Chinese Chicken Recipes for Busy People

I’m really wondering if my life will get any less busy.  My day job plus my part-time school are killing me.  Plus I’m trying hard to squeeze in an hour per day to do p90x so that I can look excellent in 90 days, and not a little fatty. LOL. But time is my enemy.  I couldn’t find time to do anything.   A few weeks ago, someone introduced me to a super lazy dish which was steamed tofu and fish floss on it.  I was like “wow, who would think of a lazy dish like this?”  But now I definitely need some lazy dish like this.  I was pretty much having 5 or 6 hours back to back meetings these days.  I got a pack of tofu and fish floss at home.  So I was willing to give it a try. I modify the dish even more to suit my laziness.  Instead of steaming the tofu, I just microwave it.  Tofu is already cooked and they are edible out of the package.  So what’s the point of steaming it if I just want to heat it up?  That was the super lazy Fatty speaking. LOL.  So, I heated it up in a microwave for a minute.  Discard any water.  Then I added a few tablespoons of fish floss on top.  It was surprisingly refreshing.  I loved it.  Plus it is healthy, no oil, no toxin.  I ate that as a side dish with a bowl of rice.  Fish floss is one of those funky things.  It is dried and is already cooked.  It has a fish taste but not the fish texture.  I’ve seen mom made that from scratch when I was kid.  She used the leftover fish filet, and stir fried it in a wok while smashing it until it got really dried and turned flaky.  I would not know how to repeat what she did.  I usually put fish floss on a bowl of rice and it would be yummy.  I tried putting fish floss on a piece of bread and make it like a sandwich. It was yummy too.  It was funky but it was definitely cool stuff.  I usually keep a can of fish floss in my pantry just in case I have 0 time to cook, which happened quite often to me these days.

Fish Floss. Very flaky. This one has some seaweed in it.

A pack of tofu. Use soft or medium firmness

Tofu with Fish Floss. Healthy, lazy, funky!

Ingredients (Serves 2 as side dish):

• Tofu, 1 pack (soft or medium firmness)
• Fish floss – about 5 or 6 Tbsp (or you can add more)

Steps:

1. Cut tofu into thick slices, like 1.5 inches or so.  Lay it flat on a plate.
2. You can steam the tofu or microwave it for a minute like I did if you are lazy.  Or you can have it cold too. It’s up to you.  Discard any water.
3. Use a paper towel to pat dry the surface of the tofu.
4. Add the fish floss on top.

My god, what a week!  I’m glad it was over.  I was working like non-stop to meet my deadline. It was stressful.  But I still pushed myself an hour to exercise, and watched out for what I ate and the portion that I ate. I lost 3 pounds this month. I am happy.  Even though it wasn’t like a big loss in pounds, but I notice my tummy is getting smaller.  The best of all, my clothes are not as tight!!   I’ve been making a lot of Chicken and Broccoli and Shrimp and Asparagus. These two became my major healthy dishes.  Both are super easy to make.  I served them with brown rice.  Half an hour was all I need to make the dinner from scratch. I can’t complain.  The only part that I cheated was using read-made rice that can be prepared in the microwave for a few minutes. Hahaha..  But I think even if I made the rice in a rice cooker, it would just add 5 minutes to rinse the rice, it shouldn’t be a big deal.  I got all my ingredients for the dish from Trader Joe’s.  I got a bag of frozen jumbo shrimp that was peeled and cleaned, a bag of mushrooms that was sliced, and some asparagus.  Now you know why this dish is so easy. There isn’t much preparation needed. Just stir fry everything and add a sauce, that’s pretty much it.

All ingredients: Shrimp, asparagus, mushrooms

Cook shrimp first with garlic

Add mushrom and asparagus

Add sauce, then add shrimp back to the pan

Stir fried Shrimp and Asparagus, yum!

Ingredients (Serves 2):

• Big shrimp, 1 pound (if you get the peeled and cleaned ones, that would save you more time)
• Mushrooms, 1 package (I got a pack that was already pre-sliced)
• Asparagus, a big bunch
• Garlic, 1 or 2 cloves
• Chinese cooking wine, 1 Tbsp
• Fish sauce, 1 tsp
• Oyster sauce, 1 tsp
• White pepper, a dash
• Corn starch, 1.5 Tbsp
• Water, 5 Tbsp

Steps:

