Carne Adovada (Red Chile Pork Stew) Enchiladas

As with my other enchilada recipes, Grilled Chilpotles Chili Chicken Green Chile Enchiladas and Mexican Pulled Pork Enchiladas, the enchiladas are made with leftovers from another dish, in this case Carne Adovada (Red Chile Pork Stew). For these enchiladas, I added leftover rice to the enchilada before adding in the Carne Adovada (Red Chile Pork Stew) filling. Serve with shredded cabbage and Pickled Vegetables.

When I made these enchiladas, I could purchase 10-inch (25.4 cm.) flour tortillas. Now I’m unable to get that size and 8-inch (20.3 cm.) flour tortillas are the largest currently available. This means that more (but smaller) enchiladas will fit into a pan or alternatively you can make the same sized enchilada out of two overlapping 8-inch tortillas. I also switched brands of enchilada sauce to Las Palmas. Las Palmas uses chile peppers as the main ingredient, rather than tomato sauce with chile peppers.

Enjoy!

Chicken Cabbage Chow Mein (青椰菜鷄炒麵, Ceng1 Je4 Coi3 Gai1 Caau2 Min6)

 

I’ve been adding cabbage to my chow mein recipes lately, probably because a nearby Chinese noodle restaurant does the same to their dishes. The cabbage adds a nice crunch to the recipe and a good textural contrast to the soft noodles. Depending upon the size of the cabbage, two to four leaves are needed for the dish. Other than the added cabbage, the rest of the ingredients used in this recipe are fairly common in chicken chow mein. This is a “dry” noodle dish and not a dish with a lot of “wet” sauce.

Enjoy!

Black Bean Chili Sauce Sugar Snap Pea Chicken (黑豆辣椒蜜豆鷄, Hak1 Dau6 Laat6 Ziu1 Mat6 Dau6 Gai1)

Black bean sauce and chicken are one of my favorite flavor combinations. In this case I used a prepared black bean sauce with chili oil made by Laoganma. If you don’t want a spicy dish, I would substitute another prepared sauce, Black Bean Garlic Sauce, made by Lee Kum Kee. My other favorite flavor combination with chicken is mushrooms. Straw mushrooms were the choice for this dish, but it could have easily been Shiitake mushrooms. The previous published Black Bean Chili Sauce Snow Pea Chicken (黑豆辣椒荷蘭豆鷄, Hak¹ Dau⁶ Laat⁶ Ziu¹ Ho⁴ Laan⁴ Dau⁶ Gai¹) recipe is very similar to this dish, and is just as tasty.

Enjoy!

Grilled Lemon Porterhouse Pork Chops

The principal marinade ingredient for this dish is lemon juice. Lemons add a nice bit of acidity to the pork chops and together with the herbs and spices, makes for a tasty grilled dish. The amount of salt to use is a personal preference; some people like more salt, others like less, and others prefer none at all. The amount of salt used in this dish will likely taste under-salted to most people, since that’s my personal preference. So feel free to adjust the amount of salt. For those that do not want added salt, more lemon juice can somewhat compensate for this.

The strategy to cook the pork chops is to first grill them to get the grill marks, and then smoke them to finish cooking. The thickness of the pork chops affects the cooking time, so you really want to purchase pork chops that are at least 1-inch (2.5 cm.) thick. If the pork chops are thinner, just adding the grill marks to both sides of the pork would fully cook them, and smoking them further would make the pork tough and dried out. So to be able to both grill and smoke the pork, try to purchase thicker pork chops (the thicker the better!).

Enjoy!

Japanese Chili Green Bean Chicken (日本指天椒青豆角鷄, Jat6 Bun2 Zi2 Tin1 Ziu1 Ceng1 Dau6 Gok3 Gai1)

I recently went to a local Chinese restaurant, whose specialties are dishes cooked with chilies (lots of chilies!). One dish ordered was green string beans with handfuls of red chili peppers and some ground pork. This is a common Chinese dish where you taste the underlying flavor of the chilies more than any heat, together with the green beans and pork. The difference in this restaurant’s preparation was that whole red chilies were used rather than cutting them up into smaller pieces. Just that change made the dish taste different because a whole red chili pepper is eaten with every mouthful. The dish is also served “dry”, with little sauce.

