A Chinese Dinner - Part Deux

This is a companion recipe posting to my first Chinese Dinner. Click here to view Part One. Here are three (well, really four) more recipes that I have adopted and adapted for wok cooking that I use in rotation with the first three recipes I posted. You should read my earlier posting for all the tips and tricks I know about wok cooking that I learned either on my own, or from watching some of Jeff Smith's earlier 1980s shows of The Frugal Gourmet.

Actually, this first recipe is one that I adapted from a recipe in Smith's first cookbook by the same name, published in 1984. Let me remind the reader that Chinese wok cooking is done quickly over high heat. For that reason, all ingredients to each dish should be prepared ahead of time and be lined up, ready to go in the order they will be needed, referred to in French cooking as "mis en place," or all in place. Also, remember what Smith used to say, "Hot pan. Cold oil. Foods won't stick." Allow the wok to come to the smoking point before you add oil to the pan. Then bring the oil to the smoking point before you start cooking. And always remember that when you put cold food in hot oil, it will hiss and spit at you!


Szechwan Chicken

Smith actually named this dish My Cousin David's Hot Szechwan Chicken. Since I have no cousin named David, I changed the name accordingly. My recipe is also slightly different from Smith's (or David's, for that matter) in that I do not use pure red Szechwan peppers. Although I enjoy a certain amount of heat, you can never be certain just how hot these peppers might actually be when buying them from a local grocer.

The Scoville Heat Scale is the official register of how hot a pepper is. The average jalapeño pepper is between 2,500 and 8,000 Scoville Heat Units. A Szechwan pepper, on the other hand, is between 50,000 and 100,000 Scoville Heat Units. I was actually dumb enough in the early 80s to take a small bite out of a fresh Szechwan pepper while dining in an upscale Chinese restaurant. My dining companion, and several tables of other diners around me, had the unpleasant experience of listening to me cough, gag and gasp for breath as I quite literally went "off the air" for a good thirty minutes in intense discomfort, if not outright distress. Szechwan peppers are too hot for my taste, and I am not an experienced enough cook to safely use them. So, my recipe calls for a Chili Garlic Sauce that you can generally find in the Asian section of your local grocer. A popular imported brand is Lee Kum Kee. Click here to see the product and visit the Lee Kum Kee website. Trust me, this will give the dish all the heat you need.

Also, a few words about soy sauce, because this recipe calls for both light and dark soy sauce. Light soy sauce is thinner and slightly lighter in color than dark soy sauce. Light soy sauce is primarily used as a table condiment or for marinading, while dark soy sauce is usually used only in cooking. It typically has the addition of molasses thus giving it a darker color, a little sweetness and more viscosity.

Japanese soy sauce like the brand Kikkoman, whether regular or low-sodium, is a very good brand of light soy sauce, and is perfect as a table condiment or marinade. Dark soy sauce generally comes from Chinese manufacturers, like Tianli. You can certainly find light soy sauce and probably find dark soy sauce in the Asian foods section of your grocer. Be sure you read the ingredients, and are buying soy sauce that has been naturally fermented and brewed, not chemically produced. Stay away from American soy sauce manufacturers like La Choy, which is a totally artificial product. Incidentally, my dad always used to call soy sauce, "dragon's blood." As a kid, I thought that was funny as hell.

Since this recipe has peanuts added at the last minute, technically, this is a "Kung Pao" Chicken, which literally translated means "With Peanuts."

Ingredients
For the chicken
3 boneless chicken breasts, cut into one inch pieces
3 tbsp light soy sauce (like, Kikkoman)
3 tbsp dry sherry wine
2 tbsp corn starch

Ingredients
For everything else
2 tbsp dry sherry wine
2 tbsp dark soy sauce (like, Tianli)
2 tsp brown sugar
1 tbsp sesame oil
1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
1 tbsp water
1 tbsp corn starch
3 tbsp peanut oil
2 tbsp chili garlic sauce (like, Lee Kum Kee)
3 green onions, chopped
3-4 small handfuls dry roasted unsalted peanuts

The Recipe:
Marinade the chicken pieces in the light soy sauce, sherry and corn starch for 20 minutes to an hour. Combine the sherry, dark soy sauce, brown sugar, sesame oil, Worcestershire sauce, water and corn starch in a mixing bowl and whisk together until the brown sugar and corn starch are dissolved. Set aside.

