When I cook, I don’t always follow the recipes. Well, maybe the first time I will. Then after that I will adjust the cooking to how I want it to be. I always tell my friends cook however they want, after all they’re the ones eating the food. Here I am showing you the most frequently used spices/sauces for my cooking. Also the measuring cups and spoons.
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Bring a pot of water to boil, add the washed wormwood and baking soda and cook one minute.
Put the wormwood in a blender and add 1.25 cups of boiling water that has just used to boil wormwood and blend into a puree.
Add glutinous rice flour and wheat starch together, then add wormwood mixture and stir with chopsticks ( it is hot), and when it is almost combined, add oil and knead by hands to form a soft ball.
Divide the bean paste and taro paste into about 30 grams each, and the wrapper about 40 grams each.
Wrap the stuffings with the wrappers like how we do rice balls (it should be very easy to wrap due to boiling water added to the flours)
After all are done put each on parchment paper and put them in bamboo steamer and steam over boiling water for 12 minutes.
Bring the water to boil then add the rock sugar, cool to room temperature. Add the red rice yeast to the water and stir to mix well. Pour everything to a glass container.
Steam the rice over the water for about 20 minutes then let cool to only a little warm. if the rice is too hot you will get vinegar, not wine. If the rice is totally cold, it may not get fermented.
Put the white wine yeast into a zip lock bag and use a rolling pin to smash it to powder.
Add 1/3 of rice to the water and red rice yeast mixture, sprinkle 1/3 of the white wine yeast on the top, add 1/3 more rice to it and repeat the above procedure until everything is put in the container.
Use a plastic wrap to cover the container really well and used something to tie it up, then add the container’s lid on and tighten. put it to a place that is cool without sunlight (like somewhere in the basement)
5 days later use a clean spatula to stir the mixture to make sure everything is well mixed. close it tight and put back to the cool not sunlight place.
A month later, the wine is ready to drink or used as cooking wine and the anka sauce is also ready to use.
Use a strainer to separate the wine from the anka sauce/rice. Let the wine stay in a container for a day or so, then pour the wine to a separated container and leave the precipitation out. Doing so will prevent the wine turn sour, the precipitation on the bottom is Anka sauce/rice, after one month they need to be totally separated, otherwise they will continue to ferment until the wine turns to vinegar.
Put the peppercorn and star anise in a small pot and add half a cup of water to boil until half of water is remaining. Turn the heat off and let cool. Put the lotus root and carrot in a food processor and cut it slightly, do not cut it too much just until they turn into small particles because we still want the texture of them.
Add peppercorn water and the rest of ingredients to the grounded lamb and stir in one direction until viscous, setting aside in the refrigerator.
Take out 5 dumpling wraps, apply some starch between each one, and roll along the edges with a rolling pin to roll out the dumpling wraps thinner and bigger.
After all the dumpling wraps are rolled out, you can wrap them, put a spoonful of meat in the middle of the wrap, then fold the wrap, tightly pinch the wraps on top of the meat then slighly fix the top portion of the wrap to make it look pretty. Dont put too much meat on the wrap because we will need the extra top portion of wrap.
Put the shaomai in a bamboo steamer over boiling water and steam for 10 minutes on a high heat. If you can’t finish eating all of them, you can put them in a container and freeze for later.
Melt the butter in a non-stick pan over medium-low heat, add marshmallows and stir.
When the butter and marshmallows are well combined together, add the milk powder and green tea powder that have been sifted together, turn off the heat and continue to stir until fully mixed.
Add the dried fruit and nuts and continue combining.
Finally add the small cookies. It’s hard to stir at this point, so mix the cookies into the marshmallows then use gloved hands to shape them.
After a little shaping, press into a tool box container, and when it is completely cool, you can take it out and cut it.
Add some oil to a hot none stick cooking pan, add fish to it and pan fry each side until lightly golden brown for about 3-4 minutes in total. ( don’t over cook it)
Add 2/3 of the sauce to the fish and simmer for about 10 minutes or until the sauce is thickening.
Precook everything that needs to be cooked, steam the fish and crab stick over the water; pan fried thin sliced spam; scramble the eggs then pan fried the egg to make a whole piece egg.
When rice is ready, add 3Tbsps Japanese sushi vinegar and mix well. Then add the rice seasoning also mix well.
Get a 6 inch cake pan, tear a big piece of plastic wrap and cover the inside of the cake pan so when you finish the cake you can easily pull it out of the pan.
Add one thin layer of rice on the bottom and press it down firmly by using another piece of plastic wrap.
Add the eel evenly on the rice, then add another layer of rice, press down firmly using the plastic wrap again.
Repeat the above process with the rest of ingredients.
When done use the edge of the plastic wrap to pull the whole thing out of the pan and leave it on a plate.
Rice seasonings
Tips:
If you do not have the rice seasoning, you don’t have to use it. For the layers, use any kind of your favorite ingredients, I wanted to use avocado that day, but they were too hard to cut open. If you don’t have a cake pan, use any deep container you have at home will be fine too.
