Chinese Recipes

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