DD has expressed an interest in Chinese food several times so I've decided to tackle it at home. I have no idea where to start, but I picked up a few cookbooks today. I'm wondering if any of you cook Chinese at home. Here are a few random questions:
-Would canola oil be a good substitute for sesame oil or is there a better option?
-Are there safe wonton wrappers or is it possible to make my own? Is that just ridiculous?
-I'm very nervous about any of the Asian noodles (soba, udon, etc.) because sesame is so prevalent in Asian food. I need to call on some, but I'm wondering if I can use regular spaghetti or rice spaghetti until I figure out a better option.
Also, if you have any recipes you love, I would be thrilled to have them. Wish me luck! Thank you!
For anything that calls for sesame oil - just omit. It's for fragrance and taste not for actual cooking purposes. As for brands and products safe for sesame, you know what I would *try* to do? Find what you can that's made in Vancouver, B.C. before even trying other Western label brands like Eden. Most of that is foreign made with an English label slapped on. When they give you facility info it's likely they don't remotely have first hand knowledge plus who knows when the info is dated and how successfully it made it through translation. Of the brands of products I use off the top of my mind I could feel comfortable recommending Kikkoman soy sauce (USA product) and some brands of tofu.
Prior to my second child's wheat anaphylaxis I always made my own wrappers from scratch for dumplings. It's a "cold water" dough of about 3 cups AP flour to 1 cup water. I'll find you some youtubed instructional video later but for now you might want to look in to getting the smaller rolling pin we use for dumpling dough. It looks like a 5 inch long stick maybe one inch in diameter.
Yes, we cook a lot of what would be considered "Asian" food but it's just regular home cooking to us. We regularly cook top 8 free. Ironically I got a kid that wants only pizza and hot dogs right now. Switch for a while?
But back to cooking. If you don't mind veering from the path a bit I would love to give you a wealth of new dishes.
For noodles you could substitute about any other wheat noodle for another noodle if you feel safer that way. Udon is for soup, soba is for a variety of dry noodle or soup noodle, somen is yet another for soup, it's not terribly important if you're not out to absolutely recreate the ramen shop experience. Say you wanted Japanese pub food/standard fare you could more easily do something called donburi which is literally rice bowl.
Have to have an involuntary chuckle at someone with "hk" asking about Chinese food. When you say Chinese food do you really mean Chinese or you mean Chinese-American, Japanese, and others? If Chinese then what style? (if you know)
Also, how do you feel about curry, daikon, taro, duck? No pressure just askin'.
Thank you so much. You have been so helpful already. I'm thinking basic Chinese-American to start with. I love to make everything from scratch so that's not an issue. Chinese cooking has just rather daunting to me. No idea why other than the lengthy list of allergens I'm dealing with. I don't think dd or DH would go for duck. I'm thinking chicken, vegetables and maybe beef. She definitely wants pots tickers or dumplings of some sort.
Love curry and do a fair amount of Indian cooking.
Willing to try daikon and taro.
Thank you!
We'll grow this like a garden.
Let's start with rice. That might sound strange but it's a staple and type of rice matters especially since we're avoiding so many other major specific ingredients. USA produces most of the medium grain rice so that's good we have choices for US products made for export. Which leads us to my recommendation for Nishki brand medium grain rice. Not only is it "good" rice and a US product but it's something termed "musenmai" -- all that literally means is that it needn't be washed beforehand. Yes, some brands would otherwise need washing. Both my bags of Nishiki rice (brown and white rice) read Product of USA. Although I buy mine at an Asian grocery I've seen small bags of Nishiki at Shaw's, the regular grocery store.
For the sake of setting the stage I'd try to go all out on rice, get a quality brand that is the grain type standard for East Asian food. It will also work for sushi, too.
If you don't have one I would suggest maybe getting a small
cheap rice cooker. Don't get me wrong I cooked rice on the stove in a pot plenty of times in my youth but the rice cooker you can forget about and not overcook, burn, undercook, it just does its job while you have other burners in use.
Watching this thread closely; thanks for all the advice Twinturbo!
Now I'm going to have performance anxiety (joking).