As in the Oyster Sauce Shrimp with Japanese Chilies (蠔油日本指天椒蝦, Hou⁴ Jau⁴ Jat⁶ Bun² Zi² Tin¹ Ziu¹ Haa¹) recipe, dried red Japanese chilies bought at my local Mexican market were used for flavor, rather than heat. If you really like very hot dishes, the dried red chilies found at your local Asian market can be substituted. Unlike the classic restaurant green bean dish previously described, this recipe is served with chicken and sauce, although the dish can also be made “dry”. It’s really up to you if you want a sauce or not. The chilies give the dish its dominant flavor, so they aren’t an optional ingredient. In fact, the more the better!

Enjoy!

Black Bean Chili Sauce Sugar Snap Pea Shrimp Noodles (黑豆辣椒蜜豆蝦麵, Hak1 Dau6 Laat6 Ziu1 Mat6 Dau6 Haa1 Min6)

The crunchiness of the sugar snap peas contrasts nicely with the texture of the shrimp in this slightly spicy black bean chili sauce noodle dish. You would think that stir fried noodle dishes are easy to make (and they are), but the number of ingredients contained in this common dish can be large, making the preparation and cooking these dishes at home a process longer than one would expect. This really isn’t a problem in a restaurant because of the high heat available to heat the wok. In a restaurant, the ingredients are added one after the other to the wok without really affecting the high temperature, resulting in a tasty quick cooking dish. This is not true for a typical home kitchen because the heat source is not as powerful as that found in restaurants. So if the restaurant method was used at home to cook the dish, the first ingredient would stir fry because the temperature would be high, but the subsequent ingredients would steam rather than brown because the temperature would drop with each added ingredient. Hence the need for the home cook to reheat the wok before adding and then removing each ingredient separately in order to stir fry, rather than steam, the ingredients. I’ve used this wok cooking method at home even though I have a special wok burner in my kitchen, which doesn’t approach the heat generated in a restaurant, but is hotter than the typical heat source found in most home kitchens. So if you’re stir frying over a typical kitchen stove burner, the time needed to cook a dish is longer since the time needed to reheat the wok is longer.

Enjoy!

Mixed Seafood Rigatoni

This is a really easy recipe to make, since just about all the ingredients are pre-packaged and ready for use. Mixed seafood and Italian sausage are the main ingredients in this pasta dish, which produces the tasty seafood and meat combination commonly found in Chinese dishes. The Italian sausage is available hot or mild in a single package, so unless you buy the individual sausage package (in which case the casings should be removed), all you do is open the package. As is usual for my pasta recipes, I use a wok to stir fry the pasta before adding the sauce. Making a pasta dish is no different to me than making chow mein – the techniques are the same, I’m just using a different sauce to make the noodles.

Mixed seafood is available in the frozen section at your local Asian market. The packaged mixture is inexpensive and intended for use in a hot pot or soup, but after thawing can easily be used in stir fries or, in this case, pasta dishes. Depending upon the brand available, the mix of seafood varies. The usual mix has at the very least fake crab meat, squid, and shrimp. Additionally oysters, clams, octopus, and other seafood is in the mix depending upon the manufacturer. So compare the ingredients of the brands available at your local Asian market before buying a package.

Enjoy!

Oyster Sauce Shrimp with Japanese Chilies (蠔油日本指天椒蝦, Hou4 Jau4 Jat6 Bun2 Zi2 Tin1 Ziu1 Haa1)

The combination of the dried red Japanese chilies, together with the sweetness of the shrimp and oyster sauce, makes a great flavor combination. The new ingredient that I tried in this dish was purchased at my local Mexican market: dried red Japanese chili peppers, which are similar to the more common Chile de árbol peppers (which have more heat to them). The dried red Japanese chili peppers aren’t mind numbing hot like the dried red chilies that you can purchase at your local Asian market. While there is some heat, the chilies are more flavorful than hot.

