Chinese Chicken Recipes for Busy People

I feel a little bit better today that my cat survives his surgery. I hope he stays strong and will recover soon. I was in a much happier mood to try something new knowing that he is getting a bit better.  I searched on google for scallion pancake recipes. I made this once when I was in a cookery class in high school.  I remember this is one of those things that require a lot of work, and take a lot of skills too.  What was I thinking?  Why would I want to do all these work just for a piece of scallion pancake?  I don’t know.  Once in a while, I do weird things that I can’t explain myself.  Or may be I just needed something to take my mind off worrying about my cat.  I followed Ming Tsai’s recipe except it was too late when I realized I put in cold water instead of hot water.  I thought it can’t be that bad, it was just a small screw up.  Oh well… other than that, it was messy to make it too.  Plus, I wasn’t skillful enough.  It turned out more like a scallion nann bread than a thin scallion pancake.  LOL. Ya, I screwed up sometimes but it’s ok.  I’ll eat my consequence literally hahahha….I should have flatten it out more to make it thinner.  It is not a complete failure, but I certainly need more practice and need to follow the instruction 100% next time.

Roll the dough out, add scallion

Roll it in a long swiss roll, then curl it like a spiral

Flatten it out to make a 5 or 6 inches pancake

Pan fry the scallion pancakes

Scallion Pancakes

Ingredients:

• All purpose flour, 2 cups
• HOT water, 1 cup
• Sesame oil, 1 Tbsp
• Scallion, 5 or 6 stalks
• Salt, a dash

Dipping sauce:

• Soy sauce, ¼ cup
• Chinese vinegar, ¼ cup
• Ginger, minced, 1 tsp
• Red pepper flakes, 1 tsp
• Sugar, 1 tsp

Steps:

1. Mix the dipping sauce in a small bowl.  Put it aside.
2. Add a tablespoon of sesame oil in a bowl.  Put it aside.
3. Cut scallions into small dices.  Add a pinch of salt.  Put it aside.
4. Sieve flour in a large bowl.  Pour a little bit HOT water at a time to the flour and mix it with a spoon.  Continue to add water until the flour becomes a ball of dough.  You may not need the whole cup of water.
5. Cover the dough with a piece of damp cloth and let it rest for 30 mins.
6. Cut dough into 4 pieces. 
7. Roll a piece of dough into a flat, thin pancake.  Brush some sesame oil on the pancake.  Add about a tablespoonful of scallion to the pancake, spread it out evenly.
8. Then roll the pancake starting from one end of the dough to form like a swiss roll.  Then curl the roll to form like a spiral.  Then flatten it out with a rolling pin to form a 5 or 6 inches pancake.
9. Use a non-stick frying pan. Spray some oil in it.  Use medium high heat.  Cook the pancake for about 2 minutes on one side.  Add a tablespoon of water to the pan. Then cover it for a minute. This will create some steam and help to cook the dough.  Flip the pancake over, and let it cook for another two or 3 minutes until it is golden brown or look crispy on the outside.  Serve it hot with the dipping sauce.

My little source of evil

My cat tried so hard to wake me up between 6 am and 7am this morning.  Damn it, it’s Sunday.  I really wish that my cat knows it’s Sunday, not Monday, and I don’t need to get up so early.  Besides, my body didn’t want to get up.  I played golf yesterday.  I haven’t moved that much for a long time.  My body is really sore.  I finally woke up at 7am.  I gave my cat his food and water.  I made Chicken Congee for breakfast, did a load of laundry, cleaned the bathroom, and I talked to a friend on the phone.  Actually, not a bad thing to get up early.   I got a lot done before noon.  My friend was telling me that her nutritionist told her that she needs to lose weight.  Her nutritionist said her ideal weight is 111 pounds. I’m like WHAT???  She’s 5’4″.  I don’t know how much I weigh since I got too scared to step on the scale.  But my clothes don’t lie, they are getting tight.  Some people may let themselves buy bigger size clothes.  I refuse to do that.  I usually go to McDonald for my Sunday lunch, and ordered a grilled chicken sandwich combo with supersize fries!  But today, I stayed at home and made a very simple lunch.  I had Choy Sum with Oyster Sauce, and some noodles.  Choy Sum is a very common Chinese vegetable.   I like it a lot.  You can stir fry it with some garlic sauce and salt, and it would be very yummy.  Or you can cook it in boiling water, drain, and add oyster sauce to it.  I choice the latter to cut down the oil.  I cooked some noodles to go along with it.  The noodles was about 200 calories.  So I think my whole lunch was probably like 300-350 calories or so.  I can deal with that.

