Panang Curry Chicken Wing Stew

Coconut curry dishes are surprisingly easy and fast to make when prepared curry paste is used. The sequence for cooking these curry dishes is to stir fry the prepared curry paste, add coconut milk (and some water), boil, add the meat, cook, add the vegetables, cook, and serve. I’ve started to use Maesri brand curry paste rather than the Mae Ploy brand. While both of these prepared curry pastes come in a multitude of flavors, are tasty, and available at your local Asian market, the Maesri brand curry paste comes in 4 oz. (114 g.) cans, while the Mae Ploy brand comes in 14 oz. (400 g.) plastic tubs. What would happen is that I would use a small portion of the Mae Ploy curry paste in a dish and then the plastic tub would sit in my refrigerator for a long time until I made the next curry dish. The Maesri brand can is one use, so there’s no need to save the excess in the refrigerator and its “fresh” out of the can. So unless you make curry dishes often or in huge quantities, using the small cans for one dish is the way to go.

Enjoy!

Chicken and Shiitake Mushroom Curry Hong Kong Noodles (咖哩冬菇雞雲吞麵, Gaa3 Lei1 Dung1 Gu1 Gai4 Wan4 Tan1 Min6)

Curry powder is a tasty common flavoring added to Hong Kong noodles. Adding the red chili peppers is another common enhancement to curried noodle dishes. Not only do the red chili peppers add a little heat to the dish, but also makes for a good visual presentation. The amount of red chili peppers to add, if any, is entirely a personal preference. The curried version of Hong Kong noodles that’s found at Chinese restaurants is usually a deep yellow color. My guess is that additional turmeric is added to the dish to give it that electric yellow color. I didn’t add any turmeric to this recipe, so the color looks more like a normal fried noodle dish, but feel free to add some if you make this dish.

Enjoy!

Shallot Sauce Lobster Noodles (紅蔥龍蝦麵, Hung4 Cung1 Lung4 Haa1 Min6)

Lobster is not a frequently used ingredient that I use, given the cost and all the work needed to extract the meat from the shell.  I found a cooked lobster available at my local Asian market for a good price and decided that I wanted to make a noodle dish. The previous published Lobster Noodles (龍蝦麵, Lung⁴ Haa¹ Min⁶) recipe, uses a sauce thickened by corn starch. This lobster noodle dish doesn’t use a thickener for the sauce and is made more like a traditional chow mein recipe. The main ingredient in the sauce is a prepared shallot sauce that also can be purchased at your local Asian market. The combination of shallot sauce and lobster tastes pretty good, so give this recipe a try if you’re lucky enough to find a good priced cooked lobster.

Enjoy!

Bean Sauce Chicken with Baby Choy Sum and Shiitake Mushrooms (豆瓣小菜心冬菇雞, Dau6 Faan6 Siu2 Coi3 Sam1 Dung1 Gu1 Gai1)

This dish takes a little work to eat since it uses uncut Shiitake mushrooms and baby choy sum cut in half lengthwise rather than cutting them into bite sized pieces. Keeping the ingredients whole also makes for a nice presentation. If the baby choy sum is small enough, you don’t even have to cut it in half, just cook it whole in the wok. When eating the dish, you take one ingredient, bite into it so that it fits into your mouth (unless you have a big mouth!), and then maybe do the same for another ingredient to eat with steamed rice.

Enjoy!

Grilled Ground Chili Garlic Oil Turkey Thighs

Turkey thighs are my choice when I want to grill a small batch of turkey. I eat some of the turkey and then use the leftovers for sandwiches. My local supermarket now sells two fresh turkey thighs in a vacuum sealed package, so it’s very convenient to just grill the two thighs rather than having to thaw a whole turkey. For this batch, I used ground chili garlic oil (which is more of a loose paste) as the principal flavor ingredient in the marinade. The ground chili garlic oil is made in Thailand and, from the picture on the label, is intended for noodle dishes.

Enjoy!

Chicken and Rock Shrimp with Winter Melon (冬瓜蝦仁雞, Dung1 Gwaa1 Haa1 Jan4 Gai1)

Rock shrimp has a very hard shell (“hard as a rock”, hence the name) and tastes like lobster. My local Asian market had a special price on rock shrimp, so I couldn’t resist buying some. You need about one lb. (500 g.) of whole rock shrimp to produce about ½ lb. (250 g.) of shrimp meat. Shrimp meat can be substituted for rock shrimp. Mixing seafood and meat is a classic combination in Chinese dishes. In this case, I used chicken together with the rock shrimp together with winter melon.

Enjoy!

Hot and Sour Wood Ear Chicken (辣酸雲耳雞, Laat6 Syun1 Wan4 Ji5 Gai1)

Black vinegar provides the sour and red chili peppers provide the heat to this dish. This flavor combination gives the dish its taste signature. Chicken and wood ear fungus is also another classic ingredient combination. Wood ear fungus is available fresh at your local Asian market and provides a slight crunchiness to this dish. If you can’t get fresh, wood ear fungus is also available dried, in which case all you have to do is rehydrate the fungus. Just be careful how much dried fungus you use, since rehydrating dried fungus expands greatly in volume.

Enjoy!