I recently went to a local Chinese restaurant, whose specialties are dishes cooked with chilies (lots of chilies!). What was interesting about one dish was that there were handfuls of these red chili peppers in the dish, but you tasted the underlying flavor of the chili more than any heat. The dish was very spicy without being hot. So I thought about how to get these chilies, and I knew that they weren’t available at my local Asian market. I realized that these chilies are available in bulk at my local Mexican market. I bought a good amount and tried using dried red Japanese chilies in this dish and got the result I was hoping for.
 

The translation of the Japanese chili peppers to Chinese characters is probably not correct. I appended “Japan” to “dried red chili peppers”, so I would appreciate if someone could tell me what the correct translation should be.

Enjoy!

Bean Sauce Pork Belly Stew (燉豆瓣豬腩肉, Dan6 Dau6 Faan6 Zyu1 Naam5 Juk6)

The easiest way to cook pork belly is to make a stew in a slow cooker (also called a crock pot in the USA). Pork belly needs a long cooking time over slow heat in order to become so tender that the pork almost melts in your mouth when eaten. Pork belly can easily be purchased at your local Asian market, and always comes with the skin attached. The pork skin is an integral part to the mouthfeel of the cooked dish and should not be removed. Excess fat, produced from the pork belly during cooking (pork belly is used to make bacon in the USA), needs to be removed when cooking is complete. Prior preparation (i.e. marinating) is not required since the dish’s flavor comes from the sauce; just cut the pork belly into pieces and put into the slow cooker.

I added Lian How brand Bean Sauce to the soy based sauce that is usually the basis for this dish. While the basis of the sauce is soy sauce, the star anise, cassia bark (cinnamon), and rock sugar (among other dry spices) add the traditional flavors to this dish. Tapioca starch is used to thicken the sauce and is added to the slow cooker at the start of cooking, so the completed dish has a thickened sauce at the end of cooking. Corn starch will not thicken the sauce due to the long cooking time. I have previously used tapioca starch as a thickener in long cooking recipes and adopted this method from America’s Test Kitchen.

Enjoy!

Grilled Barbeque Sauce Turkey Breast (燒烤火雞胸肉, Siu1 Haau1 Fo2 Gai1 Hung1 Juk6)

I was able to purchase a single half turkey breast at my local market, rather than having to purchase a whole turkey. Grilling the turkey breast after marinating is my preferred method of cooking. I used an already prepared bottled barbeque sauce made by Koon Chun Sauce Factory that’s added to the marinade in place of hoisin sauce. The taste is fairly similar, so hoisin sauce is definitely a good substitute if you don’t have this particular brand’s bottled sauce. Depending upon the weight and height of the turkey breast, indirect cooking on the grill takes less than an hour. Cooking another turkey half breast at the same time takes no more cooking time on the grill and makes great a source for turkey sandwiches.

Enjoy!

Steamed Black Bean Garlic White Perch (蒜蓉豆豉蒸鱸魚, Syun3 Jung4 Dau6 Si6 Zing1 Lou4 Jyu6)

White perch was available at my local Asian market already cleaned and packaged, meaning that the fish was “freshly dead” (for those fans of Young Frankenstein). A variation on the basic Steamed Fish (蒸魚, Zing¹ Jyu⁶) recipe is to cook the fish with salted black beans and minced garlic as a topping. I chose to use the individual components as a topping, but an already prepared bottled sauce, such as the Lee Kum Kee brand Black Bean Garlic Sauce, can be used instead. The fish is always finished with heated oil and a soy sauce mixture. You can use a small pot or a wok to heat the mixtures, but I’ve been using the microwave to heat the soy sauce mixture. As always, you need to be very careful when you pour heated oil and liquids on the fish, as the hot oil and liquid will pop and splatter off the fish. Finally the cooked fish is topped with green onions and cilantro (optional).

Enjoy!

Abalone Sauce Stone Crab Fried Rice (鮑魚醬石蟹炒飯, Baau1 Jyu4 Zoeng3 Sek6 Haai5 Caau2 Faan6)

This recipe was updated on 26 Aug 2016. The title was changed to incorporate the Cantonese translation for Stone Crab.

