十全十美 素十錦 (Ten Ingredient Vegetable)

This is another New Year dish I cook once a year.  There are 10 different vegetables in this disk symbolizing "perfect 10" for good luck.  Each family may use different vegetable as long as you can find 10 different ones.  All the vegetables are chopped into thin strips, so there is a lot of chopping and preparation.  Since I only do it once a year, I usually make a big tray (see the picture!), I will share with my relatives and friends and bring good luck to everyone!

Ingredients:

1. Celery 1 bundle (either Chinese celery or American celery is fine.  I used Chinese celery this year, but I actually like America celery better)
2. Soy Bean Sprouts 1/2 lb
3. Carrots 2
4. 百葉 (thin soy sheet) 4 oz
5. 蒜苗 (Chinese leeks) 3
6. Dry Mushroom 10
7. Bamboo shoot 1 (medium size)
8. 金針菜 (lily flowers) 1/3 cup
9. 木耳 (black wood ears) 1 cup
10. bean curbs 2 squares

Preparation:

1. Soak mushrooms, wood ears and lily flowers for 2 hours
2. Cut 百葉 (4) into 1 in x 1/4 in stripes and  put them in a big bowl of cold water.  Add 1TB 雪鹼水 (sodium carbonate water) in the water.  Take 百葉 out when it turns white and is easy to tear apart, probably 20-30 minutes.  Rinse it thoroughly with cold water.  Don't soak it too long, because it will be too soft.
3. Cut celery into 1.5 inch long strips, remove the long roots of the soy bean spouts (wash them first).

4. Peel the skin of carrots, shred the carrots (3), slice the bamboo shoots (7).  This year, 99 Ranch Market has fresh bamboos for sale with reasonable price.  It is pretty hard to find fresh bamboo any other place, so the frozen one or the canned one are good too.
5. Slice the bean curb horizontally to 4 pieces, then cut them into thin strips (10).
6. Wash black mushrooms, wood ears and lily flowers.  Cut the tip of the lily flowers (8), then cut each one in two half.  Slice black mushrooms (6) and wood ears (9)
7. Chinese leek (蒜苗) is only available during new year time in Chinese supermarkets in LA or other big cities.  I usually use scallions instead.  It just adds some green color to the dish.  But Chinese leek has its own strong flavor and it is a good addition to this dish. Slice the white part of the leek open, then cut it in diagonal direction into thin strips.

Steps:
You need a BIG wok to cook this dish.  Cooking part is easy after you are done with all the chopping.

1. Heat 1TB oil, add 0.5 tsp salt, stir fry soy bean spouts for 5 minutes.  The soy bean on the spout takes a while to cook, you need to taste it and make sure they are cooked.  Take the soy bean spouts out and put them in a big serving tray.
2. Heat 2TB oil, add 0.5 tsp salt, stir fry carrots and celery until carrots are soft. Take them out and put into the big tray.
3. Heat 3TB oil, add 1/2 tsp salt, stir fry black mushrooms for 1 minute, add bamboo shoots, lily flowers, bean curbs and wood ears.  Add 1TB soy sauce, 1TB oyster sauce, 1.5 tsp sugar to season.  Mixed them well for several minutes, add 百葉 and Chinese leek toward the end, continue stir fry until Chinese leek become soft.  
4. Add soy bean spout, carrots, and celery back in, mix them together.  Taste again, if not enough flavor, add a little more salt or soy sauce.  Add 1tsp sesame oil before you take it out.

You can eat this dish cold.  No need to reheat.   It will be fresh for a week in refrigerator.  You can replace any of the ingredients by your favorite Chinese vegetable as long as it doesn't have a lot of juice and it can be sliced into 1.5 inch strips.

Wish everybody a perfect new year!

Sticky rice cake with mustard greens (雪菜炒年糕, 薺菜炒年糕)

Today is the new year's eve (2/2).  When I was a child, we would have a family reunion and a big feast.  After dinner, we would pay respect to our ancestors, gamble with dices, and get red envelops from our parents.  Since it is a workday and it is in US, my husband and I just had a quiet dinner with take out food in front of TV.  This weekend, I will have a Chinese New Year feast with friends.  年糕 (rice cake) sounds like "getting higher every year" is the dish I cook every Chinese New Year.  This recipe is from my mom.  Last weekend, Christina called me and asked me how to make this dish because she has a pot luck tomorrow (new year's day) and she wants to make this dish.  So, I wrote down the recipe and found a picture from last year.   I will post some more New Year dishes after this weekend's dinner :).  See note at the end for another traditional Shanghai-style rice cake dish, 薺菜炒年糕.

