Single Meal - Sugar Snap Pea Soy Sauce Pork Stomach Stir Fry (蜜豆炒豉油豬肚, Mat6 Dau6 Caau2 Si6 Jau4 Zyu1 Tou5)

The poaching liquid from the soy sauce pork stomach is used as the basis for the sauce for this stir fry dish. Pork stomach is one of my favorite parts of the pig to eat, but it has to be poached first using the Soy Sauce Pork Stomach (豉油豬肚, Si⁶ Jau⁴ Zyu¹ Tou⁵) recipe before being stir fried for this dish.

Enjoy!

Soy Sauce Pork Stomach (豉油豬肚, Si6 Jau4 Zyu1 Tou5)

Pork stomach is an underutilized part of the pig, in my opinion, here in the USA, but are quite good when prepared correctly. Using the technique to make a poached soy sauce chicken, Soy Sauce Chicken (豉油鷄, Si⁶ Jau⁴ Gai¹), pork stomach can be made tender and tasty. The soy sauce poaching liquid gives this recipe its distinctive flavor. You often find soy sauce pork stomach in Chinese delicatessens.

Pork stomachs are commonly available fresh at your local Asian market. Unlike beef tripe (stomach), there’s a layer of meat on the outside of the stomach. The pork stomach is usually used as an ingredient in another dish and is not eaten all by itself. You also don’t have to poach the pork stomach in soy sauce, for instance, if you make the Steamed Ginger Scallion Pork Stomach with Green String Beans (青豆角薑葱蒸豬肚, Ceng¹ Dau⁶ Gok³ Goeng¹ Cung¹ Zing¹ Zyu¹ Tou⁵). The poaching liquid also makes a good basis for a sauce, but is usually not used alone since it’s very salty.

Enjoy!

Single Meal - Black Bean Cashew Snow Pea Beef (豆豉腰果荷蘭豆牛肉, Dau6 Si6 Jiu1 Gwo2 Ho4 Laan4 Dau6 Ngau4 Juk6)

Black bean sauce and beef are a classic combination in Cantonese cooking. Here’s a recipe whose quantity is geared towards one or two servings. Cashews add a different texture to this dish and provides a tasty addition to the dish without them.

Enjoy!

Single Meal - Shrimp Knife Cut Noodles (蝦炒刀削麵, Haa1 Caau2 Dou1 Soek3 Min6)

With this recipe, I’m introducing a new type of meal. You’ll notice that the title of this recipe is prefaced with, “Single Meal”. Most of my previous recipe postings were for four or more servings per recipe, which is great if you’re cooking for a family or cooking enough to have leftovers for the week. Whenever you see, “Single Meal”, in the recipe title, the portion has been reduced to produce one or two meals, so the name is a bit of a misnomer since it really is more than a one meal recipe. The idea here is to produce recipes, for instance, for a lunch or dinner with enough leftovers for another meal. The meals can be scaled up to produce larger portions, usually by increasing the ingredients and/or sauce amounts.

For this recipe, there was a predecessor: Shrimp Dough Sliced Chow Mein (蝦炒刀削麵, Haa¹ Caau² Dou¹ Soek³ Min⁶), which used frozen dough sliced noodles. 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.

This recipe uses dried knife cut noodles (which is just another name for the same noodles). The good news when using dried noodles is that there’s no overnight thawing required to use the noodles (although they still must be rehydrated). The bad news about these noodles is that my local Asian market had the noodles on closeout, so once I run out, that’s it unless I find a replacement brand. Luckily I bought enough of the dried knife cut noodles to last a while, so hopefully another brand will become available in the meantime. Your local Asian market might stock these noodles, so you might not have the same problem.

Rehydrating the dried noodles is easy. All you need is a covered container, boiling water, the dried noodles, and a microwave oven. All you need to do is to pour boiling water over the dried noodles in a covered container. Place the container into a microwave oven and microwave on high for about 3-4 minutes, until the noodles boil for about 30-60 seconds. The strength of your microwave and the thickness of the dried noodles will dictate the amount of time needed to rehydrate the noodles in the microwave, so you’ll have to experiment to find the time needed microwaving. The noodles should be al dente, in fact they should seem a little undercooked. Stir frying the noodles in a wok later will complete cooking.