Choy Sum

Cook Choy Sum in boiling water

1 pack of dried egg noodle

Cook noodles

Choy Sum with Oyster Sauce and Egg Noodles

Ingredients (serves 2):

• Choy Sum, two small bunches (like two handfuls, or 4-5 stalks per person)
• Dried noodle, 2 packs (1 per person for small serving portion)
• Oyster Sauce, 2 Tbsp
• Soy sauce, 2 tsp
• Sesame oil, a few drops (Optional, I didn’t use it)

Steps:

1. We need to wash the vegetable first. It’s important. You don’t want to have Choy Sum and Dirt Sauce… hehhehe…  Fill up a pot of container with cold water, soak the Choy Sum in the water.  Shake it a little bit.  Disgard the water.  Repeat it for one more time.  Drain the vegetable. Put it aside.
2. Boil a big pot of water.  Use high heat.  When the water boils, put the vegetable in the pot.  Let it cook for 2 or 3 mins. You can put a teaspoon of oil in the water. I skipped this to cut back the fat.   Turn off the heat.  Remove the vegetable and put it on a serving plate.  Drain a little bit to get rid of any excess water in the vegetable.
3. Use a pair of scissors, cut the vegetables into halves length-wise.
4. Now cook the noodles. I don’t mind putting the noodles in the same pot of water since it is only veggie.  You can boil a separate pot of water if you prefer.  Turn the heat to high.  When the water boils, put the dried noodles in the pot.  Use a fork to separate the noodles in the pot.  Let it cook for 3 minutes or so.  Turn off the heat.  Disgard the water.  Put noodles in a drainer.  Run the noodles under cold tap water to get rid of the starchy taste.  Drain well.
5. Put the noodles in a serving plate.  Put it in the microwave for 1 minute to heat it up a bit.
6. In a small bowl, mix the oyster sauce with soy sauce.  Pour it over the vegetable and noodles. 
7. Optionally, add a few drops of sesame oil to the noodles. I skipped this too since I am totally cutting back on any oil for this lunch.

It was a delayed action that it took me this long to make this traditional Chinese vegetarian dish.  It is traditional vegetarian dish for Chinese New Year Day 1.  I really wanted to make this dish back then, but I got so tied up at work and stuff.  Mom used to make this on Chinese New Year Day 1. According to her family tradition, we should be vegetarian on that day to show some kindness of not killing any living thing for at least one day a year.  So she would make a huge amount of this dish and we used to have it for breakfast, lunch and dinner.  Ya, you can imagine how boring that day would be.  Even though I respected my mom’s tradition, it was really hard for a meat lover to have 0 meat for the entire day.  So after I complained a few times, she only forced us to be vegetarian for breakfast and lunch. 

Dried Gold Needle - high fiber edible flowers

Chinese Hair Vegetable

Fried Tofu

Tofu Skin Rolls

Putting all the vegetables in a pot

Chinese Vegetarian Dish with Hair Vegetable

Oh BTW, you may not have seen or heard a lot of these ingredients here. That’s ok, that means there are more new stuff for you to try out. Awesome

Ingredients:

Note I don’t really measure these. Just get a handful of each ingredient.

• Dried Gold Needles, a handful - these are edible, high fiber flowers.  They have a subtle sweet taste. 
• Hair Vegetable (Fat Choi in Cantonese) or Black Hair Moss, a small handful - these are wild moss grow in the Mogolian dessert.  So, it take a lot of manpower to harvest these, ie, expensive stuff.
• Tofu skin roll, about 3 long rolls – It’s very thin tofu product rolled into a long roll. 
• Wood ear mushroom, a small handful – OOPS, I forgot to add them. They are black fungus. I’m sure you’ve tried them before. They are used in hot and sour soup.
• Fried tofu, 1 pack
• Cellophane noodles, a handful
• Dried shaiitake mushrooms, 8-10
• Chinese Bok Choy, 3 or 4 leaves
• Water, 4 cups
• Oyster sauce, 2 Tbsp
• Soy sauce, 1 tsp
• Fish sauce, 1 tsp
• Chinese cooking wine, 1 Tbsp
• Sugar, 1 Tbsp
• Salt, a dash