Heat the wok until smoking, and then add the peanut oil until it begins to slightly smoke. Add the chicken, marinade and all, and stir-fry until the chicken turns white, then add the dark soy mixture and the chili garlic sauce. Stir-fry a couple of minutes more until the chicken is cooked through and the sauce thickens and bubbles.

Stir in the peanuts and green onions at the last minute Hold in a 200 degree oven until ready to serve.


General Tso's (style) Chicken

I have a variation on the recipe above that I created while looking for a no-wheat, low-carb version of General Tso's Chicken. If you're a regular diner of Chinese food, you undoubtedly know this standard fare on most every Chinese restaurant menu. Is consists of chicken pieces that have been either coated in a corn starch mixture, or batter dipped, then deep fried. The chicken is then introduced to a delicious savory, hot, sweet sauce, sometimes combined with bell peppers and onions. I do not coat my chicken, but this is still a very close adaptation to the classic General Tso's Chicken recipe, although my sauce is a bit looser since I use no thickener like corn starch or tapioca powder. If you want a thicker sauce, simply coat the chicken pieces in corn starch before you cook them, and add 1 tablespoon of corn starch to the sherry and soy sauce mixture that you prepare ahead of time.

This recipe calls for a product known as Hoisin sauce. Again, if you're a regular diner of Chinese fare, you probably already know about this Chinese marinading, cooking and dipping sauce commonly used in Peking style cooking that wraps food in little flour pancakes, like Peking Duck and Moo Shu Pork. Again, Lee Kum Kee is a popular import you can probably find in the Asian foods section of your grocer. Hoisin sauce is made from soy beans and sweet potatoes, which are pretty much off a low-carb dieter's menu, but there is relatively little used, so overall carb count for this recipe is in bounds. This recipe also calls for a seasoning you may have seen in the spice section of your grocer and wondered what it is or how to use it, called Chinese Five Spice. This should be readily available in your neighborhood grocer's spice section.

Ingredients
For the chicken
3 boneless chicken breasts, cut into one inch pieces
3 tbsp light soy sauce (like, Kikkoman)
3 tbsp dry sherry wine
3 tbsp Hoisin sauce (like, Lee Kum Kee)
1 cup peanut oil

Ingredients
For everything else
2 tbsp dry sherry wine
2 tbsp chili garlic paste (like, Lee Kum Kee)
1 tbsp dark soy sauce (like, Tianli)
2 tbsp Splenda
1/4 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
3/4 tsp Chinese Five Spice Powder (like, McCormick's)
1 tsp sesame oil
2 tsp finely minced garlic
1 medium red bell pepper, cut into uniform square pieces
1 medium yellow onion, cut into uniform square pieces
2 green onions, chopped

The Recipe:
Marinate the chicken pieces in the light soy sauce, sherry and Hoisin sauce for 20 minutes to one hour. Whisk together the sherry, garlic paste, dark soy sauce, Splenda, red pepper flakes, Chinese Five Spice powder, minced garlic and sesame oil, and blend well. Set aside.

Bring the one cup of peanut oil to the smoking point and then carefully put the chicken into the hot oil one or two piece at a time so they do not stick together and will cook up crisp and evenly on all sides. Cook the chicken until the pieces are slightly crisp and turn a light golden brown color, five to eight minutes. Carefully remove the chicken pieces to a paper towel and allow to drain.

Pour off all but three tablespoons of the peanut oil from the wok and return it to the heat. Bring it back to the smoking point. Put in the onion and red bell pepper, and stir-fry until you begin to see caramelization at the edges of the onions and peppers, three to five minutes.

Add the sauce to the onions and peppers and stir-fry until the sauce is bubbly and thickens slightly. Add back the cooked chicken pieces to the dish, and stir-fry about a minute more until the chicken is heated through.

Toss in the green onions at the end. Hold in a 200 degree oven until ready to serve.


Chinese Fried Rice

My very first cookbook was one my mother gave me as a gift before I went off to college. It was packaged in a red gingham hardback cover and contained over 1,500 recipes in virtually every category of cooking, all methodically arranged in a three ring binder with colorful illustrations and food photographs, which were real innovations when it was first published. The Better Homes & Garden "New" Cookbook really taught me how to cook. The cookbook is still in publication today, and it's a must for any newlywed. It was first published in 1968 and was in its fourth printing by the time I received a copy in 1971. I went off to college in 1972 and took it with me. When my wife and I were married many years later, I learned that she coincidentally also had a copy of this cookbook. Hers was in a more pristine (read: "unused") condition than mine. I think it was a later printing, but the page that contains its copyright and printing dates is missing.