Next foundation ingredient US sourced that would be my go-to brand is Argo cornstarch. Again, I buy at Asian grocery a box labeled for foodservice but I think any box of Argo would do. Cornstarch is important as a thickener for sauces and also to crispy coat meats. The heat transforms the cornstarch coating into a shell that preserves moisture inside the piece of meat. It's also
important if you want to get some crispiness without using wheat. While it isn't an even swap there are a lot of basic cooking methods using cornstarch coatings. It does
work better with eggwhite but I just skip the egg.
Here's a Taiwanese cafe snack. You can use the coating on pork
chops to if you beat the heck out of them first to thin out and break up the connective tissue.
Salt & Pepper chicken
chicken thighs
five spice powder
salt
black pepper
cornstarch
fresh garlic
fresh basil
canola or other neutral high heat oil for frying
small cocktail forks for serving
Cut skinless boneless chicken thighs into bite-sized cubes. Blot with towels if necessary but let it dry a bit while you prepare coating, garnish and heat oil.
Deep fry fresh basil until crispy. This will be quick. Drain and set aside.
Mince *fresh* garlic. Don't use canned. Set aside for garnish.
Mix base of cornstarch with pinch of Five Spice powder, then salt and pepper to taste. Should look sandy and smell very fragrant.
At this point it's like regular fried chicken. Dredge dry chicken thigh chunks in cornstarch mixture to coat well. Fry until it looks done. I am terrible at deep frying so you'll have to experiment here.
Drain fried chicken chunks on paper towels. When cool enough to serve garnish with minced fresh garlic and crispy fried basil.
For spices I generally trust McCormick for their labeling policy.
I seriously can't thank you enough! Have you considered writing a cookbook?! I'm going to make this for dinner tomorrow night.
I have a rice cooker, but it always leaves a brown-ish crust on the bottom. It that normal or should I get a new one. I'm in the Bay Area with plenty of Asian markets so I should be able to find the rice easily.
Thank you!!! DD thanks you too!
Ooh, the brown crust is a treat, we used to fight over it in my house. It just needs to cook the rice it'll be fine but follow the water ratio directions.
I know you can't have dairy but if you can at least physically work with it you could really make a bubble tea cafe experience for family and friends by making milk tea with tapioca or Thai style iced tea with condensed milk.
Next foundation ingredient is rice wine. If you're going to go without soy sauce or fish sauce of any type then you can get some flavor with wine. Wine and ginger also reduce gaminess while imparting flavor. I buy and use just about any brand of rice wine. You could use actual drinking sake or cooking wines if you're more comfortable with that. The rice wine I use is super cheap and probably strips paint.
Along with wine I'd keep on hand a bottle of vinegar, some ketchup, white pepper, red pepper flake and when it comes time to cook fresh mushrooms, an entire bag of fresh green onions.
I've tried to keep most, if not all, of these ingredients standard items you'd find while buying OJ and bacon, no special stores, low risk (as opposed to risk free), simple but still nutritious. The concept is to take what you normally buy and "freak it" a bit through technique.
1. Good quality, plain, steamed white or brown medium grain rice (we use half brown rice with half quinoa often).
2. All veggies fresh. We don't use a lot of meat and even if we have a stir fry dish with veggies we always serve with at least one other separate side of fresh sauteed veg, and maybe some freshly pickled item like cabbage or cucumber.
3. Main dishes flavored well enough to balance out plain steam rice. If serving fried rice tone back on the salt in the mains.
4. Serve family style with chopsticks if it helps set the mood for restaurant at home. That's how we normally eat but I can see how it might contribute to feeling an experience if you usually use forks and knives.
5. When slicing meats do it when they are half frozen and cut across the grain with a sharp knife. You want to shear off a thin wafer across the muscle strands. My crude illustration is below.
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6. Use a pan with a large amount of surface area that can get HOT and stay hot. Keep in mind that no matter how much you prep at home you can't match the BTUs a commercial kitchen has so adjust expectation. I don't use special woks I use a really wide bottomed heavy stainless steel pan.
General advice for stir frying which is what I think OP is after.
*Slice meats thinly half frozen across the grain or if chicken thigh in smallish chunks.
*Moisture is your enemy in a stir fry so keep ingredients dryer when practical.
*Wide bottom pan with good surface area that can get good and hot.
*High smoke point neutral oil like canola, safflower, etc.