Steps:

1. Soak dried shaiitake mushroom in hot water for 20 mins or so.  Cut them in halves if they are too big. Put them aside.
2. Soak the hair vegetable in water for a few minutes.  It will expand and get soft.  Drain well and put it aside.
3. Soak the dried gold needle flowers in water for a few minutes.  Drain well and put them aside.
4. Soak cellophane noodles in water for 10 minutes or so. Drain well and put them aside.
5. Soak wood ear in warm water for 10 minutes or so.  Drain well.  Just coarsely cut them and put them aside.
6. Cut fried tofu into halves. Put them aside.
7. Break tofu skin rolls with your hand into long pieces of about 3 inches each.  Put them aside.
8. Cut Chinese Bok Choy into pieces.
9. Use a big pot, put dried shiitake mushrooms, dried gold needle flowers, tofu skin rolls, fried tofu, wood ear mushrooms, water, oyster sauce, fish sauce, soy sauce, sugar, chinese cooking wine into the pot.  Ya, basically you can put everything except the cellophane noodles and bok choy and salt.
10. User medium heat.  Let it cook for 30 minutes or so. The dried shiitake mushrooms need a longer time to cook in order to be soft and tender.
11. There should be some water in the pot, not completely dry.  Add more water if needed.  Then add the cellophane noodles, let them cook for another 15 minutes or so. 
12. Taste it and see if you need to add salt, or more oyster sauce. 
13. Finally, add Bok Choy and let it cook for 3 more minutes. The sauce should be almost dried up.  See picture of the dish.

NOTE: If you are a real vegetarian, skip the oyster sauce, fish sauce and use soy sauce, salt, sugar and vegetable broth instead.

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 was good that I bought a bunch of stuff from a Chinese grocery store last week.  I got trapped at home for days because of the snow.  I had some leftover Chinese Lo Shui Chicken I made the other day.  So I just made a Stir-Fried Snow Pea Tips, a veggie dish, and that was easy enough to fix my dinner tonight.  I don’t really like snow peas, but I like snow pea tips.  Snow pea tips have the same kind of subtle sweatness like snow peas, but they are leafy.  I didn’t remember mom had ever made snow pea tips when I was a kid.  It could be the reason that snow pea tip is expensive.  I got a bag of snow pea tips slightly more than a pound and it costs like $6 from a Chinese grocery store.  It’s not cheap compare to other Chinese veggie.  So you can imagine it’s gonna cost you double the price in a restaurant for a dish of snow pea tips.  Besides the price, I don’t like the fact that most Chinese restaurant add too much oil in cooking the dish.  Ya, I’m bit cautious on the amount of oil used these days.  I really have to lose weight. 

Put garlic and ginger in the pan first Snow pea tips

Snow pea tips

 Ingredients (Serves 2):

Steps:

1. Make sure you wash the snow pea tips.  You can use a big pot of water.  Soak the snow pea tips in it for a minute. Then disgard the water.  Repeat for one more time.  Drain well.
2. Finely chopped the garlic.
3. Spray oil to the frying pan. Use high heat.  Add ginger slices, garlic, and a pinch of salt.  Count 30 seconds.
4. Add snow pea tips.  Keep stiring.
5. Add Chinese cooking wine, and oyster sauce.  Mix it well for couple of minutes. 

Mom used to make plain congee (rice soup) for breakfast.  To make plain congee, all you need is to put the rice in a big pot of water, and cook it for an hour until it turns creamy, and it’s done.  You can imagine how no taste it is.  Mom would fry some peanuts in a wok, and then added some salt on them.  That or some chinese pickled vegetable would be our side dishes that went along with the no-taste congee.  Yup, that was my breakfast when I was a kid.  I never understood back then why we couldn’t put some meat or whatever in the congee to give it some taste. Of course, looking back I would understand that it was because we were poor.  We couldn’t afford fancy breakfast.  Every time I asked her “Plain congee again?”, she would say “it cleanses your stomach.”  Now that I’m not that broke and I could afford meat.  I never make plain congee. 

