Tag: Chinese

Categories
Main Dish

Sprinkle in something new with peppered beef

Peppered beef is lightly spiced with black pepper and complemented with Asian seasonings and fresh vegetables.
Peppered beef is lightly spiced with black pepper and complemented with Asian seasonings and fresh vegetables.

When my sister and I were growing up, my mom always joked she was going to open a restaurant called “I don’t care,” thanks to the number of times we uttered the phrase when the family was choosing where to eat.

On the occasions when we did care, there were certain places that turned into a bit of a debate for us in the back seat.

I, for one, loved going to a good Chinese buffet. My sister, not so much.

On the rare occasions I would convince her that, yes, she would find plenty to eat that suited her tastes, one of my favorite food items to grab was some peppered beef. The combination of steak with sauteed peppers and onions was (and still is) one of my favorites.

I was reminded of those trips this week when I decided to try making some peppered beef in my own kitchen, and I have to say that it turned out great.

This comes from the blog “Kitchen Sanctuary” by Nicky Corbishley. You can find the original post at https://www.kitchensanctuary.com/black-pepper-beef/. I added extra garlic to my version.

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Peppered Beef

Peppered beef is lightly spiced with black pepper and complemented with Asian seasonings and fresh vegetables.
Course Main Course
Cuisine Chinese
Keyword bell pepper, black pepper, fish sauce, garlic, ginger, oyster sauce, rice wine vinegar, sesame oil, soy sauce, steak, yellow onion

Ingredients

  • 1 pound steak sliced thinly (I used charcoal steak)
  • 2 teaspoons black pepper or more, to taste
  • salt to taste
  • 4 tablespoons oil I used canola
  • 1 teaspoon sesame oil
  • 1 large onion cut into quarter-inch strips
  • 2 large bell peppers cut into quarter-inch strips (any color)
  • 2 tablespoons cornstarch
  • 2 tablespoons soy sauce
  • 2 tablespoons fish sauce or oyster sauce
  • 1 tablespoon rice wine vinegar
  • 1/2 cup beef stock or broth
  • 4 to 6 cloves garlic minced
  • 1 teaspoon fresh ginger minced
  • rice for serving

Instructions

  • Season the sliced steak with the black pepper and salt.
  • In a wok or deep frying pan, heat the canola and sesame oils over high heat. Once the pan is hot, add the steak and fry for a couple minutes, until it is browned, stirring constantly.
  • Remove the steak from the pan and turn the heat to medium. If there isn’t much oil left in the pan, add another tablespoon of canola oil and toss in the onions and peppers.
  • Saute for several minutes until they reach your desired level of tenderness.
  • While the vegetables cook, combine the cornstarch, soy sauce, fish/oyster sauce, rice wine vinegar, beef stock and more black pepper (to taste) in a small bowl. Stir to combine.
  • Once your vegetables are cooked through, add the garlic and ginger to the pan and saute for about two minutes.
  • Add the sauce from the bowl, along with the steak (and any accumulated juices) to the pan, and stir to coat the vegetables and meat with the sauce. Turn the heat to medium-low and cook for another couple of minutes until the sauce thickens and everything is heated through.
  • Serve over rice.

Joey raved about how good this meal was all during dinner. It was peppery without being overly spicy, and the sauce was fantastic. I ended up doubling the recipe for plenty of leftovers later in the week, which was a great move. Who doesn’t like leftover Chinese food?

Actually, I can tell you one person who isn’t a fan of Chinese food—fresh or left over. Or at least that was true. After we were both adults, my sister and I were spending an afternoon together, and when it came time for us to decide what to grab for lunch, she suggested a nearby Chinese restaurant.

“I thought you hated Chinese food?!” I told her, remembering all of our backseat battles.

She just shrugged.

“I guess I got over it,” she said.

Sisters…am I right?

This piece first appeared in print on Jan. 20, 2022.