 Ingredients:

1.  雪菜 1 box (pickled mustard greens, see product image to the right)

2.  lean pork 1/2 lb
3.  dry black mushrooms 8 pieces
4.  bamboo shoots (canned, frozen, or fresh) few pieces
5.  Chinese Bock Choy (小白菜）1 bundle
6.  rice cake (1.5lb, pre-sliced, vacuumed package, any Korean brand, see product image below)
7.  chicken broth 1 can

Preparation:

1. First, if you can't find pickled mustard green, you can make it yourself.  Buy a bundle of fresh mustard green (小芥菜), wash them thoroughly.  Slice them first along the same direction of the leaves into strips, then chop  orthogonally into small pieces.  Put them in a big bowl, sprinkle salt generously and mix the salt in.  After you are done with all the leaves，use both your palms, hold a handful of green leaves and shuffle them (用手搓) until the leave turn darker (the salt got into the leave and liquid start to come out). Do the same to all the leaves.  Then put the leaves in a big glass jar, seal it and put it in the refrigerator for a day or two and it is ready to use.
2. Put the dry rice cake in a big bowl (or sink) and submerge them in water.  Separate the pieces if they are stuck together
3. slice lean pork into thin stripes and marinate them with corn starch, soy sauce and salt
4. soften the dry mushrooms in water for one hour, remove the stems and slice them into thin slices
5. cut the bamboo shoots into thin stripes
6. Wash Chinese Bock Choy and cut them into inch-long pieces

Steps:

1. Stir fry pork until cooked, take them out.
2. Add 3TB vegetable oil, stir fry mushroom and bamboo shoots, add salt and soy sauce (if you have light soy sauce 生抽, use that), then squeeze  the water from mustard greens (taste it first, if it is too salty, you can use water to rinse it first.  Also, if it is salty, don't add salt to mushroom), add mustard greens in the wok and mix it with mushroom and bamboo.  Add 1 tb sugar.  At last, put the pork back in and turn off the heat.  Don't stir fry mustard greens too long, it will turn yellow.  Also, add soy sauce before you put mustard greens in, you want it look green, not brown.  Take out everything.
3. Add more vegetable oil, probably another 2TB, add 1 tb salt, then add Chinese Bock Choy and stir fry it until it start to get soft.  Now, drain the water from the rice cake and pour in the rice cakes.  Stir it frequently and don't let them stick to the wok.  Add chicken broth (probably half can) gradually and keep stir fry it.  I used to put one can of chicken soup and cover it up.  I found out the rice cakes would be too sticky.  So, don't put too much at the beginning, if they are too hard and chewy, add a little more at a time.  Add salt and pepper to the taste.  When the rice cake turn soft, add #2 in and mix well.  (#2 could be too much for one bag of rice cake.  You can put 2/3 in and make 雪菜肉絲麵 with the remaining :-)

Add some sesame oil before you remove them from the wok.
Happy Chinese New Year!

Note-  If we substitute Chinese Spinach (薺菜, see product picture to the right) for mustard greens and Chinese Bok Choy, we get another traditional Shanghai-style rice cake dish, 薺菜炒年糕.  Chinese Spinach came in a frozen package.  Immerse the frozen vegetable in water for an hour or two. Defrost, cut off stem roots, rinse thoroughly, mince, and then stir-fry as we stir-fried the mustard greens.

婆婆從前這樣做臘肉

1. 三磅五花肉洗淨擦乾
2. 切成約一寸半厚度的肉六長條
3. 鑽洞穿繩後待用
4. 這時將四分之一杯粗鹽加八分之一杯花椒在乾鍋裡大火炒香後磨碎,(我還加兩茶匙的sweet paprika 目的是取它的紅色), 拌勻後抹在肉條上
5. 放入密封容器中後在冰箱中醃一或兩夜
6. 太陽好的時後拿出來曬太陽
7. 早出晚歸(冰箱)三五天後即可存入冰箱或冰櫃. (瘦肉曬過頭了就會太木了,不好吃.)

前日我們蒸了一些嚐味道, 還不錯.
最主要是享受那早晚搬肉出入的趣味, 絕對比陶侃搬磚好玩. 不信? 你也試試??

