Ground Pork with Fuzzy Melon (節瓜豬肉, Zit3 Gwaa1 Zyu1 Juk6)

This is an easy to prepare spicy pork dish. You can substitute ground chicken in place of the pork if desired. The spice comes from Fu Chi Foods brand chili paste with fermented soy bean sauce, which you can buy at your local Asian supermarket. A good substitute is salted black beans and chili garlic sauce if you can’t find that brand. Fuzzy melon gets its name from the fuzz on the outside skin of the melon (it’s really a squash). All you have to do is to rub the skin under running water, and the fuzz comes off.

Enjoy!

Oyster Sauce Shrimp with String Beans (青豆角蠔油蝦, Ceng1 Dau6 Gok3 Hou4 Jau4 Haa1)

Shrimp and oyster sauce make a great taste combination. The other ingredients – string beans and Shiitake mushrooms – are easily obtained and pair well with shrimp. The salted radish is the ingredient that’s uncommon in this dish. Salted radish is slightly sweet and salty at the same time, and provides an added crunch to the dish. You can buy them at your local Asian market.

Enjoy!

Chili Black Bean Sauce Peanut Chicken (湖南豆豉辣椒花生鷄, Wu4 Naam4 Dau6 Si6 Laat6 Ziu1 Faa1 Sang1 Gai1)

A bed of bok choy serves as the base for this dish. The dish leans more towards presentation even though the bok choy could have been incorporated into the stir fry of the other ingredients. The other ingredients are rather straight forward – just chicken and straw mushrooms, but the toasted peanuts are a nice added crunch and flavor to the dish.

Enjoy!

Shredded Chicken Chow Mein (手絲鷄炒麵, Sau2 Si1 Gai1 Caau2 Min6)

So, what to do with leftover chicken? Why make some noodles, of course. The leftover chicken is hand-shredded, some vegetables are added, and an oyster sauce based sauce is used to make this noodle dish. I happen to use fresh Shiitake mushrooms, but you can always use rehydrated dried mushrooms. You can use leftover chicken breast and/or thigh meat from the following recipes: Mom’s Grilled Soy Sauce Chicken (燒烤豉油雞, Siu¹ Haau¹ Si⁶ Jau⁴ Gai¹), Soy Sauce Chicken (豉油鷄, Si⁶ Jau⁴ Gai¹), Grilled Garam Masala Chicken, Grilled Soy Sauce Chicken (燒烤豉油雞, Siu¹ Haau¹ Si⁶ Jau⁴ Gai¹), and Poached Chicken (白斬雞, Baak⁶ Zaam² Gai¹) with Ginger-Scallion Oil.

Enjoy!

Mom’s Grilled Soy Sauce Chicken (燒烤豉油雞, Siu1 Haau1 Si6 Jau4 Gai1)

This recipe was updated on 16 Aug 2015. Some hyperlinks were fixed.

The Lunar New Year is fast approaching and one of the traditional dishes to have is a whole chicken. Now when I say whole, I mean with the head and feet attached – otherwise it’s not a whole chicken! Now I didn’t use a whole chicken as it was just defined, but the results are just as tasty. This is based on my Mom’s favorite recipe for Chicken Stuffed with Sticky Rice (糯米鷄, No⁶ Mai⁵ Gai¹). She would roast her chicken in the oven stuffed with Chinese Sticky Rice (糯米飯, No⁶ Mai⁵ Faan⁶), but I chose to use my grill to cook the chicken. I used a chicken stand to cook the chicken in the grill. The stand is also known as a “beer can” chicken stand (although no can was used to cook the chicken) since a beer can fits perfectly into the cavity and supports the chicken upright. The stand I use also has a base that catches the juices, so a gravy can be made.

I made a few other modifications to the chicken marinade, but retained the most important ingredient that made my Mom’s roast chicken flavorful and that ingredient is gin. The only reason I purchase gin is to make this chicken, otherwise the bottle just sits in my cabinet waiting for the next chicken to marinade. If you don’t have gin, you can always substitute Shaoxing rice wine or dry sherry, but it won’t taste the same.

Enjoy!

Oyster Sauce Beef with Broccoli (蠔油西蘭花牛肉, Hou4 Jau4 Sai1 Laan4 Faa1 Ngau4 Juk6)

This dish is a Chinese-American standard, with the basic ingredients being beef, broccoli, and oyster sauce. The oyster sauce gives the dish its signature taste and can be the only element used in the sauce. You can buy broccoli florets instead of a whole broccoli head. I use the microwave to pre-cook the broccoli before stir frying to reduce the cooking time. Microwaved broccoli is wet, which helps with the heat transfer and browning (you’ll still have to add some liquid to help the cooking), so the stir frying will go much quicker.

Enjoy!

Bak Kut Teh (Pork Bone Soup) (肉骨茶, Juk6 Gwat1 Caa4)

This recipe was updated on 30 Jun 2015. Some instructions and ingredient quantities were changed.

I had this dish at my local Singapore/Malaysian restaurant. It was so good, I wanted to make it myself, and so I went to my local Asian market and found a prepared packet of spices to make this dish. As I read the recipes on the Internet for this dish, I realized that there is no one way and just about any ingredient can be used to make this dish. The package of spices I bought is actually made in Taiwan, so I’ll have to try other brands in the future and contrast the taste of the soups.

The literal translation of the Chinese name for this dish is meat bone tea. There’s no tea involved in making this dish and is commonly made with pork spareribs. I also saw recipes using cut-up chicken, which I would like to try using in the future. A whole rack of spareribs would be too much, so fortunately my supermarket sells portions of a rack which weigh about 2 lbs. (1 kg.). You need clean and parboil the cut up pork before cooking it in the soup so that the finished broth is clear.

Enjoy!