119.(simple) Healthy recipe --- stir fry red onion with broccoli (V)

It is a recipe from my dad -- he has been very supportive, since I started writing this blog. Here, he just introduced a new recipe to me -- a beautiful and healthy dish, simply stir fry red onion with broccoli.

My dad has always been very conscious with ‘healthy food’, ha… probably you already heard me talking about this a few times. He gets more serious and strict with healthy ‘concept’ when he steps into his late 50s and now 60s. Now, this recipe he made is not only for the taste, but also, as his intention -- it is a super healthy recipe, which can give you lots of healthy benefits.

Red onion was only introduced to China in recent years, but it nutritious properties became popular almost immediately. For example, of which my dad always mentions (when persuading me to eat) are lowering cholesterol, relaxing the vascular and coronary artery, and helping the excretion of the salt in the body. With combination of broccoli --- you can imagine how healthy it can be. But just like any other ‘healthy recipes’, it needs to be taken regularly in order to have the ‘healthy result’.

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117. A rice recipe: Chinese Tofu fried rice (Vegan)

Sorry for not posting lately. Saying I have been a bit busy and lazy is a good excuse? Ha… well, apparently, there is a problem with google, where this blog is hosted, so I got a bit discouraged. Sorry… And now we are trying to come up with our solution to sort out the problem -- fingers crossed, let’s see.

Before anything, I really want to say ‘thank you’ to Elizabeth and Adele for giving me so many nice feedbacks! I feel so encouraged, and inspired. :))

Ok, coming to today’s recipe, Tofu fried rice -- sounds strange? Ha… It is one of my own recipes.

Years ago, when I was helping a friend working in a takeaway, one day, a customer wanted to make a special order -- fried rice without eggs. The chef paused for a while -- as he never had a request like that before. He moaned, 'how can I make that?' Just stir-fry rice with oil sounds very strange, and a bit difficult to make, as the rice can get sticky on the wok easily, and I am not sure it will taste well either.

So as I mentioned before, in northeast China, stir-fried rice with chopped spring onion is an alternative -- instead of eggs -- yes, just a little bit chopped spring onion can make the trick. The taste and smell of the spring onion can really bring some freshness to the rice, and make the difference. But this recipe -- tofu fried rice is even better, I think, especially for somebody like me, crazy about tofu. … :))

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116. Chinese stir fried bok choy with (vegetarian) sausage (V)

Chinese stir fried bok choy

Sorry, this recipe should have been posted yesterday, but yesterday I … :)) Yesterday, the weather was surprisingly good in Oxford. In the afternoon, the sun was shining. I could feel the mild wind blowing in my face, and when I passed by a building with a nice beautiful front garden, the smell of jasmine melted my heart. At that moment, I really wanted to get rid of my thick jacket, scarf and heavy boots, just run around the garden. --- But I had to carry on walking not to miss my appointment; when I finally arrived, I was almost soaked in sweat -- spring is here now!!!

This recipe might seem surprising. As you know, sausages are not a Chinese ‘thing’. Well, I need to explain this a little further. I don’t remember eating sausages when I was little, but probably in the past twenty years, the use of sausages gradually became popular in Chinese cooking. I guess it is because of the influence of Western food, although the sausages I am talking about are totally different to those in the West.

Chinese ‘sausage’ is called ‘Chang’ (2) in Mandarin. It has a pinkish colour with very smooth texture. In a way, it is more like a ‘hot dog’, but it tastes a bit similar to salami. (-- saying that, I am not an expert on salami, as most of them are made with pork meat.)

Chinese sausages do not need to be grilled or boiled like most  ‘hot dogs’. They are ready to eat. In Chinese cuisine, they can be eaten alone, or mixed in salad, or cooked in soup, or even stir-fried. (Again, since I don’t eat pork, I never really tried sausages other than vegetarian ones.)

But probably you never heard of stir-fried sausage -- it can probably be seen as a unique adaptation of western food to Chinese cuisine? :) In fact, the famous ‘Yang zhou fried rice’, which I tried both in northeast China and in Beijing, was made with this kind of Chinese sausage.

