All posts filed under: Asian

Vegetable Spring Rolls

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Happy Chinese New Year! To celebrate the Year of the Rat, I am serving up lots of delicious Chinese dishes for this big day, including one of my most favourite Chinese recipes: Vegetable Spring Rolls! One of the Best Crowd-Pleasing Recipes These Vegetable Spring Rolls are a crowd-pleaser for many reasons. They are warm, crispy and full of delightful vegetables and noodles. Plus, they can be enjoyed by everyone—vegetarians included! For the filling, I combine shredded carrots, cabbage, woodear mushrooms, scallions, rice noodles, and a few key Chinese sauces and oils. Then, I wrap the filling in store-bought spring roll wraps (yay for convenience!) before they are plunged into a pot of oil and are deep fried until crispy. I have another recipe for Baked Spring Rolls that works great too, but I like to deep-fry these when celebrating special events such as Chinese New Year. Once they come out of the fryer, I drain the excess oil and serve them warm with a side of Plum Sauce for dipping. As I was crunched for …

Gochujang Chicken Thighs

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Now that it is dark outside super early, I am finding that I want quick and easy weeknight dinner recipes even more. But as the cold weather moves in, I want something more than meat and potatoes or soup. I want to enjoy something spicy, aromatic and lively during these dull times, and this recipe for Gochujang Chicken Thighs does the trick! What is Gochujang? Gochujang is a spicy, savoury and slightly sweet chili paste from Korea. It has s complex flavour, but works well in a wide range of Korean dishes, especially savoury ones. This paste is extremely thick as it is made from glutinous rice, fermented soybeans, and dried red chilies and comes in a paste form. Gochujang can also vary in terms of spice levels, ranging from mild to hot. Since I love spicy foods, I always go for the ‘hot’ spice level for my recipes! Not sure if you’ve had gochujang before? Well, if you’ve ever had any Korean food (Korean Fried Chicken, Kimchi Jiggae, and even kimchi itself), it is …

Beef & Broccoli Stir Fry

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I am back again with another recipe in my #BackToSchool series! For my fourth installment, I have a quick and easy stir fry recipe that you will love–Beef & Broccoli Stir Fry! I’m serious…you will make this over and over again! I am such a huge fan of broccoli. It’s fantastic it steamed, raw, in soup, baked…you name it! I really love it in this classic Asian stir fry since the broccoli florets really help cling onto and absorb the delicious steak marinade that I make from scratch. My Secret Ingredient to Tender Beef This marinade is what makes this recipe so good. Plus, I add a not-so-secret ingredient in it that makes the beef super tender, light, and fluffy–just like at Chinese restaurants. The secret to getting the beef (or any meat for that matter) to get that texture is….wait for it…baking soda. I know, I couldn’t believe it either until I tried it! The baking soda acts to tenderize the beef and give it that light and airy texture. For that reason, this enables …

A Guide to Asian Sauces (Part 1): Soy Sauce & Spicy Sauces

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I have been cooking and experimenting with a lot of Asian dishes lately, and I’ve been getting lots of questions on the different types of ingredients I use (especially via my Instagram). While I think that Asian dishes are made best by using the freshest, local and seasonal ingredients, I think that sauces play a huge component in making an Asian dish truly delicious! So I’m giving you the “sauce” this week on the blog– focusing on Soy Sauce and Spicy Asian sauces! There are tons more Asian sauces that I also want to mention, so look out for part 2 of this mini informative series next week! Keep reading below to learn about some staple Asian ingredients you should have in your pantry, how they’re made, what they taste like, and what to cook with them! The most beautiful family portrait <3 Soy Sauces Background: Soy sauce is probably the most widely recognized Asian sauce in the world. Its salty flavour makes it an extremely versatile sauce that can be used in a variety …

