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Most of you must know that to cook a good Hainanese Chicken Rice (海南雞飯) or White Cut Chicken (白斬雞) involves a lot of work. These are the dishes that we can easily order in a Chinese restaurant but not to cook by yourself. This  is why we haven’t had a chance to make the Hainanese Chicken Rice yet. But to satisfy the craving for Chicken Rice, this is a trick that we learn to do. We only buy the chicken breast and thighs, not the whole chicken, then just steam or boil the chicken parts. Cool down in a icy bath and chop up the chicken into pieces.

You can either choose to steam the chicken or boil the chicken. The appearance might not be as nice as what you can get from the restaurant, however this is definitely an easy chicken dish that you want to learn. The most important thing is to make a dipping sauce to go with it. You can serve the chicken with chicken flavored rice or plain white rice.

Ingredients:

2 chicken breast
2″ ginger (sliced)
2 stalks scallion (cut into 2″ in length)
Few drips cooking oil

Dipping Sauce
2 tbsp minced ginger
2 stalks scallion
3 tbsp oil
Few drips of soy sauce
Few dashes of Salt

Cooking Method:

1. Bring a pot of water to boil, enough to cover the chicken, add in sliced ginger, scallions and few drips of cooking oil. Add in the chicken breast or thighs. Turn off the heat, cover for 30 minutes. Check the chicken for doneness. If it is still pink, bring the water to boil again and turn off, cover for another 15 minutes.
2. Once the chicken is cooked, soak in a nice ice cold water bath.
3. Set chicken on the cutting board and slice/chop the chicken into pieces. Place it nicely on a platter.
4. Heat up a sauce pan with cooking oil, add in minced ginger and scallion. Stir fry quickly till fragrant. Note: you don’t have to stir fry ginger to turn brown, just heating up basically. Add in salt and combine. Remove.
5. Serve chicken with ginger scallion dipping sauce on the side.

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This is a chicken dish that we always prepare at home when nothing special comes in mind — The Stir Fried Ginger Chicken with Mushroom. We cook it so often because the ingredients are easily accessible at home but we never thought of putting it on the blog. However this is a delicious chicken dish yet easy to prepare for home cooking in which I would like to share with everyone.

We basically love this dish as it is prepared using lots of ginger and wine seasoning. This makes the dish smell so nice and fragrant. The chicken is cooked with a thick soy sauce base again makes it even tastier. I don’t usually do measurement on this dish, so you can adjust based on your desired taste.  Serve great with white rice.

Ingredients:
1 chicken breast (cut into pieces)
1 leg quarter (cut into pieces)
8 mushrooms (soaked in a small bowl with hot water, save the water for seasoning, cut mushroom into strips)
2″ ginger  (cut into fine strips)
2 tsp minced garlic
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp rice wine
1 tbsp cornstarch

For the Seasoning:
1 tbsp oyster sauce
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp dark soy sauce
2 tbsp rice wine
1 tsp sugar
1/2 cup Mushroom water
2 tsp cornstarch (dissolve in 2 tsp water)
Few dashes Pepper
Few drips sesame oil

Serve for 4-6 people

Cooking Method:

1. Marinate the chicken pieces with soy sauce and rice wine for up to 30 minutes.
2. Heat up a wok or pan with 2 tbsp oil on medium, stir fry minced garlic til almost golden, then stri fry ginger strips till golden with fragrant.
3. Turn to high heat, add in chicken pieces and stir fry till brown.
4. Add in seasoning sauce of oyster sauce, soy sauce, dark soy sauce, rice wine, sugar, mushroom water,  stir and combine well.  Cook for 5  minutes till the sauce is reduced half.
5. Add in dissolved cornstarch and bring to boil. The sauce will thicken, stir and coat evenly with chicken. Taste and adjust if necessary. Add in few dashes of pepper and few drips of  sesame oil before serving.
6. Dish up and garnish with chopped green onions and red chilies (optional).