My previous recipe: Abalone Sauce Stone Crab Noodles (鮑魚醬蟹炒麵, Baau¹ Jyu⁴ Zoeng³ Haai⁵ Caau² Min⁶), used noodles with stone crab and this recipe is the fried rice version. Abalone sauce is used again as the basis for the sauce in place of the usual oyster sauce that I use in fried rice dishes. Oyster sauce can be substituted in place of abalone sauce if not available.

For me, fried rice dishes usually means leftovers, so this is a rather luxurious version of fried rice using cooked stone crab. The only leftovers in this dish is the rice itself (which is necessary). Regardless, this version of fried rice is tasty and worth the effort to shell the stone crabs to make this dish.

Enjoy!

Steamed Miso Pork Baby Back Ribs (味噌蒸排骨, Mei6 Cang1 Zing1 Paai4 Gwat1)

This is an easy to prepare pork rib recipe using miso paste. Steaming takes only 30 minutes to finish the dish. The pork ribs are marinated beforehand, but this certainly does not have to be done if desired. Serve with some vegetables and rice, and dinner is served!

Enjoy!

Abalone Sauce Stone Crab Noodles (鮑魚醬石蟹炒麵, Baau1 Jyu4 Zoeng3 Sek6 Haai5 Caau2 Min6)

This recipe was updated on 26 Aug 2016. The title was changed to incorporate the Cantonese translation for Stone Crab.

My local Asian market had cooked stone crabs available, so I bought four of them (about 2 lb. (1 kg.) total) and after shelling got about ¾ lb. (375 g.) of meat. My previous crab noodle recipes used Dungeness crabs: Creamy Tomato Dungeness Crab Pasta, Dungeness Crab and Quail Egg Shallot Sauce Noodles (紅蔥鵪鶉蛋蟹麵, Hung⁴ Cung¹ Am¹ Ceon¹ Daan⁶ Haai⁵ Min⁶), and Dungeness Crab Hong Kong Noodles (蟹雲吞麵, Haai⁵ Wan⁴ Tan¹ Min⁶). Unlike Dungeness crabs, stone crabs have very thick and brittle shells that break into small pieces, which makes it very difficult to keep shell pieces out of the crab meat, and hence out of the noodle dish. While stone crabs are tasty, you have to eat this dish carefully to avoid any small shell pieces. Stone crab claws are large (when compared to their body size), so if you like claw meat, stone crabs are for you. Another cooked crab meat can be substituted if stone crabs are not available.

Enjoy!

Hot Bean Sauce Shrimp and Mixed Mushroom Fish Balls with Ground Pork, (辣豆辦菇魚蛋蝦豬肉, Laat6 Dau6 Faan6 Gu1 Jyu4 Daan6 Haa1 Zyu1 Juk6)

This recipe uses the classic Chinese combination of seafood and meat to make this tasty dish. The seafood ingredients are shrimp and fish balls, and the meat is ground pork, together in a spicy bean sauce. The amount of sauce in this dish is also important and is more of a gravy than a sauce (i.e. there’s a lot of sauce!). The amount of sauce is a personal preference, so feel free to adjust the amount by adding less or more of the Shiitake mushroom rehydration liquid, but you’re likely on adding more rather than less.

Enjoy!

Steamed Salted Radish Pork Baby Back Ribs (菜脯蒸排骨, Coi3 Pou2 Zing1 Paai4 Gwat1)

This is an easy to prepare spicy pork rib recipe using salted radish. Salted radish brands from China tend to have some sweetness, together with saltiness, while brands from Thailand are either salty or sweet. Depending upon your preference, pick the brand that suits your tastes. For this dish I chose a salty Thai brand. Steaming takes only 30 minutes to finish the dish. The pork ribs should be marinated beforehand, but this certainly can be omitted if desired. Serve with some vegetables and rice, and dinner is served!

Enjoy!

Chili Paste with Fermented Soy Bean Scallops and Gulf Shrimp (湖南豆豉辣椒帶子蝦, Wu4 Naam4 Dau6 Si6 Laat6 Ziu1 Daai3 Zi2 Haa1)

Gulf shrimp are harvested from the Gulf of Mexico on the southern Gulf Coast in the USA. If you’re fortunate enough to live in that area, the shrimp can be purchased fresh, but if you’re like me, they’re occasionally available frozen or thawed. So when I saw thawed Gulf shrimp available at my local market, I couldn’t resist buying them. These shrimp were on the large size: 16/20, which means that there are 16-20 shrimp per pound (500 g.). Thawed scallops were also available, so I decided to pair the two with a spicy sauce and sugar snap peas. The dish is actually very easy to make and cooks quickly, with the danger being overcooking the shrimp or scallops.