1. Peel and clean shrimp.  Pat dry with a paper towel. Put it in a bowl.  Add a teaspoon of cornstarch and a dash of white pepper to the shrimp.  Mix it well. Put it aside.
2. Slice mushrooms. Put it aside.
3. Rinse asparagus. You may want to get rid of the rough part.  Just gently hold the asparagus towards the bottom end, then break it. Wherever it breaks, the bottom part is the tough part that is not so edible, discard that.  Cut asparagus into halves (about 3 or 4 inches long).  Put it aside.
4. Finely chop 1 or 2 cloves of garlic. Put it aside.
5. Prepare for the sauce: add Chinese cooking wine, fish sauce, oyster sauce, 1 Tbsp of cornstarch, 5 Tbsp of water in a bowl. Mix it well, put it aside.
6. Use a big frying pan. Spray non-stick cooking oil.  Use high heat. Add garlic and shrimp to the pan.  Lay the shrimp flat in one layer.  Let it cook for a minute or so.  Flip it over to the over side, it cook for 1 to 2 minutes.  Remove the shrimp from pan.  Note you don’t need to fully cook the shrimp because we will add it back to the pan later.  So don’t worry about it.
7. Add mushrooms and asparagus to the pan.  Note you don’t need to clean the pan after cooking the shrimp, that’s the beauty of it.  Stir fry the asparagus and mushroom for 2 to 3 minutes or until it get softens.
8. Add sauce to the pan.  Mix it well with the mushroom and asparagus.  Cook it for a minute or so.  Add shrimp to the pan.  Mix everything well. Cook it for another minute or until the sauce thickens.  Taste it. Add a dash of salt if needed.  Add a little bit of water if the sauce gets too thick. Adjust according.  Serve hot.

I was surprised to find bubble teas in several malls.  I saw it in the Woodbury Commons when I was there a few weeks ago.  I thought I could only find bubble teas from China Town.  Bubble tea is a funky thing. It’s basically regular English breakfast tea served cold with milk and sugar and some funky black starch balls in it.  I don’t know who invented bubble tea. It was really popular a few years back.  It could be some influence from Taiwan.  And they need to make new bigger straws because the black starch balls would not pass through regular skinny straws.  It’s really a weird drink but it got very popular.  I remember one time some of my Chinese friends were asking me to go out for a drink.  So I thought we were going to a bar. Wrong.  We went out for bubble teas.  Even though I wasn’t crazy about bubble tea, I thought it is something very simple that I can try at home.  So I bought a bag of starch balls from a Chinese grocery store.  Guess what?  It was completely my mistake that I didn’t read the cooking instructions on the bag.  I said 2 hours cooking time. I was like “WHAT?”  I didn’t believe it but it was really the case. Those starch balls took forever to get soften.  I think it may be fun to make it in a big batch for a party or something and have friends try out the funky tea, but making it just for one or two cups of tea, it’s not worth that effort.

Starch Balls for Bubble Tea

Boil starch balls in a big pot of water

Rinse starch balls in cold water

Brew tea

Add starch balls to the cold tea. Add milk or half and half

Ingredients (Serves 1):

• Starch balls, 1/2 cup
• English breakfast tea bag, 1
• Half and half, 2 Tbsp
• Sugar, 1 tbsp
• Ginger, 3 slices
• Water, 3 cups

Steps:

1. Read the cooking instructions of the bag of the starch balls.  Use a big pot of water, bring it to a boil.  Add starch balls in it.  Use medium heat.  Let the starch balls cook for 2 hours.  Not kidding.  Keep an eye on the water level.  Add more water if it gets drier.  Stir occasionally.
2. In a separate pot, add 3 cups of water and ginger slices in it. After it is boiled, let it simmer for three or four minutes.  Turn off the heat.  Discard the ginger.
3. Pour the ginger flavored water into a tea cup.  Add a tea bag, and sugar.  Let the tea brew for 5-10 minutes or.  Discard the tea bag.  Let the tea cool a little bit.  To turn that into a cold tea, you can either put it in the refrigerator and let it chill, or add a few ice cubes.
4. When the starch balls are done, they should be completely translucent.  Rinse the starch balls in cold water.
5. Add the starch balls to the cold tea.  Add half and half. Mix it well.  Serve cold.

