Chinese on Dan Tasse dot com

Mapo Tofu

Mon, 13 Jun 2022 04:46:00 +0000

2-4oz ground beef (or pork, or mushrooms)

1lb soft or medium tofu, in 3/4 inch cubes

2-3 tbsp doubanjiang (fermented chile bean sauce, toban djan)

1 tbsp douchi (fermented black beans)

2 tsp ground red pepper (this is pretty spicy; less if you don't want it too spicy)

1 tbsp chopped ginger

1 tbsp chopped garlic (optional)

1 tsp soy sauce

1/2-1 cup stock or water (can be the steeping water from the tofu)

4-5 green onions, cut at an angle

2 tsp cornstarch + a little cold water

1 tsp ground Sichuan pepper

Steep tofu in hot water for 15 min, then drain. (optional)

Cook meat until browned, then add doubanjiang, douchi, red pepper, ginger, garlic, cook about 2 minutes. Add soy sauce, then tofu, and water/stock, cook about 3 minutes. Add green onions, then cornstarch slurry, then Sichuan pepper.

You could add a little sugar along with the soy sauce, or a little sesame oil at the end, but this seems rare.

Source: Every Grain of Rice by Fuchsia Dunlop, The Mala Project by Taylor Holliday https://blog.themalamarket.com/chengdu-challenge-10-mapo-doufu/, Let's Cook Japanese Food by Amy Kaneko (I know), Andrea Nguyen at NY Times cooking https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1021459-mapo-tofu, and my friend Meagan

Chengdu Zajiang Mian

Sun, 18 Mar 2018 19:53:00 +0000

Pork topping for 4-6 servings (scale as you want):
1 lb ground pork
3 tbsp sambal oelek or 3 pickled medium-hot red chilies
1 tbsp minced garlic
1 1/2 cups water
2 tbsp light soy sauce
2 tbsp dark soy sauce
1 tsp tian mian jiang/sweet wheat sauce

Sauce per serving:
1 tsp melted lard (optional)
2 tbsp chili oil with flakes
2 tbsp light soy sauce
1 tbsp chicken broth
1 tsp zhenjiang black vinegar
1 tsp runny Chinese sesame paste
1/4 tsp or more roasted ground Sichuan pepper
2 tsp thinly sliced green onions

4 oz dried noodles per serving
bok choy and/or fried egg (optional)

1. Make pork topping: Saute pork until beginning to brown and juices are mostly cooked off. Add pickled chilies and garlic, cook, mix with pork. Add water, soy sauces, wheat sauce, simmer about 15 min. Add more water if necessary - you want it to be kinda wet. (It'll probably be wet anyway.)

2. Mix the sauce.

3. Cook noodles, adding bok choy towards the end to cook it too.

4. Each bowl: noodles, sauce, pork topping, bok choy, egg.

Source: Taylor Holliday, The Mala Project, https://blog.themalamarket.com/chengdu-zajiang-noodles-zajiang-mian/

Gong bao ji ding

Sun, 27 Aug 2017 00:30:00 +0000

Kung pao chicken

2 boneless skinless chicken breasts, or about 2/3 lb, cut into about 1/2 inch cubes
3 cloves garlic, sliced
about the same amount of ginger, also sliced
5 scallions, white parts only, chopped
peanut oil
at least 10 dried chilies, cut in half and seeds discarded
1 tsp whole Sichuan pepper
2/3 cup roasted unsalted peanuts

Marinade:
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp soy sauce
1 tsp Shaoxing rice wine or medium-dry sherry
1 1/2 tsp potato flour or 2 tsp cornstarch
1 tbsp water

Sauce:
3 tsp sugar
1 tsp potato flour or cornstarch
1 tsp dark soy sauce
1 tsp light soy sauce
3 tsp Chinkiang vinegar
1 tsp sesame oil
1 tbsp chicken stock or water

Marinate the chicken. Make the sauce.
Heat oil in the wok. Add chilies and Sichuan pepper, stir fry until crisp, spicy, fragrant - careful not to burn.
Add chicken and fry on high, stirring constantly. As soon as it's separated, add the ginger, garlic, scallions, and for a few minutes.
Add the sauce, then the peanuts, then serve.