湯種麵包

湯種
Mix 5/8 Cup water with ¼ Cup bread flour, cook over low heat till 65C (150F), remove from heat and let sit in refrigerator overnight.
麵包
Add 2 small eggs, 4TBS butter, 1/4C milk to湯種, and mix well.
Then, add 4 ½ Cup bread flour (or 1 ½ Cup whole wheat flour plus 3 Cup bread flour), 1/3 Cup sugar, dash of salt, 4TBS milk, 1 TBS yeast, mix and knead into a smooth dough. Cover with Saran wrap and keep it at ~85F.
Raise the dough till double in size.
Add 1Cup raisin (or your favorite dry fruit) and ½ Cup of walnut (or any nuts).
Put the dough into bread pan or cake pan and let it rise again.
Before baking, brush on some egg white to make a hard and golden top crust. Also, you may sprinkle on some oatmeal too.
Bake at 300F for 30 minutes.

Been Sprouts and Chive Stir-Fried with Bean Curd (綠豆芽韭菜炒豆腐乾)

This is another simple 10 minute vegetable dish I made often, no fat, no sugar, and not much calories, should be appealing to my health conscientious friends :)

Ingredients:
Bean Spouts  1lb
Bean Curd 2 pcs (褔臨門五香豆乾）
Chives (韭菜), or scallions (1/4 bunch)
Salt, light soy sauce, and oyster sauce

Steps:
1. Wash bean spouts.  If you have time and you are a fancy cook, take off the root part of the spouts, this is very time consuming, I usually have no time to do that.
2. slice the bean curd horizontally into four slices, then cut them into small strips.
3. Wash chives(韭菜) thoroughly.  Make sure there is no dirt in between the leaves. Cut the 1/4  inch tip of the white part off (if they look fresh, just keep them), then cut them into 1.5 inch length pieces. If you don't like leeks, or you don't have them handy, use scallions, 3 pieces (3 根), slice them into 蔥絲。 First you cut the white part of the scallion into two half, then you cut diagonally to make them thin strips.
4. Heat 2 Tbsp of vegetable oil in the wok, add 1/4 tsp of salt in the oil, then add bean spouts and bean curds in.  Stir fry it for 2-3 minutes until the bean spouts turn transparent.  They should be crunchy, not soft.  Add some oyster sauce (蠔油）(1Tbsp) and some light soy sauce (1 Tbsp).
5. Add leeks (or scallions) in, stir fry for another minute.  Turn off heat, season to taste (by adding 1/4 tsp of salt a time), and serve.  Note- You don't want to over cook leek, but if it is too raw, it doesn't taste good.  When it becomes soft and the color becomes darker, it is about done.

兩道簡單的家常菜－ 番茄炒蛋 and 番茄蛋花湯

Here are two quick and easy to make Chinese dishes.  番茄炒蛋 is the first dish I taught my kids (and my husband) to make.  It only takes 10 minutes and is a perfect dish to make when you go home tired and hungry and found nothing edible in the refrigerator :)

Ingredients:
2 medium size tomatoes
4 eggs
1 scallion
a little salt, sugar, soy sauce and vegetable oil

Steps:
1. beat the eggs in a big bowl, add 1/2 tb salt.
2. chop tomotos into small 1 inch size chunks (I usually cut it in half, then cut each half into 4 or 6 wedges, then cut the wedges in half.
3. cut the scallions into small pieces (蔥花）
4. Heat 2 TB oil in the wok or a pan, when oil is hot, pour eggs into the oil and stir it quickly.  Take it out in 10 seconds (or even shorter depending on how hot your oil is) when the egg is still half running.  It is important that you take the eggs out before it become solid. 
5. Heat 1 TB oil in the wok, put tomatoes and scallions in, add a pinch of salt, stir fry them until the juice from the tomatoes come out (about 2-3 minutes).
6. Put in the eggs and add 1/2 tb sugar and 1 tb soy sauce, stir them well, take it away from the heat immediately and serve.  You have to do this step quick, do not let the eggs become solid.  The trick is to keep the eggs soft and a little running.  The eggs in the picture is already a little over done.   You may need some practice to get it right, but no matter what, it tastes good.  BTW, the suger and soy sauce is my secret weapon,  it really enhance the flavor of this dish.

Another similar dish I would like to show you (but I don't have a picture) is tomato egg flower soup 番茄蛋花湯.  This one is even easier than the one above.  You can make it in a cold rainy day, it will warm your heart.  But you probably don't want to make these two dishes together in the same meal :)

Ingredients:
2 tomatoes
1 egg (2 if you really like eggs)
1 scallion
1 can of chicken broth

Steps:
1. chop the tomatos as above, but I usually chop them in bigger pieces (save the last step)
2. beat the egg thoroughly (make sure the egg white is mixed well with the egg yoke)
3. chop scallion into small pieces
4. Heat 1 TB oil  in the wok, stir fry tomatos for 2 minutes, add 1tb salt
5. Add chicken broth and 3 cups of water, cover until it is boiling
6. pour in eggs slowly and use the 鍋鏟 (how do we call it in English?) in circular motion. turn off the heat right away
7. add scallion and some sesame oil.
Taste the soup, if it is not salty enough, you can add a little light soy sauce or salt.

