Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Salsa

Copyright © 2011 Douglas R. Wong, all rights reserved.

This recipe was updated on 20 Jan 2015. Some instructions and ingredient quantities were changed, and metric measurements added.
Homemade salsa tastes best with homegrown tomatoes and hot peppers, but store-bought tomatoes and peppers work well too. The heat of the salsa will depend upon how hot the peppers used in the recipe are, which means that you can never tell until a batch of the salsa is made and tasted. The recipe below is for a “normal” batch of salsa to be used with the Mexican Pulled Pork (Carnitas) recipe. I actually made a huge batch of salsa because I intended to also use the salsa as a part of the filling for the Mexican Pulled Pork Enchiladas recipe. You actually can’t make too much salsa since it goes well with tortilla chips.
Enjoy!

Pickled Vegetables


Homemade pickled vegetables are very easy to make. All you need are the vegetables – in this case sliced carrots and diced onions – vinegar, salt, and some sugar. Just be sure to refrigerate the pickled vegetables and the flavor will develop over time. This recipe also works well for hot peppers. Eat the pickled vegetables with MexicanPulled Pork (Carnitas) and Mexican Pulled Pork Enchiladas.
Enjoy!

Sunday, September 11, 2011

Shrimp and Scrambled Eggs (蝦仁炒蛋, Haa1 Jan4 Caau2 Daan6)

This recipe was updated on 11 Aug 2016. Some instructions and ingredient quantities were changed, and metric measurements added.

This is a real easy dish to make. All you need are eggs, shrimp, green onions, and red peppers (mainly for color contrast). You can choose to make this dish more “eggy” by using more eggs, or more “shrimpy” with fewer eggs, so the amount of eggs to use is a personal preference. For this recipe I used fewer eggs to highlight the shrimp in the dish.

Enjoy!

Friday, September 9, 2011

Seafood Pasta Salad

 
This recipe was updated on 11 July 2013. Some instructions and ingredient quantities were changed, and metric measurements added.
I was thinking about making a pasta salad with seafood, and low and behold, shrimp came on sale. So my timing was good since you can really use any available seafood to make this salad. I decided to add two “fake” seafood ingredients, imitation crab flakes and imitation shark’s fin. Most people are familiar with imitation crab flakes, but probably not with imitation shark’s fin. I’ve always used imitation shark’s fin in soup, so this is the first time I’ve used it in a salad.
Imitation shark’s fin is a gelatin-based product that is made to resemble the real shark’s fin long transparent cartilage strands. Both the real and imitation shark’s fin have no taste, but it’s the texture that makes it an interesting ingredient. The imitation version comes packaged frozen and when defrosted, look like transparent brown noodles. I prefer to use the imitation given how the real version is obtained.
Another interesting ingredient is fresh seaweed. You can get fresh seaweed (and the imitation shark’s fin) at your local Asian market and it comes as long strips or tied into bow-ties. I used the bow-tie version in this dish and it gives an added crunch to the dish, as well as a distinct flavor.
Enjoy!

Sunday, September 4, 2011

Grilled Chilpotles Salsa Turkey Thighs

This dish mixes both Chinese and Mexican ingredients using turkey thighs, bottled salsa, canned chipotle peppers, and chilpotles sauce. Salsa makes a surprisingly good marinade for meats and the chilpotles peppers, which are dried smoked jalapeño peppers, adds a smoky spiciness. Add soy sauce and other Chinese ingredients, and you get a tasty meal.
Enjoy!

Monday, August 29, 2011

Stir Fried Beef with Chinese Okra (勝瓜炒牛肉, Sing3 Gwaa1 Caau2 Ngau4 Juk6)

Copyright © 2011 Douglas R. Wong. All rights reserved.
 
This recipe was updated on 18 July 2015. Some instructions and ingredient quantities were changed.
Chinese okra is an odd looking vegetable and is nothing like normal okra; it’s much larger and doesn’t have the thickening ability of okra (i.e. no sticky goop). It also has hard skin and inedible spines that must be removed before eating. When my brother-in-law first cooked this vegetable, he unfortunately didn’t know this (and I guess my sister forgot to tell him) and they ended up picking out hard skin and spine pieces from the finished dish. So don’t forget to remove the outer skin and spines when using this vegetable. You can combine Chinese okra with any ingredients, in this case its beef and red peppers (from my garden) in a simple brown bean sauce.
 
Enjoy!

Sunday, August 28, 2011

Tomato Beef Chow Mein (番茄牛肉炒麵, Faan1 Ke4 Ngau4 Juk6 Caau2 Min6)

Copyright © 2011 Douglas R. Wong, all rights reserved.
This recipe was updated on 02 Sep 2015. Some instructions and ingredient quantities were changed.
Tomato beef chow mein is a classic Chinese-American dish that you can get at any Chinese restaurant. The dish is a mixture of beef, noodles, tomatoes, and other vegetables in a sweet and sour sauce (not that thick red gloppy stuff). Depending upon on your preference, the dish can be sourer than sweet or sweeter than sour. Curry powder can also be added and the amount again depends upon personal preference (this dish has some). You can think of this dish as the noodle version of the Spicy Tomato Beef Curry (咖哩粉番茄牛肉, Gaa3 Lei1 Fan2 Faan1 Ke4 Ngau4 Juk6) recipe.
Tomatoes and beef are important components of this dish. I only make this dish when I have tomatoes available from my garden, and I use beef flank or flap meat sliced against the grain and marinated. Other than that, you can throw in any ingredient your heart desires. In this instance, I used bean sprouts, fried tofu puffs, baby bok choy, and from my garden: red bell pepper and green Thai chilies.
Enjoy!
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