Chinese Chicken Recipes for Busy People

After posting a traditional Chinese vegetarian dish with black hair moss the other day, I felt that I owe myself a post on a meat lover dish. What else can be more basic than a good piece of steak?  I am a big meat lover.  The biggest steak I had was a 22 oz cowboy steak at Don Shula’s years ago. It was very good.  But still, the top steak on my list is Peter Luger’s.  I haven’t found any steak that top Peter Luger’s yet.  Morton’s is pretty close, Marc Charles is also good.  But Peter Luger is the king.  The only thing is that reservation at Peter Luger takes weeks.  I probably have eaten there 5 or 6 times.  I had dinner there with my sister and her Japanese buddies many years ago.  The waiter asked us if we would like to see the menu.  I was like “are you crazy? Of course we wanted to see the menu.”   I politely replied “Yes”. ;p Then I looked at the menu, I was surprised and I totally understood why he asked that question.  The menu said “steak for one”, “steak for two”, “steak for three” and a few appetizers, that was it. There were no choice of cut of meat, no other variety of dishes.  We ordered a salad, some crispy bacon, and a steak for three to share since my sister’s college buddy did not eat much meat, so did my sister.  Ya, I know, why the heck they even bothered to go to a steak place?!  Anyway, the steak came, it was T-boned and pre-cut into strips.  It was soooooooooooooo good.  It was heaven.  Of course, I out ate everyone, no surprise for that.  After having that wondeful meal at Peter Luger, for a long time I refused to have steak in any regular or so so steak place including Ruth’s Chris, Outback cos I had tried the best and anything else is like second-class.  Once in a while I would crave a piece of steak, and if I didn’t  feel like paying that much money a good steak, I would make my own steak.  It’s nowhere as flavorful as Peter Luger or Morton’s, but still pretty decent in my opinion… hahhah.

Pan frying the steak

After you bake it for 10 mins, let it sit for 5 mins

A little Surf and Turf

Ingredient (Serves 2):

• Steak, 1.5 pound (I had filet Mignon, you can pick whatever cut you like)
• Salt, a pinch
• Black pepper, a pinch
• 10 cooked shrimps

Steps:

Note that the steak I had was like 1.5 inches thick and the result was a medium cooked. If your steak is thicker, bake if for couple of minutes longer. If you steak is thinner, bake it for less time.

1. Preheat the oven to 375F.
2. Line a baking sheet with a piece of aluminum foil.  Put it aside.
3. In a large pan, spray non-stick cooking oil to the pan.  Sprinkle salt and pepper to the pan.  Use high heat. Let the pan to be heated for a minute.
4. Add steak to the pan.  Let it cooked for 2 minutes.  Don’t touch it.  Searing the steak helps to seal the juice of the steak inside.   Flip it over and let it cook on the other side for 3 minutes.
5. Turn off the heat.   Put the steak on the baking sheet.
6. Put the steak in the oven, bake it for 10 minutes.  Remember to set your timer.
7. Take the steak out.  Foil the aluminum foil into a pouch.  This will let the remaining heat to cook the steak and makes the steak tender.  Let it sit at the counter for 5 minutes.  Serve it.
8. If you like surf and turf, add a few shrimps on the side.

You know what else would make this dinner great, get Peter Luger steak sauce. YUM YUM YUM. They are sold in some grocery stores.

I’ve been stressed for the last few weeks on my job search and the health of my cat. I’m glad that at least the job search is over.  My cat is doing much better, but still I got a lot to follow up with the blood sucking vets.  Anyway, I really need something to make me feel better. I need comfort food.  Something like mom’’s Chinese Chicken, fried chicken, or meatloaf would do.  I know that would kill my diet.  But today is Saturday, I’m gonna cheat a little bit.  I promise I’ll do more Cardio X after this.  I never had meatloaf until I was in college.  My mom never made meatloaf as we couldn’t afford an oven back then. I told you, I grew up poor.  One day, I was at my classmate’s place, and she was making meatloaf for dinner.  I told her I never had meatloaf in my life.  She laughed.  She must have thought what planet I came from. LOL.  She said it was easy to make.  She put the ground beef in a container.  Put a bunch of ketchup and breadcrumbs and an egg in it.  And put more ketchup on the top and that was it.  Not too shabby.  I could not believe how easy it was.  I started to search for people’s meatloaf recipes, and modified them.  Finally, I come down to my own combination.

Meatloaf Mixture

Super Easy Homemade Meatloaf

Note: You will need spray oil and two baking loaf pans.  One for the meatloaf.  Another one fills with water. I will explain later.