As mom said, congee is good for the digestive system.  So whenever I don’t feel like eating anything, or may be feeling sick, I would make congee.  I would also have it for a good detox.  Forget about those detox pills or tea, try having congee for 3 whole days (breakfast, lunch and dinner), it really cleanses your digestive system.

This is my very-close-to plain congee that I made this morning. If you can afford meat, feel free to add some. But if you are really trying this out for detox, skip the meat!

Chinese Congee Rice Soup for Detox

Ingredients (make 2 servings):

• Uncooked rice, 1.5 cup (or cooked rice, 2 cups)
• Dried whole shiitake mushrooms, 2 (or dried sliced shiitake mushrooms, 8 slices)
• Oatmeal, 1 Tbsp (optional, it gives more detox function)
• Scallion, 2 stems
• Fish sauce, 1 Tbsp
• Salt, a pinch
• Water, 9 cup

Steps:

1. If you are using dried whole shiitake mushrooms, soak it in warm water for 30 mins.  When it gets soft, chop it finely, put it in a big pot.  If you use driced sliced shiitake mushromms, you can easily break them into small pieces by hand, put it in a big pot.
2. Add rice and water to the pot.  Use high heat, bring it to a boil.
3. Let it boil for couple of minutes.  Turn the heat to medium.  Add a tablespoon of fish sauce.
4. Let it simmer for 50 mins until the rice expands and blends well with the water. The rice should look kind of creamy.  Stir occasionally to make sure nothing sticks to the bottom of the pot.  Add more water if it is too thick for you.
5. This is an optional step. If you have any leftover cooked chicken, or whatever meat.  I like to add leftover steamed Chinese Chicken pieces. Cut them into small pieces.   Add them to the pot.  Cook it for 5 minutes. 
6. Add chopped scallion to the pot.
7. Add a pinch of salt according to your liking.

MUST serve while it is hot.

I loved broccoli when I was a kid.  Broccoli was more expensive compare to other veggies.  Maybe that’s the reason I like it, I liked anything that is expensive. LOL.  I seldom order broccoli at a Chinese restaurant.  They usually under cook it, and make it too hard.  The cafeteria at work would over cook it, which is also yucky.   Ya, I know, I told you I’m picky.  Alright, here is an easy recipe to cook Broccoli chinese style.

Broccoli with Garlic Sauce

Ingredients:

• Broccoli crowns, 2
• Garlic, 2 clove
• Chinese cooking wine, 1 tsp
• Oyster sauce, 1 tsp
• Water, 3 Tbsp
• Salt, a pinch

Steps:

1. Finely chop garlic.  Put it aside.
2. Wash and cut broccoli into florets.  Put it aside.
3. In a pan, add 1 tsp cooking oil or you can use spray oil.  Add a pinch of salt.  Use high heat.
4. Add chopped garlic to the pan.  Stir fry it for 10 seconds.
5. Add broccoli to the pan.  Stir fry it for a minute.
6. Add cooking wine to to the pan.  Stir fry it for another minute.
7. Add 3 tablespoon of water.  Stir fy it occasionally.  Cook for a few minutes until the water dries up.
8. Add a teaspoon of oyster sauce.  Mix it well.  Cook it for 1 minute.  DONE.

Like most people, I may not be willing to try new stuff or create a new dish when I am busy.   It would be too much trouble when the time is tight.  Couple of years ago, I decided to learn a new dish whenever I have a break.  I got a couple of days off around Thanksgiving and I decided to learn a few new dishes.  I made butternut squash and apple pie   Both kind of semi-failed.  LOL. The apple pie turned out to be too sour. It looked good, but not too edible. The butternut squash was edible but a bit chunky!  I asked around.  My coworker told me that I can steam it instead of bake.  So I tried the second time, and it was a success.  I should really make this dish more often because butternut squash contains tons of Vitamin A which is really good for vision.  My vision is definitely getting worse as I use my computer all day long.  Hey, I have no choice, that is my job.  Anyway, I like to make butternut squash as a side dish for meatloaf because the cooking time of these two dishes are pretty much the same.  I made these two again tonight. It was yummy in my tummy

Steaming Butternut Squash

Super Yummy Butternut Squash

Ingredients (3-4 servings):

