Burgers Today

It doesn’t matter what you call them. I absolutely love them. When it comes to having Chinese food from a restaurant, I always have to order Gyoza. Usually I would have to order Chinese food from a restaurant just because I wanted these yummy little snacks.

That’s until I started Restaurant at home. Now I try to make everything from scratch because it usually cost me least money than a restaurant and I don’t have to deal with all the preservatives.

I found this great Chinese dumpling recipe online at About.com. Instead of using pork, I substitute ground chicken for the pork. I also like to add slivers of carrot to my mixture.

I have also seen people use ground duck, lamb, mushrooms, and even cheese. I guess when it comes to dough and a little water your imagination is the limit. I know that I’m going to have a great time finding things to create my own restaurant at home.

Do you like Chinese dumplings, Gyoza, or Postickers? What are your favorite fillings if you make them at home?

We started with the ingredients for Garlic, Brown, Sweet and Sour sauce so that you can make Chinese food into everyday food recipes. I want to continue with that and give you the ingredients for XO sauce, Black Bean, and Lobster sauce.

You can buy these sauces already made at your local food chain grocery store or at a local chinese market but I think that it’s always best to add fresh ingredients into your foods because you can control the amount of salt and sugar that goes into a recipe.

XO Sauce
Did you know that the XO in XO sauce comes from Xtra Old Cognac. Don’t worry about serving this sauce to children. The alcohol loses it’s effect when heat and flame are added to it and many people don’t use the alcohol at all.

The ingredients are:
Old Cognac 2 oz
Diced onion
Dried scallop
Fresh red chilli
Ground black pepper
Jinhua ham
Large dried shrimp, shelled
Minced garlic
rapeseed oil
Salted cured fish
Tiny dried shrimp, unshelled

For the dried shrimp, you may have to purchase those at a whole foods, local chinese market, or local spanish market. I haven’t seen tiny dried shrimp on display at major supermarkets, at least not at my major local supermarket.

Black Bean Sauce
peanut oil
fermented black beans
garlic
chicken broth
soy sauce
rice wine
sugar
cornstarch

Lobster Sauce
I love the fact that Chinese Lobster sauce doesn’t actually have Lobster in it but the sauce can be used with Lobster and shrimp. The sauce works really well with Chinese Snow peas, mushrooms, and shrimp.

ground pork
soy sauce
Pepper, to taste
cornstarch
fermented black beans
garlic cloves
green onions (spring onions, scallions)
sherry
granulated sugar
chicken broth
cornstarch
water
2 eggs
salt
cooking oil

That’s it for today. Tomorrow I’ll tell you about more ingredients that you will want in your kitchen to prepare Orange Ginger, Sesame Garlic, Hoisin BBQ, and other sauces for everyday Chinese food recipes.

It’s time to prepare your kitchen for Chinese food. I thought it would be a good time to prepare the kitchen with Chinese sauces and spices since it is the new year and we are so close to the Chinese New Year. It’s the year of the OX which means growth through hard work. I know that many of us will be working hard to produce everyday food recipes with a Chinese flair.

Before we can be like the Chinese dragon and set our burners aflame, the kitchen has to be stocked with sauces and spices so that everyday food recipes will be a breeze in the kitchen.

So get out your shopping list and I hope to get you prepared with these items.

Sauces
There are more than twenty sauces that restaurants use when preparing Chinese food. You can buy some of these already made at the store but most of them need to be made at home. The ingredients that you need are:

For Sweet and Sour Sauce
cornstarch
white vinegar
ketchup or tomato paste
orange juice
light soy sauce
salt
granulated sugar
vegetable oil or peanut oil
fresh ginger

For Brown Sauce
Brown Sauce is used a lot for beef dishes and my wife likes to dip her tofu in brown sauce.
beef broth (beef bouillion cubes can be used)
oyster sauce
dark soy sauce
sugar
cornstarch

Garlic Sauce
My wife loves to use Garlic Sauce with Chinese Chicken and Seafood recipes. You will need.
rce vinegar
granulated sugar
light soy sauce
dark soy sauce
Chinese rice wine or dry sherry
chili sauce
Asian sesame oil
cornstarch
vegetable or peanut oil
garlic cloves

That’s it for today. Tomorrow I’ll tell you about more ingredients that you will want in your kitchen to prepare XO Sauce, Black Bean, Lobster Sauce, and other sauces for everyday Chinese food recipes.