Chinese Broccoli Beef Heart Hong Kong Noodles (芥蘭牛心炒雲吞麵, Gaai3 Laan4 Ngau4 Sam1 Caau2 Wan4 Tan1 Min6)

My previous noodle recipe using beef hearts, Curry Tomato Beef Heart Chow Mein (咖哩番茄牛心炒麵, Gaa³ Lei¹ Faan¹ Ke⁴ Ngau⁴ Sam¹ Caau² Min⁶), was a variation on a tomato beef curry noodles using chow mein noodles. This recipe uses the thinner Hong Kong noodles (also known as Won Ton Noodles), so the ingredients are cut small to compliment the noodles width, and uses a simple soy based sauce for flavoring. As a reminder, beef hearts have the same texture as chicken gizzards and, of course, taste like beef. You can think of them as a crunchy version of beef. Also since the heart is a muscle, beef hearts do not have an organ taste, for instance, like liver. You can purchase beef hearts at your local Asian market, usually already cut into pieces.

Enjoy!

Grilled Oyster Sauce Capsicum Lamb Chops (燒烤紅油辣椒蠔油羊扒, Siu1 Haau1 Hung4 Jau4 Laat6 Ziu1 Hou4 Jau4 Joeng4 Paa4)

This recipe uses lamb chops marinated overnight with a spicy chili oil and oyster sauce mixture. I use a bottled spicy chili oil that has ground bits of chili made by Ming Teh Food, but you can use any chili oil that’s readily available at your local Asian market. Combining the chili oil with oyster sauce produces a spicy and tasty combination when the lamb chops are grilled. Lamb chops are easily overcooked, so the lamb grilling and smoking time needs to be based upon the heat of your grill and previous experience. The trick is to quickly grill both sides of the lamb over a very hot fire before smoking.

Enjoy!

Oyster Sauce Broccoli Shrimp (蠔油西蘭花蝦, Hou4 Jau4 Sai1 Laan4 Faa1 Haa1)

This dish is an easy to make shrimp dish using oyster sauce and broccoli. I found a method to make shrimp crunchy in dishes, like those found at Chinese restaurants. The method can be found at: How to make shrimp crunchy? | Easy Delicious Recipes: Rasa Malaysia. I modified the method to also marinade the shrimp overnight and omitted the egg whites. I also precook the broccoli florets in the microwave to reduce the stir frying time in the wok.

Enjoy!

Basil Black Bean Chili Sauce Chicken Cabbage Chow Mein (黑豆辣椒紫蘇青椰菜鷄炒麵, Hak1 Dau6 Laat6 Ziu1 Zi2 Sou1 Ceng1 Je4 Coi3 Gai1 Caau2 Min6)

Here’s another variation of the Chicken Cabbage Chow Mein (青椰菜鷄炒麵, Ceng¹ Je⁴ Coi³ Gai¹ Caau² Min⁶) recipe, with basil and slightly spicier sauce. 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 Pepper Sauce Scallops and Chicken (黑椒帶子鷄, Hak1 Ziu1 Daai3 Zi2 Gai1)

Here’s a seafood/meat combination dish using scallops and chicken in a black pepper sauce. I thought about making this with a black bean garlic sauce (which also would have been tasty), but decided that I wanted to make this dish with a different flavored sauce. I also thought about using shrimp, which is a more common combination ingredient, but found scallops available at my local market, so I bought scallops instead of shrimp.

Enjoy!

Basil Oyster Sauce Shrimp (蠔油紫蘇蝦, Hou4 Jau4 Zi2 Sou1 Haa1)

Shrimp and oyster sauce makes a great taste combination, and for this dish, fresh basil leaves are added. Previous recipes also used this shrimp and oyster sauce combination: Oyster Sauce Shrimp with Japanese Chilies (蠔油日本指天椒蝦, Hou⁴ Jau⁴ Jat⁶ Bun² Zi² Tin¹ Ziu¹ Haa¹) and Oyster Sauce Shrimp with String Beans (青豆角蠔油蝦, Ceng¹ Dau⁶ Gok³ Hou⁴ Jau⁴ Haa¹).

Enjoy!

Pork and Mixed Mushroom Fish Ball Stew (燉菇魚蛋豬肉, Dan6 Gu1 Jyu4 Daan6 Zyu1 Juk6)

This is actually a very simple to make slow cooker (aka crock pot in the USA) recipe. The dried ingredients just have to be soaked before it’s assembled in the slow cooker. This is also another seafood-meat combination dish that the Chinese love to make. The fish balls are available packaged in your Asian market’s refrigerator or frozen section. Throw in some vegetables, mushrooms, and bean curd sticks, and you can have a slow cooker stew for dinner by doing the preparation work for cooking in the morning.

In the USA, what are called country-style ribs is actually pork butt (which is actually the pork shoulder) cut into 2-inch (5 cm.) wide strips. The “ribs” are available prepackaged at the supermarket either with- or without the bone. I recommend getting the boneless version to make preparation easier. You can, of course, cut your own “ribs” from the pork butt, but why bother when they’re already available pre-cut. The pork also has fat running through the meat, which should not be removed, as the fat adds to the flavor and texture of the stewed pork when cooked in the slow cooker. In fact, pork prepared in this manner without any visible fat would be very dry after cooking.

Enjoy!

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!