Source: Land of Plenty by Fuchsia Dunlop

Gan bian si ji dou

Sun, 27 Aug 2017 00:23:00 +0000

Dry-fried Sichuanese green beans

10 oz green beans
peanut oil
3 oz ground pork
2 tsp Shaoxing rice wine or medium-dry sherry
2 tsp soy sauce
2 tbsp ya cai or Tianjin preserved vegetable, finely chopped
salt to taste
1 tsp sesame oil

Trim beans, snap in half. Stir fry in oil for about 6 minutes, until tender and a little puckered. (Dan's note: usually takes longer.) Remove from wok and set aside.

Fry pork for 30 seconds. Add wine and soy sauce. Add ya cai and fry briefly. Add beans. Add salt, then drizzle with sesame oil.

You can also make this without the pork; if you do, add some garlic and ginger and dried chilies. You can also pre-boil the beans a little bit in order to make them cook faster.

Source: Land of Plenty and Every Grain of Rice, both by Fuchsia Dunlop

Fu qi fei pian

Sat, 26 Aug 2017 22:56:00 +0000

"Man and wife lung slices"

1lb lean beef, like flank steak (or a mix with innards like ox heart, tongue, and stomach)

To cook the beef:
2 inch piece of fresh ginger, unpeeled, slightly crushed
1 tbsp peanut oil
2 tbsp rock sugar, crushed
1 quart stock
1 1/2 tbsp salt
2 scallions, white and green, cut into thirds
1 tsp whole Sichuan pepper
1/2 a cinnamon stick
1 tsp fennel seeds
2 star anise
4 cloves (you can make a little bag of all these spices)

To serve:
3-4 celery stalks
1 tbsp dark soy sauce
1-2 tbsp chili oil with chile flake
1/2 tsp ground Sichuan pepper
2 tsp toasted sesame seeds
2 tbsp roasted unsalted peanuts, crushed
cilantro to garnish
Boil water, blanch beef for 10-20 seconds, throw away water and rinse beef.

Heat peanut oil with half the rock sugar, boil until it's a rich caramel brown. Throw in a little cup of cold water (look out for steam!) and stir to incorporate. Add the rest of the "to cook beef" ingredients. Boil, then add the beef, simmer gently for about an hour and a half until tender. Remove beef and cool. Save cooking liquid.

Slice the celery thin. Thinly slice the cold beef too, lay it on top of the celery. Combine 4 tbsp cooking liquid with the soy sauce, pour over meat. Drizzle with chili oil, Sichuan pepper, sesame seeds, peanuts, cilantro.

Source: Land of Plenty by Fuchsia Dunlop

Chen Dailu's Spicy Sesame Noodles

Sat, 26 Aug 2017 22:49:00 +0000

Sauce:

2 tsp sesame paste

1 tbsp light soy sauce

1/2 tsp dark soy sauce

1/2 tsp Chinkiang vinegar

1 tsp chopped garlic

pinch of sichuan pepper

1 1/2 tbsp chili oil with sediment

1/2 lb Chinese wheat or buckwheat noodles (can use udon or soba too)

handful of pea shoots, bok choy, or choy sum leaves

1 tbsp finely chopped spring onion greens

Combine the sauce in a bowl. Cook noodles, toss greens in for the last minute to blanch. Drain noodles and greens, add to bowl, scatter with spring onions, mix and serve.

Source: Every Grain of Rice by Fuchsia Dunlop

Hui Guo Rou

Sat, 26 Aug 2017 22:46:00 +0000

Twice-cooked pork

1/2 lb boneless pork belly, with skin
6 baby leeks, or Chinese leaf garlic, trimmed, sliced diagonally
2 tbsp oil
1 tbsp douban jiang (Sichuan chili bean paste)
1 tsp sweet fermented sauce
2 tsp fermented black beans, rinsed and drained
1/2 tsp dark soy sauce
1/2 tsp sugar
a few slices of fresh red chili or bell pepper for color (Dan's note: you can put in a whole bunch of red bell pepper, it's good too)

Boil/simmer pork until just cooked through, about 20 min. Fridge for several hours to cool. Slice it thin (each slice having a little skin on it).

