Niu Rou Xian Bing (pan fried chinese hamburgers)... PICTURES AND VIDEO SOON TO COME

This is another favorite of mine... very similar to the egg/chive pockets described in the previous entry. I first tried these at my favorite Chinese restaurant back in the DC area (A&J's restaurant), where I've been going for like ten years now. I was instantly hooked and I order one basically every time I go there. The home made ones taste basically the same and are actually better, according to my brother.

Here's what you'll need:

- ground beef

- scallions

- soy sauce

- sesame oil

- peppercorn

- dough

- flour

- ginger

- MSG

First thing to do is of course to make the dough. We used three cups of flour and one cup of water (it was more than enough for four people). Pretty self explanatory, just mix it together and knead it until it's dough.

Put a tablespoon of peppercorn into a bowl and fill it up with three tablespoons of warm water. Let it soak for a bit.

Put the beef into a bowl and add the chopped scallions, chopped ginger, a pinch of salt, a pinch of pepper, a pinch of MSG, three tablespoons of soy sauce, two tablespoons of cooking oil, and one tablespoon of sesame oil.

Once the peppercorns are soft, which shouldn't be TOO long, take them out (keep the water!) and crush them with a rolling pin:

Add the peppercorns AND the peppercorn water to the bowl with the ground beef mixture.

Mix it up until it's nice and homogeneous looking.

Now take the dough and divide it into about 12-15 parts. Take out a cutting board and sprinkle flour on it so the dough doesn't stick... then one by one, take each of the 12-15 parts and roll it out until it's a thin, flat circle.

Here's a video tutorial on how to fill each of them and roll them into the correct shape [The video is missing right now because my internet connection is too messed up to be able to upload videos onto youtube. I'm working on getting this fixed ASAP]:

Here's the end result of the wrapping process. Just a few of them:

Now all you gotta do is put some oil in the pan and fry them until golden brown on both sides.

DELICIOSO

Jiu Cai He Zi (egg and chive pockets)

Another favorite of mine. This dish has sentimental value to me... it's one that I've always loved growing up and just never got tired of. It's also REALLY REALLY simple and tastes great, despite the few ingredients required to make it. You will need:

- flour

- chives (preferably Chinese chives)

- eggs

Amounts are shown in the pictures. We had enough for about 12 pockets, which was more than enough for 4 people (though we did eat other things too).

First thing you want to do is make the dough. Pretty easy... just mix 3 parts flour with 1 part water and knead it. Here's a picture of my dad holding the finished dough:

Next, beat the eggs. We used 3 eggs but only because we didn't have enough left... I personally would've used 5 eggs because I like the egg to chive ratio to be a little higher.

Chop the chives up... use whatever amount you want. Add soy sauce and sesame oil to the chives and stir it up. We did a four to one ratio soy sauce to sesame oil... use however much of each that you want. It's all dependent on what you like.

Next cook the eggs... the way we did it was to cook it in a pancake-like fashion, then flip it over, and break it up.

Once the egg is cooked, mix it with the chives. Forgot to take a picture of this but you can probably imagine what it looks like.

It's time for the fun part... wrapping the pockets! Break off a ball of dough like somewhere between the size of a golf ball and a tennis ball (closer to the golf ball), put some flour on it so it doesn't stick to whatever you're gonna roll it on, and get to work on it with the rolling pin. you want it to be pretty thin and circular shaped.

Proper rolling technique: hold the dough with one hand, roll hard with the other hand and stretch the dough out as much as possible with each motion, and rotate it after each time you roll it.

Next, put a bit of the egg/chive mixture into the pocket. Then wet your finger and wet the edges of the flattened circle of dough. You may find it helpful to have a bowl of water near where you'll be cooking. Decide which way you want to fold it, and then pinch the edges together to make the pockets.

Voila! Cooking is hella fun! Just ask Tony... lol.

Make as many as you can until you run out of either dough or chive/egg mixture. You'll want to cook these three or four at a time. Well, it actually depends on how big your pan is. Put oil into it, put the heat on medium-high, and put the pockets on the pan until they're slightly golden brown on both sides. The second picture below is definitely burnt... go more for the level of brown in the final picture. ENJOY! These things are SOOO GOOOOOD.

Experimental... Stuffed Mushrooms

When I was in Seattle, I had stuffed mushrooms at the Cheesecake Factory and I was amazed at how good they tasted. The other night, my mother and I decided to try to make them. We didn't use a recipe - just kind of winged it instead, and it actually turned out really good. I'll probably get a real recipe sometime in the future but if you're in a fix and you don't have a lot of time or ingredients, here's a real easy one.