There are many recipes that I tried from this cookbook over the years a thousand I haven't tried, but you wouldn't know it from looking at it. Unlike my wife's mint-condition copy, mine has pages that have yellowed, some are dog-eared, and many more are crimped and crumpled from droplets of water or cooking grease.

Even with all of my later acquired Chinese cookbooks, I keep coming back to one recipe in this cookbook for Chinese Fried Rice over and over. The original recipe was named "Chicken Fried Rice," and called for one cup of diced cooked chicken, but I have never made it that way, preferring this as a vegetarian side dish rather than a main course. I have also added red bell pepper to the recipe, which the original did not have, and I added green peas as an ingredient because traditional versions of fried rice usually have them and I thought the dish needed them.

This recipe is unique in that I use Iceberg lettuce as an ingredient. The original version of the recipe called for "shredded lettuce or Chinese cabbage," which I assume meant Napa cabbage. I have never used Napa, and think that Iceberg lettuce brings a certain flavor dimension to the dish that truly qualifies it as unique. Plus, this is the only dish I know of where you actually cook Iceberg lettuce.

The last innovation that I brought to this dish was to cook the rice in beef broth, rather than water. This gives an added depth and richness to the dish that marries well with the vegetables and dark and light soy sauces.

Ingredients
2 cups long grain white rice (like, Uncle Bens. Do not use instant or pre-cooked rice)
4 cups beef broth or beef stock (like, Swanson's or Kitchen Basics)
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp salt
3 tbsp peanut oil
2 tbsp light soy sauce
2 tbsp dark soy sauce
1/2 cup finely diced yellow onion
1/2 cup finely diced green bell pepper
1/2 cup finely diced red bell pepper
1/4 cup finely chopped celery
3/4 cup frozen green peas, thawed (do not substitute canned)
1 cup chicken broth (like, Swanson's or Kitchen Basics)
1 cup finely shredded Iceberg lettuce
3 green onions, chopped into 1/2 inch pieces
2 slightly beaten eggs

The Recipe
First, cook the rice:
Bring the four cups of beef broth, the garlic powder, the salt and the two cups of rice to a boil in a saucepan. Reduce the heat to a simmer after the liquid starts to boil and allow it to reduce until you see the liquid below the top of the rice bubbling up through the rice kernels. At that point, turn the heat to its lowest setting, slap the lid on the saucepan, and let it sit for twenty minutes.

When twenty minutes has past, remove the saucepan from the stove, take off the lid, and fluff the rice with a fork. Allow the rice to steam off additional water and heat while you prepare the wok for cooking, and at that point, there should be no water in the pan and the rice should be relatively dry.

Then, cook the dish:
Bring the wok to its smoking point over high heat, and then add the peanut oil until it begins to smoke. Add the yellow onion, the green and red bell pepper and the celery, and stir-fry for about five minutes until everything starts to collapse and slightly brown, and the onions begin to caramelize.

Next, add the cooked rice and stir-fry with the vegetables. Add a little more peanut oil if necessary to keep the rice from sticking to the wok. Add the chicken broth and both soy sauces, and stir-fry until the liquid evaporates, about another five to seven minutes.

Push all of the rice mixture to the sides of the wok, leaving a "hole" in the mixture at the base of the wok. Add the beaten eggs to the bottom of the wok and while constantly stirring them, cook them until the eggs almost set, then blend them into the rice. Cook everything for a couple more minutes.

Add the shredded lettuce and stir-fry for another couple of minutes until the lettuce has completely collapsed. Throw the peas in last and toss a couple of times to heat them, but being careful not to mash them. Toss in the green onions at the end. Hold in a 200 degree oven until ready to serve.


Chinese Beef & Tomato

Tomato is not a typical ingredient that you find in Chinese food. I have never seen anything like this recipe anywhere, which is why I like it. This came from a Chinese cookbook that was given to me, along with many others, by a family friend who was widowed and retired. The cookbook is called The Step-By-Step Chinese Cookbook, published in 1973 by Georges Spunt. Unlike the innovative Better Homes & Gardens New Cookbook, or the highly stylized cookbooks of today, other cookbooks of that era like this one are only marginally illustrated and have no photography in them. For that reason, I probably haven't dived as deeply as I might have otherwise in learning more recipes from this author.

When I received this cookbook from Mrs. Kelley, she clearly thought this recipe was a winner, too, because it had been bookmarked. There are a couple of soy sauce stains on the pages of this book where this recipe was printed, but I'm not sure if those are mine or Mrs. Kelley's. Probably mine.