肉絲炒米粉 (Stir Fry Rice Noodle)

I have a party today and I made a big plate of 炒米粉 (mi fen).  I fed 20+ guests and  everybody loved it.  The ingredients below is half of the portions I made today.  It should be good for 5-6 people as a main dish.  By the way,  everything is just estimate, you can add or reduce based on your preference.

There is a lot of chopping and preparation for this dish.  So, it is a little complicated.  You don't need to use all the ingredients, or you can replace some of them based on what's available in your refrigerator.  For instance, I like to use 金針菜。Sometimes, I use onions instead of cabbage.  They all taste good.

Ingredients:

新竹米粉半包 （L&W Rice Sticks 8 oz half package)
lean pork   1/4 lb
dry mushrooms (香菰） 6-8 pieces
Wood ears (黑木耳）1/2 cups
cabbage 2 cups
carrot     1 stick
bean sprout 1/2 lb
green onion 2 pieces
chicken broth 1 can
shrimps  medium size 10-15 

Steps:

Preparation:

1. Put dry mushrooms and wood ears in water for a couple of hours until the mushrooms are soften and the wood ears are expanded. Note the wood ears would be expanded several times more than its dry form.  So, just use a small handful would be sufficient.  Wash them with clean water and make sure there is no sand there.  Slice mushrooms and wood ears into thin strips. Make 1/2 cups each.
2. Put half packages of rice sticks in a big bowl and cover it with water.  It will become soft in 30 minutes, use a scissors to cut it into half. Drain the water.
3. peel the shells of the shrimps, use a knife to cup open the top of shrimp, remove the black thing. Add some salt and wash the shrimps with water.  Pat dry the shrimps using a paper towel and put them in the refrig.
4. Slice the pork into thin strips and marinate it with corn starch, salt, and soy sauce. Put a slice of ginger.  Put it aside.
5. Remove the skin of the carrot and shred it into thin strips.
6. Cut cabbages into thin strips and wash the bean sprouts.
7. Slice the green onions side ways into thin strips.

Cooking:

1. Before cooking, add 0.5tb salt and 1tb corn starch in the shrimps and mixed them well (use your hand).  In a big (12 inch) deep frying pan, heat 1 TB oil, and stir fry the shrimps in high heat.  When the shrimps half turned color, add 1 tb cooking wine and keep fry them until all turned color.  Take them out and put it aside.
2. Heat 2 TB oil and stir fry the pork strips.  You have to use a wood spoon (鍋鏟）to separate them because the corn starch tend to bind them together.  So, be patient.  Again, when they all turned color, take them out and drain the oil.
3. Heat 2 TB oil and stir fry muchrooms and wood ears, add a little salt and soy sauce.  Stir fry for 2-3 minutes, add green onions about half way.  Take it out.
4. Heat 3 TB oil and put in carrots and cabbages and 1tb salt.  Stir fry them until carrots are soft. Add bean sprouts and keep stir frying them. Add 1TB light soy sauce.  
5. Leave the #4 ingredients in the pan, add one can of chicken broth, cover and simmer until it boils.  Finally, you can add rice noodles in and the mushroom and wood ears (#3) mix them well.  Turn to low heat, cover and cook for 5-7 minutes.
6. Add the pork strips in and check if the noodle is soft and moist.  If it is a bit too dry and all the liquid is gone, just add a bit more water.  Add some white pepper powder, maybe some oyster sauce, a little more soy sauce to your taste.  Cover and simmer for another 5 minutes.
7. put the rice noodles in a big flat pan and put the shrimps on top and serve.

 There are several tips in making this dish.  When you add the rice sticks in, make sure there is enough liquid to submerge the noodles.  Otherwise, the flavor will not get into the noodle and it will be tasteless.  Secondly, the vegetables and meat tend to fall at the bottom of the pan, you want to flip them to the top and mix them together with the noodle.   Last, I like to put the meat in at last so that it will remain tender.  If you think it is too much trouble, you can add it together with all other ingredient.  Oh, one last thing, there are two type of rice sticks, 新竹米粉 or  埔里米粉.  The first one is very thin and the second one is thicker.  You want to buy the thin one, not the thick one.  I made the mistake once and the result was very bad :)