It’s been incredibly cold the past couple weeks here in Boston. Usually it ends up around the low 40′s high 30′s in December but we’ve already had our fair share of subzero Fahrenheit days already (three weeks ago it was 7 degrees out when I left for work in the morning!). I’ve been cooking up a lot of stews and other winter comfort food lately, but nothing really new or improved. More like “revisiting” a familiar wine =P

But I can’t say I’ve exactly been inactive though! I’ve got all my Christmas shopping done! Earliest I’ve finished shopping ever (It helped that most of it was done online, gotta love getting it done from the comfort of an armchair and a glass of scotch (A nice pour of Glenmorangie 10Yr). And that being finished, I celebrated by hitting some of Boston’s restaurants, some of the recent ones being Giacomo’s in the North End, Craigie on Main in Cambridge, Mistral in the Back Bay, and Neptune Oyster in the North End. Fantastic, all of them. The raw bar at Neptune Oyster is fantastic, over a dozen selections and mostly local too, which is a plus. And the burger at Craigie? I’ve been scoffed at, but I’d definitely go out of my way to enjoy the burger again. Even at $21, I think it’s a steal for dinner. Local freshly ground beef, homemade bun and condiments, local bacon, all cooked just right. Enough juice in the burger to make each bite tasty and the toasted bun just enough to keep from making a mess but not oversized for the pattie.

But anyway, onto today’s recipe. Even though I’ve been cooking a lot of the recipes built up over the past two to three years, I managed to cobble together a nice recipe for a homestyle Cantonese recipe: Beef brisket and daikon radish stew.

Chinese Beef and Daikon stew

Recipe adapted from Christina’s recipes.

Ingredients:
- 2 lbs brisket (more or less, up to you)
- 3 slices of ginger
- 3 whole star anise
- 3 tb Chu Hou Sauce
- 1 piece rock sugar (optional)
- 2 L water or broth (enough water to cover brisket)
- 2 carrots
- 2 tsp l. soy sauce
- 2 tsp oyster sauce
- 1 tb starch + 2 tb water
- Bean thread sheets (optional)

Method:
1. Blanche brisket to get rid of some of the fattiness
2. In a pot, saute oil, ginger, chu hou sauce. Add beef and brown.
3. Add anise, sugar, and water/stock. Bring to simmer.
4. Stew for about 20-30 minutes
5. Add in seasoning (soy sauce, oyster sauce, corn starch, water), daikon and carrots. Add a little more Chu Hou sauce to taste.
6. Add in the bean thread sheets about 5-10 minutes before serving

I never really think about this kind of thing but cooking the dish above got me started. When I cook or dine out, I usually think about a cuisine’s common ingredients, like basil in Italian cooking or say cilantro in Hispanic cooking. I tend not to think about what isn’t used in a particular style until I see a recipe that seems a little unusual.

In this case, it’s butter. I know, butter! It’s something I use almost on a daily basis but I can’t really think of any other time I’ve used butter in cooking Chinese food. The closest I can think of is when I use a tiny pad to keep an egg from sticking to a pan.

I haven’t been cooking a whole lot of new stuff lately so I apologize that posts have been far and few in between. Now that I’ve built up a decent binder of recipes I like, I’ve been going back to them fairly often. Maybe I’ll post a few more cooking catchups just with updated pictures =)

Recipe adapted from hzrt8w of eGullet

Butter and Black Pepper Chicken

Time: 35-40 minutes
Serves 4

Ingredients:
– 1 – 1.5 lb Chicken breast, cubed
– 1/8 – 1/4 stick butter
– 2 – 3 scallions, chopped
– 5 cloves garlic, minced
– 1 tsp sambal olek or other chili sauce
– salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
– 1/4 cup chicken broth
– 1 tsp sugar
– 1 tsp white vinegar
– 1/2 tsp corn starch + 1 tsp water

Marinade:
– 1 tsp sesame oil
– 1/2 tsp white pepper
– sprinkle of salt
– 1 tsp soy sauce
– 1 tsp ShaoHsing Rice Wine
– 1 tsp corn starch

Method:
1. Mix the marinade with the chicken and set aside for about 20 minutes.
2. Heat a frying pan over medium high heat. Swirl in some oil. Tip in the chicken and let cook undisturbed for about a minute. Then turn to cook the other side for another minute or so. Remove once about 3/4 cooked.
3. Add in the garlic and chili sauce. Cook until fragrant, then add in some salt, the white parts of the scallions and about a tsp of freshly ground black pepper. Dash in 1 tsp vinegar.
4. Add the chicken broth, 1 tsp sugar, and corn starch slurry. Stir in and cook for about 30 seconds.
5. Add chicken back in, stir well to coat the chicken.
6. Add the rest of the scallions, 1 tsp soy sauce, and more salt and black pepper to taste.

