Sweet and Sour Tomato Chicken

I have made this dish a few times, but the last time I made it was the best. The sauce was just nice in terms of thickness and the “chicken” wasn’t swimming in the sauce. I can’t tell you how much of the ingredients to use, you’re gonna have to just eyeball it and see what works for you. It all depends on the amount of chicken used. I used snow peas and mushrooms this time for the sauce, but you can pretty much use any vegetable. Best served with a bowl of hot rice, or two!

Ingredients

• Breaded “chicken” – I use vegetarian salted “chicken” sold at vegetarian food stuff stores
• Ketchup – see notes below
• Snow peas
• White mushrooms, sliced
• Half an onion, quartered
• 1 long red hot pepper, sliced lengthwise, if desired
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced
• Water
• 1 Tbsp of corn starch + cold water mixture, to thicken sauce if necessary
• Sugar, at least 2 Tbsp or to taste
• Salt, a pinch or to taste

Method

1. Deep fry the breaded chicken. Drain excess oil on paper towel. Set aside. Reserve 2 Tbsp of oil in the wok.
2. Fry onions, garlic and hot pepper till fragrant but not brown.
3. Add snow peas and mushrooms (or your preferred vegetables).
4. Pour ketchup and water into the wok. Bring to boil.
5. Season with sugar and salt. The sauce should be thick enough to coat the back of a spoon and you can use a finger to draw a line and the sauce stays separate.
6. If sauce is too watery, thicken with cornstarch+cold water mixture and immediately remove from heat. Stir until combined.
7. Toss fried chicken pieces into the wok to coat with sauce. Done!

Note: I use Heinz ketchup and was told that Canadian ketchup is better because it is made with actual sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), which is bad for you. I found that Canadian Heinz ketchup does taste better than American Heinz due to this fact.

Snow Fungus Dessert with Figs (mo fah kor)

Since I’ve been back to work a month ago, life had been pretty hectic. My blogging has fallen off to the side, especially since typing is quite an arduous task for me with a broken arm in recovery. While I was still sitting at home, I made quite a few simple dishes. This was one of them.

Snow Fungus is called shuet yee (Cantonese) or yin er (Mandarin). The Chinese believe that is has many benefits which is similar to collagen. It is believed that it can heal the lungs and has cooling properties. You can find a lot of information on this jelly-like fungus on the Internet, such as here.

While picking up some of these dried at the Chinese herbal store, I was told to include mo far kor (Cantonese) as well in this dessert. I later found out that these are dried figs.

This dessert soup is reall simple. Measurements are subjective I think, but use common sense

Ingredients

• 4 C water
• 1-2 heads of dried snow fungus, soaked for 30 mins and broken into little pieces, remove yellow parts
• 1 handful of dried mo far kor, sliced
• 1 handful of lin chee/lian zhi, rinsed and soaked for 30 mins
• 1 handful of pak hup (dried lily petals)
• 1 handful of dried red dates/hong zhou, rinsed and soaked for 30 mins
• 2 or 3 dried honey dates/matt zhou
• 3 sticks of brown cane sugar, or
• 1 box or rock sugar, or
• Any amount of sugar to taste

Method

1. Bring all of the ingredients to a boil except for sugar, for 30-40 mins or until the snow fungus is soft but not melted.
2. Add sugar and stir until dissolved. Remove from heat.
3. Serve hot or cold (refrigerated or with ice).

Road to Recovery

It’s been 20 days past surgery and I am doing better each day.. but I soon found out that recovery is a lot more painful than the accident or surgery itself! My left arm is encasted in a $300 elbow brace most of the time, so I have not been able to utilize my arm much at all, but I do see that I am reaching new limits on a daily basis. I am supposed to only remove the brace for shower/bath, but sleeping with it has been very uncomfortable. Nonetheless, my somewhat diligence did payoff because I am now able to comfortably face my palm inwards so that I can effectively use the handle bar on the brace for leverage.

As with those of you who are Chinese or of Asian descent, you know that I am supposed to follow some guidelines for as long as I am recovering. I thought this might be an intersting thing to write about on my blog… Some of the things that are forbidden to me are:

• Soy sauce or any dark sauces (because they will give you an unsightly dark/pigmented scar)
• Seafood (This will make you itch, luckily I’m vegetarian.. no problem here)
• Mushrooms (Again, another itchy ingredient)
• Spicy food (I didn’t know why until I had some and boy, I was very irritated… I thought I would never stop taking spicy food, but look at me now!)
• Egg (not sure why…)

I’m not sure about the rest of you, but it has been tough for me to omit these stuff out of my daily meals (except for seafood). I did cheat though, I had been having some soy sauce, but I figure I am naturally tanned anyway, so I might be able to get away with a “coloured” scar, LOL!