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113. Stir-fried shredded potato (V)

Chinese stir-fried shredded potato

As I said yesterday, tomorrow will be Spring Day in Chinese calendar --- it means that spring is coming eventually, and hope that this coldness is so over! -- How good! :))

As a celebration for the upcoming spring, in China, we normally have special food ---- spring pancake. It is just a very very thin ‘bing’/pancake, and rolling up with fillings. Tomorrow I will talk a bit more about this day and its food. For this post, I like to share this stir-fried shredded potato recipe, which, by itself, is a very traditional simple dish, and it is also a very common filling for the spring pancake.

Stir-fried shredded potato sounds very simple, but don’t underestimate its taste, and how tricky it is to get it right. Years ago, when we were still in Manchester, I went to a Chinese restaurant with a few friends. The restaurant claimed to serve authentic Sichuan and Beijing food. A friend decided to try their ‘shredded potato’ dish. I was hesitating to stop him, because firstly, normally, you wouldn’t order simple stir-fried shredded potato in this kind of restaurant, second, I doubted if they were going to make a very 'authentic' one, as it is a tricky dish to cook. Also as we all know that potato is not very easy to be preserved well after peeling and chopping, it goes a bit ‘rusty’ look, and the restaurants normally prepare things in advance, so you can imagine... Sorry, cut the story short, the result was not very satisfactory. My friend was a bit disappointed. Well, I hope he did not give up the desire for stir-fried shredded potato, because it can be really tasty after all.

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110. Simple recipe: stir fried garlic bolt with tofu and carrot

Chinese stir fried garlic bolt with tofu

A ‘late night’ recipe. :))) Well, at least, it is late over here in England. And I only just started writing today’s post. What have I been doing the whole day? I blame time passes too fast. A bit reading, a bit housework, a bit writing, a bit watching the sun and doing nothing, oh and eating, and cooking dinner, then that is a day. Feel a bit weird of just thinking of cooking at this late night. :))

Ok, as I said in yesterday’s post, today I will talk about a recipe with garlic bolt, simply stir fried with tofu and carrot. It is really really simple, can be cooked within 5 mins. And the method -- is a real typical stir-fry.

As I said in the previous post, I think if you cannot find garlic bolt, Spanish ‘ajos tiernos’ is a good replacement. As for the tofu, it is different to the normal fresh tofu I normally use. This one is called ‘tofu gan’ in Chinese, as in ‘dried tofu‘. Sometimes, it is also called  ‘pressed tofu‘. It normally comes in two flavors: plain and five spices flavor. I would like to use plain ones, but I only found the spiced ones in the supermarket; they also do a great job. But what I wanted to say is that you don’t have to particularly look for this ‘dried beancurd’ if you want to try this recipe; most of the tofu you can buy in regular supermarkets is also good, as such tofu is normally very very very firm, or just braised.

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102. Cooking homemade tofu (with crushed soya beans from making soya milk)

Ok, yesterday, after the whole process of making soya milk, and after drinking homemade soya milk and cleaning up, did you notice there is something left there? -- I call it ‘left over’ crushed soya beans. I hope you haven’t thrown it away yet, as it is still useful -- we are not wasting any of it. Ha…

Since making soya milk at home became so popular, people also came up with many ways of using these ‘left over’ crushed soya beans. For example, many people use it on the skin. --- Confused? :)) It is a secret -- I don’t know if there are any official books talking about it, but it has been practiced by many … ladies -- I learned it from my mum. :) These ‘left over’ crushed soya beans form a kind of paste, of course with some impurities. Just like milk is good for skin, and it can be used when taking a shower or washing your face, soya beans are also very good for making the skin smoother. Moreover, they can be used as a natural exfoliant.

Ok, coming back to their culinary uses... the most common way of using these crushed soya beans is to stir fry them. It sounds a bit crazy -- stir-frying a paste? Yes, and it is very tasty, and extremely nutritious. It is very easy to make, if you are interested, here you go.

Ingredients:

Crushed soya beans (from making soya milk)

Oil, spring onion, ground sichuan peppercorn (optional), salt, sesame oil (optional)

Preparation:

Allow the paste of crushed soya beans sit for a while.
Chop half of the spring onion into small pieces.