Saute pork slices until slightly curved and some fat has melted out. Add douban jiang, then sweet fermented sauce and black beans, then add soy sauce, sugar, and salt to taste. Add leeks and pepper and stir fry until just cooked and serve.

Source: Every Grain of Rice by Fuchsia Dunlop

Yu xiang rou si

Sun, 15 Jan 2017 19:51:00 +0000

Fish-fragrant pork slivers

A small handful of dried cloud ear mushrooms, soaked in hot water for 30 min
10oz boneless pork loin (~2 chops) with a little fat, cut into 1/8 inch slivers
2/3 cup bamboo shoots or 2 celery stalks
salt
peanut oil
2 tbsp pickled chili paste
1 1/2 tsp finely chopped garlic
2 tsp finely chopped ginger
2 scallions, green parts, very thinly sliced

Marinade:
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp light soy sauce
1 tbsp potato flour or 1 1/2 tbsp cornstarch + 1 tbsp water
1 tsp Shaoxing rice wine

Sauce:
1 1/2 tsp sugar
1 1/2 tsp Chinkiang or black Chinese vinegar
3/4 tsp light soy sauce
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 tsp potato flour or 1 1/8 tsp cornstarch + 3 tbsp stock or water

Mix marinade, add pork.
Blanch bamboo shoots in boiling water for a minute, rinse in cold water, then cut in fine strips to match pork. Or cut celery into thin strips, salt, wait 15 minutes.
Mix the sauce.
Heat oil, stir-fry pork. As soon as the strips separate, push them to one side, and put the chili paste into the wok. Stir fry briefly, then add garlic and ginger. Stir fry 30 seconds, until aromatic, then add bamboo and mushrooms and stir fry briefly until just hot.
Add the sauce. Add the scallions, serve.

Source: Land of Plenty by Fuchsia Dunlop

Strange-flavor chicken

Sat, 26 Dec 2015 22:22:00 +0000

(aka Bang bang chicken)

6-8 scallions, white parts only
1 tbsp white sugar
salt to taste
1 tbsp light soy sauce
1 tbsp Chinkiang or black Chinese vinegar
3 tbsp well-blended chinese sesame paste
1 tbsp sesame oil
2 tbsp chili oil with chile flakes
1/2-1 tsp ground roasted Sichuan pepper
3 tsp toasted sesame seeds

Cut the chicken into slivers about 1/2 inch wide (or hit it with a rolling pin then tear into shreds by hand).
Cut scallions into sections, slice lengthwise, refresh in a bowl of cold water.
Stir sugar and salt in soy sauce and vinegar until dissolved. Gradually stir in the sesame paste to make a smooth sauce. Add other ingredients except sesame seeds, mix well.
Drain scallions, pile neatly in the center, lay chicken on top, pour over prepared sauce, sprinkle with sesame seeds.

Source: Land of Plenty by Fuschia Dunlop

Hong You Qie Zi

Sat, 26 Dec 2015 22:18:00 +0000

Steamed Eggplant with Chile Sauce

2 large eggplants or 6-8 slender Asian eggplants
salt
3 tbsp light soy sauce
1 1/2 tsp Chinkiang or black Chinese vinegar
2 tsp sugar
2 tbsp chili oil with chile flakes
1 tsp sesame oil

If using large eggplants, trim them, cut in half, and sprinkle with salt, leave for 1/2 hour to draw out bitter juices.
Steam eggplants over high flame for 5-10 minutes until tender. Peel if desired. Cool, cut into chunks or cut lengthwise.
Combine soy sauce, vinegar, and sugar in a small bowl, stirring to dissolve sugar. Add oils.
Serve eggplants with sauce as a dip.

Source: Land of Plenty by Fuschia Dunlop

Lu Hua Sheng

Sat, 26 Dec 2015 22:15:00 +0000

Boiled aromatic peanuts

1 pint water
8oz raw peanuts in husks or just pink skins
2 tsp salt
1 tsp whole Sichuan pepper
1 cinnamon stick
1 star anise
2 whole cloves
1/2 tsp fennel seeds
1-2 slices dried ginger
1 cao guo (optional) (aka tsao guo, cardamom-like)

Boil water. Add peanuts, salt, and all spices. Simmer 40 minutes, drain, discard spices, leave to dry.