*Chop all your veg in uniform pieces. I like to not pre-mix the veg instead adding each according to how long it needs to cook.
Instead of reinventing the wheel I'm going to link to what's already well written.
Super Easy Stir Fry Article allrecipes.com (http://allrecipes.com/howto/super-easy-stir-fry/)
Pay attention to marinating the meat separately from the veg. Then cook the meat fast, in halves if you must to keep it frying instead of boiling. Same for the veg, make sure it's sizzling and moving. Don't add any sauce until the end when you return the precooked meat and veg back to the pan. THEN add you liquids with slurry (premixed cornstarch with water to thicken.)
It's mostly method that makes the dish when it comes to everyday cooking.
Thank you again! This is such fun! DD is so excited to have her first Chinese food tomorrow night. I should mention that we can ignore the things I'm avoiding. I cook dinner for DD and DH these days and I just have one of the few things I can eat. SO we have a little more flexibility. Looking forward to some shopping and cooking tomorrow! Thank you.
This is awesome!!! Thank you, Twinturbo!
Thanks TT. :)
Years ago, we got a cheap (inexpensive) microwave rice cooker. It was the greatest thing ever. My rice always turned out great. Then, one day, someone put it on a stove element, and then someone else turned the stove on. Flames to the ceiling, and house full of black smoke.
Anyway, managed to find another one. Might be by Starfrit, I don't remember. But, it makes perfect rice.
Oh ya, wanted to mention, for the cooking challenged ;) Wong Wing has some safe North American style Chinese Food. In the freezer section. Not a cheap meal though. And some have sesame seeds, some are may contain, and some are safe. Read the label.
TT, you rock!
Well, let's see if I made any sense first. I put up some links to allrecipes.com because it has a great step-by-step with better formatting on stir fry method. I'll put up some links later to some of the faves modded for FA use. Once you get the gist of it my hope is that everyone will look fearlessly at ingredients and think, "Hot dogs and carrots? I can stir fry that." "Road kill and onions? I can stir fry that, too."
Are there other things like dim sum treats, banquet foods, regional specialties, that would be FA friendly as well? Of course but for starters and good nutrition everyday foods are a good start. One last word, nearly all of our side veg is lightly sautéed in canola oil with either ginger or garlic and little salt. Have fun!
Okay, I am starving after reading this! I do some chinese style cooking. we have a large chinese population in town and some friends have taught me things along the way. That is my favorite way to learn how to cook. Friends who share their secrets, lol. Some stuff you just cannot get from a book.
I want to make dumplings now. And you did not even give a recipe.
Mmmm, road kill and onions .... LOL, yep, that makes me hungry now. :rofl:
TwinTurbo- the chicken turned out great! DD was so happy! The rice wasn't bad either. Thank you again!
fried rice. Just stirfry some veggies and add soy sauce, rice, a scambled egg, peas, sprouts, snowpeas ....you can add leftover pieces of steak or pieces of chicken.
I have often asked myself is we should cook chinese at home so son would have the experience or just pretend it does not exist so he'll never get a taste for it and get tempted... not sure.
You can probably make some good soups. Look up hot and sour, wonton and egg drop recipes. I made a hot and sour once that was good -- but not sure where recipe is now. I 'd try making orange chicken, myself.
Last night I was thinking how I'd do an at home menu top 8 free plus sesame free and still be able to pick everything up at the grocery store.
The FAS Family Special
Sweet & Sour Pork
BBQ Pork fried rice
spring rolls (deconstructed)
corn soup
S&S Pork
pork loin cubed
green, red, and yellow bell pepper cubed
carrot sliced on the bias for long oval shape
onion cut in thick square shape like bell pepper
can of pineapple with natural juice in cubes
strong tasting wine for cooking
mince garlic
white wine vinegar
salt to taste
pinch red pepper flake (optional)
cornstarch for coating and sauce
neutral oil like canola for pan frying
Cube bell peppers and onion, slice carrot, set aside in bowl.
Cube pork loin. Marinate in mince garlic and about 1 tablespoon of wine. Not too wet. Let marinate for 20 min turn occasionally in bowl.
Heat up oil in large stainless pan (or non-stick) when oil looks shimmery add bell pepper, carrot, onion to quickly stir fry. Only cook to crisp tender and when removing to plate don't pile up so veggies steam if that makes sense.