OMG, what a week!  I was completely buried with deadlines at work and assignment stuff for school.  Plus, I’m forcing myself to spend an hour exercise per day.  I probably got 3 hours of sleep per night for the whole week.  Yet, I still try to make some dinner instead of getting pizza.  What I made for dinner was all easy stuff, something like Unagi-don, a Japanese grilled sea eel with rice.  EEL????  Eeeewww!!!  Yes, it is a long and round snake-looking fish.  Sound yucky right?  I remember watching my grandpa killed an eel when I was a kid.  I won’t go into details.  But it wasn’t something I could do.  I am glad that the eel I got was already cleaned, filet, and actually completely cooked.  To me, eel is very yummy.  It has a very soft white flesh.  I got this one from the refrigerated/frozen food section of a Chinese grocery store.  It is packed in a plastic bag.  Eel is usually relatively expensive.  I think it was like $7 for the one I got.  But still, it is still a lot cheaper compare to having the same dish (unagi dinner) at any Japanese restaurant.  The unagi dinner was served with some white Japanese rice on a bottom of a fancy Japanese box or bowl, then the fish was placed on top of the rice, and a few pieces of pickled vegetable was placed on the side of the fish.  That was it.  And they would easily charge you $20 for that.  It is probably the easiest dish to make at home.  The ready-made unagi I got is already cooked.  It was grilled with teriyaki sauce, very tasty.  I cut a small corner off from the bag.  Put the whole bag in the microwave. A minute or two later, the fish is ready.  Then I heat up some ready-made rice for couple of minutes in the microwave.  So, no more than 5 minutes, my dinner is ready!  Thank god for the microwave!!   

Fully cooked unagi in a bag

Unagi dinner, served with rice and pickled vegetable

Ingredients (serves 1 or 2 depending on how big a piece of fish you prefer):

• Eel, 1 pack
• Ready-cooked rice, 1 pack (you can get it from any grocery store.  It just need to be heated up in a microwave)
• Optional: some pickled vegetable (it is usually served with some yellow pickled Japanese radish.  I didn’t have that at home, I served it with some Chinese pickled vegetable instead)
• Optional: some vegetable (I stir fried some chinese broccoli, you can use regular broccoli or whatever you prefer)

Steps:

1. Put the ready-made rice in the microwave.  Follow the cooking instruction of the ready-made rice.  Different brand has different instructions.  When the rice is done, put it on a serving plate or some fancy bowl.
2. Cut off a small corner of the bag of the unagi so that it can vent out steams when heated.  Put it in the microwave and heat it up (with the bag on) on high temperature for 1 minute.  Then check if it is warm enough or not.  Repeat for 30 seconds if needed.  Remove fish from the bag.  Cut it into halves.  Place fish on the rice.  
3. Optionally, add pickle vegetable on the side. 
4. Optionally, you can serve it with some stir-fried vegetable like I did. That probably takes 5 mins to cook it.

I have been liking the new McDonald’s banana and strawberry smoothie.  It was yummy but I don’t know how much sugar it has.  A customer was asking a staff at McDonald if they put any sugar in it.  The staff said no.  But you can’t really trust them.  Starbucks also have banana and strawberry smoothie.  I haven’t tried theirs but I did look at the ingredients.  They were basically banana and strawberries plus some protein powder.  Of course, they charge you a lot for that.  I thought I could try that at home.  It should be a no brainer, right?  I put a very ripe banana, 5 or 6 strawberries, fat free milk all in a blender.  Touch the button for a few seconds.  Da da… a wonderful shake was done.  It filled me up for like 3 hours or so.  Not bad especially when this shake can be made in 5 minutes. It was great as a quick snack on a busy day.  I made this shake a few times now as a lunch substitute when I was super busy.  I added some protein powder in it, and it would fill me up longer for 4 hours or so.  For a busy day, I would have the shake as a light lunch around 12:30pm or 1pm, and make an early dinner around 5:30pm or 6pm, regular food of course. 

Ingredients (serve 1):

• Banana, 1
• Strawberries, 5 or 6
• Milk, 1 cup (I used fat free, you can use skimmed 1% or 2% if you prefer)
• Ice cubes, 4
• Whey protein powder, 1 scoop (Optional if you are making it as a meal substitute.  You can get protein powder from any nutrient supplement stores. Each bottle of protein powder comes along with a scoop)

One banana and a few strawberries

Add banana, strawberries, milk + protein powder. Blend everything.

Banana and Strawberry Smoothie. super yummy!

Steps:

1. Use a big blender.  Peel and break banana into 3 or 4 pieces, and put them in the blender.
2. Rinse the strawberries, and cut each in halves.  Add them to the blender.
3. Add milk, protein powder and ice cubes all in the blender.
4. Use the “ice crush” setting, and blend the whole thing for half a minute or so.  That’s it.  Serve cold.  Enjoy.