Short post this week. Had an incredibly busy July 4th weekend and I’m flying down to DC for a wedding this Saturday so time is a little short (serves me right for not scheduling posts). I do have a variety of posts to write up in the coming weeks though and I’m hoping things start to settle down again for a little while at least =)

Andrea Nguyen’s Into the Vietnamese Kitchen has been one of my favorite cookbooks for the past couple years and I’m a frequent visitor of her blog, Viet World Kitchen. She writes incredibly well and frequently posts about dishes she’s made recently, one of them being the inspiration for today’s post!

Chicken stir-fried with Black Bean sauce

Time: 20 minutes
Serves: 4

Adapted from Andrea Nguyen’s recipe at Viet World Kitchen

Ingredients:
– 1 to 1.5 lb chicken thighs, cubed
– 2 tbsp oil
– 1 tbsp fermented black beans, washed
– 2 tsp garlic
– 2 tsp ginger, grated
– 1 tsp dark soy sauce
– 1/3 cup Chicken Broth or water
– 1 medium red onion, sliced
– 1 tsp red pepper flakes
– 1 carrot, sliced thinly
– 1 – 2 scallions, chopped

Marinade:
– 2 tsp corn starch
– 1 tsp ShaoHsing rice wine
– 1/2 tsp salt
– 1 tsp oil
– 2 tsp light soy sauce

Method:
1. Mix together the chicken and marinade. Marinate at least 10 minutes
2. Mash the black beans with a spoon, mix together with garlic, ginger, and dark soy sauce. In a separate bowl, mix the water/broth with the remaining 1 tbsp ShaoHsing rice wine
3. Heat a wok or frying pan under high heat. Add some oil in along with the red onion and red pepper flakes. Stir fry the onions briefly and then add the chicken. Spread the chicken out evenly throughout the pan and let cook undisturbed for a minute. After a minute, stir fry the chicken until just barely finished.
4. Add carrots and black bean sauce, stir fry a few moments, then add the broth mix and 1/4 tsp salt. After stir frying another minute or so, add the scallion in and stir fry another minute before serving.

I’ve been playing around a lot with Photoshop lately (yes, it’s a real copy), trying to clean up my deficiencies in photography. It’s a great tool but it just makes me feel guilty having not set up the shot right to begin with (AND extra effort. I get lazy, I’d rather do it right the first time, hehe). But still, it’s really awesome how you can do this nowadays. I’m finally getting around to trying to improve my photography (and this helps me cover up that my lighting stinks, more on this another time). Baby steps.

July 4th is just around the corner and for the first time in a few years, I’ll actually be in town (That means Chowderfest!). There’s all kinds of things that go on in Boston July 4th weekend, it’s a great time to visit the town. Historical tours, demonstrations, parades, and the famous concert on the Esplanande (sp?) given by the Boston Pops (1812 Overture with cannons, can’t go wrong with that). And the open secret is that the best time to go is for the dress rehearsal. You get the whole concert minus the crowds. On July 4th, it gets BUSY. Last time I went, it took 2 hours to get home but well worth it. Great time for a picnic too =P

Stir-fried Pork and Scallions

Time: 20-30 minutes
Serves : 3-4 with rice and vegetables

Adapted from Grace Young’s Breath of a Wok

Ingredients:
– 1 to 1.5lb Pork Butt, sliced
– 1 1/2 tsp ShaoHsing Rice wine
– 2 tsp light soy sauce
– dash of fish sauce
– 2 tsp Corn Starch
– 1 1/2 tsp sesame oil
– 1/2 tsp white pepper
– 3 thin slices of ginger
– 6 stalks scallions, sliced into 1 inch pieces
– 1/2 tsp salt
– 1/2 tsp sugar