Cooking:

1) In a heated wok, add in around 2 -3 tablespoons of oil.

2) When oil is hot, add in 1/3 teaspoon of ground sichuan peppercorn (optional) and chopped spring onion.

3) Stir-fry the spring onion and ground sichuan peppercorn until you can smell the spring onion.

4) Add in the paste of crushed soya beans, stir-fry it with spring onion.

5) Add in around 1/2 teaspoon of salt, and keep on stir-fry the content for further around 3 minutes, until the paste is getting further drier, add in couple of drops of sesame oil if you like. ---

----- Done!!

The taste is very similar to tofu, actually, it probably tastes even more ‘purer’ than tofu, just without the smoothness of normal tofu, but gives a different texture. :)

I really hope you like it. :)) (Sorry I could not find the photos for this dish, I will have to put them on later once I fine them.)

Culture note: Not all about stir-frying

A few days ago, when I was randomly browsing the internet, (this is how I normally waste my time, really bad:((, I know), saw a few questions such as “why do Chinese people always stir-fry?”. I could not help nodding - yes, stir-frying is one of the distinguishing features of Chinese food.

Stir-frying is a good healthy way of cooking and eating. For example, stir-frying requires strong fire, not much oil (although different people might opt for different amounts), can quickly get food done, and keep the nutrients well at the same time. In this case, it is certainly better than the boiling or stewing, because long cooking times could make the vegetables lose their vitamins -- well, of course, it depends on what ingredients you are cooking, some foods are good for cooking longer times, so the vitamins can actually be released and easily absorbed by the body. And some other foods, for example, those ‘healthy’ soups, need to be cooked for long time.

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94. The famous Chinese Tofu Dish- Mapo Tofu (V)

Chinese Mapo Tofu

I have never been an early bird, so I always miss the morning freshness, and at this time of the year, the morning chilliness as well. This morning, I had to get up relatively early, I could almost feel the winter just there -- outside the window. Our bathroom windows are made with those ‘frosted glass’. With the bright morning day light, and with the little cold draught through the gaps of the window frames, it looks like the window glass in China at home in winter. --- In the deep winter days in my hometown, the temperature drops dramatically, after a cold night, windows are all covered by heavy frost next day morning, you could not see outside until it would melt close to noon. But if it has snowed during the night, then the sun would break out next morning, the bright reflection of the sunlight on the white snow would shinning on the windows as well.

So here, with the frosted windows, it really looks like ...No, it is what I feel like -- I was standing in front of the windows back home while outside was super cold, and snowing, but super brightly beautiful. Every time, mornings like this, windows like this, feel like this, it takes me a few minutes to be back to reality. Did I really use to hate the cold winter in Northeast China before? -- Now, all I want is to be there, to see the snow and feel the coldness…

Mapo tofu is probably one of the most famous Chinese tofu dishes ever. I bet if you like Chinese food, you must have already ordered this one a few times when dining in the Chinese restaurant. It is famous for its spicy but super delicious taste. But you have to like spicy food to appreciate this tofu dish. This spiciness is different to the others, it marks the feature of sichuan food.

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91. Chinese stir fried beef with cucumber

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Stir fried cucumber and beef

黄瓜炒肉片

Stir frying cucumber--- :)) I guess you might be frowning. Well, it is true, this dish does have stir-fried cucumber. And it is not any particular kind of cucumber, it is just the normal cucumbers that you would use in a salad. :)

I think this is probably one of those vegetables, such as salad leaves, which Chinese people use both for salad and for stir frying. which make it very different to western food. In Chinese cuisine, (or northern Chinese cuisine, to be more precise), cucumber can be made into salad (liangcai), or stir-fried, or even in soup (the famous hot-sour soup  uses cucumber as one of its main ingredients).

But cucumbers in China are so different from the ones here in UK. Firstly, the package. Before coming here, I had never seen any cucumbers wrapped and sold individually. In China, it is very important to see the actual skin of the cucumber before buying it, because the skin can tell if the cucumber is fresh or not.