Spice Up Your Life is a weekly newspaper column written by Lindsey Young in south central Kansas. If you are interested in sponsoring this column, please contact us through the “Contact Lindsey” link at the top of the page.

Categories
Main Dish

Making steamed buns will make you want to take a ‘bao’

Bao are steamed buns, originally from China, that are perfect to stuff with any of your favorite fillings.
Bao are steamed buns, originally from China, that are perfect to stuff with any of your favorite fillings.

There are so many specialty kitchen items that I refuse to buy. 

It’s not that I don’t see the convenience factor in owning a cherry pitter or a banana slicer for the few times a year I need them, but I just don’t have the room to store them.

That was how I felt about owning a bamboo steamer. Sure, there were recipes I would love to try that required one, but I just couldn’t justify owning (and storing) one.

But then I tried bao.

Bao (pronounced “bow,” as in rhymes with “cow) are Chinese steamed buns. According to the “A Dumpling Thing” blog, they’ve been around for centuries, and while many people call them bao buns, the word bao translates to “bun” already (much like the word “ramen” means “noodles”), so you can just say bao.

Traditionally, bao is served with pork dishes, but today, there are tons of fillings put into these soft, light buns that are folded in half, kind of like a taco, ready for pretty much anything to go inside.

I will warn you that the bao process is time consuming—just like making any fresh bread—but it’s really fun to see them emerge from your steamer, knowing you accomplished something new.

This week’s recipe is going to come at you in a two-parter. This week, I’m going to tell you how I made bao. Next week, I’ll give you a great recipe for the filling I used.

The original recipe for both parts (if you don’t want to wait), can be found on the blog “Kitchen Sanctuary” by Nicky Corbishley. You can find her post at https://www.kitchensanctuary.com/korean-chicken-bao. I clarified some of the directions below, based on what worked for me.

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Bao (Steamed Buns)

Bao are steamed buns, originally from China, that are perfect to stuff with any of your favorite fillings.
Course Main Course
Cuisine Chinese
Keyword Asian, bamboo steamer, bao, Korean, steamed buns

Ingredients

  • 3 3/4 cups flour plus more for kneading
  • 2 tablespoons sugar
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 2 teaspoons instant yeast
  • 3 tablespoons milk
  • 1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons warm water
  • 3 tablespoons butter melted
  • 1 tablespoon olive oil

Instructions

  • Combine the flour, sugar, salt and yeast in a mixing bowl.
  • In another small bowl, add the milk, water and butter, stirring until everything is well combined.
  • Stir the liquids into the flour mixture until the dough starts to come together, then turn the dough out onto a floured countertop and knead for about 10 minutes. (Or use a stand mixer with a dough hook.)
  • Spray a bowl with cooking spray and place the dough in it, covering with plastic wrap or a damp towel, letting it rise for about 90 minutes or until the dough doubles in size.
  • Once it is doubled, dump it out onto a floured countertop again, knead it briefly, and split it into 20 even balls.
  • Cut some parchment paper into rectangles—about 2.5 by 3.5 inches—one for each ball, and roll the balls out into an oval shape about the same dimensions as the piece of parchment.
  • Once the dough is rolled out, brush each oval with the olive oil.
  • Place a chopstick or bamboo skewer in the middle of each oval (this will leave a little bit of an empty spot in the dough when you slide it out) and fold it over.
  • Leaving the dough on the parchment, position them into the trays of a bamboo steamer, covering each section with plastic wrap or a damp towel, and letting them rise for an hour.
  • To steam the buns, boil a few inches of water in a skillet that is large enough to fit your bamboo steamer. You want just enough water that it will come up on the sides of the steamer but not actually touch the buns in the bottom section.
  • Once the water is boiling, place the steamer basket in the pan and steam the buns for 10 minutes.
  • Carefully remove the steamer basket and serve the bao immediately with your favorite fillings.