Method:
1. Mix together the ShaoHsing rice wine, soy sauce, sesame oil, corn starch, fish sauce, and pepper. Marinate pork for at least 10-15 minutes.
2. Heat a wok or frying pan over high heat. Once the pan is hot (water boiling off a split-second after touching the pan), add 1 tbsp oil and the pork. Stir fry for about 1-2 minutes.
3. Add the scallions, salt and sugar. Stir fry until the pork is done. Serve with rice

I had the privilege of feasting on some of “Meat guy’s” (Jason of Bite-the-Bullet BBQ) pulled pork this past week. As I wrote a couple weeks back, I was recently in New Hampshire to pick up a very large order of BBQ (4 3-packs of ribs, 4 packs of pulled pork, sadly all spoken for!). I don’t think I could get tired of this stuff. As I’m typing, I just finished a sandwich and have been picking at some of the extra I heated up for lunch tomorrow. Might have to heat up some more =P

BBQ is something I used to associate with frozen hamburgers, hotdogs and the like. I’ve made a few strides since then. A few years back, my friends and I made frequent visits to Blue Ribbon BBQ in Arlington. That was the beginning of my BBQ craze. The crowning achievement was finishing the Trio, 3 different meats with two sides and cornbread (typically, brisket, burnt ends, and pulled pork). Sounds like a ton doesn’t it? Well, it was…and I fondly look back on the days when such feats of gluttony were commonplace. I mean they still happen now and then but not as frequently as in the past (I’m getting old, my bones can’t handle it anymore. Maybe I’m over the hill.)

Then, I spent 3 months in Texas on a work rotation. You can probably imagine what I ate, right? SUSHI! And the freshest vegetables you could find at Central Market! I’m kidding of course…I ate tons of BBQ, several times a week. Texas BBQ was slightly different than I imagined though, catering more to the brisket eater (not a bad thing). The other thing I noticed about BBQ places was the incredible quality of the dinner rolls. I mean, a dinner roll really is just a dinner roll. But whatever buttery/oily goodness that comes fresh out of those ovens is truly a magnificent specimen of your average dinner roll. And if you ran out, you always got more! (And as an aside, I have to mention the ridiculously good Vietnamese food in Arlington, TX)

And this is all leading up to…a post about Chinese food. Really.

I needed something to write about and the pulled pork was the first thing that came to mind. But again, I digress.

I always order this dish whenever I go out to one of the local places, Sichuan Gourmet. I’ve been to the Framingham and Billerica locations and they just recently opened in Brookline but I haven’t been there yet but I hear the quality is just as good. I thought this was mostly a stir-fried dish which surprised me because typically I have a hard time keeping the fish from falling apart! However, I think the fish may actually be cooked separately from the sauce and combined right before serving, which makes a ton of sense. In fact, after perusing Fuchsia Dunlop’s Land of Plenty, my suspicions were confirmed. The fish is sliced, marinated, dipped in cornstarch and then BOILED. Then, it’s removed until the sauce is ready.

Recipe adapted from Fuchsia Dunlop’s Land of Plenty

Chili bean sauce link (this is what it looks like): Chili Bean Sauce

Sichuan Fish Fillets in Spicy Chili sauce

Time: 35 minutes
Serves: 4

Ingredients:
– 1 – 1.5 lb white fish, sliced (Used Striped Bass)
– 4 tbsp cornstarch
– 3 tbsp water

Marinade:
– 1 inch ginger, unpeeled
– 1 scallion, chopped
– 1/2 tsp salt
– 2 tsp ShaoHsing rice wine

Base:
– 6 dried chillies, seeds removed
– 1 inch piece of ginger, sliced thin
– 4 cloves garlic, sliced
– 5 scallions, chopped (1/2 to 3/4 inch pieces)
– 3 tbsp canola oil
– 1 tbsp Chili Bean Sauce
– 1/2 tsp ground sichuan peppercorns

Oil:
– 3/4 cup canola oil
– 1.5 tbsp chili bean sauce
– 10-20 dried chillies, seeds removed
– 2 tsp sichuan peppercorns

Method:
1. Mix the fish and marinade, set aside.
2. Add some water to a medium saucepan and bring to a boil. Add the cornstarch and water mix to the fish at this point. Stir carefully to coat the fish with the cornstarch mixture.
3. In a separate pan, add 3 tbsp canola oil over high heat. Add the chili paste, ginger, garlic, scallions, chillies, and sichuan peppercorns (from the base) and stir-fry until fragrant (but be careful about burning!). When finished, pour into the bowl/dish you will serve the fish in.
4. Add the fish to the boiling water and boil untouched until just cooked. Add to the serving bowl/dish.
5. In a frying pan, add 3/4 cup oil, chili bean sauce, chillies, and pepper (from the oil header). Stir fry until fragrant, pour over the fish and serve immediately.

