Stir-fried Beef with Bamboo Shoots and Pickled Peppers

中文菜谱： 泡椒春笋炒牛肉

Bamboo shoot has been an important part of Chinese cuisine for thousands of years.  The best season to eat it is late winter and early spring.   The ones sold in winter are more tender, juicer and a lot expensive because they have to be dug out from underground by hand.  

Bamboo shoot hunt in spring time is very fun.  I went on a few such trips with my family when I was little.  We hiked into high mountain area where wild bamboos grew into a forest.   A couple days’ spring rain may expedite bamboo shoot growing.  At the right timing, we could harvest between 60 to 80 lbs bamboo shoots on one single trip.  

Good old times...

And now my family is still doing their traditional annual bamboo shoot hunt in spring for fun.  I do mine too, here in China town O(∩_∩)O~

Pickled vegetable is an old traditional way to preserve food when food was scarce.  There is a pickle jar in my kitchen which I brought back from China so that I can make my own pickled peppers and other vegetables at home. 

They taste great straight out of the pickle jar.  Sometimes I sauté pickled peppers with pork or beef.  The combination is amazing! 

Ingredients for beef marinating：

200 g beef chuckeye roast
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon corn starch
1 teaspoon rice cooking wine
1 to 2 teaspoons oyster sauce
1 teaspoon vegetable oil
1/4 teaspoon ground white pepper
2 to 3 tablespoons water/ chicken stock
1/4 teaspoon sugar

Ingredients for stir fry：

200 g bamboo shoots (sold in most Asian grocery stores, fresh & frozen)  
a handful pickled red chili peppers
1 teaspoon dark soy sauce
1 teaspoon oyster sauce
1 to 2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 gloves of garlic, peeled and minced
1/4 teaspoon Sichuan peppercorns
salt to taste
vegetable oil for cooking

Directions：

Thinly slice the beef

Add the beef to a bowl, along with soy sauce, ground ginger, corn starch, oyster sauce, oil, rice cooking wine, ground white pepper, sugar, chicken stock/ water. 

Mix everything together.  Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight. 

Thinly slice the bamboo shoots.  Blanch them in boiling water for 30 to 60 seconds.  Drain well.

Homemade pickled chili peppers straight out of the pickle jar

Heat a cast iron wok over high heat.  Add oil, along with pickled peppers, garlic and Sichuan peppercorns.

Add marinated beef

Stir fry the beef just until they turn colors.

Add bamboo shoots, along with soy sauce, oyster sauce, dark soy sauce and salt.

Continue stir frying for another couple minutes.  Remove from heat and serve hot immediately.

Pickled chili peppers are essential to the dish.  They add a surprisingly nice delicate flavor to the beef; spicy, a little bit savory and sour.  It well balances the richness of beef flavor.  Love it! O(∩_∩)O~

Braised Duck Necks in Spicy Soy Sauce

中文菜谱： 辣卤鸭脖

For the foodies who have culinary adventurous spirits, I recommend soy sauce braised duck necks as a meaty, healthy and very satisfying snack when watching Super Bowl on this coming Sunday.  For those who think it is too bizarre, all I can say is that you have no idea what you are missing O(∩_∩)O~  

A lot of Asian countries have long history of eating ducks.  I mean like all parts of ducks.  When food was scarce, nothing edible would go waste.  At first, people eat duck necks because they couldn’t afford expensive meat.  And now people are still eating it because of it is so tasty and flavorful.

Ingredients：

2 lbs duck necks (sold in Asian grocery stores)  
3 to 4 tablespoons Pixian chili paste
a handful dried chili peppers
1/4 to 1/3 cup low sodium soy sauce
2 to 4 tablespoons dark soy sauce
2 to 3 tablespoons rice cooking wine
1 to 2 teaspoons sugar
3 to 4 star anises
1 small piece cinnamon bark
2 to 3 bay leaves
1 teaspoon Sichuan pepper corns
3 to 4  pieces dried sand ginger
5 to 6 cloves
1 black cardamom pod
2 cloves of garlic
1 small piece of fresh ginger root, sliced
salt to taste  
3 to 4 tablespoons vegetable oil for cooking
water
1 cup of *“old soy sauce” (opitonal)

(* old soy sauce is the remaining braised sauce that has been boiled, drained and preserved in freezer.  Add old soy sauce to the broth can enrich its flavor, improve the braised meat texture and give everything a better taste.  Think about the old dough used in the bakery.  They pretty much work the same way. *)

Directions：

Gather all the needed spices in a small plate.  Don’t they look pretty together?