This dish is perfect for summer time when you eat it cold. It is using so many vegetables which is good for health. Simple and delish!
Ingredients:
3 packs sweet potato noodles
Beef 5 oz.
Mixed vegetables about 1 pound (I used bell peppers, carrot, mushroom, water spinach, black fungus, red onion)
1 egg
1tbsp white roasted sesame seeds for garnish
Directions:
Cut beef into thin strips and marinate it with salt, cooking wine, half egg white and table spoon of corn starch for 30 minutes. Also cut vegetables into thin shreds.
Bring a big sauce pan of water to boil and cook the Water spinach in the boiling water for 1/2 minute, then rinse it with cold water to keep the color.
Add the noodles to the boiling water and cook for 7-8 minute or to the right tenderness you prefer. Rinse it under running water until the noodle is cold.
Add 2 tbsp oil in a hot cooking pan, add the beef and vegetables except bell peppers to the oil and saute for about 4 minutes, then add the bell peppers and continue to cook a minute.
Use a fork to beat the rest of egg from marinate, pan fry it into a thin layer, then thin shred it.
Add everything to a mixing bowl, add 1.5 to 2tbsp light soy sauce, 1/2 tsp chicken powder, 1/2 tbsp rice vinegar, 1/2 tbsp sugar, 2tbsp sesame oil, sesame seeds and mix well. ( if you like it spicy, add some hot oil)
This is easy to make, I used to buy the sour cabbage from the store but they don’t really taste right, maybe they add something else to make it ferment faster so the taste of it is usually way too strong for me.
Direction:
You will need a big glass jar, some Chinese cabbage or mustard green. The only ingredients adding are water and salt.
Add 2% of salt to the total weight of vegetables (vegetable cleaned and cut in halves or quarters) and let it sit for one to two hours in room temperature until the vegetable is wilted and a lot of water coming out of the vegetable.
Add the vegetable and the water from the vegetables to the big jar, usually the water from vegetable is not enough to cover the vegetable, so you will need to add some more water to the jar. Weigh the water you need then add 2% of salt to the total weight to the water and stir to dissolve the salt, then add it to the jar.
Make sure the water is enough to cover all the vegetable, don’t let any of the vegetable float to the surface. You can use a piece of stone to press down vegetable, if you don’t have one, then get a plastic bag and add some water to it and tie it up tight and put it on top of vegetable.
Seal the jar with the lid and keep it in a cool dark place for 2-3 weeks, it all depends on the weather, if it is warm/hot then it will ferment faster, if it is cold then it may take 4 weeks to become sour. If you use Chinese cabbage the color will go from light greenish yellow and white to beautiful yellow and white when it is ready. If you use mustard green then the color will go from bright green to brownish green like the pictures shown above.
When you think it is sour enough you can take it out and keep them in freeze for up to one month. The taste of it is smooth sour not too strong. I use it to make soup, saute with meat or just saute by itself. Yum!
I have a lot of ground beef in my freezer, so I decided to make some dumplings today. Dumpling that is made with home made dumpling wrapper is much better than store bought wrappers.
Here is the recipe for the dumpling wrapper:
All purpose flour 700g
Water 340- 350g
Salt 4g
In a big bowl mix everything together to form a dough then cover the bowl with a plastic wrap and let stand for 15-20 minutes.
Take the dough out of the bowl and knead it with your hand for 20-25 seconds. It will be much softer and smoother now. Cover with the plastic wrap again and let stand for another 15-20 minutes.
Take the dough out again and repeat above. This time the dough will look perfectly round and smooth.
Now cover it again and let stand for 1 hour.
After one hour, take it out of the bowl and roll it out to a long roll, cut it into 4 rolls, cover 3 of them with a damp cloth.
Roll the rolls thinner and longer, then cut them into smaller pieces. (Each 100g of flour will make about 10 small wrappers, so here we can make about 70)
Press down each piece of small dough, then use a rolling pin to roll it out to a wrapper, it should be thick in the center and thin on the edge.
Wrap your favorite meat or vegetables using the wrappers.
Beef with spinach and Chinese CeleryBeef with Chinese chives and shrimpBeef with Chinese Cabbage
Here is how to cook dumplings:
Bring a lot of water to boil, then add dumplings to the water, use a spatula to stir the water from the bottom so the dumplings wont stick to the bottom, cover with a lid.
When the water is boiling again, add one cup of cold water to it and cover again.
When the water is boiling for the second time, add another cup of cold water and cover.
When the water is boiling for the third time, it is time to eat the dumplings.
Tips:
For dumpling wrapper, the ratio of flour : water is 2:1 or a little bit less of water it could be 48% of water because if you add too much water, the dough is going to be too soft so after you cook the dumplings, the texture will be mushy.
But if you are making steam buns, you want to add a little bit more than 50% of water to the flours.
I had too much meat left today so I decided to make some steam buns, it was so juicy. LOL…
CaiQin's Kitchen 