Most vegetarian foodstuff are flavoured with mushroom… so I didn’t really adhere to this either but I have been lucky that I have not itched thus far. I do remember being itchy whenever I consume mushrooms when I was younger though…

I have been popping painkiller quite a bit to deal with the pain, but Oxycontin (ratio-oxycocet) does some pretty bad stuff to you. Because I’m little, perhaps these side effects are more imminent on me. After biting on my lips quite often, having some constipation, fever at dusk, feeling chilly on the outside but hot on the inside, headaches and insomnia, I’ve decided to reseach on (traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) to remedify my symptoms. I am having what the Chinese people call “kah foh”, or “fake heatiness”.

I also had been feeling very weak since the surgery, so I knew that I needed to take something to restore my “blood vitality” or “pou huet”. The Chinese people believe that “Where the blood flows, that’s where the Qi flows”. I probably bled a lot during my surgery, thus resulting on Qi leakage. I needed to get on the ball quickly to:

1. Cool my body from heatiness, and
2. Restore my “blood vitality”

My family does business in the Chinese herb industry you see, but I’m not one to claim that I know much about TCM at all. I went to the Chinese Herb store with Andy’s mom and came home with 6 different types of herbs.

After speaking to my mom, I should have first focus on reducing my heatiness so that I can sleep at night, and then only consume herbs that restores my blood vitality… Oh well, we live and learn I hope I can sleep tonight though

Oh and I accidentally boiled the herbs in a metal pot instead of a clay pot… oh boy… but it still tastes very yummy. Best tasting concoction I’ve had in a long time actually!

Anyway here’s a picture of me 10 days post surgery when the cast is removed, and me in my brace last week. More pictures and ingredients of the herbal soup in my next post as well as TCM and vegetarianism.

10 days post surgery

Trying my best to smile for this picture

Baby Bok Choy with Vegetarian ‘Shrimp’

Dinner was simple today. Andy helped me wash the baby bok choys in cold water to revive the leaves and remove the dirt. This easy stir-fry was made by frying julienned ginger and baby bok choys with about 2 tbsp of hot oil. In less than 2 minutes the vegetables are ready and a mixture of vegetarian oyster sauce and water is poured into the wok. Season with a little salt, sugar and pepper and 2 tbsp of cornstarch+ cold water mixture to thicken the sauce. Remove from heat immediately.

The “shrimps” were pan fried ahead of time for garnish.

Serve dish with hot white rice.

Eggplant Stirfry with Chinese BBQ Sauce

This is a very simple stirfry dish again. I was cracking my head to think of how else I can cook my eggplants and I thought why not stirfry them with my can of Chinese BBQ sauce. My brain can barely function after work and after sitting in a traffic jam on the Detroit-Windsor border. As simple as my dishes look, I actually still have to think about how to cut the vegetables, what to use to accompany the dishes, what sauce to use, etc. Anyway, Chinese BBQ sauce  or sha cha jiang is a dipping sauce for Taiwanese hotpot dish. It is a bunch of blended spices soaked in oil. Some are spicy too.

Ingredients

• Chinese eggplants, sliced at an angle
• Cili padi or hot peppers, sliced thinly
• Chinese BBQ Sauce (sha cha jiang)

Method

1. Heat generous amount of oil in a wok. Eggplants use a lot of oil initially to be cooked, so if there’s too much oil for you after the eggplants are soft/cooked, simply remove the excess oil with a spoon.
2. Add in the sliced eggplants and pepper in the wok and cook over medium heat until the eggplants are soft and translucent.
3. Add a few teaspoons of the Chinese BBQ sauce to the eggplants and season with a pinch of salt and sugar.

Preparation & cooking time: 15 minutes

P/S: It took about 45 minutes for me to make this dish, the sweetpea dish and the seaweed soup I’ve posted prior to this. 

Sweetpea Mushrooms Stirfry

Another basic stirfry dish.

Ingredients

• Vegetarian ham, diced
• Sweetpeas, tear ends and “devein”
• Canned straw mushrooms, drained
• Enoki mushrooms, woody ends removed
• Mixed peas
• Vegetarian oyster sauce

Method

1. Heat a few tablespoons of oil in a wok. Fry the diced ham until they start to brown.
2. Add sweetpeas and straw mushrooms to the wok. Cook until the sweetpeas start to turn bright green.
3. Toss a handful of mixed peas into the wok.
4. Pour a few tablespoons of oyster sauce to the vegetable mixture and season with sugar, salt and pepper to taste.
5. Add enoki mushrooms to the wok and turn off the heat. Stir well and serve.

Preparation & cooking time: 15 minutes