Clean and rinse duck necks under running water.  Trim any extra surrounding fat or tissues.

Blanch duck necks in boiling water for about 5 minutes.

Rinse them with hot water.  Set aside.

Heat a cast iron wok over medium heat.  Add vegetable oil along with all the spices.

Sautee for several minutes until you can smell intense aroma from the spices.

Add Pixian chili paste.

Add soy sauce, dark soy sauce, rice cooking wine, sugar, and old soy sauce.  Continue to sauté for a couple minutes.

Add water.  Turn up the heat to high.  When it comes to boil, add duck necks.

Wait for the broth to boil again.  Cover with lid and reduce the heat to simmer for about 1 hour.  Extend the simmering time if you prefer softer meat texture. 

15 minutes before simmering time is up, do a quick sample taste.  Add salt to taste.  

When the hour is up, turn off the heat.  For maximum flavor, leave the duck necks soaking in broth for another hour or so.

When the duck necks cool down, dice them with a sharp cleaver. 

They are best when served cold beer together! O(∩_∩)O~

Homemade Wontons with Pork, Shrimps, and Shiitake Mushrooms with Chili Sauce

中文菜谱： 猪肉鲜虾花菇馄饨

Wontons and dumplings are two of the most popular and widely popular breakfast choices across the whole mainland China.  There are restaurants, diners, food vendors selling all kinds of wontons.

 But the best ones are not always found in fancy and expensive restaurants, but on the streets.  Some food vendors and small diners have been making and selling wontons for generations.  Years of experience make them experts in very single steps of making wontons from broth to seasoning.

I learned how to make wontons by eating them for breakfast for a long time.  The best ones are freshly made, cooked and served.  So a lot of wonton restaurants have been wrapping and cooking nonstop since they open the door in early morning.  During my wait, I always peeked through kitchen window to see how it is done. 

I did that out of bore and curiosity at first, but soon I got attracted and fascinated watching the cooks in kitchen wrapping wontons at lightning speed. 

A bowl of good wonton soup is made up with freshly made wontons and seasonings.  Both are equally important to how the final product taste.

Ingredients：

200 g ground pork
160 to 200g fresh shiitake mushrooms
10 to 12 fresh shrimps, peeled, divined and chopped
1 to 2 teaspoons oyster sauce
1 tablespoon rice cooking wine
1/4 teaspoon ground white pepper
3 to 4 tablespoons soy sauce
1/4 teaspoon ground fresh ginger
1/2 teaspoon corn starch
1 egg white
a few drops of sesame oil
salt to taste
1 package of wonton wraps (sold in most Asian grocery markets)

Directions：

These are not regular shiitake mushrooms.  They are smaller in size but packed with intense earthy mushroom aroma.  They have signature cracks on the caps.

Use a damp kitchen paper towel to wipe clean the shiitake mushrooms.  In Asia, people believe rinsing fresh mushrooms under running water could ruin their delicate aroma.  The best way to clean them is with damp cloth or paper towel. 

However, there is too much dirt on the bottoms of shiitake mushrooms.  I have to rinse them to get rid of all the dirt.

Add cleaned shiitake mushrooms to a food processor and finely chop them.  

In a large bowl, add chopped shiitake mushrooms, shrimps, and ground pork, along with oyster sauce, rice cooking wine, ground white pepper, ginger, starch, egg white and sesame oil.

Whisk with a pair of chop sticks or wooden spoon clockwise for7 to 8 minutes, or until the filling becomes smooth and silky.

Season with salt to taste.