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89. Healthy recipe: stir fried celery and almond (V)

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Chinese stir fried celery and almond

After staying indoors the whole day, in the afternoon, around 4.15pm, I decided to pack my sport wear and go to gym. According to the weather forecast, sun set would be at around 4.06pm, so I thought I would be walking in the ‘dark’. However, when I stepped out, day light was not totally gone yet, then after passing the buildings in the yards, which blocked my view, suddenly I saw the beautiful sky, rose, purple, orange, red--- the sun was making its last splash in the sky, it was a beautiful picture in the west. I wished I had a camera with me.

I could not help but looking back every single step as I moved forward. When I turned into another street at the end of the road, suddenly I realized there were so many people already coming out from the shops, galleries, restaurants, and were all looking at the sky. --- It is not because something so rare, but because something we try not to miss in life.

This recipe is an easy and healthy one -- stir fried celery and almond. Ok, we have to talk about almonds a little bit. There is a difference between almonds grown in Southern China and those grown in Northern China; so, we usually distinguish between Northern and Southern almonds.

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80. Chinese mushroom recipe: stir fried mixed mushrooms (V)

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Chinese mixed mushrooms

I have to confess that I never really liked mushrooms, especially those usually called ‘Chinese mushrooms’, which have a ‘thick' and a bit ‘meaty’ texture.

Well, it is probably because in Chinese cuisine, this kind of mushrooms are always cooked with meat; for example, the most famous such dishes is ‘mushroom and chicken’ pot, which is supposed to be very healthy, and help with body recovering, especially for women after giving birth. But, I never liked meat that much, especially chicken, so I always tried to keep mushrooms away.


So really, it is not that I cannot eat mushrooms or don’t like them at all; it is more because of the combination with meat. But, I honestly did not know any Chinese mushroom recipes without meat.

About three years ago, when we went back to China, in a ‘fast food’ chain restaurant, we ordered a mushroom vegetarian dish - it was impressively good, especially for a ‘fast food’ stand. Since then I have been trying several different mushroom recipes without meat. Hey, you know, I actually really like mushrooms now.

Mushrooms in Chinese Cuisine

In Chinese cuisine, there are too many different types of mushrooms, I could not even name them all. And sometimes they don’t really look like ‘mushrooms’， for example, shimeji (Cha Shu Gu), black fungus (mu’er), white fungus (yin er), enokitake (jin zhen mo)，

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79. Chinese stir fried egg and tomato

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Chinese stir fried egg and tomato

Stir frying egg together with other ingredients is very common all across China. As I mentioned in my previous post (common ingredient: eggs), (chicken) eggs can be stir fried on their own, with different vegetables, or with certain kinds of fish and meat.

I like the combination of egg and tomato, but you have to get reasonably good tomatoes though, otherwise, that ‘raw’ sourness can put me off.


I never knew that stir fried egg and tomato was such a ‘basic’ dish, until my husband told me about his conversation with one of his Chinese colleagues, J. He asked J. if he could cook Chinese food, J. replied, ‘only very basic things, like stir-fried egg and tomato’. I really laughed, I did not know stir fried egg and tomato was such a basic Chinese dish. :)))

Ok, it is not difficult to make at all, I mean if you can get the right tomatoes, and add in the right amount of salt, you can never get it too wrong. However, only in recent years, I realized that there are tons of different versions of stir-fried egg and tomato in different regions of China, and it can even be different from household to household.

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A liver recipe: Stir fried liver with green pepper and carrots

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Chinese stir fried liver

As I have mentioned before, I have never been a big fan of meat or organ meat, but liver is an exception, the only exception. Not only that, there are only two ways of cooking liver that I would happily eat -- liver salad and this stir fried liver pieces.

I don’t know how I started liking it, I guess when my parents cooked it, they never told me what it was on the first place; and I just like the texture, I mean had they told me, I probably would have never touched it, like all the other things. :)) But, then, gradually, I learned about liver’s benefit, and among others, the one that is good for eyes was particularly persuasive to me. :))

In China, pork and chicken liver are the most popular kinds of liver in restaurants as well as at home. However, because of my Hui ethnic group origin, I can only eat liver dishes in ‘Hui’ restaurants, and there lamb liver and ox liver are commonly used.  But the methods of cooking are very similar, the only difference in case of this dish would be the choice of vegetables. Many ‘Hui’ liver recipes use green pepper and carrot; however, there is no restriction on what to combine liver with though.