These were delicious fresh. They’re a very neutral-tasting bread, so they don’t compete with whatever filling you decide to put inside. They’re also a great texture—light and fluffy. Honestly, you just have to try them to really understand them.

For reheating, I’d recommend wrapping them in a damp paper towel and warming them in the microwave. Otherwise, they get kind of tough.

And now that I own a bamboo steamer (that I luckily found at our local second-hand shop), I can make bao whenever I have the time and patience to do so.

I still don’t know where I’m going to store the thing, but I figure that’s a problem for another time. Right now, I have some steamed buns to eat.

This piece first appeared in print on Sept. 30, 2021.

Spice Up Your Life is a weekly newspaper column written by Lindsey Young in south central Kansas. If you are interested in sponsoring this column, please contact us through the “Contact Lindsey” link at the top of the page.

Categories
Crockpot Main Dish

Don’t let me ‘cashew’ skipping this recipe

Cashew chicken finishes cooking in the crockpot and features great flavors as well as a wonderful, nutty crunch.
Cashew chicken finishes cooking in the crockpot and features great flavors as well as a wonderful, nutty crunch.

If you’re bored and want to blow your mind sometime, I highly recommend doing a quick web search for how cashews grow.

I have assumed for a long time that cashews, just grow inside a normal shell and look pretty much like a walnut or a peanut. But they don’t. At all.

Instead, the nut, which hails from Brazil, grows like a little tail off the bottom of a cashew apple. According to an article by Matthew Baron, people thought cashews were poisonous for a long time, because their shell contains a skin irritant—kind of like poison ivy.

Baron points out that, for that reason, you can’t actually buy unshelled cashews. I had never really considered that I haven’t ever cracked open a cashew before.

I started thinking about cashews this week, because Joey forwarded me a social media post with a recipe for cashew chicken and asked if I would be willing to add it to my experiment list. I, of course, obliged, and the results were great.

I don’t have a source for this recipe. It’s one of those that has been out circulating on Facebook, and the original author hasn’t been included. I did adjust the garlic and ginger for my version, though.

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Cashew Chicken

Cashew chicken finishes cooking in the crockpot and features great flavors as well as a wonderful, nutty crunch.
Course Main Course
Cuisine Chinese
Keyword cashew, chicken, crockpot

Ingredients

  • 2 pounds boneless chicken breasts or thighs
  • 1/4 cup flour
  • 1/2 to 1 teaspoon black pepper
  • 1 tablespoon canola oil
  • 1/4 cup soy sauce
  • 2 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
  • 2 tablespoons ketchup
  • 1 tablespoon brown sugar
  • 4 garlic cloves minced
  • 1/2 rounded teaspoon ginger
  • 1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
  • 1/2 cup cashews

Instructions

  • Cut the chicken into about one-inch chunks. Combine the flour and black pepper in a large Ziploc, and add the chicken. Seal the bag and shake to evenly coat the chicken in the flour and pepper mixture.
  • Heat the canola oil over medium heat in a skillet and add the coated chicken, sauteing until it’s browned. (Don’t worry about whether it’s cooked through; it’s going to go into a crockpot next.)
  • Place the browned chicken into a crockpot.
  • In a bowl, whisk together the soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, ketchup, brown sugar, garlic, ginger and red pepper flakes and then pour over the chicken in the crockpot.
  • Cook for four hours on low heat.
  • Mix in the cashews, and serve over rice or lo mein noodles.

This was absolutely delicious. The cashews added a nice crunch, and the sauce was awesome. It was just the right amount of sweet and not spicy at all.

This is also really easy to double, which is what we did, and the leftovers heat up really nicely in the microwave.

And I was excited to have some leftover cashews in my pantry to snack on. Apparently, they’re a lot more interesting than I ever knew and have come a long way from being a “poisonous” nut on a tree to hanging out in my crockpot.

This piece first appeared in print on Nov. 19, 2020.