Ingredients (Serves 4-5):

• Ground meat, 1-1.5 pound. I usually use 85% lean beef, but today I use 93% to cut down the fat.  Ya, trying to be healthier.  You can use half beef half turkey, that would be even healthier.
• Onion, 1/2
• Whole wheat English Muffin or regular Whole wheat bread, 1
• Seasoned Breadcrumb, 1.5 cup
• Large eggs, 2
• Parsley (dried of fresh), chopped, 2 Tbsp
• Italian seasoning, 1 tsp
• Wostercher sauce, 1 Tbsp
• Cooking wine, 1 Tbsp
• Parmesan/Romano cheese, 2 Tbsp
• Ketchup, 3 Tbsp
• Mustard, 2 Tbsp
• Garlic, 1 clove

Steps:

1. In a large mixing bowl, put the ground meat, mustard, wostercher sauce, cooking wine and ketchup.   Mix well.  Put it aside.
2. Cut onion into small pieces.  Add to the bowl.
3. Chop garlic. Add to the bowl.
4. Cut bread into very fine cubes.  Add to the bowl.
5. Add parsley, Italian seasoning, bread crumbs, cheese, and eggs to the bowl.  Mix well.
6. If it is too dry, add a couple tablespoon of water or milk.  Mix well.
7. Pre-heat the oven to 375F.
8. Prepare two loaf pans.  Spray one of them with non-stick cooking oil inside the edges of the pan.  Fill the other loaf pan with water about couple inches high. 
9. Put the meat into the loaf pan that is sprayed with non-stick cooking oil.   Press the meat down. Then add a tablespoon of ketchup on top of the meat.  Use the back of the spoon to evenly spread it on top.  This will create a nice crisp surface after it is baked.
10. When the oven is pre-heated, put the meat loaf and the other pan with water into the oven.  The water will create moisture in the oven and prevent the meatloaf from getting too dry.

Bake it for 50 mins.  Set your timer.

The first time I tried Beef Sukiyaki at a Japanese restaurant years ago, the waitress asked me if I would like it cooked in the kitchen or at my table. I chose the latter. I just wanted to see how it was done.  She brought the gas stove, a shallow pan, a large plate of raw ingredients to my table.  I saw her cooked the whole dish. My mouth was watery just watching it.   It was delicious.  I got hooked on Sukiyaki since then.  So whenever I tried out any new Japanese restaurants, I would order Sukiyaki, and I could tell if they serve authentic Japanese food or not.  You know, a lot Japanese restaurants are opened by Chinese, and they put fake stuff in it. LOL.   For example, instead of putting good cut of beef, they have London broil.  Instead of thinly sliced beef, the meat is like half an inch thick.  Instead of thick Japanese cellophane noodles, they put the skinny Chinese cellophane noodles.  Instead of using Japanese fresh shaiitaki mushrooms, they use Chinese dried shaiitaki mushrooms…. Ya, you can tell I have tried a lot of bad sukiyaki.  These days, I don’t go out to eat often, I started to make my own sukiyaki.  It probably costs me $25 or so to get all the good ingredients from a Japanese grocery store, but it’s all worth it.  I got the thinly sliced ribeye, tofu, mushrooms, veggies and Konnyaku noodles.  Konnyaku noodles are also called Shirataki noodles or miracle noodles.  It has zero calories.  I highly recommend Konnyaku noodles to anyone like me who craves noodles, and yet worry about the calories.

Beef Sukiyaki with Shirataki Miracle Noodles

Ingredients (Serves 2-3):

• Thinly sliced ribeye, 1 pound 
• Tofu, 1 pack
• Fresh Shaiitaki Mushrooms, 1 pack
• Enoki Mushrooms, 1 pack
• Chinese Bok Choy, 3 leaves
• Carrots, 3 sticks
• Onion, 1
• Garlic, 1 clove
• Scallion, 3 stems
• Konnyaku noodles (aka Shirataki noodles, or miracle noodles)
• Soy sauce, 1/2 cup
• Mirin, 1 Tbsp
• Sugar, 2 Tbsp
• Saki or Chinese Cooking wine, or white wine, 1 Tbsp
• Chicken Stock or water, 1 cup (chicken stock would make it tastier)

Note: If you don’t like beef, you can use other kind of meat like pork, or chicken.  You can also use all sort of other kinds of leafy veggies.

Steps:

1. Cut carrots, Chinese bok choy into bite size pieces.  Put it aside.
2. Cut onion into thin strips.  Put it aside.
3. Cut the root part of the enoki mushrooms, then break them into small chunks. Put them aside.
4. Cut tofu into big cubes (like 2 inches).  Put them aside.
5. Cut scallion into strips.  Put it aside.
6. Finely chopped the garlic. Put it aside.
7. Use a large shallow pan, or a frying pan.  Use high heat.  Spray cooking oil on the pan.  Lay beef slices in the pan. Let it cooked for a minute or so on each side. They cook fast since they are so thin.  Take it out from the pan when it is cooked. Put it aside.
8. Note that from this point onwards, you can put everything into the pan and cook them all at equal amount of time, or put them in at separate time like I did.
9. Put onion and garlic in the pan.  Stir fry it for couple of minutes.
10. Add carrots to the pan.  Add soy sauce, cooking wine and chicken stock to the pot.  Lower the heat to medium low. Put a lid on.  Let it cook for 10 minutes.  If you don’t have a big lid, just cover it with a piece of aluminum foil. That would work too.
11. Add shaiitaki mushrooms, tofu and sugar to the pan. Cover it and let it cook for 5 minutes.
12. Add noodles, and Chinese bok choy, mirin to the pan. Add the beef on the top.  Cover it and let it cook for another 2-3 minutes.
13. If the sauce gets too dry, you can add more water.  Taste it.  Add more soy sauce if needed.