Sweet and sour sauce

 A very tasty home-made sauce. For once I'll include quantities to get the balance of flavours right.

Blend together: 2 tbsp vinegar, 1/2 tbsp corn starch, 1/2 tbsp ketchup, 1 grated onion, 1/2 tbsp soy sauce, 1 tbsp sugar, 2 tsp oil.

Drain the juice from a can of pineapple chunks into a saucepan and stir in the blended ingredients. Bring to the boil and cook for 5 minutes until the sauce thickens. Stir in the pineapple.

Crab and sweetcorn soup

This has always been one of our favourites when we've gone for a full sit-down meal at a Chinese restaurant. But it is also amazingly easy to cook at home. We are always on the lookout for new soup ideas, so I'm surprised it's taken us this long to try this for ourselves.

Make up a pan of stock - either bouillon paste, or we often use home-made turkey stock as a soup base - and season it to taste. 

Bring the stock to the boil, then stir in some flaked crab meat (either fresh, or processed) and a drained can of corn. Thicken with a little cornstarch. Add some veggies if wanted - we used some small bok choy, or you could add green onions. Stir in several beaten eggs to finish off the dish, and serve.

Sweet & sour pork

We gave this recipe a try this evening, and it was fabulous.

I'm only posting the link here, and skipping my usual quick reference summary of ingredients and method because there's a lot of bits to it - the marinade for the pork, the coating, the sauce, and other bits to add to the pork - https://thewoksoflife.com/2015/12/sweet-and-sour-pork/

Suffice it to say, there's a fair bit of preparation and cooking involved, but we elected to have a lazy day and take it slowly this evening. Preparation and cooking time overall was over 2 hours rather than the 1 1/4 suggested on the website. In part that was because we had other dishes to make as well (stir fried rice and spring rolls) and we weren't in a hurry. We could have shaved off some time if we'd been more focused and organized. We also did a lot more pork - about twice the recipe - which made for more frying. Having said that, don't underestimate the time it takes to bring a pan of oil up to temperature, and to coat and fry batches of meat.

Not something to do if you're in a hurry, but if you enjoy being in the kitchen the effort was well worth it.

Orange chicken

This is another from a group of crockpot Chinese recipes, which we tried with great success.

The full recipe is here, but is very simple.

Blend 4 tablespoons of brown sugar, 3 of tomato ketchup, 6 oz of frozen orange juice concentrate, a teaspoon of balsamic vinegar and a pinch of salt in the crockpot. Flour and fry chicken pieces and mix them into the sauce. Cook on low for about 6 hours. Serve with rice.

Mongolian beef

Another crock pot recipe from this site.

Mix the following ingredients into a slow cooker: 1/2 cup each of brown sugar, water, soy sauce, and hoisin sauce, a finely sliced onion, some green onions chopped, and a few cloves of garlic and a small cube of root ginger finely chopped.

Coat some bite-sized slices of beef in cornstarch, and fry briefly to brown. Add to the pot. Cook on low for about 4 hours.

Stir fried beansprouts

We often use this as an easy accompaniment to a stir fry.

Fry a sliced onion until it starts to turn golden. Throw in a handful of fresh beansprouts and a dash of soy sauce. Toss briefly until heated through and serve immediately.

If you want a bit of color, you can add some shredded carrot or other vegetables to the mix.

General Tso's Chicken

This recipe came from a collection of crock pot recipes, and I was impressed with how it turned out.

Mix the following into your crock pot: 1/2 cup each of sugar, soy sauce, and pineapple juice, 1/3 cup of apple cider vinegar, a few cloves of minced garlic, and a pinch of cayenne pepper and dried ginger.

Season a generous spoonful of cornstarch with salt and pepper, and coat chopped up pieces of chicken. Fry the chicken over a medium/high heat until browned and add to the crock pot.

Cook on low for 4 hours, stirring occasionally. When done, the sauce should be thick. If not, thicken with a bit of cornstarch mixed with water.

When I cooked this, I had no dried ginger so I substituted a spoonful of pickled ginger finely chopped. I was also fairly generous with the cayenne. The result had quite a zing to it, OK for me but you may want to take it easy if you're not used to spicy food.

Stir fried rice

A special twist on rice to accompany any Chinese style dishes.

Cook plain long-grained white rice as per normal instructions. If we're having rice with something else, we'll sometimes do extra and set aside for a stir-fry later on in the week.

Crack open and lightly beat three or four eggs. Pour the eggs into a large frying pan with a little oil. Stir gently, spreading the eggs thinly over the pan until they start to cook. Allow them to cook in a thin sheet, then scrape up into  bowl and set aside. This is basically scrambled eggs, but rather than scrambling them to a light and fluffy mass, you want to end up with thin layers.

Prepare whatever "extras" you want to add to the rice. If you're cooking anything, like finely-diced pork, do this now in the same pan. We usually go for a handful each of shrimp, peas, and sweetcorn which only needs defrosting rather than actual cooking.

Add the rice to the pan and heat through. Season with salt and black pepper. Add the toppings and stir in, breaking up the eggs into smallish pieces.

Stir fry

Quick and easy, with flavor.

Fry up:
   Onions
   Meat of choice - usually chicken or prawns, maybe pork
   Finely-sliced veggies of choice - carrots, bamboo shoots, water chestnuts, baby corn, pineapple
If using chicken or pork, make sure it's cooked through. If using prawns, leave them until last as they only take seconds.
Stir in a jar of sauce - sweet & sour, or ginger.

Serve with fried rice or noodles.