East-Asian Cooking

I have been living with Chinese room mates now for two years. Finally we came together to cook some Chinese stuff. The first investment I did was a rice cooker. This is the easiest way to prepare steamed rice. For most dishes you need a small pan.

Egg and Tomato

Ingredients for 1 person:

• 2 eggs,
• 3 tomatos
• 2 pcs garlic, 5-6 tea spoons oil, 2 tea spoons of sugar, salt

Preparation:

1. Beat the egg and cut the tomatos and garlic.
2. Heat 5-6 tea spoons of oil in a small pan, pour in the egg.
3. Cut the egg with your cooking spoon. Fry it for 2min. Put it on a plate.
4. Dump the garlic and heat it (smells good).
5. Put the tomatos in. Stir them.
6. Add a little salt and 2 tea spoons of sugar.
7. Stir a bit more at lower heat, so the tomatos look soft and the skin just begins to fall off. Tomatos should be stirred for no more than 10min.

You serve the dish in a small bowl with rice.

Egg and Leets

Ingredients for 1 person:

• 2 eggs,
• 1pc garlic, 40g leek(韭菜), salt
• some oil

Preparation:

1. Beat the egg and cut the garlic and leek,
2. mix the egg with leek and garlic,
3. heat a small pan with oil,
4. pour in the egg with leek and garlic,
5. stirr for 2min, cut with a cooking spoon. done.

Beef and Pepper

Ingredients:

• 2 green peppers,
• 1/5 pound of ground beef,
• green onions, ginger, salt, soy sauce
• 1 cup of oil

You need a small pan and a plate. You serve the dish in a small bowl with rice.

Preparation:

1. Cut the peppers and the green onions
2. Heat the oil in a pan.
3. Dump the peppers and deep fry them for few minutes.
4. Put the peppers on a plate and remove most of the oil.
5. Add green onions and ginger. Stir briefly.
6. Add the ground beef and stir briefly.
7. Add some soy sauce and stir until the beef changes color.
8. Add the green peppers and salt. Stir another 2min.

Potato beef stew

Ingredients for 1 person:

• Half pound of beef,
• 2 small potatoes,
• 4 slices of ginger, 1 green onion, 2-3 pieces of garlic,
• 20 seeds of wild pepper (花椒),
• 4-5 petals of anis seed,
• 4tbsp cooking oil, pot of water,
• 3-4 tbsp of soy sauce

Preparation:

1. Cut the beef and the potato into chunks 1in in size.
2. Cut the ginger, the green onion and the garlic.
3. Heat the pot 1-2min, before it smokes. Pour 4 tea spoons of oil, heat the oil 1-2 minutes.
4. Dump the ginger, green onion, and garlic. Keep frying while stirring for 1-2min.
5. Dump the beef and keep stirring it, so it doesn't burn. Fry it until it changes color.
6. Add 3-4 table spoons of soy sauce. Add water, enough to sink the beef and later the potato. Add the pepper and anis seed.
7. Cook it until it boils, then turn down the heat to low, so the soup still boils, but only a little bit. Stew it for at least 1 hour. Try some beef. If it is tender enough, proceed with the next step.
8. Add the potatoes. Stew it a bit more, until the potato is soft.

There are serveral stages when cooking beef. 1.raw, 2. tender, 3. chewy, 4. tender, 5. dissolved. You want the beef at the second stage of tender. Don't stew the potatos too long or they will dissolve into the soup.

don: カツ丼、親子丼、牛丼

This is a series of Japanese dishes, but nevertheless very tasty. You need:

• ²/₃ cup rice,
• 100-250g beef or pork or chicken with 1 egg
• 1 medium size onion
• ½tsp salt,
• 3tsp mirin (alternatively a sugar-vinegar mix)
• 5tsp soy-sauce
• 1tsp sake (or ½tsp bai-jiu)

Preparation:

1. Start with washing and cooking the rice (best in the rice-cooker).
2. Put 3 cups of water, salt, mirin, soy-sauce and sake in a pot and boil it.
3. Add the chopped beef/pork/chicken and cook until soft.
4. Add the chopped onion and cook for another ½min.
5. For 親子丼 beat the egg and put it in a heated pan with oil together with the chicken and fry unil the egg is stiff/ well done.
6. Put the cooked rice in a bowl and the meat on top. Add some spoons of the cooking water.

お好み焼き

Another very popular Japanese meal. Some people call it Japanese pizza. It also looks similar to a pancake. Literally it means ``what you like, fried''. Therefore beside the basic ingredients you have a broad variety of choices/ combinations.

• 1cup of flour,
• ¾cup of dashi (or water),
• 1-2 eggs
• ¹/₈-¹/₄ cabbage
• Toppings, some of the following:
  • meat (chicken, roast pork, beef),
  • seafood (squid, octopus, …),
  • small cut vegetables (corn, carrots, spring onions, …)
  • onions,
  • mushrooms
• Okonomiyaki or tonkatsu sauce or mayonnaise

preparation:

1. Mix the flour with dashi and egg to give a homogeneous paté add the finely cut cabbage.
2. Chop and pre-fry the toppings.
3. When they are almost done add the flour-dashi-cabbage mix, make a round flat shape in the pan and fry it at medium heat for about 5min.
4. Flip it and fry for another 5-10min. (If it breaks during flipping that's OK, you'll split it afterwards anyway.)
5. Put it on a plate, add okonomiyaki sauce and cut it in handsome pieces.

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