Enjoy!

Technique: How to Quickly Rehydrate Dried Noodles

Like the technique to quickly rehydrate dried mushrooms, Technique: How to Quickly Rehydrate Dried Shiitake Mushrooms (冬菇, Dung¹ Gu¹), the microwave is used to quickly rehydrate dried noodles. Usually dried noodles need to be rehydrated by using boiling water in a pot, which means the pot needs to be cleaned afterwards.

I use boiling water, a microwave safe covered container, and the microwave to speed up the process, and not have to clean a pot afterwards (the covered container gets placed into the dishwasher). Depending upon the type and thickness of the dried noodle and the strength of the microwave, the time required to rehydrate the noodles in the microwave is about 3-4 minutes after boiling the water. Using this method allows just about any dried noodle to be rehydrated using this technique. I have not tried using this method with long thick noodles, like spaghetti, since those noodles don’t fit into normal microwave safe covered containers. However dried noodles that are smaller in length, such as those found in Asian markets, this is a quick and easy method to rehydrate the noodles before making a stir fry noodle dish. These noodles usually come in 3.5 oz (100 g.) packages, so two of these packages are good for two meals (one portion to eat now, one portion to eat later).

Enjoy!

Mesquite Grilled Three Pepper Beef Porterhouse Steak (燒烤豆科灌木三椒上等牛排, Siu1 Haau1 Dau6 Fo1 Gun3 Muk6 Saam1 Ziu1 Soeng6 Dang2 Ngau4 Paai4)

If you like your steak a little spicy, this easy to make recipe should make you happy since it uses three peppercorns: black, white, and Szechuan. I keep pepper grinders with each of these whole peppercorns in my pantry, so it’s easy to grind just the amount desired to season the steak. If you don’t have the whole peppercorns in separate grinders, you can easily throw the peppercorns into a spice grinder. The outer surfaces of the steak are first coated with sesame oil and then Lawry’s Seasoned Salt (or just plain salt) before applying the ground peppers.

I’ve totally changed the way I grill beef steaks after reading the method used by America’s Test Kitchen. The recipe is for porterhouse steaks, but it can be used for other cuts of beef and other meats (e.g. pork). Their method produces a charred exterior with a tender medium-rare interior, and uses both the oven and the grill. The basic premise for their method is to preheat the steak in the oven before grilling the steak over a hot fire to produce the desired results. I adapted the method to use the grill only to produce similar results. In my previous grilling recipes, I would place the meat over a hot fire first to char the outside and then move the meat to the cool side of the grill to roast and/or smoke. This produced a charred exterior and medium-rare interior, but the medium-rare interior was sandwiched between a well-done exterior, whereas the America’s Test Kitchen method produced a consistent medium-rare interior without the well-done exterior layers.

So my adaptation is to reverse the previous order of cooking the meat to first pre-heat the meat on the cool side of the grill to smoke it before moving to the hot side to char. This produces similar results to America’s Test Kitchen’s original method even though the fire is reduced in heat when the meat is charred after pre-heating, and you don’t need to use your oven. The new method does take longer to cook the meat, but it’s worth the extra time to get the desired results. The cooking time varies with the thickness of the meat, temperature of the fire, and your previous experience with the barbeque grill, so you’ll have to experiment a little to get the desired results. I think if you try cooking steaks using my adapted method, you’ll also change the way you grill meat.

Enjoy!

Mesquite Grilled Ground Chili Garlic Oil Chicken Drumsticks (燒烤豆科灌木蒜油辣椒醬鷄髀, Siu1 Haau1 Dau6 Fo1 Gun3 Muk6 Syun3 Jau4 Laat6 Ziu1 Zoeng3 Gai1 Bei2)

This is a very simple grilled dish that can be made after marinating chicken drumsticks overnight using Ground Chili Garlic Oil. Mesquite wood is added to the grill, but you can use oak, hickory, pecan, or whatever your favorite wood is, to further enhances the flavor. Any leftover chicken can be used in stir fry dishes or for sandwiches.

Enjoy!