Source: Land of Plenty by Fuschia Dunlop

Three-cup Chicken

Thu, 22 May 2008 18:17:00 +0000

Three-Cup Chicken
This is a traditional Taiwanese dish that we always order in our favorite Chinese restaurant. I begged the chef for this recipe and he very reluctantly gave it to me! I just made it for dinner tonight and couldn’t wait to post this to share it with all of you!
1/3 cup sesame oil
20 garlic cloves, minced (yes, twenty!)
10 slices thin fresh ginger
2 serrano peppers, thinly sliced with seeds
2 lbs chicken breasts or chicken thigh pieces, cut up into bite-size pieces
1/3 cup soy sauce
1/3 cup rice wine
3 tablespoons sugar
2 cups Thai basil
1 cup of 1-inch sections scallions

1. Heat up the sesame oil in a wok or a large skillet on high heat.
2. Add garlic, ginger and serrano peppers, stir fry until fragrant, about 2 minutes.
3. Add the chicken pieces and cook until it’s white in color, about 5 minutes.
4. Stir together the soy sauce, rice wine and sugar in a bowl, pour over chicken.
5. Bring to a boil, then turn down the heat to medium.
6. Let cook, uncovered, until sauce thickens, about 30 minutes.
7. Turn heat back up to high and add basil and scallions, cook for another 2 minutes.
8. Serve over steamed rice.

Dan’s notes: also works with tofu and tempeh (particularly good with tempeh). Maybe a little too sweet. Reduce the sugar a bit and it’s great. Fast too.

Stir fry info

Thu, 22 May 2008 16:58:00 +0000

Stir Fry Technique: Ten Steps to Better Wok Cookery

Regarding tapioca starch and arrowroot: yes, they can be used instead of cornstarch in all of my recipes. They perform the exact same function, however, in my experience, they are stronger binders, so you use -less- of them both in marinades and as thickeners. I would use about half as much of either of them as I would use cornstarch. Therefore, if you substitute either of them in one of my recipes, use half the amount directed for cornstarch.

Now, as to the first part of the question, I realized that though I have repeated the method that I use to stir fry umpteen-eleven times with each recipe I post, nowhere have I ever really truly explained it all, beginning to end. So that, when someone looks at my directions to “toss meat with soy sauce, wine and cornstarch, then allow to marinate for at least twenty minutes,” they may follow those instructions, but they may never really know what function the cornstarch fulfills in the recipe. Extrapolating from the cornstarch mystery, I realized that there are likely oddities to my method that also may stump other readers, so I might as well slow down and record exactly what I am doing and why so that everyone is on the same page with me when they go to recreate my recipes.

So, from beginning to end, here is my explanation of my method of stir frying, which tends to differ in a few respects from the instructions one is apt to get in the average Chinese cookbook.

Step one: Cut your ingredients into equivalent-sized and shaped pieces.

This rule is quite effectively stated in all good Chinese cookbooks. In order for the food to cook evenly, quickly and aesthetically, the pieces must all be as close in shape and size as possible. If you examine photographs of my completed stir-fried dishes, you will note that most ingredients have been cut into similar shapes and sizes, as much as is possible given that vegetables and meats do not come in neat geometric shapes. I won’t go into long explanations on how to manage the art of cutting for Chinese stir fry; that is an entire series of posts in and themselves, but I do want to emphasize the importance of cutting into shapes that will cook quickly.

Back when Morganna made her umami chicken stir fry, she cut the chicken into very large cubes, which is inefficient when it comes to stir frying. In order to get them to cook evenly without drying out, we ended up searing the outside of the chicken in the typical stir-fry method, then adding liquid and allowing the chicken to simmer, or braise quickly to finish cooking the interior. This noticably affected the taste of the final dish: the sauce was bland, as it had been watered down by the use of more wine and broth than is usual. When I pointed out that if she had cut her chicken into smaller, thinner bits, the extra liquid would never have been added, Morganna’s eyes lit up with understanding as to why I tend to cut my meats into very thin slices or shreds. (Every step of a stir-fry is affected by every other step. In order to adjust for large chunks of meat, the sauce making is adapted, and can suffer.)