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76. Chinese stir fried baby squid and celery (spicy)

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Chinese stir fried squid

...I don't know how "authentic" this recipe really is. It is probably just 'my' recipe :)). I have always liked this way of cooking squid, never remembered where I learned it from.

Before writing this post, however, I quickly checked up online, and asked my dad --- no, I could not find the same recipe. So I think this is one of those recipes that I liked at some point and then ended up adapting it my own way.

It is really tasty though -- with a bit spiciness from the chili and a little influence from the cumin seeds. If you have to give credit to somebody, I think my dad and my auntie would definitely deserve it. I definitely ate something very similar that they used to cook long time ago.

Unlike southern recipes, in most seafood dishes in northern Chinese cuisine seafood is normally not combined with vegetables; also, most recipes don't combine different kinds of seafood. So, this dish an exception to the rule. I particularly like the celery ‘juice’ combined with the texture of the squid.

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75. A sweet corn recipe: Chinese stir fried sweet corn and pine nuts

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Chinese stir fried corn and pine nuts

松仁玉米

It sounds funny, I have never been a big fan of sweet corn, but I like it, like to hold it, like to smell it after being grilled.

Well, I can't really have much corn anyway, because my stomach sometimes aches after having it. But, I love to play with it. :)) I remember when I was little, my auntie would bring baskets and baskets of freshly picked maize back to my grandparents when the harvest season of corns came, and we, the small kids would happily be there to ‘help’ husking. Only later it turned into a ‘fashion’ design game, as we started ‘braiding’ the peels into shoes. We laughed in between the piles of corn’s peels -- the best of carefree childhood.

From mid autumn to winter, ‘grilled’ corn on cob is very popular in northeast China. The sellers would put a small coal grill around the corner of the schools, or in the street food markets, grill and sell the corn. The best corn is the one that is slightly burnt on the very surface. I thought I have totally forgotten the smell over these years, but when I walk in the streets in Spain, there are many small ‘grilled corn’ stall in the streets, just like my hometown.

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73. Stir fried Japanese tofu and broccoli (V)

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Japanese tofu and broccoli

The hotel we stay is in a residential area of Verona. When we make our way to city centre everyday, we need to go through a few streets with a local cinema, a few local primary and middle schools, and a convent where we can often see some monks and nuns walking passing by. However, it is surprisingly quite, apart from when school finishes, or a movie time starts or finishes, it is difficult to hear noise. -- I don’t know, probably just me, I think the sun is so shining and warm, lighting up every single corner, if there is some noise, it is covered by the sun.

Well, it is the quite time of the day, lunch time followed by a siesta. I feel that I could almost hear the breath from each window, and imagine how everyone let themselves relax in their comfortable position. It feels like the world cannot be more peaceful then that, but, somehow, I am not totally relaxed, probably feeling the sun is very close, it causes a little tense, or probably simply because I have been purposely conscious about the route, after all, we don’t want to get completely lost, especially we already planned our route.

After passing all the schools, we are walking on the narrow pavement, close to the somebody’s ground floor room, suddenly I hear the noise by a spatula touching a sauce pan, then I smell the food. --- Suddenly, I relax -- it makes

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70. Simple stir fried prawns

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Stir fried Chinese prawns

清炒虾仁

As if spring came around to Edinburgh again today, the only sign of autumn is the beautiful ‘turning-red’ leaves. It is a nice and strange feeling to experience two seasons at the same time...

 Standing on top of the ‘Arthur’s seat’ in Holyrood park, as if we are close to the sky, the air is pure, the sun is bright. And I can see the shadows of the clouds, I love to see the shadows of the clouds - a scene that can rare be seen in the busy cities. If you are standing at one point, and gradually making a 360 degree turn, the beautiful sea, the city landscape all came to the eyes, one after another.