I’ve always been fascinated with some of the stories authors/chefs have for many of their recipes. Some have old recipes passed down from their ancestors, some had a “eureka” moment, and there seems to be a countless myriad of others. Myself? I open a book, look at a picture and think to myself, “Hey, that look’s good!”

Part of learning about cooking for me (and I’m still learning) is figuring out what brings a dish together. I mean, starting out, I’d be the guy that ate chocolate, then immediately had a hamburger or drank orange juice. Hopefully, I’ve learned a little bit since then, though I’m still heavily reliant on recipes for any inspiration. But slowly, I think I’m getting the hang of it =P

I used to watch Ming Tsai on food network waaaaaay back. He and Martin Yan were probably the two cooks on TV that got me more interested in the stuff. Ming with the great explanations and Martin with the entertainment (My grandmother called him “Chop chop lo”). Both are incredible cooks and I still find myself looking their work up time after time. Lately, I’ve been cooking a bunch from Simply Ming, this dish included. I’m not usually a fan of fusion cuisine but Ming does an incredible job blending flavors together while trying to keep dishes distinctly Asian.

Recipe originally from Ming Tsai’s Simply Ming.

Side note : Don’t overcook the noodles! Once boiled, they usually will only need to be stirred in with the sauce and then served.

Crazy Noodles

Time: 30-40 minutes
Serves: 3-4 with side dish

Ingredients:
– 8oz Thin rice noodles
– 3 shallots, minced
– 3 – 4 stalks scallions, chopped
– 1/4 up Fresh thai basil, chopped
– 3 tbsp fish sauce
– Juice of 2 limes
– 2 tsp sugar
– 1 – 2 tbsp Sambal Olek
– 1 lb Ground Chicken or Turkey
– 1 egg

Method:
1. Boil water in a stock pot and cook noodles until just done (see packaging).
2. Add some oil to a frying pan, stir fry shallots for a minute, until starting to turn translucent.
3. Add chicken/turkey, season lightly with salt and pepper, stir fry until cooked through.
4. Mix together the fish sauce, lime juice, sugar, and Sambal Olek. Add the cooked noodles into the pan and pour the sauce on top. Toss well to combine.
5. Add scallions and basil, toss well.
6. Make a well at the center of the pan. Add the egg in, let set for a couple seconds, then break apart the yolk and stir into the rest of the noodles. Stir fry until egg is just done and then remove and serve.

It’s been raining nonstop here since Friday afternoon, barring torrential the past couple days. Seems like every building in Boston has a leak too. The elevators in my building have been out since Sunday and the poor people on the top floor need to do it the old fashioned way, 7 flights of stairs. Can’t say I’m envious at all! At least it’s supposed to be sunny and 60 degrees today. It’ll be a welcome change…that’s for sure!

One thing I’d like to introduce to the site is a running list of the recipes that I’ve accumulated towards my “100 weeknight recipes” goal. It’ll be an ongoing project, thanks to my laziness, to keep it updated, but I’ll try my best! It’s about time I did something other than just post about food. Maybe I’ll even update some old posts too. Here’s the link but there’s also a tab at the top right corner of the blog, go click it!

I’ve also been ransacking the net for some ideas on how I can improve the site. Thinking about switching WordPress themes and even trying to learn a bit more about web development in general. I code for work, but it’s not really similar to web development at all, and it’s something I think I should be able to learn. If anyone has any ideas, please let me know, much appreciated!!!

I’ve been making Ma Po Tofu about once every month to 2 months these days. I’ve been experimenting with some of the salty/spicyness of the dish and the last couple batches have been pretty good, I was surprised! But then again, I had a great recipe and pictorial to work with from hzrt8w (eGullet). The pictorials have been a huge help and there’s a wealth of information there.

