Chinese Chicken Recipes for Busy People

Finally, I can take a few days off and not worry about work or school.  Merry Christmas!  I finished another crazy semester. I was in a good mood and I tried to make some party food.  I got a few invites for Christmas parties   I made Chinese BBQ Ribs.  These are very easy to make.  Really, no skills needed.  You just mix the sauce with the ribs, let it marinate for a few hours.  Put them in the oven, let the oven do all the work. That’s it.  I know there are a lot BBQ police out there. Hahahha.. The ribs I made tonight wasn’t as fall off the bones cos I didn’t bake them for many many hours, but they are certainly yummy and juicy.  Give it a try. They are great party food.  Everyone loved them. They were all gone.

Pork ribs

Lee Kum Kee brand Char Siu Sauce

Marinade the ribs for a few hours

Baked Chinese BBQ ribs

Yummy Chinese BBQ ribs

Ingredients:

• Pork ribs, 1 packet (about 2.5 pounds for the one I got)
• Char Siu Sauce, 2 Tbsp
• Soy Sauce, 1 Tbsp
• Chinese cooking wine, 1 Tbsp
• Sugar, 1 Tbsp
• Garlic powder, 1 tsp
• Salt, a dash
• Pepper, a dash
• Paprika, 2 Tbsp
• Honey, 1 Tbsp

Steps:

1. In a large mixing bowl, add char siu sauce, soy sauce, Chinese cooking wine, sugar, a dash of salt, a dash of pepper, garlic powder.  Mix everything well.
2. Add ribs to the mixing bowl.  Mix them well with the sauce.
3. Cover the mixing bowl with a lid or plastic wrap.  Put it in the refrigerator and let it marinate for a few hours.  I put mine in the fridge for 6 hours.  If you can marinate the ribs over night, it would be even better.
4. Set the oven to 375F.  
5. Lay a baking tray with aluminum foil.  Spray some non-stick oil on the foil to prevent the ribs from sticking to it.  Lay the ribs flat in one layer on the tray.  Sprinkle paprika on top of the ribs. 
6. Bake the ribs for 1.5 hours. 
7. There may be leftover sauce in the mixing bowl.  You can use a brush to brush some sauce on the ribs occasionally.  
8. Mix 1 Tbsp of honey with 1 Tbsp of water.  When 1.5 hours is done, brush the honey mixture onto the ribs.  Put the ribs back to the oven and let them bake for another 15 minutes.

It was a really nice day in NY.  I played a good round of golf and met an older couple. The wife was a soft talker.  She talked so softly, and so slowly, and she talked about boring stuff… She was like the Soft Talker in one of Seinfeld’s episode!  I have never met anyone like that.  I thought of my friends and some easy party food that I usually make.  I haven’t hosted a party for a long time.  I usually would make some dumplings and wings.  These were popular snacks.  For the wings, the Chinese BBQ sauce is the key. Char Siu Sauce is a Chinese BBQ sauce, which tastes totally different from American BBQ sauce.  It has a strong sweetness.  One way of doing it is to mix the Char Siu Sauce with the uncooked wings first, and then bake it.  But the weather is getting so warm that I didn’t feel like baking it and making the whole house feels warm tonight.  So I grilled the wings instead.  The result was even better. The wings were gone fast.  Everyone loved it.

Char Siu Sauce - Chinese BBQ sauce

Grill wings first

Mix half cooked wings with sauce

Chinese BBQ wings

Ingredients (Serves 2):

• Wings, 1.5 pounds
• Chinese Char Siu sauce or Chinese BBQ sauce, 1.5 Tbsp (I used the Char Siu Sauce here, it was yummy)
• Soy Sauce, 1.5 Tbsp
• Garlic powder, a dash

Steps if you are using a grill:

1. In a big mixing bowl, mix Chinese BBQ sauce, soy sauce and garlic powder well.  Put it aside.
2. Grill wings on a grill for 5 mins on one side.  Flip them over, and grill them for 5 minutes on another side or until they are kind of half cooked.
3. Remove the wings from the grill.  Turn off the grill.  Put the wings in the mixing bowl with the Chinese BBQ sauce and soy sauce.  Mix them well.  Let the wings sit for 10 minutes so that the meat is seasoned.  i would not suggest to mix the wings with the sauce first before they were grilled because the wings may get burned easily with the sauce on if it was cooked for a long time.  If you are cooking the wings in an oven, you can marinade the wings with the sauce first.
4. Put the wings back to the grill. Turn the grill heat to be medium or low.  Let the wings to be cooked on one side for 10 mins.  Use a brush to brush leftover sauce to the wings.  Then flip them over to cook for another 10 mins.  Brush more sauce to the wings while cooking.  

