Chinese Recipes

Want to cook your family a Chinese meal? It’s really very easy. Here is an assortment of some of my favorite dishes for your perusal. It’s very different from American food, but maybe you’ll like it.

Garlic Spinach
- About a basket-ball-size amount of spinach
- 3 cloves of garlic, cut into chunks
- 1/8 cup oil
- ½ - 1 tsp salt
Put oil, spinach and garlic in pan or wok. Stir to coat spinach in the oil. Cover for 1 minute. Remove lid and stir until spinach collapses.

Tomatoes and Eggs
- desired amount of tomatoes, cut into thin wedges
- 2 eggs for every 1 tomato
- oil
- any kind of ground meat (optional)
- garlic (optional)
- salt
- sugar
- chicken bouillon
Scramble the eggs and set aside. Lightly brown garlic in a small amount of oil, add meat and brown. Set aside. Place tomato wedges in pan (no oil needed, the tomatoes will produce the liquid). Sprinkle with small amount of salt, sugar and chicken bullion. If tomatoes look too watery, add a little water-flour mixture. Cook until tomatoes are softish. Add eggs back in and almost all of the meat. Heat through. Sprinkle remaining meat over dish before serving.

Veggies and Chicken
- 1 celery stalk, cut at diagonal*
- 1 medium carrot, cut at a diagonal
- 3 bell peppers (1 red, 1 green, 1 yellow), cut how you’d like
- small package of mushrooms
- 1 small onion, cut in half rings
- 3-4 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 or 2 chicken breasts, cut into small pieces*
- salt
- sugar
- chicken bouillon
- ¼ cup peanuts (optional)
Before you start, sprinkle salt, sugar and flour over the chicken. Stir. This will soak up moisture and marinate it. Set aside.

Place onions and small amount of oil or water in pan or wok, sprinkle with salt and sugar and saute. Set aside. Lightly brown garlic in small amount of oil, add meat and stir until cooked. Set aside. Use meat pan to cook veggies, using the meat juices left in the pan. First add remaining garlic and lightly brown. Add veggies and sprinkle with salt, sugar and chicken bouillon. If it seems dry or is sticking, you can add a little oil or water. Stir until they’re softened as much as you’d like. Add in the meat, onion and peanuts and warm through. Done!
*Note: this dish can be made with any assortment of veggies according to your tastes. If you choose veggies with greatly varying hardness, add them in gradually, starting with the hardest first. Make sense?
*It can also be made with almost any meat that you want. If you choose a dark meat, marinate it in soy sauce, sugar and flour.

I would make 2 or 3 of these along with some kind of meat. It’s very acceptable to serve a platter of cooked cold meat, sliced into easy-to-eat pieces. An American version of this would probably be sliced salami. You could also grill a steak or chicken breast and slice it. Or, if you’d like to try a simple meat dish and don’t mind buying some oyster sauce, try this:

Spare Ribs in Tomato Sauce
- 20ish spare ribs*
- 1 part oyster sauce
- 4 parts ketchup
- water
Cut ribs into about 3 inch pieces. Put in medium-sized pot. Start with 1 TB oyster sauce and 4 TB ketchup, add to meat. Fill pot with enough water to not quite cover the meat. Mix to combine. Bring to a boil uncovered. Then reduce heat to medium-low for about 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. Taste test and see how you like the sauce, add more if needed and cook until sauce is thickened.
*Note: you can use any other kind of meat, but reduce the amount of water you use if the meat will cook faster than spare ribs.

All of this is intended to be served over rice. The Chinese way is to serve a bowl of rice for each person and let everyone go at it how they want to.

Cheese Bread

My dear April has really taken a liking to making her own bread. She just makes it up as she goes. Usually she makes sweet breads and they are amazing. Last night she was in charge of dinner and decided to branch out. Her creation was outstanding. She also thought to measure and write it down this time.

April's Cheese Bread

3 1/2 cups flour
1 T salt
1/4 cup oil
1 cup warm water
1 T yeast
2 T sugar
1 cup cheddar cheese (optional)
Several cups more flour

In small bowl, mix water, yeast, and sugar. Let sit for 5 minutes. In large bowl mix flour, salt, and cheese. Add oil and mix. Add yeast mixture. Add flour 1/2 cup at a time until soft dough is formed. Place in pans. Allow to rise until double. Cook at 350 for about 30 minutes. Brush tops with butter. Can cook in any pan you like. Makes 3-4 loaves of bread depending on size you want.

Ours could have been split to a third pan, but it was soooo good.