A couple of the substitutions I’ve been making are thai bird chillies instead of dried chillies and some extra Sriracha for a little more kick.

Recipe adapted from hzrt8w of eGullet.

Ma Po Tofu v2.0

Time: 45 minutes
Serves 4

Ingredients:
– 32oz silken tofu, sliced into columns
– 1 lb ground pork
– 2-3 stalks scallions, chopped
– 6 garlic cloves, minced
– 6 dried chillies, seeds removed
– 1 inch piece of ginger, grated
– 1 tsp roasted/ground sichuan peppercorns
– 2 tsp Corn starch
– 1-2 tbsp water

Marinade:
– 1 tsp white pepper
– 1 tsp sesame oil
– 1 tsp corn starch
– 1 tsp light soy sauce
– 1 tsp ShaoHsing rice wine

Sauce 1:
– 2 tsp Chili Bean sauce
– 5 tsp Hoisin sauce
– 2 tsp Brown Bean sauce
– 2 tsp ShaoHsing rice wine
– 1 tsp White vinegar / ChinKiang vinegar
– Sriracha

Sauce 2:
– 1/2 cup Chicken Broth
– 2 tsp sugar

Method:
1. Heat frying pan over high heat. Add some oil. Brown the pork for a few minutes until just cooked. Break the pork apart. Remove and set aside.
2. Add some more oil to the hot pan, and add the chillies for about 10-15 seconds. Then add ginger and garlic. Stir fry for another 30 seconds and add sauce #1 in for another 15 seconds.
3. Add sauce #2, bring to a boil. Mix the corn starch and water and add in.
4. Add the tofu in, bring the mixture to a boil undisturbed (the tofu will break apart easily and we’ll break it apart into cubes later).
5. Add the pork, scallions, and sichuan pepper and stir to combine. Break apart the bigger tofu bits as you see fit.

Chinese food never ceases to surprise me, I never get tired of it. Obvious bias aside, there’s so many different regions (probably from the vastness of the country) and so many types of cuisines that are so drastically different from each other that it’s hard to become jaded with the food. I’ve primarily stuck to Cantonese food but I’m trying to branch out into more of the Northern Chinese style food.

One particular style I’ve been reading a ton about is Szechuan cuisine. There’s a couple Szechuan restaurants around Boston (Sichuan Gourmet and Sichuan Garden) that I really like but I’d never even tried to make some of the food that they offer. One dish in particular that I’d love to try sometime is lightly fried fish fillets in a nice spicy/oily sauce.

So which brings me to today. I recently picked up a copy of Fuschia Dunlop’s Land of Plenty, considered to be one of the top cookbooks in Szechuan cuisine. While light on pictures (I think picture based cookbooks are the most appealing. Not only do you get to have a reference as to how the food should look, you can figure out if it looks tasty enough to try out in the first place!), she provides very descriptive notes on the history of many dishes as well as her own personal background on said dishes.

Typically, Szechuan food tends to be a bit on the oily side, which is one reason I never really thought about trying to cook it often. But reading through the book, one of the big points mentioned is that for the dishes that use a lot of oil, chillies, and whole peppercorns, diners typically use chopsticks only with the dish, grabbing the pieces of food and shaking off the excess oil. For those dishes, the sauce (read: oil) typically isn’t spooned over one’s rice. But here’s the problem…I love sauce and I hate wasting something that I went through the trouble of making. But I figured I should try it anyway.

Kung Pao Chicken

Time : 1 hour
Serves 4 w/ rice and side vegetable

Ingredients:
- 2/3 – 1 lb boneless chicken breast
- 4 cloves garlic, sliced thin
- 1 inch piece of ginger, sliced thin
- 5 scallions, chopped
- 2 tbsp canola oil
- 12 – 15 Dried chili peppers, seeds removed
- 1 tsp roasted ground sichuan pepper
- 2/3 cup roasted unsalted peanuts

Marinade:
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 2 tsp light soy sauce
- 1 tsp ShaoHsing rice wine
- 1/2 tsp sesame oil
- 2 tsp corn starch
- 1 tbsp water

Sauce:
- 3 tsp sugar
- 1 tsp corn starch
- 1 tsp dark soy sauce
- 1 tsp light soy sauce
- 3 tsp Chinkiang vinegar or balsamic vinegar
- 1 tsp sesame oil
- 1 tbsp water

Method:
1. Cube the chicken and mix marinade. Marinate chicken while preparing other ingredients.
2. Combine sauce ingredients.
3. Heat a frying pan over high heat. Add 2 tbsp oil. Add chillies and stir fry briefly until fragrant.
4. Add chicken and stir fry. When lightly browned, add ginger, garlic, and the scallions. Stir fry until the chicken is cooked through.
5. Add the sauce and sichuan pepper. Stir until sauce thickens. Add peanuts, toss briefly, then serve.