Add a couple teaspoons of filling to one edge of a wonton wrap.

Roll the wonton half way through, and then pull both ends towards center and overlap them.  Brush with a bit of water or egg wash so that wonton will keep its shape.

Repeat the process until all the filling is finished.

Add wontons to a large pot of boiling water.  Cook until all wontons float to surface.   In between, when the water boils again, add 1 cup of cold water to the pot.  Repeat the process one more time later when the water boils again.  Adding cold water to a boiling pot is a traditional Chinese way to cook dumplings and wontons, so that the wontons can be fully cooked without the outside wraps getting too soggy and mushy. 

Add wontons along with a ladle or two broth to a bowl.  Some of my favorite seasonings are but not limited to: sesame oil, soy sauce, garlic water, Sichuan pepper oil, chili oil sauce, vinegar, chopped picked vegetables, chopped pickled daikon, green onion, cilantro, and crushed dry roasted peanuts.

With a spoon, gently toss everything together.

Bon appetite! O(∩_∩)O~

Sichuan Style Pickled Chili Peppers and Chicken Feet

中文菜谱：

泡椒凤爪

The NBA games between Houston Rockets and Golden State Warriors are going on!  We instantly transform into coach potatoes when the game starts.  Plus cold beers and good snacks make the game night more fun!  O(∩_∩)O~

Our favorite snacks for game night are chicken wings, popcorns, roasted peanuts, roasted sun flower seeds, hot and spicy duck necks, and pickled chicken feet.  Some of them sound exotic and bizarre?  Not at all!  They are all widely popular in Asian countries for a really long time.  You have to try them yourselves to see how tasty they can be.

For chicken feet boiling：

2 packages of chicken feet (weighs about 4 lbs; sold in Asian grocery stores)
1 to 2 tablespoons rice cooking wine
1 large piece of ginger root, smashed
3 to 4 star anises
1 teaspoon Sichuan pepper corns
1 black cardamom pod, smashed
4 to 5 cloves
3 to 4 bay leaves
1 teaspoon dried ginger
a handful of dried red chili peppers, cut into pieces

For pickling：

1 bowl of Sichuan style pickled chili peppers
1 cup of pickle juice
2 to 3 cups of icy water
granulated sugar to taste
rice vinegar to taste
sea salt to taste

Directions：

I make my own Sichuan style pickled peppers from scratch.  They taste better when they are homemade together with a variety of vegetables and spices.  But you can always find them available in Asian grocery stores.

Finely chop the peppers and set aside for later use.

Add star anises, Sichuan peppercorns, cardamom, dried ginger, cloves, bay leaves, chili peppers to a piece of coffee filter paper.  Wrap and tie it up to be a spice bag.

Rinse chicken feet under running water.  Remove nails with a sharp knife or a pair of kitchen scissors.

Add to a soup pot, along with water, spice bag, ginger root and rice cooking wine. 

Cook over high heat until the water boils.  Reduce to medium heat and continue to cook for another 10 to 15 minutes.

Discard the spice bag and ginger.  Rinse chicken feet under running water again for a few minutes.

With a sharp cleaver, cut each chicken into halves. 

Add chicken feet to a large bowl, along with pickle juice, vinegar, sea salt, sugar, icy water and chopped pickled peppers. 

Mix well with a large spoon.  Cover and refrigerate overnight.  Just like regular pickles, it will take a couple days for pickled chicken feet to taste best.   

Remember to stir the chicken once in a while so that every chicken foot will be pickled and seasoned more evenly.

Don’t forget it will take a couple days to pickle.  Feel free to make them ahead of time.  The longer they sit in the fridge, the better the flavors will be. 

I buy some beers made in Czech from Central Market.  They taste mild and smooth, just like a regular American beer.

Interested in more Sichuan style pickles?  Here are some more：

Stir-fried Sichuan Style Pickled String Beans and Ground Pork

SICHUAN STYLE PICKLED JERUSALEM ARTICHOKE

SICHUAN PICKLED VEGETABLE AND MINCED PORK