Get Cooking Over Spring Festival With These Chinese Recipes
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It's no secret that many of Beijing's esteemed dining establishments are about to close for Spring Festival (check out our handy guide here), but instead of panicking about how you'll feed yourself for those interminable three to four days, why not take this opportunity to improve your Chinese cooking skills?
We've collated some of our favorite recipes that we have published over the years so you can find them all in one place. So crack out that wok and invite your other left-behind friends over for a nice hot serving of kungpao chicken.
Everyone's favorite Chinese dish: kungpao chicken
Although
originally a Sichuan dish, 宫保鸡丁 gōngbǎo jīdīng is available in some
shape or form at pretty much any restaurant in China. That being said,
it is very easy to recreate at home provided you remember the three key
words of cooking Chinese dishes: preparation, preparation, preparation.
Also note that this recipe produces a darker, saucier, less sticky
version of gongbao jiding than the restaurant versions you may be used
to. But that's the beauty of home cooking – you can adapt the recipe to
suit your tastes. Trying to cut down on sugar? Leave it out. Peanut
allergy? Swap the peanuts for cashews.
Stick-to-your-ribs red-cooked pork
There's
nothing, in particular, to say that red-cooked pork is a winter dish,
but the combination of plentiful and gelatinous fat and sticky dark
sauce definitely gives it a homey rib-sticking feel. Red-cooked pork is a
great dish to cook on a chilly weekend afternoon, since after a few
bits of prep it basically just needs to sit and bubble away on the stove for an hour or so, leaving you free to get on with other things.
Sichuan dry-fried green beans, made with meat or without
For
many, no meal at a Sichuan restaurant (or most home-style Chinese
restaurants for that matter) would be complete without a plate of 干煸四季豆
gān biān sìjì dòu (dry-fried green beans). A classic trap for vegetarians,
the beans are usually seasoned with a small amount of ground pork.
However, the pork is easily left out (or even substituted for beef if
you eat meat but not pork), making this adaptable dish a great one to
have in your repertoire.
Homestyle stir-fried eggs and tomatoes
If you’ve been living in China for a while, you’ve probably realized that 西红柿炒鸡蛋 xīhóngshì chǎo jīdàn (tomatoes fried with eggs) is an extremely common household dish that
appears often throughout restaurants and on the dinner table of the
average Beijing family, including my own for as long as I can remember.
This one is a very simple recipe for this dish, and perhaps through
experimentation, you can create your own version of it specific to your
tastes (for example, in some parts of China, it is common for this to be
cooked to have a slightly sweet taste, but the version we provided is
savory).
Adaptable, spicy dry-pot cauliflower
干锅 gānguō (dry pot) dishes appear frequently on the menus of Hunan, Sichuan, and
homestyle cuisine restaurants. Exceedingly versatile, ganguo dishes can
feature any combination of meat, vegetables, and bean curd, although
they are almost always laced with fresh and dried chilies for a healthy
hit of spice. It might look complicated, but this must-order restaurant
dish is actually very easy to recreate at home. This recipe is a sort of
mash-up of the Hunan and Sichuan versions of the dish, adding the black
beans and fresh chilies popular in Hunan cuisine but omitting that
cuisine’s smoked pork in favor of belly pork.
Author Carolyn Phillips' recipe for zhajiangmian
炸酱面 zhájiàngmiàn
literally translates as "deep-fried sauce" and although the cooking
method for this dish doesn't actually involve any deep frying, the
combination of fatty pork, oil, and sweet bean paste does combine to
make an incredibly rich, umami-laden sauce. A small amount of the sauce
is mixed with cooked noodles, while shredded vegetables like cucumber
and radish further cut through the richness. The version we provide also
includes cubes of fried eggplant.
Thick and tasty biangbiang noodles
Not leaving the house provides a
great opportunity to try this recipe for Xi’an’s most famous noodles,
biangbiang mian (or 油泼扯面 yóupōchě miàn). The word biang is said to
come from the sound the noodles make as you slap them against your
chopping board or kitchen bench. According to legend, the word went
without a character for hundreds of years until a starving and
impoverished scholar offered to invent one in exchange for a free bowl
of noodles.
Vegetarian dandan noodles
Along with kungpao chicken, 麻婆豆腐 mápó dòufu, and
辣子鸡 làzǐ jī, dandan noodles are one of the classic dishes of the Sichuan
culinary canon. The name comes from the traditional carrying pole (担担
dàndàn) that was used by walking street vendors selling the dish. The
pole was carried over the shoulder, with two baskets containing noodles
and sauce attached at either end. Although you may associate this dish
with street food, it is actually easy to do and makes an impressive side
dish for a home-cooked Chinese meal. It also happens to be pretty easy
to make this dish vegetarian, replacing the usual pork (or beef) with
finely chopped mushrooms – perfect for a meat-free Monday. If you have
your doubts, note that we served this to a hardened carnivore and he
could barely tell it didn't have meat in it. Access the recipe here:
Garlicky smacked cucumbers
What meal in China is complete without a
plate of tangy, garlicky smacked cucumber salad, or 拍黄瓜 pāi huángguā?
Many will associate this dish most fondly with summer evenings spent
outside Beijing's many fly-by-night chuan'r bars, where its vinegared
sauce provides a counterpoint to skewers of richly spiced lamb (and, if
you believe in that sort of thing, acts as a cooling, or "yin," food).
In fact, the dish is not exclusive to Beijing, popping up across many of
China's cuisines with slightly adjusted flavorings – more sugar on the
eastern coast, chili and Sichuan pepper in Sichuan and Hunan.
READ: Winter Warmers: Beijing Snacks to Warm You from the Inside Out
Photos: Wikimedia, seriouseats.com, Robynne Tindall, Lily Zhao, Garth Wilson
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