Top Ten Chinese Recipes you Must Learn
Chinese food is a delicious way to expand your personal recipe book, especially if you love to use simple, fresh ingredients with quick cooking time. These top ten dishes are popular around the world, and are must-haves in your collection of Chinese recipes.
Fried Rice - A staple in Chinese restaurants, fried rice is the ultimate Chinese food, and can be one of the most flexible in your cookbook because you can use leftover rice and ingredients to make it. Of course, you can use fresh ingredients but it’s recommended to use rice that has been kept in the fridge overnight for best results. Ingredients usually used in fried rice are eggs, scallions, diced meat of either pork, beef or chicken, ham, prawns and vegetables such as bean sprouts, peas, celery, corn and carrots. There are many types of fried rice but the more popular ones are the Yongchow and Fukien fried rice.
Kung Pao Chicken - Kung Pao chicken or Kung Po chicken is a Chinese dish from Szechuan cooking and is considered to be a delicacy. The recipe for this savory dish commonly calls for diced chicken that is pre-marinated and briefly stir-fried with unsalted roasted peanuts, red swee peppers, sherry or rice wine, hoisin sauce, sesame oil, oyster sauce, and chili peppers. Alternatively, you can use shrimp, scallops, beef or pork in place of the chicken.
Moo Shu Pork - This is a dish of northern Chinese origin and a favorite of many. Ingredients in a Mu Xu pork recipe usually include green cabbage, carrots, wood ear mushrooms, bean sprouts, scallions, scrambled eggs and day lily buds. Bok choy, bell peppers, celery, Shiitake mushrooms, snow pea pods and onions are sometimes used. The vegetables are cut into long and thin strips before cooking, with the exception for day lily buds and bean sprouts. Fried Mu Xu pork is then wrapped in moo shu pancakes that is brushed with hoisin sauce and eaten by hand. Moo shu pancakes are thin wrappers made of flour that is easily available in supermarkets and steamed right before eating.
General Tso’s Chicken - General Tso's chicken is a Hunan cuisine that tastes spicy and sweet and highly popular in Chinese restaurants in Canada and America where it’s often listed as a “chef’s specialty”. General Tso's Chicken recipe commonly involves battered chicken deep-fried and marinated with ginger, garlic, rice vinegar, soy sauce, sesame oil, Shaoxing wine or sherry, sugar, scallions, and hot chili peppers.
Egg Rolls - Egg rolls are one of the most popular Chinese foods, and for good reason. This delicious roll is made by wrapping a combination of chopped cabbage and meats and sometimes noodles in a sheet of dough. It is then dipped in egg and deep fried to perfection. Egg rolls have more filling and hence larger in size than its cousin spring roll. Its skin is crunchier and thicker.
Fortune Cookies - Chinese cooking would simply not be complete without the addition of a recipe for fortune cookies. The ingrediesnts you need to make these cookies are some flour, sugar, vanilla and eggs, making them a simple way to add some fun to your home cooked Chinese meal.
Orange Chicken - This delicious Chinese dish is made of chicken chopped into bite size pieces and battered, and then fried with thick sweet and spicy chili sauce flavored with orange. The traditionally Chinese recipe for tangerine chicken as it’s sometimes called, is to deep fry the chicken first and then stir fry it in a lightly sweet soy-based sauce flavored with dried orange peels. Vegetables like bok choy and baby carrots are used as the garnishing. However, cooks in Western restaurants do not use dried orange peel but rather fresh orange peel or orange juice and a substantial amount of sugar to make the sauce. Chili peppers and steamed broccoli are used as garnishing instead.
Sweet and Sour Pork - This savory-sweet all-time favorite Chinese dish is of Cantonese origin. It is a good dish to prepare when you are planning on having guests, who will be wildly impressed with your cooking skill. As with other Chinese food recipes, the key to making a great Sweet and Sour Pork dish is in the sauce made of soy sauce, white vinegar, ketchup and sugar. Its ingredients include pork, onion, bell pepper and pineapple cut into bite size pieces.
Mapo Dofu - Mapo doufu or Mapo tofu is a well-known Chinese dish from the Szechuan province. Ingredients used for this recipe include beancurd or tofu, and minced beef or pork cooked in a bright red spicy sauce based on chili.
Chop Suey - Chop suey or “za sui” or “shap sui” literally means ‘mixed pieces’ is an American-Chinese dish usually made up of leftover vegetables and meats stir fried quickly in a sauce thickened with starch. It is a great dish when you need to use up the last of yesterday’s chicken or pork roast and can incorporate meats of any kind such as chicken, fish, beef, shrimp or pork and various vegetables from cabbage to celery and bean sprouts. Chop Suey is often eaten with rice.
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