over for dinner.  I thought I should include some desserts.  Back then I haven’t learned how to make any desserts from scratch like apple pie, cheesecake etc.  I bought a bag of black sesame sweet rice balls from a Chinese grocery store.  I cooked and served them.  Of course they looked weird to my friends.  They were small and round in shape, white outside and had a slight translucent black color inside for the sesame filling.  My buddy asked me what they were.  Even though he said they looked like monkey eye balls, he did try them and he loved it.  Tonight, I cooked some peanut rice balls.  On the package they suggested to put them in soy milk, even I found it weird. LOL.  But I give it a try, and it turned out pretty good.

Frozen rice balls

Rice Ball in Soy Milk - Weird but Good.. LOL

Ingredients (Serves two):

• Frozen rice ball, 1 pack
• Water, 6 cups
• Soy milk (optional), 3 cup

Steps:

1. No need to defrost the rice balls.
2. Add water to a small pot.  Bring it a boil.
3. Add rice balls to the pot.  Make sure there is enough water so that the rice balls are totally submerged.  Use medium heat. Cook them for 10 mins.  Stir occassionally to make sure they don’t stick to the pot.
4. Remove the rice balls and put them in a serving bowl.
5. If you don’t want to try the rice balls with soy milk, you can disgard half of the water, and then add 1 tablespoon of sugar to the remining water in the pot to add some sweet taste to it.   Mix it well.  Pour the water over the rice balls.
6. If you are brave enough to try the rice balls with soy milk.  You can heat up the soy milk in a microwave or cook it on the stove.  Pour the soy milk over the rice balls.

I  have been debating if I should go to the Chinese New Year dinner at work. It’s a 10-course meal!  I haven’t had one like this for years.  The other day I saw my friend Margo.  She was telling me that she would never forget that a whole chicken was served in a Chinese New Year dinner.  She said it was so freaky to see the Chicken head on the table. LOL.  Ya, it is freaky, so does the fish head.  Chinese always serve a whole chicken, and a whole fish in banquets.  There are all sorts of weird ingredients or dishes that you may not get a chance to have unless you try out one of these banquets, including Shark Fin Soup, Sea Cucumber, Jelly Fish etc.  I still remember my American coworker grabbed a piece of sea cucumber and that thing just flew off the table.  It was impossible to grab. I couldn’t do it, and I’m Chinese.  LOL… So much fun.