Spice Up Your Life is a weekly newspaper column written by Lindsey Young in south central Kansas. If you are interested in sponsoring this column, please contact us through the “Contact Lindsey” link at the top of the page.

Categories
Main Dish Side Dish

For dinner tonight, choose to go with the grain

Hibachi-style fried rice is easy to create and simple to alter, depending on what's sitting in your refrigerator.
Hibachi-style fried rice is easy to create and simple to alter, depending on what’s sitting in your refrigerator.

Over the years, I have to confess that I have tended to order off of the side dishes part of the menu for a lot of my meals.

Particularly at Chinese restaurants, I’ve been known to just buy an order of fried rice for lunch and skip over the entrees completely. It’s one of my favorite things.

According to an article by Rhonda Parkinson, the recipe for fried rice literally goes back centuries in China and likely came about sometime during the Sui Dynasty, which lasted from 589 to 618 A.D.

The “proper” way to make it is the subject of a lot of debate online if you want to jump into the fray. People differ on the seasonings, the vegetables, what meats are or are not added, and even at what point in the process an egg should be added.

So when I made fried rice to go along with dinner recently, I just chose a recipe that sounded good to try and went with it, fully recognizing that I probably wasn’t accomplishing something “authentic.” But in the grand scheme of things, it was delicious, so I wasn’t too worried if someone in the Sui Dynasty would have recognized my concoction as close to their own.

The recipe I tried comes from the blog “Kitchen Swagger” by Shawn Williams. You can find the original post at https://kitchenswagger.com/hibachi-style-fried-rice-recipe/. I added extra garlic powder to my version, and I realized after starting that I was out of peas, so those ended up being left out by necessity (they’ll definitely get added next time). I also updated the directions a bit.

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Hibachi-Style Fried Rice

Hibachi-style fried rice is easy to create and simple to alter, depending on what's sitting in your refrigerator.
Course Side Dish
Cuisine Chinese
Keyword fried rice, Hibachi, rice, takeout

Ingredients

  • 1 tablespoon canola or vegetable oil
  • 1/4 cup carrots diced
  • 1/4 cup peas
  • 1/2 cup onion diced (I used yellow)
  • 2 cups white rice prepared
  • 2 tablespoons low-sodium soy sauce
  • 3 tablespoons butter or margarine
  • 1 teaspoon garlic powder
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • 1 egg beaten

Instructions

  • In a large skillet, heat the oil over medium heat and add the carrots, peas and onion. Saute them for several minutes or until the vegetables are to your desired tenderness.
  • Add the rice to the skillet and stir to combine. Then add the soy sauce, butter, garlic powder and salt and pepper to the skillet and keep stirring so everything is well combined and the butter fully melts.
  • For the last step, slide the rice out of the way and dump in your beaten egg, stirring constantly for a couple minutes until it’s cooked through, and stir it into the rest of the rice mixture.
  • Serve.

We really enjoyed this, and I even made it fancy by packing the rice into a small ramekin and then upturning it onto the plates to make uniform mounds of yummy fried rice on our plates.

I also did technically pick a side on the egg debate. I once listened to a chef who said the egg should be added last, because that keeps it from getting too dry and overcooked, and I thought that made enough sense to make it my practice.

The best part about the history of fried rice, in my opinion, is that it’s really just an excuse to use up whatever you still have laying around your kitchen, so adding other veggies or even some protein is completely within the realm of possibility. In fact, a lot of people argue that day-old rice is the only way to make fried rice taste perfect.

Also, if you want to speed up this process, grab a bag of frozen peas and carrots and use that instead of having to cut up your own veggies.

And if you don’t want to make an entree to go with your fried rice, go ahead and eat it as your main dish for dinner. After doing enough research, I can tell you that the only rule with fried rice is that there really aren’t any rules.

This piece first appeared in print on May 14, 2020.

Spice Up Your Life is a weekly newspaper column written by Lindsey Young in south central Kansas. If you are interested in sponsoring this column, please contact us through the “Contact Lindsey” link at the top of the page.