In Chinese, there is a saying, ‘standing high, you can look further’, it is so true. (Although it really refers to having the knowledge.)

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67. Chinese Stir fried spicy and sour cabbage (V)

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Chinese stir fried spicy cabbage

辣炝莲白

One of the most famous Chinese paleographer, historian and writer Ji Xianlin once said, ‘...but the beautiful hopes often wave at me, as if there is a rose garden not far away, it is so colourful and fragrant…’


Having hope is the most beautiful and important thing in life. Having ‘beautiful hope’, it can make you carry happiness and positiveness all the way.


And that ‘little garden’, they say there is a garden in everyone’s heart, depending on how you look after it and appreciate it…:)


Although Mid Autumn Festival spirit is still around the corner, it's time we start cooking everyday food again.

The weather is so … strange - sunny, cloudy, then rainy, back to sunny again, and me, warm, cold, hot … I think a little fever raised up in my body, affects my taste -- I want something with strong taste, so I decided to make this dish - stir fry spicy and sour cabbage.


The original name of this dish is ‘La qiang lian bai’ in Chinese. (Lian bai is a formal name for round cabbage). Although it could probably be translated as ‘spicy cooked cabbage’?, I would miss the very important word ‘Qiang’, which is the essential to this dish.

The "Qiang" method of Cooking

Qiang is another common way of "stir frying". It is not just

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66. Chinese Dry cooked green beans with dried shrimps

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Chinese dried green beans

Before I drew the curtain this evening, saw that almost round, but bright, yellow moon hanging in the dark sky -- mid autumn day is coming. (It is a festival in China on 15th Aug of the Chinese calendar). We always say this is the time of the year that we are all supposed to be with our families and loved ones, and for those, who are far away from home, they are having the worst homesick time.

It seems that I have forgotten so many recipes over these years, I even forgot many of ‘used to be’ my favorite dishes, like this one. :) The other day, I was flipping my long deserted northeast Chinese recipe book, suddenly saw this recipe -- a dish I used to cook all the time, the food I used to like eat almost everyday.

Memory is a funny thing, an ordinary smell, a common taste can all trigger flood of memory. But when things happened in the past, probably we never paid attention, never thought one day it could be in the corner of the memory somewhere. Like now, we experiencing everyday life, it will become memories for us to recall in the future.

Long beans

Green beans in China

The original version of the this dish is not really made with green beans or dwarf beans, but rather with what we call  long beans or Jiangdouin Chinese.

These beans are normally around 40cm long, and slim, their skin is slightly thicker than normal green beans, and the actual beans are much smaller. Since I could not find these ‘long beans’ here, I improvised the original dish with normal green beans.



(image source:http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/長豇豆)

Dry cooking

The method of cooking is called ‘dry cooking’, well, I translated from its original ‘gan shao dou jia’. ‘Gan Shao’ is another way of stir frying Chinese food. Saying ‘stir frying’ is probably not exact, because this is different to the normal concept of ‘quick stir fry’, it is to stir fry with some sauce, and the food is done precisely when the sauce completely dries up.


So, it is not really a stir-fry, no? Well, usually in the West many different Chinese cooking methods are classified as stir-frying, but in Chinese they certainly aren't. I am thinking of talking about each of them, but I could really get lost in translation. :)

‘Gan shao’ (dry cook) is different from my previous stir fry spicy green beans. This one is the typical ‘two steps’ cooking - frying, and cooking with seasonings. ‘Shao’ dishes normally require using some kind of stock, which can be made from vegetables, for example, but water can be used to instead of the stock.

The recipe: dry cooked green beans with schrimps

Ok, here's the recipe

Ingredients:

Green beans, dried shrimps,
Cooking wine, salt, oil, vegetable stock (optional, I just used water)

Cooking:

1) If you are using long beans, cut it into around 3-4cm long, or just normal green beans as a whole. In a wok, pour in enough oil for frying green beans. Until the surface of the green beans get a bit bubbles, remove them to a plate.

2) Keep a little bit oil in the wok, pour the rest out, then add a handful dried shrimps in the wok, quickly stir.