This is what you'll need:

- Big mushrooms (we bought a pack of big white mushrooms from Giant labeled "Stuffing Mushrooms")

- Ground meat.. any kind will do

- Bread crumbs

- Soy sauce

- Whatever herbs you like

First, get some ground meat... we used pork, but you could also use beef or anything else. Pork worked great but I imagine beef would be even better (maybe just because I like beef more).

Add a tablespoon or two of soy sauce, and then just sprinkle on some salt/pepper and various herbs. I think we used basil, thyme, and rosemary. Mix it all up in a bowl like so:

Next, you'll want to sprinkle some bread crumbs on top of this mixture and stir it up some more.

It's time to prepare the mushrooms. Get the mushrooms and cut around the stalk. Don't cut too deep... a pretty shallow cut around the base should do the trick. After cutting all the way around, the stalk should come out pretty easily.

Do this to all of the mushrooms.

Next, put the filling into the mushrooms.

Sprinkle breadcrumbs over the mushrooms. Add Parmesan cheese if you have it.. we didn't, but we would've added it if we did. Then sprinkle some olive oil over them so that they don't get too dry and burnt during the cooking.

Now all you gotta do is cook them! Pre-heat the oven to 400 or so and stick them in there until the meat is cooked thoroughly.

DELICIOSO!

Stir Fried Beef with Chili

Here's another simple one for y'all that my dad taught me. Really really quick and easy Chinese stir fried dish... but it's DELICIOUS! Except I just had the dentist cut the gums around my wisdom tooth so eating this was quite painful due to the spiciness... but for those of you who DIDN'T just have an operation on your gums, it should be quite a pleasant experience. It's very typical Chinese... very simple, very quick and very delicious!

To make enough for two people, you'll need

- rice (cook this in the rice cooker or however you want)

- 3 green peppers (you need a certain kind of pepper, I'm not sure what they're called but you can look at the picture to get an idea. once I find out the name I'll update this, meanwhile if you know the name of this type of pepper let me know)

- beef skirt (amount shown in picture later)

- 3-4 cloves of garlic

- a bit of ginger

- a tablespoon of soy sauce

First thing you'll want to do is cut up the garlic. I explained how to do this in an earlier post so won't get into detail but basically take each clove one by one, cut off the hard parts, crush under the blade, peel off skin, and then cut it into little bits. It should look like the picture on the left.

Next, you'll want to cut the ginger. The following pics should give you a good idea of how much you should use. First cut it into thin sheets like in the first picture below, then cut these into thin strips, and then cut these strips into little bits.

Take out the peppers and wash them. Once again I'm not sure what this type of green pepper is called so please let me know if you do know:

Next thing you want to do is cut the peppers right down the middle, just like my dad is doing in the picture. If you want it to be spicier, keep the seeds in - you can also take them out to make it milder. After cutting them down the middle, slice the peppers into thin, long strips, as shown on the left. Do this for all of them. You'll end up with this:

Now it's time to cut the meat. We used about the amount displayed below, but I'd suggest a little more. Anyways first cut it into half length-wise, and then slice it into REALLY thin slices... as thin as possible. Look at the picture for an idea of what it should look like after.

Put the sliced beef skirt into a bowl and add a teaspoon of soy sauce. Using your hands, squeeze/mix the beef with the soy sauce until it's evenly distributed and the sauce has soaked into the meat.

Now it's time to cook! Look at the following picture for a model of proper stir frying technique:

First thing you'll want to do is put some oil in the wok, and then add the ginger and garlic once the oil gets hot. Medium to medium high heat should be just fine. After cooking that for like two minutes, add the sliced peppers and stir fry until it's about as cooked as you want it to be. I like to stir fry it until it darkens and softens a bit. Once it's ready, remove everything from the wok and place the peppers/ginger/garlic aside.

You'll now want to cook the meat. Add more oil to the wok and cook the meat until you can't see any more red. Because of the thinness of the sliced beef skirt, this should happen very quickly. Once there's no more red, add the peppers/garlic/ginger back in and stir for a minute, then take it out. It's ready to eat! Like any other Chinese stir fried dish, you're going to want to eat this with rice.

Here's the final dish, with a side of spinach. Sorry for the off centered picture, I was just too excited to eat it!

Bon appetit! Told you it'd be simple ;).