In sauce pan heat up canned pineapple juice until boiling, reduce by about half. Prepare about 2 tsp cornstarch with 2 tsp tap water in a cup, set aside. In reduced pineapple juice add, if desired, 1 tsp ketchup and pinch hot pepper flake. Add salt to taste. Sample sauce adjusting seasoning to taste. When satisfied with seasonings add 1 tsp white vinegar then add cornstarch slurry continuing light boil until sauce has thickened. Once sauce is done set aside in a gravy boat or similar vessel -- don't add to anything yet.
Pork should be marinated by now. Drain if pork is really wet otherwise dredge well in cornstarch. Fry pork cubes until done, set aside. The goal is to get crispy cubes.
There's two ways to make it to the table at this point: return cooled, fried pork cubes to hot dry pan, followed soon by pre-stir fried carrot, onion and bell pepper, then add reasonably dry pineapple chunks last. Quickly toss all to evenly heat then plate. Add sweet and sour sauce right before serving.
Or don't return all to pan, put on serving plate then then add sweet and sour sauce before serving. I'm a fan of "return to pan" which is what things like "twice cooked pork" means when translated. In either case you're waiting to add sauce before everyone tucks in to the food to keep it all crisp.
BBQ Pork fried rice
This is going to mock up char siu in the pan close enough for taste but avoid hoisin.
1-2 day old rice works best. Should be a little dried out.
small dice pork tenderloin
Salt, sugar, rice wine premixed in liquid form or Kikkoman brand aji-mirin.
minced garlic (optional)
a lot of green onion thinly sliced at bias for diamond-oval shape
some frozen pea and carrot cube mix
oil for frying. you can be generous with oil there's varieties of fried rice called "oily rice". depends on personal taste.
salt if desired, but not too much.
small cup of water in case you need to add moisture to mix
In a pan fry up the small dice pork tenderloin. When thoroughly cooked add wine/sugar/salt liquid to "candy" the pork mini-cubes. Cook until well coated and water has evaporated. Set aside to cool and dry.
Get a large pan to start the rice. I don't like limp green onion, I like them with sizzle, so I almost always bloom my green onions first in hot oil nearly fast deep frying them before I add the rice. Adding the rice should slow down the onion's cooking process. Old rice is dryer and doesn't stick together well which makes it great for frying but keep that cup of water handy.
Once you get your grains separating through frying and the rice is pretty even add frozen peas/carrots until heated, then garlic, then pork cubes, saving salt to taste at end if you think you need it.
spring rolls, deconstructed
I miss spring rolls but have put a pause on any making due to one child anaphylactic to wheat/barley. While I can't get the crisp taste of the wheat roll I can still get the taste of the filling so I make this sometimes. Depending on your veggie mix it makes a great vegetarian mushu filling.
plain old green cabbage
carrot
ginger root
salt
white pepper
oil for frying
optionals to add: shiitake mushroom, black "wood ear" mushroom, fresh mung bean sprouts, celery. Beware that much of the wood ear mushroom and shiitake are dried and treated with sulfites for anyone dealing with sulfite issues. Fresh mung bean sprouts should be trimmed and rinsed making them sometimes not worth the time.
Finely shred green cabbage and carrot and ginger. Heat oil in pan over medium-high then add shredded ginger until fragrant 20-30 seconds, then add carrot and ginger mixture. If you have a lot of veg cook half at a time to avoid steaming in pan. Fry until cabbage is no more than crisp-tender, add salt and white pepper to taste.
Corn soup
Any soup stock, homemade or instant
Can of cream corn
black pepper to taste
cornstarch slurry to thicken (optional)
thinly sliced green onion for garnish (optional)
Instead of trying to make an egg-free, sesame-free, soy-free and wheat-free egg flower or hot and sour soup, you can try some that don't have any of those ingredients to begin with. You take the stock of your choice and heat it together with a can of cream corn. Heat until you get the desired strength, add cornstarch slurry to thicken if you want the consistency, then add salt and black pepper to taste.
That's how I would do top 8 free plus sesame free using no special store ingredients. From there you can always add the allergens tolerated by other members of the family but in order to eat together sometimes it's worth going lowest common denominator.