3) Put fried green beans back to the wok, add in 1 tablespoon of cooking wine, 1/2 teaspoon of salt, around one cup of stock or water.

4) Until the sauce in the wok is completely dried up, remove it to the plate.

Cooked green beans

--- Done! It is a medium quick fix. :) 

I like to have it with boiled rice. Oh, it is also a good company with beer. :) 

64.Stir fried spring onion with lamb slice

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葱爆羊肉 （Cong bao yang rou)

Having said I am not a big fan of meat, this lamb dish is one of the very few I really like. - Confused by my statements of what kind of food I like? -- I am confused by myself as well. When I try to put down my food preference, for example, when I am taking a long haul flight, it is really difficult, like my husband says, ‘difficult to generalize the food for her - meat is ok, but no chicken or pork, vegetarian is good, but if there are cheese and cream, then no.’
- It is confusing, I know, my picky Chinese food upbringing. :)

Lamb in Chinese Ethnic Cuisine

Lamb, as I mentioned in anther post, is very important in my ethnic group’s traditional cuisine. Growing up with lamb, I can take lamb dishes cooked in many different ways, even if they have strong ‘lamb’ smell. But this dish is really ideal for me, tender - does not even have to feel the texture of ‘meat’; flavored (with spring onion, chilli and cumin) can just mask all the ‘lamb’ smell. It takes little time to cook (apart from the preparation), and is a very presentable dish for weekday dinner as well as a treat for guests. :)


This dish is called ‘Cong bao yang rou’ in Chinese - as spring onion stir fry lamb. Well, not totally exact, ‘Bao’ is one of the ways of cooking when stir frying. It is to cook quickly on very strong fire with very hot wok.

The way spring onion is used in this recipe is quite unusual; spring onion acts as part of the ‘main’ ingredients, (I prefer to use ‘Chinese big spring onion’ (Pic below left) or even leeks). So the lamb is heavily influenced by its taste. Last weekend, we bought some ‘long’ spring onion, which is very rare to find in the normal supermarkets, so I thought it was good to cook this dish. The meat from the back legs of lamb is the most suitable one.

                            Image source:www.dacongwang.com

The recipe: Stir fried spring onion with lamb slice

There are actually many ways of making this dish. One could mix the meat with seasonings first, or stir fry directly. One could stir fry the spring onion first, then add in lamb or stir fry lamb first then spring onion.

In this case, I decided to stir fry the lamb first, because the spring onion is not good to be stir fried for too long, it will loose the freshness which is quite essential in this recipe. But if I use leeks, I would normally stir fry the leeks first, then the lamb.)


Here you go.

Ingredients:

Lamb (from the leg), spring onion or leeks

Crushed chilli, salt, oil, cumin seeds, vinegar, sugar, cooking wine, light soy sauce, garlic and ginger.

Preparing:

1)Slice the lamb meat as thin as possible.

2) In a mix bowl, mix sliced meat with a teaspoon of cumin seeds, a few drops of vinegar and light soy sauce, 1/2 teaspoon of sugar, 1/2 teaspoon of salt, 1/3 teaspoon of crushed chilli. Leave the mixture for around 1 hour.

Adding seasonings to the lamb

3)Chop around 3 gloves garlic, and a piece of ginger into strips.

4)Chop around 2 or 3 spring onions diagonally into long strips possible.

Chopping spring onions

Cooking:

1) In a heated wok, (the fire is very strong), pour in around 3 tablespoons of oil, and add in chopped garlic and ginger strips, then 1 teaspoon of cooking wine.

Stir frying the garlic

2) The smell of the garlic, ginger and wine comes out, add in the lamb slice, stir fry quickly.

3) When the colour of the lamb slice turns into ‘white’, add in chopped spring onion.

4) Add in a bit more salt and cumin seed ONLY IF it is needed (if you think the taste is not strong enough).

----- Done!

Chinese stir fried lamb with spring onion

It does need to be eaten while it is still hot, so you don’t get much of ‘lamb’ smell, and the meat is still very tender. Oh, don’t fry too long, otherwise, the meat might be harder, so chopping it thin is very important.

I think it is good to go with plain boiled rice, so you can have a better taste of lamb. :)