Black Bean Sauce Green String Bean Chicken with Fish Maw (豆豉青豆角魚肚鷄, Dau6 Si6 Ceng1 Dau6 Gok3 Jyu4 Tou5 Gai1)

Black bean sauce is a common way to flavor chicken dishes. A standard dish found in many Chinese-American restaurants is black bean sauce green string bean chicken, which are commonly available ingredients. My version of this dish can be found here: Black Bean Garlic Sauce String Bean Chicken (蒜蓉豆豉青豆角雞, Syun³ Jung⁴ Dau⁶ Si⁶ Ceng¹ Dau⁶ Gok³ Gai¹). This version of the classic dish adds fish maw to make a common dish uncommon.

Fish maw is the bladder of the fish that controls buoyancy. Fish maw is one of those weird and wonderful special banquet ingredients (at least in my experience) that is served at auspicious events such as weddings and at Lunar New Year. Fish maw can be purchased at your local Asian market or herb specialty store. If you’re lucky enough to have an Asian herb store near you, it’s worth going in to see all the dried herbs and creatures that are sold at these stores. The herb stores also have the most variety of fish maw to buy and with the prices to match!

There are two types of fish maw: dried and fried. For this dish, the fried version is used. If you purchase the dried version, like I did, there’s an extra step to deep fry the fish maw yourself. I actually shallow fried the fish maw, ladling hot oil over the fish maw (be careful when using this method). You can save a step and time by buying the fried version, but this will take more storage space than the dried version for any fish maw that you don’t use. The best description of fried fish maw is that it looks like chicharrón, which is fried pork skin. The fried fish maw should soak in cold water for at least an hour to soften it to a spongy texture and then cut into bite sized pieces. After soaking, fish maw has no inherent flavor (so it won’t smell fishy at all) and acquires the flavors of the ingredients it is cooked with.

Enjoy!

Slow Cooker Black Vinegar Beef Ox Tail Stew (燉黑米醋牛尾, Dan6 Hak1 Mai5 Cou3 Ngau4 Mei5)

Black vinegar not only adds flavor to this dish, but also a rich dark color. The dish is not sour with a dominant vinegar flavor as you might think, in fact the black vinegar adds depth to the sauce’s flavor. While I’m not convinced, the Chinese think that the vinegar cuts down on the richness of the beef ox tail stew. Chee Hou sauce is an important ingredient to making this dish. Chee Hou sauce is a prepared sauce and is similar in taste to hoisin sauce (which can be substituted if you can’t find it at your local Asian market) and has a slightly spicier taste to it. Beef oxtails are readily available at most markets. Removing the outer fat layer from the oxtails is an important step to producing an almost fat free sauce. Use a sharp knife to remove the outer fat layer before cooking.

Enjoy!

Basil Chili Paste with Fermented Soy Bean Shabu Shabu Pork Loin Stir Fry (紫蘇湖南豆豉辣椒炒涮涮锅豬肉, Zi2 Sou1 Wu4 Naam4 Dau6 Si6 Laat6 Ziu1 Caau2 Saan3 Saan3 Wo1 Zyu1 Juk6)

Here’s another stir fry dish using Shabu Shabu pork, which is thinly sliced pork and can be found at your local Japanese or Asian market. You can always substitute pork loin or butt cut into thin 2-inch (5 cm.) pieces if you’re unable to obtain Shabu Shabu pork. This dish is slightly spicy and is additionally flavored using fresh basil leaves.

Enjoy!

Madras Curry Pasilla Pepper Chicken (马德拉斯咖喱粉豌豆胡椒鷄, Maa5 Dak1 Laai1 Si1 Gaa3 Lei1 Fan2 Wun2 Dau6 Wu4 Ziu1 Gai1)

Passila peppers are a deep green color and, in my opinion, look better in a dish than green bell peppers. Passila peppers are also have some heat to them, so they add some spiciness to the dish together with the Madras curry powder. Passila peppers can be found at your local Mexican market and Poblano chilies can be substituted if Passila chilies are not available. If neither of those peppers are available to you, then use green bell peppers and dried red chilies (e.g. Japanese chilies) to give some spiciness to the dish.

Enjoy!

Mesquite Grilled Rosemary Garam Masala Red Wine Chicken (燒烤豆科灌木迷迭香胡荽紅酒鷄, Siu1 Haau1 Dau6 Fo1 Gun3 Muk6 Mai4 Dit6 Hoeng1 Wu4 Seoi1 Hung4 Zau2 Gai1)

I used a basic soy sauce marinade with red wine to grill the whole chicken, together with fresh rosemary and Garam Masala powder. I put the chicken 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 keeps 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.) barbeque grill, so that’s why the standing chicken is placed on the charcoal grate with the coals arranged around it in a circle.

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!

Mesquite Grilled Korean-Style Spicy Pork (돼지불고기, Daeji Bulgogi)

This is definitely not an original Korean dish, but the Korean hot pepper paste (고추장, Gochujang) and hot pepper powder (고추가루, Gochugaru) are used to marinade the pork shoulder steaks as in the traditional recipe. The traditional recipe uses pork belly and is cooked on an indoor grill, with the cooked pork being wrapped in lettuce leaves (and other added ingredients) before being consumed whole. This recipe is an Americanized outdoor barbeque version of this dish using pork shoulder steaks. The amount of hot pepper powder can be varied depending upon your tolerance for spiciness. The hot pepper paste actually provides more sweetness to the dish than spice, so there’s no need to use hoisin sauce (my usual sauce used in marinades). This is a really easy and tasty way to grill pork (or any other meat) and is very similar to a previously published recipe: Grilled Gochujang (Hot Pepper Paste) Pork Ribeye Steaks.

Enjoy!

Slow Cooker Spicy Basil Beef Ox Tail and Tendon Stew (燉辣紫蘇牛筋牛尾, Dan6 Laat6 Zi2 Sou1 Ngau4 Gan1 Ngau4 Mei5)

While this recipe would seem to be more appropriate during the winter, it is still tasty when cooked during the spring, especially when you use a slow cooker (i.e. crockpot) to make the dish. Fresh lotus root is preferable, but pre-cut frozen lotus root makes a good substitute when fresh is not available (and then even the frozen lotus root slices can sometimes be hard to find). If lotus root cannot be found, daikon makes a good substitute.

Beef oxtail and beef tendon go together to make a classic Chinese stew. Chee Hou sauce is an important ingredient to making this dish. Chee Hou sauce is a prepared sauce and is similar in taste to hoisin sauce (which can be substituted if you can’t find it at your local Asian market) and has a slightly spicier taste to it. The real spiciness for this dish comes from the addition of Japanese chilies. Japanese chilies have some heat to them, but are more flavorful spicy than hot and can be found at your local Mexican market. The Japanese chilies are stir fried before being added to the slow cooker.

Beef oxtails are readily available at most markets. Removing the outer fat layer from the oxtails is an important step to producing an almost fat free sauce. Use a sharp knife to remove the outer fat layer before cooking. Beef tendon is another part of the cow available at Asian markets either whole or already cut into pieces. It’s a texture ingredient that produces a great mouth feel when eaten. Uncooked, it’s tough and hard to cut, cooked long and slow, and it becomes soft. There’s really no substitute for this ingredient, so if you can’t find it, it can be omitted, but the stew won’t be the same.

Enjoy!