Categories
Main Dish

Orange chicken for dinner makes for happy ‘peelings’

Baked orange chicken can be made from scratch at home to create the same awesome flavors as the classic takeout dish.
Baked orange chicken can be made from scratch at home to create the same awesome flavors as the classic takeout dish.

My normal mode for making dinner is to keep it simple. If I find a recipe that takes too many steps or too much waiting in between steps, I skip right over it.

What I do tend to do to myself on a regular basis, though, is to make dinner more complicated than it should have been by having way too many ideas to execute at once.

Such was the case a few nights ago, when I started with wanting to make a recipe for orange chicken, which my sister sent over, ranting and raving about how good it was, and finished by also making from-scratch fried rice and a Japanese clear onion soup.

I began making dinner at around 5 p.m., and Joey didn’t have a plate in front of him until after 7. At least he’s used to my idiosyncrasies, and since the meal was amazing, there were no complaints on his end.

The orange chicken recipe comes from the blog “Dinner, then Dessert,” written by Sabrina Snyder. You can find the original post at https://dinnerthendessert.com/baked-orange-chicken/. I added extra garlic in my version, substituted dried ginger for fresh, and updated the directions a bit for clarity.

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Baked Orange Chicken

Baked orange chicken can be made from scratch at home to create the same awesome flavors as the classic takeout dish.
Course Main Course
Cuisine Chinese
Keyword baked, orange chicken, take out

Ingredients

  • 2 pounds boneless skinless chicken thighs
  • 1/2 cup flour
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 cup breadcrumbs or panko
  • cooking spray
  • 1 tablespoon vegetable or canola oil
  • 1 tablespoon dried ginger
  • 6 to 8 cloves minced garlic
  • 1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
  • 1 tablespoon cornstarch
  • 2 tablespoons white wine or rice wine
  • 1/4 cup fresh-squeezed orange juice
  • 1 teaspoon sesame oil
  • 3 tablespoons low-sodium soy sauce
  • 10 tablespoons sugar
  • 10 tablespoons white vinegar
  • zest of one orange

Instructions

  • Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Prepare a large, rimmed baking sheet by lining it with aluminum foil.
  • Cut the chicken thighs into one-inch, bite-sized pieces.
  • Set up three bowls. In the first bowl, add the flour. (I ended up needing a lot more than the 1/2 cup, so be prepared to add more if necessary.) In the second bowl, beat the eggs with a fork. (I also had to add an additional egg by the end of my preparation.) In the third bowl, add the breadcrumbs. (If you’re using panko, run it through a food processor to get it into smaller bits, and again, be prepared to add some extra if necessary.)
  • Dip the chicken into the flour, then the egg and then the breadcrumbs and then place on the baking sheet. Try to keep the pieces from touching each other, but don’t worry about crowding the pan.
  • Spray the coated chicken with cooking spray and bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until the chicken is golden brown.
  • For the sauce, heat one tablespoon vegetable oil in a saucepan over medium heat. Add the garlic and red peppers and stir, sauteing for about 30 seconds.
  • Add the rest of the ingredients, and bring the mixture up to a slow boil, stirring continuously. Once the mixture starts to thicken, remove the sauce from the heat.
  • Once the chicken is finished, toss it in the sauce to coat it and serve.

This was amazing. It tasted just like takeout orange chicken from our favorite Chinese restaurant, so we were really happy with it. It does have a nice, spicy kick to it, so if you’re spice adverse, I’d recommend leaving out the red pepper flakes just to be safe.

We also really enjoyed this as leftovers later in the week, just like real Chinese takeout.

I’m planning on giving you the side dishes the next two weeks if you want to recreate my meal. It was all awesome and paired together nicely.

Really, it all should have come together more quickly if I would have planned ahead, but despite my best efforts, it seems like every recipe ends up taking longer than it should have.