Enjoy!

Chili Oil Bean Curd Chicken and Mixed Mushroom Fish Ball Noodles (紅油腐乳菇魚蛋雞麵, Hung4 Jau4 Fu6 Jyu5 Gu1 Jyu4 Daan6 Gai1 Min6)

Fermented bean curd adds a different flavor to this seafood and chicken noodle dish and is not often used in noodle dishes. I at first thought that fermented bean curd would not go well with and mask the flavor of the fish balls, but I found out that that this is a tasty combination. You of course have to like the taste of fermented bean curd and the brand I used is packed in chili oil, so the noodles are slightly spicy.

Enjoy!

Steamed Chili Paste with Fermented Soy Bean Lemongrass Pork Baby Back Ribs (湖南豆豉辣椒檸檬葉蒸排骨, Wu4 Naam4 Dau6 Si6 Laat6 Ziu1 Ning4 Mung4 Jip6 Zing1 Paai4 Gwat1)

This is an easy to prepare spicy pork rib recipe using chili paste with fermented soy bean and lemongrass. Steaming takes only 30 minutes to finish the dish. The pork ribs do not require any marinating beforehand, but this certainly can be done if desired. Serve with some vegetables and rice, and dinner is served!

Enjoy!

Soy Sauce Chicken Wings with Shiitake Mushrooms (冬菇豉油雞翼, Dung1 Gu1 Si6 Jau4 Gai1 Jik6)

Making this tasty dish is a two-step process, and takes a little more time and work to make (but it’s worth doing). The chicken wings are first poached in a soy sauce solution before being stir fried with the other ingredients. Use the Soy Sauce Chicken (豉油鷄, Si⁶ Jau⁴ Gai¹) or Soy Sauce Chicken Gizzards (豉油鸡胗, Si⁶ Jau⁴ Gai¹ San²) recipes to poach the chicken wings at least one day before stir frying the completed dish. Browning the already soy sauce poached chicken wings in a wok gives the wings an added flavor over just the poached. The poaching liquid is also used in the completed dish’s sauce to further reinforce the flavor.

Enjoy!

Shallot Sauce Scallop, Shrimp, and Chicken (紅蔥帶子蝦雞, Hung4 Cung1 Daai3 Zi2 Haa1 Gai1)

This is a very tasty combination seafood and chicken dish. The use of shallot sauce is not very common, but adds a nice flavor to the seafood and chicken. Black bean garlic sauce would be a more common sauce to use, and can be easily purchased bottled at your local Asian market. The dish takes a little time to prepare if, like me, you use frozen scallops and shrimp. The shrimp need to be thawed overnight in the refrigerator and then marinated for at least an hour. The scallops just need to be thawed overnight.

Enjoy!

Chili Garlic Sauce Ground Pork and Shrimp with Chives (蒜蓉辣椒韭菜豬肉蝦, Syun3 Jung4 Laat6 Ziu1 Gau2 Coi3 Zyu1 Juk6 Haa1)

Ground pork and shrimp make a great taste combination when used together in a dish. The chives add a mild flavor to the shrimp and ground pork combination, while the chili garlic sauce adds the spiciness. So the blended flavors of all ingredients go together to make this tasty dish.

Enjoy!

Sea Cucumber, Shrimp, and Chicken Hong Kong Noodles (海參蝦雞雲吞麵, Hoi2 Sam1 Haa1 Gai1 Wan4 Tan1 Min6)

This is not the typical noodle dish that I would make for an everyday lunch because of the ingredients and effort involved in making it. As with many Chinese dishes, seafood and meat are combined together for a tasty combination. In this case, the seafood is sea cucumber and shrimp, and the meat is chicken. In my experience, sea cucumber was served for special occasions and often at banquets celebrating those occasions. While there wasn’t a special occasion for making this dish, just having sea cucumber in a dish signifies that the meal is out of the ordinary. Sea cucumber is available in the USA either frozen or dried. The dried version takes a few days of preparation, so I prefer using the frozen version. Sea cucumber can be black or white in color, with the black type being more common and the white being less available (and more expensive). There’s no difference in taste that I can detect, so use whatever type is available.