Pork & Sambal Green Beans

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It has been a scorcher here in southern BC for the past few weeks and with a west-facing apartment, temperatures inside our cozy home have easily reached 100 degrees in the evening. Rather than avoiding turning on my stove and sticking to no-cook recipes like salads and sandwiches, I fired up the stove to make a hot dinner; hot in the sense that heat was used to cook the food, and hot in the sense of spice. I was drawn to make some spicy food during this heat wave to test the theory that eating spicy food when it’s hot outside actually helps to cool you down. I never really tested this theory before as I have lived in a cool Canadian climate my whole life (or have had air conditioning to compensate those few hot days we get up here); but I heard that this theory actually works and has worked for people who live in perpetually hot climates for hundreds of years. So since we were stuck in this heatwave and sans air …

Asian Heritage Rice Bowl

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If you are looking for a new healthy meal recipe that packs a ton of nutrition and is also delicious, look no further than my Asian Heritage Rice Bowl. Rice bowls (and their vegetarian equivalent, Buddha bowls) have been popping up everywhere lately and I can understand why. They are a fantastic way to get a variety of colourful vegetables, fruits, proteins and grains into your diet. Essentially, the bowl starts off with a base (often rice or salad) and you simply add handfuls of each ingredient to the bowl to make up a full meal. These Asian Heritage Rice Bowls were originally inspired by the chicken rice bowl at Heritage Asian Eatery in downtown Vancouver. As I am now living in Victoria, I miss these bowls SO MUCH and there isn’t anything here that is quite like it (or is of good enough quality). So, when I find myself getting a Heritage Asian Eatery craving, I make this bowl.  While Heritage’s bowl uses a whole chicken leg, I opt for using a chicken breast …

Chinese New Year Dumplings

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Whether you like your dumplings steamed or fried, they are a MUST for Chinese New Year. This traditional dish, eaten on Chinese New Year and Chinese New Years Eve, symbolizes wealth and prosperity for the coming year. This largely has to do with their shape, which are made to look like silver ingots (an old form of currency used under the Qin dynasty). As legend goes, the more dumplings you eat during Chinese New Year celebrations, the more wealthy and prosperous you will become in the new year. If this legend is true, I’m well on my way to being a millionaire! Dumplings have been around for hundreds of years and as such there are many different variations. Delicate dumpling wrappers can be filled with meat (typically pork, chicken or beef), seafood (typically shrimp), vegetables, fungi, or eggs and the dumplings can be boiled steamed or fried. The possibilities and combinations are truly endless! But no matter what filling you make or how they are prepared, dumplings will always taste delicious! In this recipe, I …

Happy Chinese New Year

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To celebrate the Year of the Rooster, I have curated my tastiest Chinese recipes in this post. Now, my experience cooking Chinese foods has not been that extensive, but I have nailed these recipes. They key to cooking these foods is to have the right ingredients. I go to Asian grocery stores (such as TNT Supermarket) to get the freshest and most authentic ingredients and it definitely pays off. Plus, I often discover new ingredients are am inspired to cook new dishes. These appetizer and main course recipes were inspired from my visits to these grocery stores and are a great way to ring in the new year. Let the celebrations begin! Pork and Chive Potstickers These Pork and Chive Potstickers are the perfect appetizer for the New Year. In Chinese culture, potstickers are traditionally eaten on Chinese New Year as they symbolize wealth. These delicious little bundles are stuffed with pork, chive, and cabbage and are fried and steamed and fried again to create crisp yet juicy bites. Now, these potstickers do take a while …

Sesame Chicken

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With Chinese New Year just around the corner, I thought I would share some of my favourite Asian recipes. While Sesame Chicken is certainly not a traditional Chinese dish, it always comes to mind when I think of Chinese food. Sesame Chicken is an Asian-American dish that was invented in North America and still appears on Chinese take-out menus to this day. Why, you ask? Because it is damn delicious! Tender pieces of chicken are breaded, fried and topped with a sweet sauce- I mean, what’s not to love? I have tried many recipes for Sesame Chicken, but none have come close to this recipe. The foundational recipe came from my favourite Asian food blog, The Woks of Life, but I have made some tweaks to their original recipe. In my recipe, I fry the chicken rather than bake it since I think frying gives it more flavour and also enhances the crispiness (which you definitely need before you drown it in sauce). I’ve also added/omitted other ingredients to suit my taste from the original recipe. …