Chinese Chicken and Broccoli is probably the most common Chinese dish in US.  To anyone who doesn’t know much about Chinese food, he/she would probably end up ordering something like Chicken with Broccoli just to be on the safe side.  You can’t go wrong with that.  Some of my coworkers are like that. They don’t have much gut to try new dishes.  If you substitute chicken with beef, ie, Beef with Broccoli, that is truly a classic Cantonese dish.  But since I’m on a diet, I am eating more chicken instead.  I used chicken breast meat which made the dish super lean.  It turned out very yummy.  I served it with brown rice.  I liked it.  I don’t mind having this as my diet food.

Season chicken for 5-10 mins

Optional: Blanch broccoli first

Stir fry the chicken

Add broccoli, then sauce

Chicken with Broccoli, yummy and healthy!

Ingredients (Serves two):

• Boneless chicken meat, 1. 5 pounds
• Broccoli, 2 big crowns
• Garlic, 2 cloves
• Garlic powder, a dash
• Soy sauce, 1 Tbsp
• Chicken powder, 1 tsp
• Chinese cooking wine, 2 Tbsp
• Oyster sauce, 1 Tbsp
• Cornstarch, 2 tsp
• Water, 5 Tbsp
• Sugar, 1 tsp

Steps:

1. Clean and cut Broccoli into small florets.  Put it aside.
2. Finely chop garlic. Put it aside.
3. Cut boneless chicken into slices.  Put chicken in a mixing bowl.  Add chicken powder, soy sauce, Chinese cooking wine, 1 tsp of cornstarch and a dash of garlic powder.  Mix it well. Put it aside and let it season for 5 to 10 minutes.
4. Prepare the sauce: Add 1 tsp of cornstarch, 1 Tbsp of cooking wine, sugar, oyster sauce and water.  Mix it well.  Put it aside.
5. Optional step:  Blanch the broccoli.  I don’t like really under cooked or hard broccoli.  You can skip this step if you don’t mind.  Put broccoli into a pot.  Add about two cups of water to the pot.  Bring it to a boil.  Let it cook for a minute. Turn off the heat.  Discard the water.  Put broccoli aside.
6. Use a large frying pan.  Spray non-stick cooking oil onto the pan.  Use high heat.  Add garlic to the pan.  Add chicken.  Keep stirring while it cooks.  Cook it for 2 or 3 minutes or so or until it is fully cooked.
7. Add broccoli to the pot.  Stir it well with the chicken.  Add  the sauce.  Mix it well until the sauce thickens.  Serve hot.

I hope everyone get a chance to reconnect with your friends and family.  That is all about for the Moon Festival – a reunion.  Enjoy a piece of moon cake too if you have it.  Mine was long gone in my tummy.  I wish I have another box of moon cakes.  Hehhehe.  A friend showed me a link about the new moon cake from Starbucks.  It looks yummy. Too bad they don’t sell it in US, or I would definitely get one.  Usually I would gather with friends and family for a big dinner to celebrate the Moon Festival.  This year, I’ve been working like hell at work, and I didn’t really have much energy left to hang out.  You know, everyone is so overloaded these days in this economy.  I made a big pot of chicken congee for my lunch and dinner.  It does remind me of a lot of childhood memory.  Back then when I was skinny, I used to have a bowl of chicken congee at a congee store near my house about two or three hours after dinner, and followed up with a soft ice-cream cone from 7-11!  I was like eating four or five meals a day.  Of course, having an extra meal right before sleep was not a good thing to do.  I don’t have that habit of having extra meals anymore.  But I do miss the chicken congee from that store.  It was plain simple and comforting.  Most congee stores have their secret recipes of making the congee (rice soup base) smooth and supreme.  For now, my home-made chicken congee was not too shabby. It still gave me a very warm feeling.

Put rice, water, chicken all in a pot

Bring it to a boil. Then turn it down and let it simmer.

Remove chicken from the pot after 1 hour. Break meat into smaller pieces

A bowl of chicken congee reminds me of childhood. It's wonderful.

Ingredients:

• Chicken, 1 pound (bone or boneless, it’s up to you. Even though I used 4 thighs, I would recommend using boneless thigh meat)
• Rice, uncooked, 1.5 cups (or you can used 2 cups cooked rice)
• Water, 12 cups (at least)
• Ginger, 3 slices
• Scallion, 3 stalks
• Fish sauce, 1 Tbsp
• Salt, a dash

Steps:

1. Put uncooked rice in a big pot. Wash and rinse it for a few times.  Then add about 12 cups of water.
2. Add chicken in the pot.  Use high heat. Bring everything to a boil.  Then turn the heat down to low, and let it simmer (without a lid) for about 45 minutes.  Stir occasionally to avoid the rice from sticking to the bottom or the side of the pot.  Also, you may need to add more water as the rice begins to absorb the moisture.
3. Cut ginger into very thin slices.  Add it to the pot.  Let it simmer for another 15 minutes.
4. Add a tablespoon of fish sauce to the pot. Mix it well.  Taste it.  Add a pinch of salt and a dash of white pepper if needed.  Turn off the heat.
5. Cut scallions into dices.  Add it to the pot. Mix it well.  Take chicken meat out of the pot. I used the whole thighs. I took them out and deboned them. Cut the meat into small pieces.  Add the chicken back to the pot.  Mix everything well.  Serve hot.