Step two: Marinate your meat or tofu in a mixture that includes cornstarch.

This step is the one that tripped Persimmon up. She understood the thickening property of cornstarch, and knew that somehow this action was in play when it came to using it in the marinade (especially since very few of my recipes have cornstarch added in a later step), but she could not fathom why it was used with the meat before it was cooked.

The main reason I add cornstarch to the marinade is because it holds the liquid of the marinade onto the meat: it makes it clingy. If you marinate meat with cornstarch in addition to the liquids, when you go to cook the meat, you will note that there is very little liquid left in the bowl after the meat is put into the wok. That is because most of it is clinging to the surface of the meat.

What happens to the liquid and cornstarch that sticks to the surface of the meat is one of the great secrets to building deep flavor in a very quickly cooked dish like a stir-fry. Much of it browns when it comes into contact with the wok, and helps brown the surface of the meat, thus adding to the flavor profile of the dish. And, through various other processes that I will outline in later steps, it helps thicken the sauce as it is formed through the cooking of the stir-fry. (I do not typically add a pre-mixture of sauce ingredients near the end of the stir-frying process. Generally, I add liquid ingredients during the course of the stir fry and allow them to thicken by the process of reduction or evaporation during the natural cooking process. This leads to a dish that has less sauce, but the sauce that there is clings tightly to the food, leading to a more beautiful appearance and is more highly and intensely flavored than a sauce that is simply poured in and allowed to thicken at the end of cooking.)

Step Three: Have all ingredients ready and lined up beside the wok, before you heat the wok.

I won’t belabor this point;it is pretty straightforward. Stir frying goes quickly, so have everything cut, measured and put into prep bowls near your wok so you don’t end up running around like a chicken with its head cut off while the food in your wok burns.

Step Four: Heat your wok until it begins to smoke, then add the oil and heat it until it nearly smokes.

This is only if you have a cast iron or carbon steel wok. If you have a nonstick wok, do not do this or you will ruin your wok. Only heat non-stick surfaces with oil or liquid in them. Assuming you have the cast iron or carbon steel wok, what you want to do is put it on your burner and get it as hot as you can. For most American stoves, flat bottomed woks work wonders, coming perfectly into contact with the heat source. Allow it to heat until the wok “exhales.” This is when the scent of the hot, seasoned wok is released by the metal of the wok; it is the scent known in Cantonese as “wok hay.” Until I knew the Cantonese term, I called it, inelegantly, “Wok smell.” Now I call it “the breath of the wok.” As soon as you can smell the wok hay, and see the pale ribbons of smoke rising from the hot metal, pour in your oil, and wait for it to heat up until it is nearly smoking. It will shimmer with convection currents when it is ready and the wok hay will intensify.

Step Five: Add your aromatic ingredients, in the order specified in the recipe and cook for a minute or two until they are fragrant and cooked to the point specified in the recipe.

This, again, is fairly self-explanatory. Aromatic ingredients include onions, garlic, ginger, shallots, scallions, chiles, chile flakes, spices (whole or ground) and ingredients such as dried shrimp or fermented black beans. The purpose of adding these intensely flavored and scented ingredients first is so that their essence can fully permeate the cooking oil and add their strong flavors to the food as it is cooked. This is the first step in the flavor-building process that continues throughout the cooking of an excellent stir-fried dish.

Step Six: Add the meat, settle it into a single layer in the bottom of the wok and leave it there for about a minute or so to begin to brown deeply on the surface touching the wok.