Thanks for all the recipes. I love Chinese food but my kids tastes are pretty much limited to fried rice (I had them try Chung's egg rolls and they weren't fans). Maybe I'll try a few of these. Right now dh and can go eat Chinese without feeling guilty (because the kids don't like it) when they are with his sister. Which isn't very often.
twinturbo, do you have any tips for chow fun? My grandmother always told me it was a pain to make. I think I would probably have to make the rice noodles from scratch as I don't really trust the Asian grocery store's homemade rice noodles.
Also do you make your own milk tea for the pearl milk tea? I've tried the bottled milk tea but it doesn't taste anywhere close to what the bubble tea places have. Thanks!
Bubble tea deserves its own write up, I'm thinking, because you have to keep the balls moist and sweet (everyone get your laughs out now). Add in a tiered allergen management system to that equation and milk subs so MA and soy allergic people can try that's gonna be involved. Still do-able.
Rice noodles--okay, which rice noodles because I think we both know multiple types am I right? Your allergens are nuts and eggs? With thin noodles I prefer WaiWai they're the type you can dry fry with bbq satay not that I use Bull Head in our cooking anymore but for the thin noodle I would think that might be low enough risk for nuts & eggs my main concern would be cross contamination with fish, wheat, shellfish and sesame. WaiWai is a product of Thailand even though it's labeled for Chinese market. Ingredients are rice and water. Since most of this typeof stuff is produced in the same regions I never go for Western brands that repackage these products because they'll be no safer just more expensive.
Anyhow, the thick fresh rice noodle like sha ho fun/shahe fun, which is what I think you're intending, that I have made myself. It's a bear to work with unless you can really dedicate some time to it. The ingredients are straightforward enough although I don't remember off the top of my head what grain rice flour glutinous, non-glutinous or a mix, and if there was tapioca in that. I'll have to look it up my experience making is limited but once you make up the batter you pour it in a pan, steam in a steamer, then cool and cut. I have a big steamer, big enough for whole crabs and a whole lot of bao, but I really struggled to get a pan that was large enough to make reasonable noodle but small enough to fit in the steamer so it could still shut to seal in steam.
Then there's cheong fun the intestinal noodle which I miss like MAD but can't make for beans. If you do that one or can find a good blog entry on making it shoot it my way.
I have started to make radish cake at home lately. I'm still in the middle of tweaking it for our allergens, for instance how badly do I want deep fried onion in it? Enough to deep fry my own or just pan fry? The radish cake has gone really well thus far I'm happy to report. If I batch produce then I can chill, pre-cut then freeze for later use and it's not so different than what I've store bought.
Yeah, it's the thicker noodles. I'll have to get my wife to try making it with me sometime. My experience making chinese food is limited to lu rou fan.
I had to google intestinal noodles as I wasn't sure what that was. They actually call those intestinal noodles? That was my favorite dim sum dish. I always thought they were using the word "long". Now that I think about it, the word long and the word intestine sound pretty similar. I can only imagine the amount of people that avoided that dish due to it's name.
All this dim sum talk is making me hungry... Radish cakes, shu mai, sticky rice, chicken feet, shrimp dumplings, black bean ribs, the fried taro root things.
Tell me about it I've been making myself hungry.
I made the Sweet N Sour the other night. I subbed chicken for the pork. Most of the family loved it! (Please don't hold it against DS1, he hates pineapple and chewing on chicken). I have some work to get it perfect and learning how to be aggressive with higher heat on my new stove.
But I added a wok to my Christmas wish list (and I really need another pot like I need a hole in my head).
Thank you for starting this thread hk and thanks TwinTurbo for all the great advice and recipes!! I've often thought about trying Chinese food at home...but had no idea where to begin. THANKS!!!
One question: I know I've checked soy sauce once upon a time...but I believe it has soy protein. In which case, one DS can't eat it. Any ideas for a substitute?
I'm thinking I'm going to use something from this thread while my folks are here for week+ at TGiving.
Thank you!!
What a great thread!
I just wanted to add that Nasoya products are free of nuts the last time I asked the company. I use the wonton and spring rolls wrappers and the noodles and tofu.
I have also stir fried cooked spaghetti and other pasta with Asian-type ingredients because my son does not like Chinese egg noodles.