Nonetheless, this is the only recipe out of this particular cookbook that I have ever actually tried, and I have not changed the ingredients or cooking method at all, except that I always use sirloin beef, not flank or fillet; always use peanut oil for cooking, not corn oil; always use chicken stock, not water; use twice the number of tomatoes; use a large, not a small onion; and I use three times the amount of vinegar that this recipe calls for. Oh, and I also leave out the celery.

Okay, I guess I have actually modified Spunt's recipe quite a bit. But that's the beautiful thing about creative cooking. It's not always about following a recipe exactly to the letter. It's about experimenting and adapting to your particular taste and style.

By the way, I think that the actual size of the ginger root that Spunt calls for in his recipe is preposterous. Since it is only used to flavor the cooking oil, use as little or a much as you like. I generally put three large slices and cook them longer because I like the ginger flavor.

By the way, Spunt's expresses cooking times as absolutes. Don't take them literally. I generally give cooking times as an approximate range since not everyone's stove cooks with the same heat. Gas stoves generally cook cooler than electric stoves, which can have quite a variation in just how hot "high" really is depending on its make and the year it was manufactured.

For the sake of posterity and authenticity, however, I will present this recipe exactly as originally written in The Step-By-Step Chinese Cookbook, which was actually titled "Tomato Beef Slices:"

Cooking Time: 9 minutes

Utensils
Chinese cutting knife
Soup plate
12-inch skillet or wok
Chopsticks
Slotted spatula for stirring and removing meat

Ingredients
1 pound flank steak, sirloin or fillet, cut in diagonal slices or strips
1 tablespoon corn starch
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons brown sugar
2 teaspoons of vinegar
1 teaspoon soy sauce
1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil
1 slice ginger root (2 x 1 x 1/8 inch)
1 small onion (size of a plum)
1/2 stalk celery, cut in thin strips
1 small green pepper, cut in average strips
3 small firm tomatoes, quartered
1/2 cup chicken stock or water
2 tablespoons peanut oil or corn oil
1 tablespoon peanut oil or corn oil

[Editorial Comment: I'm not sure why the hell he couldn't just say, "3 tablespoons peanut oil or corn oil"!]

Before Cooking
Prepare beef slices. Place in the soup plate and dredge with the cornstarch, salt and brown sugar. Sprinkle with the vinegar, sesame oil and soy sauce. Toss well with chopsticks to coat evenly. Let stand at least ten minutes while you prepare vegetables. Have stock or water and both portions of oil ready to go.

Cooking Instructions
Turn heat under skillet or wok to high. (The heat remains high throughout the cooking). When the pan is hot, add the 2 tablespoons oil. It should sizzle at once. Before the oil begins to smoke, add the meat slices, giving them a quick stir first. Stir-fry-toss 2 minutes. Remove with slotted spatula to a warm dish. Add the 1 tablespoon oil to the pan. When it is hot, add the ginger root. Stir-fry 1 minute. Add the onions, celery and green pepper; stir-fry-toss 2 minutes. The onion should be transparent and golden brown at the edges. Add the tomatoes and stir 3 minutes. Return the meat to the pan. Add the stock and stir to blend 1 minute. Remove the ginger. The general color of the dish will be light brown with the peppers and tomatoes bright in color and still crisp. The sauce should be of medium thickness - it will become thinner and more plentiful on standing. The flavor is delicately sweet-and-sour. Served on cold noodles, this is a popular hot-weather dish in China.

SERVINGS: Enough for 2 as a single course with rice or for 4 to 6 in a full menu.

NOTE: Be sure that the tomatoes used are not too ripe or they will pureé in the cooking. 

All in all, Spunt has a good recipe, written poorly, and was probably a better cook than a writer. I found this recipe difficult to follow because he wrote the whole recipe as a single paragraph. For that reason, the first couple of times I made this dish, my wife actually sat in the kitchen with me, reading each sentence as a single step in the cooking process. That way, the dish wasn't burning while I was trying to find and figure out the next step of the recipe in his insufferably long paragraph.

I'm also amused that he got so specific about using a Chinese knife, a soup plate, or chopsticks as the implements to conduct the recipe step. Hell, use whatever comes naturally. It won't change the outcome!

This dish can be kept warm in a 200 degree oven until ready to serve, but he is right about the sauce thinning out the longer it sits. For that reason, I always make this dish last when I'm doing a Chinese Dinner.