Spicy pork feet tutorial （香辣猪脚）

This dish is originally from Sichuan province, it takes about 2.5 hours to cook but worth the waiting. It’s spicy and very tasty. The jelly texture can only be achieved with long cooking. Furthermore, the longer the wait, the less fatty it is.

Ingredients:

• 1.5 lbs of pork feet chopped at store (you won’t be able to chop them at home)
• 1 inch of ginger
• 2-3 cloves of garlic
• 5-6 dry chili （干辣椒）
• 10 chinese pepper （花椒）
• rock candy （冰糖）or 2 tbsp of sugar
• chinese spices bag (卤包） or a mix of cumin, anise, cloves and cinnamon.
• cooking wine
• soy sauce
• spicy sauce (豆瓣酱）
• chopped green onions

left upper corner: dry chili, right upper corner: chinese peppers

below is rock candy and spicy bag

from left to right: cooking wine, soy sauce and spicy sauce

Steps:

1. Bring to oil the pork feet with ginger

2. Once it has broiled for 2 min, drain it.

3. Heat the oil and add the rock candy or sugar

4. Once the candy is dissolved

add pork feet

5. Mix until pork feet take brown color

6. Add oil to the pan with ginger, garlic, dry chili and chinese peppers until they release the fragrant, 1-2 min

7. Add the spicy sauce, cooking wine and sauce soy

8. Add the pork feet and add enough water to cover it

9. Cook at medium to low for 2 hours.

10. Add green onions and more salt if needed before serving.

Chinese style pancake tutorial

Ingredients for 1 big or 2 medium pancakes:

• 3/4 cup chopped green onions
• 3/4 cup APF
• 1 cup water
• 1 egg
• 1-2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp sugar
• 1/2 tsp chicken MSG (optional)
• oil

1. Heat the oil

2. when the oil is hot, add chopped green onions and stir-fry until they begin to turn brown (1-2 min)

3. Add salt.

4. Combine flour with water

5. Add the egg

6. Sugar

7. chicken MSG

8. Stir-fried green onions

9. Heat the oil again

10. Pour the mix and cook it at low heat for 6-7 min if you’re making 1 big pancake or 4-5 min if you’re making two small ones

11. Flip it

12. Continue to cook it. This side takes shorter time, probably half of the previous side.

13. Serve!

This is a typical chinese breakfast meal. It is also street food. Usually served with soy milk.

*******

Recap of the dinner I prepared for 6 people on Sunday night

凉拌虾米芹菜 Celery & dry shrimp salad

娃娃菜炒木耳 baby chinese cabbage sauteed with black fungus

清蒸鲈鱼 steamed fish

红烧肉 red sauce pork Coco’s style

手撕白菜 Sichuan-style spicy cabbage

香辣猪脚 spicy pork feet

辣子鸡 spicy chicken

红油豆腐 red oil tofu

什锦排骨汤 Pork ribs soup with veggies

All together

I have tutorials for some of these dishes~~~

Q: What was the typical breakfast you had when you were a kid?

Two cooking tutorials

I got a couple of emails from readers requesting more chinese food posts. I’m glad that you like it. I strongly encourage all of you to be adventurous and try some of the non-traditional (from the american point of view) but traditional (from chinese point of view) food that you see here! They’re usually more healthy than what you find in chinese restaurants. You  probably have wondered: “how’s possible that chinese people eat these oily foods and stay thin?” Well… the answer is “They don’t eat that“.

Yesterday I prepare a dish called: 白菜虾米 cabbage sauteed with dry shrimp. 3 ingredients dish~

I like black fungus a lot so I add some too. For those of you who don’t know about black fungus. Here’s a brief description: It’s also known as wood ear. It has more protein, iron and vitamins. It has the reputation of “meat among the vegetables”. It helps to prevent various forms of bleeding, for example, blood in feces, hemorrhoid bleeding, excessive menstrual flow, etc. Its translucent brownish beige flesh is gelatinous but firm, crunchy and relatively tasteless. They absorb the liquid in which they are cooked and take on the taste of the other ingredients.

I got the compressed black fungus but you can use any kind, they always come dry

Soak with warm water. It hydrate very fast. Just 2 min later

15 min later it’s done. Wash them and they’re ready for use.

Ingredient # 2: dry shrimps. Soak it with water for 10 min and they’re ready to use

Ingredient #3: chinese white cabbage

Heat 2 tbsp of oil and add rinsed dry shrimps

cook for 2-3 min and add black fungus

Sautee it for few minutes and add cabbage

It seems a lot at first but cabbage has a lot of water so it will reduce its volume a lot later.

Add salt and cover

Let it cook for 5-6 min and add 1 tbsp of sugar

Mix everything and done!

Simple? I think so

I also made sauteed chinese green bean with rice vinegar, salt and sugar.

Extremely simple!

served with black rice cooked with oatmeal

Yesterday I went to my gym’s spa because they were launching a line of organic products and I got a gift bad

okay. Tutorial #2. A reader asked me how I steam my kabocha to make it not watery. So here’s my method, really simple but has some tricks

cut it in bite pieces

put it in the steamer. If you don’t have steamer, no problem, just use a steam basket, but make sure the kabocha has no contact with the water directly. trick #1

Set for 25 min

Trick #2: Let the steam go out. If you cover the pot completely, the steam will become water and it will soak the kabocha.

25 min it’s almost ready.

Trick #3: Freeze it for 15 min. It makes a big difference. It makes the texture solid and dense

ENJOY~~~

Hope you find these tutorials useful. If you have any request, email me or leave comments. I love doing tutorials for you!!!