Notes : Adapted from Fuschia Dunlop’s Land of Plenty

Learned a lesson today. Don’t be lazy with meal-planning before you buy groceries. There’s a few reasons for this:

   A) You don’t buy more than you need. Meaning less waste
   B) You don’t have to go out again for more groceries
   C) It’s productive

Well, I got lazy and didn’t meal-plan. So this time I’m falling under reason B. I got a whole bunch of good things and then forgot a whole ton of other stuff. And I’m not going back to the grocery store. No way. So I’m just making something else instead…I’ll figure it out. But there’s something I’m craving…I’ll make it eventually. Lesson learned, I meal-planned as soon as I got back =P

But anyway, I ended up throwing this chicken dish together quickly one weeknight. I ran out of leftovers, saw chicken thighs on sale and figured what the heck, I’ll give it a shot. So I mixed up a pretty simple marinade, chopped an onion and added some black bean & garlic paste (Plus some leftover cashews). It’s always nice to keep the fridge stocked with a few different pastes just for nights like that.

Chicken in Black Bean Sauce

Time: 20 minutes
Serves 4

Ingredients:
– 1.5 lbs chicken thighs, cubed
– 1 medium onion, chopped
– 2-3 cloves garlic minced
– handful of cashews
– 2 tsp Black Bean/Garlic sauce

Marinade:
– 1.5 tbsp soy sauce
– 1 tsp ShaoHsing rice wine
– 1/2 tsp sesame oil
– 1/2 tsp sugar
– Few grinds of fresh black pepper
– 1/2 tsp corn starch

Method
1. Mix marinade and chicken, set aside for 10 minutes
2. On high heat, add about 1-2 tbsp oil and stir-fry garlic for 30 seconds until fragrant. Add chicken in, stir fry until just barely cooked, then add onions.
3. Stir-fry to combine, add black-bean/garlic sauce and a little water. Add cashews. Stir-fry for another couple minutes. Serve with rice

Even though I made a New Year’s resolution to cook more, truth is, I think I already broke it. I’ve cooked exactly twice (counting tonight) since the year started, terrible! And both weren’t anything new, two chicken dishes since it was on sale last week! I even got a couple new cookbooks for Christmas to keep me inspired. Some resolution.

But anyway, this post isn’t about something new or creative at all. Simply vegetables blanched or stir-fried quickly and drizzled with oil and sauce. Not too much to it =)

Blanched or stir-fried Asian veggies are a staple in your average multi-course Chinese meal. They’re easy and quick to prepare, making it a breeze to cook in parallel to all of the other dishes. Usually, I save this until the end because it takes such little time. I typically like to use any of the following : Bok Choy, Shanghai Greens, Mustard Greens, Yu Choy, or Chinese Broccoli. There are plenty of others I just haven’t tried using yet, like Pea Pod Stems, I’ll get to them eventually.

I almost feel bad putting a “recipe” online for this. But hey, it’s a dish worth serving! For something so simple, it adds character to an otherwise vegetable-scarce meal (Read : Most of my cooking). This recipe can be also used with most of the veggies listed above too.

Yu Choy with Oyster Sauce

Time : 10 minutes
Serves : 4 with 2-3 other dishes

Ingredients:
- 1/2 to 3/4 lb Yu Choy, rinsed
- 2 tbsp oyster sauce
- 1 tbsp canola oil

Method:
1. Bring a stock pot of water to boil over high heat. Add 1 tbsp or so of salt to the water.
2. After the pot reaches a boil, blanch the Yu Choy for about 2 minutes.
3. Remove from heat and drain. Place Yu Choy on a serving plate and drizzle with canola oil and oyster sauce.