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We are having fish dishes marathon in the house. Right after Bel made her steamed striped bass with bean sauce, I decided to make another steamed fish dish with my favorite Chilean sea bass. Seriously I am a big fan of Chilean sea bass because I am amazed at how such ugly fishie can be so tasty.

The Chilean sea bass or Patagonian toothfish (as the proper name for it) is a large, vaguely cod-shaped fish found in cold, deep waters of the Southern Atlantic. Due to its size, the Chilean sea bass actually produces good-sized fillets of white meat with mild flavor, pleasantly firm texture and high healthy fat content that formulates it almost impossible for overcook. Thus, it is good for dry-heat cooking methods such as grilling, broiling, and sautéing but this time I’ve prepared it with the steaming method.

In order to get the best outcome, it is suggested to use fresh Chilean sea bass instead of those from frozen package. You can easily pick up a nice piece of Chilean sea bass from the fish markets nowadays. The combination of Chilean sea bass and ginger together with shitake mushroom is just so perfect. Loved it! It’s an easy recipe and you have no excuse for not trying it.

Ingredients:
1 piece fresh Chilean sea bass
3-4 dried shitake mushrooms (soaked in hot water, shredded)
1 1″ ginger (sliced)
1 stalk scallion (chopped, for garnish)
2 tbsp rice wine

Seasoning:
4 tbsp soy sauce

Cooking method:

1. Place some sliced gingers on a plate, followed by the fish.
2. Surround the fish with the rest of sliced gingers and shredded shitake mushrooms.
3. Pour the rice wine on the fish.
4. Heat the fish in the steamer over high heat about 8-10 minutes.
5. Pour the soy sauce on top of the fish and steam for another 2 minutes.
6. Sprinkle with scallion for garnish. Serve immediately.

Serve well with steamed rice.

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My boyfriend and I like eggplant, especially this Chinese recipe, Szechuan style Spicy Eggplant with Minced Pork (四川魚香茄子). If you know Szechuan, you will definitely know the place is very famous for hot and spicy food such as Mapo Tofu (麻婆豆腐), Spicy Pork Strip (魚香肉絲), and etc. Previously I was always wondering why the dish is called Yu Xiang Qie Zi (魚香茄子) in Chinese, literally means “fish-fragrant” eggplant. After getting to know more about Szechuan cuisine, Yu Xiang (魚香) is actually a Szechuan style of culinary tradition. It’s named so because the preparation of the sauce resembles the taste and flavor of the fresh fish, but it doesn’t use real fish in cooking.

The main ingredients for the Szechuan Yu Xiang (魚香) dishes are basically standard; dried red chillies, scallions, ginger, and garlic; not forgetting sugar, salt, hot bean sauce and soy sauce. The ingredients are well incorporated to bring out the essential flavor and tastiness of salty, sour, sweet, spicy, aroma, and freshness, that make it another mouthwatering dish to be served perfectly with steamed rice.

This dish can be easily found in most Chinese restaurants and indeed it is deliciously prepared I often cannot resist.  However the restaurants deep fry the eggplants and end up the dish comes out too oily which I don’t really like. Therefore preparing the eggplants at home takes a bit of challenge and work. I have modified the original recipe by blanching the eggplants, it has lost some of its purple color but the dish came out not oily and yet another healthy dish to share.

Ingredients:
2 Chinese eggplant (cut into 2″ strips)
2 tbsp sesame oil or cooking oil
2 tsp minced garlic
2 tsp minced ginger
4-5 dried red chilli (break into half, seeded)
1/2 green bell pepper (cut into strips)
1/2 red bell pepper (cut into strips)
1 stalk scallion (chopped; for garnish)
1/2 lb minced pork (marinate with 1 tbsp rice wine, soy sauce and 1 tsp cornstarch)

For the sauce:
2 tbsp cooking oil
1 tbsp Hot Bean Sauce (辣豆瓣醬)
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp rice vinegar
1 teaspoon sugar
2 tsp cornstarch (dissolve with water)
1/2 cup water
Salt to taste