Hong Kong noodles are used to make this dish and, in keeping with a dish that’s out of the ordinary, are specially prepared by forming a disc of noodles, and then making them crispy and slightly burnt for flavor on the outside, while still being soft on the inside. This can be accomplished by using a hot wok to crisp and brown the outsides (which is the method I used) or by baking the noodle disc in a hot oven after spraying oil on the surface. Since crispy noodles are used in this dish, the other ingredients used as the topping are “wet”, meaning that the toppings are contained in a corn starch thickened sauce. Finally, the dish is prepared in reverse from most noodles dishes, in that the noodles are cooked first, followed by the toppings.

Enjoy!

Abalone Sauce Chinese Broccoli Fish (鮑魚醬芥蘭魚, Baau1 Jyu4 Zoeng3 Gaai3 Laan4 Jyu4)

As with any stir fried fish dish, a firm fleshed fish is necessary so that the fish pieces remain intact during cooking. Fresh fish fillets, rather than frozen, are preferable, but frozen fillets will work. Lee Kum Kee brand abalone sauce is used to make this fish dish and is now my preferred brand. The sauce was just recently released for sale in the USA and can be purchased at your local Asian market.

Enjoy!

Chicken and Snow Pea Hong Kong Noodles (荷蘭豆雞炒雲吞麵, Ho4 Laan4 Dau6 Gai1 Caau2 Wan4 Tan1 Min6)

So the idea for this dish was to use ingredients (outside of the noodles) that were roughly the same size. Since snow peas were the principal vegetable in this dish, the other ingredients were chosen to mimic the snow peas visually. So chicken breast was chosen as the cut of meat to use since regular sized strips can be cut from it. If chicken thighs were used, the cut pieces would be more irregular and rectangular, rather than strip-like. Marinated (five-spice) bean curd was chosen because it comes formed in cakes that are approximately 2-inch (5 cm.) squares that can be thinly sliced. The dish is finished with a basic dark soy based sauce that just coats all the ingredients.

Enjoy!

Grilled Chee Hou Sauce Chicken (燒烤柱候鷄, Siu1 Haau1 Cyu5 Hau6 Gai1)

Chee Hou sauce is usually used as a flavoring ingredient in the Beef Flank and Tendon Stew (燜牛筋牛腩, Man¹ Ngau⁴ Gan¹ Ngau⁴ Naam⁵) recipe. The sauce is very similar to hoisin sauce, which can be substituted, but tastes just slightly spicier. For this dish, it is used as part of the marinade for grilled chicken.

Enjoy!

Bean Sauce Sugar Snap Pea Shrimp (豆瓣蜜豆蝦, Dau6 Faan6 Mat6 Dau6 Haa1)

Shrimp with vegetables in a bean sauce is a common dish served in Chinese-American restaurants. Thin strips of carrot always seem to be included in the restaurant dish and are also included in this home cooked version. Coin mushrooms are used in this dish and are so named because the size of these Shiitake mushrooms resembles that of a coin. Coin mushrooms are usually not included in the dish when served at restaurants, but can be added to a home cooked dish where cost is not necessarily a factor in creating the dish. Full-sized Shiitake mushrooms can be substituted (cut into pieces) if coin mushrooms are not available.

Enjoy!

Salted Radish Shrimp Chow Mein (菜脯蝦炒麵, Coi3 Pou2 Haa1 Caau2 Min6)

Salted radish and shrimp make a great taste combination. The crunchiness and saltiness of the radish contrast nicely with the softness and sweetness of the shrimp. In the USA, the names prawn and shrimp are used interchangeably, with prawn usually meaning a large shrimp; either ingredient can be used in this recipe. Baby bok choy adds a nice color contrast to the dish. The baby bok choy is cut into quarters lengthwise, but if the stalks are small, they should be cut in half.

Enjoy!