This step is essential to the home cook being able to recreate the special flavor of a wok hay-filled dish that is cooked in a restaurant. Home stoves do not put out the huge amounts of heat that Chinese restaurant stoves do. The heat of a wok stove and the use of large amounts of oil are most of what contributes to the special, undefinable flavor and fragrance of Chinese restaurant food that most people long to recreate. It is the flavor of the well-seasoned, very hot wok that you are smelling and tasting. You can come very close to recreating this at home, even if you do not have a stove with as many BTU’s as mine. I discovered this technique by accident; I was once stir frying a dish, and the phone rang. As I was expecting a call, I answered it, but did not move the wok off the stove. I had a regular flat-topped electric stove, and had just put the meat in. I thus, left it to cook unsupervised. When I realized what I had done, I caught the wok in the nick of time and started stirring the meat madly; it had only browned on one side. When Zak and I ate, the dish was superb and tasted like it came from a restaurant. Years later, when Grace Young’s book, The Breath of a Wok came out, she described the exact same technique as one she learned from her parents, both excellent Cantonese home cooks, and I realized I waonto something. When I later met Grace and shared notes with her, she agreed that no other Chinese cookbook author had ever instructed thier readers to cook in this way, which leads to people creating stir fries that do not taste right.

This is the most important step. Put the meat into the wok, slide it into a single layer on the bottom of the wok, and leave it alone. Do not stir it. Do not touch it. Leave it alone for around 45 seconds to 1 1/2 minutes, until you smell the meat and cornstarch marinade begin to brown. At that time, stir fry as normal, until the meat is mostly done, it has cooked 2/3 of the way, 2/3 of the surface has changed color to the color of cooked meat. You will note at this time, some small amounts of the marinade have stuck to the wok and begun to brown. Do not worry; it is supposed to do that, and you will take care of that in the next step.

Step Seven: Add soy sauce, wine or some combination of the two to the wok and deglaze the cornstarch marinade, and toss the meat to season it.

This is where you begin building the flavor of the sauce and you deepen the color and flavor of the meat. Soy sauce added at this point, in a small amount, will color the meat and deglaze the browned bits in the wok, thus creating a bit of liquid that is enough to season the dish, but not enough to change the cooking method to steaming or braising. You can use soy sauce alone, wine alone, or a mixture of the two at this point. You can also add sugar at this point, if required to in the recipe, again, allowing the sauce time to build its flavor profile bit by bit.

Step Eight: Add vegetables, in the order of how long they will take to cook, and stir fry.

This step continues the cooking process of the meat, and allows the vegetables to cook as much as they need to. Use your judgement as to how long the vegetables will take to cook and add the ones that take longest (carrots, for instance, or the thicker stems of gai lan) first, and the ones that barely need to cook (water chestnuts or snow peas) at the last.

Step Nine: Add broth, any other sauce ingredients such as oyster sauce, hoisin or vinegar, stir fry until sauce thickens and clings to the pieces of food in the wok.

This is where you finalize the flavor of the sauce and mix the ingredients thoroughly together. The amount of broth, if you use it, depends upon what you are cooking. If you are cooking gai lan leaves and want them to wilt, you use a bit more broth than usual, and allow the steam of it boiling away as it reduces to cook the leaves, making them wilt to a velvety texture. If you are not cooking anything leafy, then you use less broth, if you use any at all. At this point, after this step, you can remove the wok from the heat.

Step Ten: Add garnishes, and any last minute flavoring items like spices or sesame oil, put into a warmed serving plate and serve.

This is the final step where the last bits of flavor and color are added to give extra mouth and eye appeal to the dish. After this, all that is left is to wash the wok.

There it is: Barbara’s Way of the Wok in Ten Mostly Easy Steps. I hope that it might have answered a few questions people might have had regarding my recipes, and I hope it might make the entire process a bit clearer in the future when you approach the art of stir-frying. It isn’t all you need to know about stir frying by a long shot, but it is a good start. I came across most of this on my own, through trial and error, but a lot of it I learned in dribs and drabs from various, mostly out of print cookbooks. The sort of stir fry you will make out of using this method is one that has a sauce that is highly flavored from multiple reductions and a single deglazing. The sauce will not be plentiful, but will instead glaze the food ingredients and cling tightly to them, but the intense flavor more than makes up for a lack of sauce. This is the way a lot of Chinese homestyle cooking is done, with very little, but very flavorful sauces.

Source: http://www.tigersandstrawberries.com/2006/01/16/stir-fry-technique-ten-steps-to-better-wok-cookery/