Cooking Method:

1. Marinate the ground pork with rice wine, soy sauce, cornstarch for 30 minutes.
2. Cut the eggplant into 2″ strips, soak in salt water to prevent turning brown color and to reduce absorbing oil.
3. Brings a pot of water to boil, dash some salt and drizzle sesame oil into the water. Blanch the eggplant until slightly tender about 2 minutes. Remove and drain.
4. Heat up a pan with 2 tbsp cooking oil over medium, add in ginger, garlic and dried red chillies, stir fry till golden brown with spicy fragrant.
5. Add in marinated minced pork, stir fry till half cook.
6. Add in all seasoning, brings to boil until sauce thickens.
7. Add in green and red bell pepper, quickly stir fry. Then add in eggplants and quickly toss and coat with sauce.
8. Dish up, garnish with chopped scallions.

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Chinese Lunar New Year is exactly in two weeks time. I always get really excited during this time of the year. Remember back home in Malaysia when I was young, there was no school for a week, we got to go shopping for new clothes, we could hang out with family, cousins and friends till late night, we got to play fireworks and we received red packets money (紅包) from elders and married couples. The most cheerful thing was we could eat all day long like a food marathon.

Chinese New Year literally starts on Chinese New Year Eve (除夕夜) where members of family will go home to have a reunion dinner (團圓飯) with the family, kind of like Thanksgiving or Christmas Eve. Then a complete Chinese New Year starts from the 1st day of the Lunar month in Chinese calendar and ends on the 15th day which is the Lantern Festival. It is the longest yet the most important festival for the Chinese people, that we will always prepare sumptuous and traditional dishes that signify good luck, wealth and prosperity for the coming new year.

To celebrate the upcoming Chinese New Year, our team here in Lama Kitchen will also prepare a list of Chinese New Year recipes to share with you. Please stay tune with us on Lama Kitchen. Starting with the previous post – Pork Dumpling or Jiaozi, today I’ve prepared fish, the Cantonese style steamed white pomfret. You must learn the secret recipe of steaming fish, just like the authentic Chinese restaurant cooking.

Some Chinese believes when fish is served, you must not eaten all but to leave some remainders. In Chinese phrase, nian nian you yu (年年有”餘”) means ”may there be savings every year” when translated, in which the last chinese word yu (餘) has the same pronunciation of fish, yu (魚), sounds like “may there be fish every year“. I wish everyone have a good year ahead and may all good luck be with us.

Ingredients:
For steaming:

• 1 1 -1 1/2lb. whole white pomfret with head and tail, cleaned, scaled, and gills removed
• 1/4 cup rice wine
• Some salt for rubbing
• 2 stalks scallions (cut into 2 inch strips)
• 8 slices ginger

For the sauce:

• 1 tsp sesame oil
• 2 tbsp rice wine
• 3 tablespoons soy sauce
• 2 teaspoons sugar
• 1-2 stalks 2″ cut thinly strips scallions (for garnish)
• some cilantro (for garnish)

Cooking Method:

1. Rinse the fish inside out and rub some salt lightly all over the fish.
2. Place some ginger and scallions slices on the platter and stick some into the fish’s stomach. Set the fish on the platter, top with remaining.
3. Bring water to boil in the steamer, place the platter on top of the steamer. Cover and steam for 7 -9 minutes or until the eyes and flesh turns white.
4. Meanwhile, heat up a sauce pan with 2 tsp of sesame oil, add in sauce seasoning including the soy sauce, sugar, rice wine. Cook till boil.
5. Check fish for doneness, check if eyes turns white, flesh turns white and can be pull easily from the bones. Remove the platter from steamer and pour off steaming liquid accumulated around the fish and discard all ginger and scallions slices.
6. Pour boiled sauce over the fish. Top with scallions and cilatro. Serve immediately.