•  Butternut squash, 1 medium/small
• Honey, 1 Tbsp
• sugar, 1 tsp
• Nutmeg, a dash
• Cinnamon, 1/2 tsp
• Salt, a dash (optional)
• Butter, 1/2 tsp (optional)

Steps:

1. Cut the butternut squash in halves.
2. Remove the seeds.
3. Prepare a steamer. Add enough water to the pot (at least couple of inches high for water level) because we will steam the butternut squash for 45 minutes.
4. Add the butternut squash to the steamer.  Use medium high heat.  Cover it with a lid and steam it for 45 minutes.  Check occasionally to see if you have enough water in the pot.  Add more water if needed.  DO NOT burn the pot.  I made this mistake before!
5. Remove the butternut squash from the pot when it is done.  Be careful, it is super hot!
6. Use a spoon, scoop off the meat and place it in a big bowl.  Discard the skin.
7. Add the following to the squash: honey, sugar, nutmeg, cinnamon, salt (optional) and butter (optional). Mix it well.  Since it is steamed, it may have a little bit of water in the bowl after mixing it, you can use a spoon to scoop off excess water.

Optional step: The texture so far should be very soft.  If you like it to be more dense, you can put it in a 375F oven for 25 minutes or so.  I did not add this extra step tonight, see the picture.  It turned out pretty good as is.

Somehow didn’t really feel like going out to get food today.  It’s one of those days that I would look at my pantry and see if there’s anything that can fill me up.  So I decided to make fried noodles.  This is not any fancy pan fried noodles that you order at a Chinese restaurant. This is another poor man’s food cos there isn’t much ingredients needed.  I had this as my breakfast occassionally when I was in middle/high school.  There were street hawkers selling fried noodles, congees and other goodies in the morning.  I would pay a few bucks for my fried noodles.  They put the noodles in a small white plastic bag, and stick a plastic folk in it, it’s totally unfancy.  I could put hot sauce or hoisin sauce in if I like.  I would eat that in the bus. By the time I got to school, I was done with breakfast.

Dried Noodles

Fried Noodles

Ingredients (serve 2 -3):

• Chinese dried noodles (prefer the skinny noodles, see the picture), 1/2 pound (which is half a bag)
• Ground meat, 1/4 pound (Optional. I usually use pork/beef, you can use chicken, or even turkey, or totally skip this)
• Carrot, 2 sticks
• Bok choy, 4 or 5 leaves
• Scallion, 4 stems
• Garlic, 1 clove
• Soy sauce, 1 tsp
• Chinese cooking wine, 1 tsp
• Fish sauce, 1 tsp
• Oyster sauce, 1 Tbsp
• Teriyaki sauce, 1 Tbsp
• Black bean sauce, 1 tsp
• Sesame oil, 1 tsp

Steps:

1. Cut the carrots into thin strips.  Put it aside.
2. Cut the bok choy into thin strips.  Put it aside.
3. Finely chopped the garlic.  Put it aside.
4. Cut the scallions into thin strips. Put it aside.
5. To prepare the sauce, add the following in a bowl and put it aside: oyster sauce, fish sauce, teriyaki sauce, and black bean sauce.
6. In a big pot, boil 8 or 9 cups of water.  Use high heat.  When the water boils, add the dried noodles.  Separate them with a fork or chopsticks.  Let it cooked for 5 mins or so. 
7. When the noodles are cooked. Turn off the heat.  Run it under cold water.  Rinse it with cold water for a couple of times to get rid of the starch.  Drain them well.
8. In a frying pan, add a tablespoon of cooking oil, or spray oil to the pan.  Use high heat. Add carrot. Stir fry it for 2 mins.
9. Add ground meat to the pan.  Stir fry it for a couple of minutes until it is cooked.  Add a teaspoon of cooking wine.  Add a teaspoon of soy sauce.  Mix it well.
10. Add bok choy to the pan.  Mix it well.
11. Add the drained noodles to the pan.  Turn down the heat to medium.
12. Add the sauce to the noodles.  Mix it well.  Stir fry the noodles for a couple of minutes. 
13. Add chopped scallion to the noodles.  Add a few drops of sesame oil.  Mix it well. Let it cook for 1 more minute.