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!

I probably should eat more tofu. It is packed with tons of protein.  Even though the taste is very bland, there is something wonderful about it that I love.  I used to have a lot of tofu dishes growing up.  One of the tofu dishes that I love is stuffed tofu.  Whenever I came across a street vendor that sold deep fried food, I would order a couple of the deep fried stuffed tofu.  It was crispy outside and soft and moist inside.  It was steaming hot and I almost burn my tongue every time eating that.  I could also find the same dish from dim sum restaurants.  The pan fried it instead.  Now that I’m on diet, I made the healthy steamed version instead.  Actually the tofu was usually stuffed with ground fish meat.  But I couldn’t find any ready made ground fish meat in regular American grocery stores.  And I wasn’t sure I wanted to try grounding it myself.  So, I decided to use shrimp instead.  I don’t have a food processor.  I was just chopping the shrimp into smaller pieces and then chop a lot more times to make it into a paste.  I remember seeing mom did that when I was kid. I know that is do-able.  I added some chopped onion with the ground shrimp meat.  It turned out very delicious.  I was proud of myself.  It’s an easy dish to make. I was happy that I’m eating healthier.

Mix chopped onion, ground shrimp and seasoning in a bowl

Cut tofu into thick slices

Spread shrimp mixture over tofu

Put the tofu into the steamer

Steamed Stuffed Tofu

Steamed Stuffed Tofu

Ingredients (Serves 2):

• Tofu, 1 pack
• Shrimp, ½ pound (You don’t need large shrimp, just get some smaller ones cos it is going to be ground anyway)
• Onion, finely chopped, about 3 tablespoon
• White pepper, a dash
• Chicken powder, ¼ tsp
• Salt, a dash
• Soy sauce, 1 tsp
• Sugar, ¼ tsp
• Sesame oil, a few drops
• Chopped scallion, 1 stalk (optional for garnish)

Steps:

1. Finely chopped onion.  Put it in a large mixing bowl.
2. Shelled and cleaned shrimp.  If you have a food processor, blend the shrimp into a paste.  Or you can just cut the shrimp into small pieces first, then keep chopping it until it turned into a paste.  It doesn’t take long, a few minutes will do.  Add shrimp to the mixing bowl.
3. Add a dash of salt, white pepper and chicken powder into the mixing bowl.  Mix the shrimp, onion and everything together.  Put it aside.
4. Prepare the steamer.  Put enough water in the steamer.
5. While waiting for the steamer to get ready, cut tofu into thick slices about 1 inch thick.  Lay it flat on a plate that will fit into a steamer.  Or you can put it two pieces of aluminum foil like I did.
6. Spread the shrimp mixture onto the tofu to make a thin layer.
7. What the water boils, put the stuffed tofu into the steamer.  Steam with the lid on for about 8 mins.
8. In a small bowl, mix the sauce: add soy sauce, sugar and a few drops of sesame oil.
9. When the stuffed tofu is done, discard excess water from the dish.  Then drizzle the sauce over it.  Add a few diced scallion for garnish if desired.  Serve hot.

I made Sukiyaki last night. But I really didn’t have all the good ingredients.  I modified a lot of it.  I got some thin beef slices from the Chinese store.  The beef is no where as good as the ribeye slices from the Japanese store. But hey, there is a big difference in price.  I didn’t have the Japanese miracle noodles, I used the regular Chinese cellophane noodles.  I didn’t have the Japanese enoki or fresh shiitake mushrooms.  I used regular white mushrooms instead.  I didn’t get the Japanese made tofu, I had the Chinese brand tofu instead.  Hahahha… TOFU IS TOFU.  They all taste the same.  I also added some inexpensive fish cakes/balls that I got from the Chinese store.  Anyway, I substituted a lot of ingredients but I used the same seasoning and method to cook it.  I used what I had.  It was still very yummy.  Price-wise, I cut the dish from a $25 ingredient meal to half of it.  Not bad at all for a yummy knock-off.

For the original recipe, see Beef Sukiyaki with Miracle Noodles

Beef Sukiyaki - a cheaper modified version