At least I tend to enjoy my time in the kitchen, and especially, the fruits of my labor.

This piece first appeared in print on May 7, 2020.

Spice Up Your Life is a weekly newspaper column written by Lindsey Young in south central Kansas. If you are interested in sponsoring this column, please contact us through the “Contact Lindsey” link at the top of the page.

Categories
Main Dish Side Dish

Egg rolls in a bowl will get you ‘egg-cited’

To cut out the fried aspect of traditional egg rolls, try egg rolls in a bowl instead.
To cut out the fried aspect of traditional egg rolls, try egg rolls in a bowl instead.

When we were kids, my sister and I often had conflicts over our favorite places to eat. Any time I was in the mood to visit the Chinese buffet, she balked, claiming she hated Chinese food.

If my parents were kind enough to push the issue and decide to go anyway, she always seemed to find plenty to eat, but it was still a struggle to convince her every time.

It was a few years ago that she mentioned going to eat Chinese food with her husband, and I was shocked to learn that she now has a taste for it.

I tried to convince her she owes me compensation, but she seems to think that her acts of denying me Chinese food all those years isn’t that big of a deal. I guess some childhood feuds never end.

Now that I can get Chinese food whenever the mood strikes, I’m a huge fan of egg rolls. There’s something about the seasoned meat combined with some slightly crunchy cabbage that always seems perfect.

Of course, the fried outer shell is less than perfect as far as calorie consumption is concerned, which is why I was very interested in trying a recipe that keeps all the goodies from the inside but gets rid of the egg roll wrapper completely.

The recipe I tried is from the blog “Mostly Homemade Mom.” You can find her post at https://www.mostlyhomemademom.com/eggroll-in-bowl/. I increased the amount of garlic and ginger and added pepper.

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Egg Roll in a Bowl

To cut out the fried aspect of traditional egg rolls, try egg rolls in a bowl instead.
Course Main Course, Side Dish
Cuisine Chinese
Keyword cabbage, egg roll, sausage

Ingredients

  • 1 pound ground sausage
  • 8 to 10 cloves minced garlic
  • 1 teaspoon ground ginger
  • 1/2 cup low-sodium soy sauce
  • ground pepper to taste
  • 1 bag dry coleslaw mix
  • one bunch green onion sliced

Instructions

  • In a large skillet, brown and drain the sausage over medium heat, crumbling it as it cooks.
  • While the sausage cooks, combine the garlic, ginger, soy sauce and pepper in a small bowl and set aside.
  • Add the cabbage/carrot mix and stir it to combine it with the sausage.
  • Dump the sauce mixture over the top of the sausage and cabbage and stir. Let the mixture heat through for about five minutes. The cabbage will still be pretty crunchy. If you’d rather have it softer, place a lid on the pan and check it every five minutes until it reaches the level of wilted you’d like.
  • Top with the sliced green onions and serve.

I really liked this recipe. The increase in ginger and the addition of pepper did kick up the spice level just a tiny bit, so if that’s not your cup of tea, you might back those off.

Also, while this did reheat fairly well as leftovers, it left quite a bit of juice in the bottom of the storage container, which let the cabbage get soggy quickly, so I wouldn’t leave it in the refrigerator for too many days before finishing it off.

Eating an egg roll in a bowl wasn’t as good as the real thing (I mean, when you take away the fried dough part, how could it be?), but it satisfied a craving, and it was easy to make, which I appreciated.

My younger self would have been glad to see that I was getting to enjoy one of my favorite things. I think I’ll take this dish to a family potluck, just to see if my sister enjoys it, too. I’ll try not to take it personally if she doesn’t like it—and especially if she does.

This piece first appeared in print on May 2, 2019.

Spice Up Your Life is a weekly newspaper column written by Lindsey Young in south central Kansas. If you are interested in sponsoring this column, please contact us through the “Contact Lindsey” link at the top of the page.

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