Rock Cod with Salted Olives (Haam4 Gaam3 Laam5 Sek6 Baan1, 鹹橄欖石斑)

Any firm fleshed fish will work for this dish, and you can either buy fillets or fillet the fish yourself. In this case a rock cod (sek⁶ baan¹, 石斑) tail was available at the Asian market. Instead of using salted black beans (dau⁶ si⁶, 豆豉), I used salted olives (haam⁴ gaam³ laam⁵, 鹹橄欖), which gives the dish a different flavor. You need to chop and soak the salted olives before using them (but don’t soak for too long or you’ll lose the salted olive flavor).

Enjoy!

Rock Cod with Wood Ear Fungus (Muk6 Ji5 Sek6 Baan1, 木耳石斑)

This is actually a very fast dish to cook, but it does take a little over an hour of preparation time. Any firm fleshed fish will work for this dish, and you can either buy fillets or fillet the fish yourself. In this case a rock cod (sek⁶ baan¹, 石斑) tail was available at the Asian market and I filleted the fish myself. Add some wood ear fungus (muk⁶ ji⁵, 木耳) and you have your complete dish.

Enjoy!

Cashew Shrimp with Long Beans (腰果豆角蝦仁, Jiu1 Gwo2 Dau6 Gok3 Haa1 Jan4)

 

This recipe was updated on 03 Dec 2015. Some instructions and ingredient quantities were changed, and metric measurements added.

I made this dish because I had some shrimp and I wanted a dish with long beans. I added cashew nuts to make a classic Chinese-American restaurant dish. Long beans are a favorite vegetable of mine and differ from regular green beans in the most obvious way; they are really long in length. Regular green string beans can be substituted if you can’t find long beans at your favorite Asian market. The dried red chili peppers are optional, and the quantity is a personal preference, so feel free to increase or decrease the amount.

Enjoy!

Spicy Pork with Okra (Cau1 Kwai4 Caau2 Zyu1 Juk6, 秋葵炒豬肉)

There are two ingredients that I’ve tried for the first time. The first is the pork and the second is the okra. Now I’ve used ground pork before in other recipes before, but this is the first time I used a large grind pork rather than the smaller grind that you normally find at the Asian market. Using a larger pork grind means the pork chunks are bigger, while this doesn’t change the taste any, visually you see the pork. Okra is something that I’ve never really used before.  I left them whole, rather than cutting them up and this works if you have younger okra. I got some older ones and you could tell that they were older because they’re stingy. Unfortunately you don’t find this out until you bite into the okra.

Enjoy!

Shrimp Dough Sliced Chow Mein (蝦炒刀削麵, Haa1 Caau2 Dou1 Soek3 Min6)

This recipe was updated on 01 Aug 2018. Instructions to make the shrimp crunchy, like that found in restaurant dishes, was added.

I first got introduced to this dish at the local Chinese Muslim restaurant. Ordering this dish and green onion bread makes for a great meal. Dough sliced noodles are aptly named since the noodles are sliced from a block of dough. The noodles have a chewy doughy texture, unlike normal chow mein noodles. I always wondered how to get or make these noodles. Now I don’t have to go to a restaurant to get this dish since I found the dough sliced noodles in the freezer section at my local Asian market.

A typical package contains 5 packs of noodles each weighing 200 grams (for a total of 1 kilogram). While the package says that you don’t have to thaw the noodles before cooking, I defrost my noodles overnight before use. Once I forgot to defrost the noodles and put the noodles in boiling water briefly to defrost them. The noodles definitely get defrosted, but the texture is not as chewy after being boiled. If you can’t find dough sliced noodles, you can substitute another flat noodle.

Now if I can only learn how to make the green onion bread…

Enjoy!

Grilled Garam Masala Chicken (燒烤胡荽雞, Siu1 Haau1 Wu4 Seoi1 Gai1)

This recipe was updated on 17 Aug 2015. Some instructions and ingredient quantities were changed, the Chinese name was added, and hyperlinks fixed.

I used a basic soy sauce marinade and added garam masala powder to grill the whole chicken. Instead of cutting the chicken in half and removing the backbone before grilling, I kept the chicken whole and put it on a “beer can” stand to roast it upright in the barbeque. While I didn’t use a beer can to keep the chicken upright, I have an apparatus that has two rods attached to a pan that keep the chicken standing while being grilled.

The standing chicken is placed in the charcoal grate, without using the grill grate. The barbeque cover can’t be used if the standing chicken is placed on the grill grate in a 22.5 in. (57 cm.) grill, so that’s why the standing chicken is placed on the charcoal grate with the coals arranged around it in a circle. Adding a smoking wood to the grill, such as hickory, mesquite, pecan, or whatever your favorite wood is, further enhances the flavor.

You can look at the Poached Chicken (白斬雞, Baak⁶ Zaam² Gai¹) with Ginger-Scallion Oil (薑蔥油, Goeng¹ Cung¹ Jau⁴) recipe for instructions on cutting and arranging a chicken on a platter.

Enjoy!

Korean Barbequed Beef Short Ribs (Kalbi, 갈비)

This recipe was updated on 20 Mar 2016. Some instructions were changed and a link to the newer version of this recipe, using a homemade sauce instead of store bought, was added.

A newer version of this recipe using a homemade sauce, rather than store bought, can be found here: Los Angeles Style Korean Barbeque Beef Short Ribs - L.A. Galbi (L.A. 갈비). I would recommend using the newer recipe instead of this one.

Bottled Korean barbeque sauce is the basis for the beef marinade. Korean barbeque sauce uses pear juice as one of the ingredients and it gives the flanken cut beef short ribs a unique sweet flavor. You can now buy flanken cut beef short ribs at most supermarkets, otherwise you’ll have to get your butcher to cut the short ribs thinly for you. I use my outdoor barbeque to grill the ribs, but normally the ribs are cooked at the table in Korean restaurants.

Enjoy!

Steamed Pork Spareribs with Salted Black Beans (Dau6 Si6 Zing1 Paai4 Gwat1, 豆豉蒸排骨)

 

This recipe was updated on 04 Nov 2013. Some instructions and ingredient quantities were changed, and metric measurements added.

It seems like I’ve been making this dish forever, but I found a good addition to this dish – wet preserved plums (haam⁴ seoi² mui⁴, 鹹水梅) – after looking at the Steamed Pork Ribs with Black Bean Sauce recipe from The Waitakere Redneck’s Kitchen blog. The plums add an additional layer of flavor to the dish. You can easily leave the plums out of the recipe and it will still be tasty.

The pork spareribs needs some preparation time, so you’ll need a minimum of 2 hours for prep and marinating, but marinating overnight is preferable. The baking soda serves to make the finished cooked pork spareribs very tender – just be sure to wash it out before marinating. This step can be omitted, but try tenderizing your pork (or any other meat for that matter) this way and you’re likely to be a believer.

Enjoy!