Steps if you are using an oven:

1. Mix the Chinese BBQ sauce with soy sauce and garlic powder in a big mixing bowl.  Put it aside.
2. Dry the wings wih a paper towel.  Add wings to the mixing bowl.  Let them marinade for 15 mins first.
3. Preheat the oven for 375F. 
4. Lay a shallow baking tray with aluminum foil.  Spray non-stick cooking oil on the foil. 
5. Put wings on the tray in one layer. 
6. Bake it for for about 20 mins on one side.  If there are leftover sauce in the bowl, use a brush to reapply the sauce to the wings.  Flip it over and bake it for another 15 mins or so on the other side or until it is fully cooked. 

I guit golf. I'm gonna miss this.

I played two days of golf this weekend, and I totally sucked. I was going to quit golf.  <Sign> I was angry, frustrated and mad at myself.  Just when I thought I was playing better this year, or I was moving 2 steps forward, and yet I just moved 7 steps backward.  Oh well. I guess life don’t always turn out to be the way we would like it to be.  I couldn’t help cook up a bunch of meat after the game.  You know, food can be comforting in times like this.  I cooked a lot of food. I had steak, chicken drumsticks, shrimps and some potatos.  I could feed a bunch of neighbors as well. LOL.  I ate a lot.  I was not supposed to, and I kind of regretted the next day.  I still got so much leftovers. I deboned the chicken drumsticks and I could use the chicken meat for soemthing else later like fried rice, noodle soup, or salad.

BBQ after a golf game

Grilled chicken drumsticks looked pretty good

Deboned the drumsticks leftover. The meat can be used in fried rice, noodles, or salad.

Ingredients (you can grill whatever, this was what I had yesterday):

• Large shrimp, 3/4 of a pound
• Chicken drumsticks, 3 pounds
• Filet Mignon, 2
• Sweet potato, 4
• Bamboo skillets, 5 pieces

Steps:

• For sweet potatos, cook them in a microwave for 8 mins on high first.  Take them out, wrap each one in aluminum foil.  In this way, you can finish the cooking on the grill and it will take less time since the potatos are half cooked.
• Soak bamboo skillets in water for a few minutes first.  Clean and shell the shrimp.  Put shrimp on the skillets.  Put them aside.
• Spray non-stick cooking oil on the surface of the grill.  Start the grill. 
• Put the meat that needs the longest time to cook first, ie, the drumsticks.  Drumsticks need to be cook for about an hour.
• Put potatoes on the grill next.  Just put them aside. You don’t really need to pay much attention to them. Just flip them occassionally. They can be cooked for 30 mins or less.
• Steaks do not need to be cook that long either.  It all depends on how you would like it cooked. 
• Cook the shrimp last.  Spray some cooking oil on the shrimp first before putting it on the grill so that it won’t stick.  Cook each side for about 5 minutes or until it is fully cooked.  The meat will not be translucent when it is cooked.  Squeeze a few drops of lemon juice onto the shrimp if you prefer. 

Dipping Sauce:

• For chicken, mix 3 tablespoons of honey with a tablespoon of soy source, a dash of garlic power, salt and pepper.  Brush the sauce onto the chicken when the meat is cooked.
• For steak, you can use your favorite steak sauce. I prefer Peter Luger steak sauce. It is the best in my opinion.

It has been a while since I went out for dinner.  I don’t go out for dinner much these days.  I have been trying to cut down my expenses, and my calories.  Yesterday, a friend recommended a BBQ place called Holy Smoke that I haven’t tried before.  I love BBQ   So, I ordered a St. Louis Ribs and Brisket Combo.  I ordered two sides, chili and onion rings.  I love St. Louis Ribs.  They are so meaty.  When my food came, I almost fell off the chair. HOLY SMOKE!  It was HUGE.  The amount of food they offered on my plate was like the size of a laptop computer!  What were these people thinking?  Why would they serve so much food for a single portion?  If you think that regular diners serve huge portions, this one is like 2 times of that.  Insane.  No wonder so many people are overweight.  My sister’s Brazilian friends used to finish whatever was served to them because they were taught (like me) not to waste food when they were young.  But eventually they learned that it was too much to finish it all.  There was a family of 6 adults and 1 kid sitting across from my table. They ordered 3 combos, and extra corn breads to share among them.  And yet, they had leftovers to take home.  They looked at me a few times, I was sure that they thought I was a pig or something to be eating this much.  The dinner was very good. But I had to control my portion.  I ate most of the onion rings, finished the chili, some briskets, and half a rib.  Still, I had a lot of food to take home.   This meal certainly made it to the top three of “the biggest portion ever served to me” list.  I ate a 22 oz cowboy steak at Don Shula’s in New Orleans, and a huge (bigger than my face) pork shank at a German restaurant in Milwaukee years ago.  My god.  After dinner, I headed to the gym right away and burned off 500 calories.  Holy Smoke!

My dinner BEFORE

My dinner AFTER