Chinese people dealing with their daily meals

By Szu-Hui Lin

12/11/10

For native Chinese who now live in Boston, getting a taste of home can be both challenging and rewarding.  Finding the right ingredients or finding good substitutes for a favorite family recipe or a regional dish takes some perseverance and determination.

Some Chinese  who now in Boston agreed to share their recipes and cooking tips about making some of their favorite food from home.

Fen Chen

Owner of Chinader Group, Inc.

"Dumplings are my favorite food and I am good at making them. I have thrown a dumpling party for more than a hundred people. Also, dumplings are the best party food because everyone can enjoy the fun of making them and eating them.

"I like to make dumplings, and I usually make dumpling skins by myself. The homemade dumpling skins taste much better than machine made ones. Dumplings are a unique and interesting Chinese food, and you can put all kinds of vegetables, meats and seafood inside of dumplings."

Dumpling skins

Ingredients:

500 g flour

200 g warm water

1 teaspoon salt

Directions:

1. Mix flour, salt and warm water with hands until completely blended

2. Put the dough into a bowl and cover with a wet paper towel for an hour

3. Cut a third of the dough and form a donut shape

4. Cut donut open and form one long roll of dough

5. Dice the dough into equal small pieces and roll them out

Dumpling stuffing

Ingredients:

1 Kalimeris indica (a wild vegetable and that can be found in a Chinatown market)

1 preserved Szechuan pickle

2 bean curd

One third of a vegan ham

5 Chinese mushrooms

1 teaspoon sesame oil

Directions:

1. Dice every ingredient into equal small pieces

2. Stir fry all ingredients and season with a teaspoon of sesame oil

3. Put stuffing in the middle of dumpling skin and seal

4. Put them in boiling water for 15 minutes

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Hsuan-Yu Chou

Doctoral student at Northeastern University

"Glutenous oil rice is the only recipe I have and I will cook it once a year because I like it. In Taiwan, we usually use julienne pork, but I can only find ground pork in a Chinese market. Besides the pork, everything is the same as my mother does it at home.

"When I was in Taiwan, I never cooked for myself even when I was away at college. If I was going to cook dinner just for me, it might take an hour to get ingredients, prepare, and cook, but I could go out and get a meal in 10 minutes. There were too many choices in every corner of Taiwan. Why should I cook? Cooking in Taiwan would not save money and was also waste of time."

Glutenous oil rice (serves 4 people)

Ingredients:

750 g sticky rice

2 pounds ground pork

6 Chinese mushroom 

4 tablespoon dried shrimp

120 g fried shallots

4 tablespoon sesame oil

6 tablespoon soy sauce

1 teaspoon salt

Half tablespoon Cooking wine

Directions:

1. Soak sticky rice for two hours and drain

2. Put sesame oil in a pan and fry dried shrimp, mushroom and ground pork

3. Put sticky rice in the pan and fry with all ingredients

4. Put the rice on a plate and steam it for 30 minutes in a steam pot

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Chotan Wang

Lecturer at Northeastern University

"Braised bitter melon with pork filling is my specialty dish. In Taiwan, we usually use white bitter melon because it is sweeter than green ones, but you can only find green ones here. I like bitter melon, no matter if it is green or white, and the dish relieves my homesickness.

"I usually cook at home on weekdays and go out for dinners on weekends to save money. 

"Cooking Chinese food in the US is time-consuming. In Taiwan, I can find a pack of all sliced ingredients for two people of certain foods like sautéed bitter melon with salty eggs, and I just need to mix them and season them. In the US, I have to start from slicing individual ingredients, and I can't measure the right portion for one person. The problem of cooking for one person in the US is you have to eat the same food for three days including lunch and dinner, so I usually cook noodle soup with vegetables."

Braised bitter melon with pork filling from SZU-HUI LIN on Vimeo.

Xiaoxuan Wang

Emerson College journalism student

 

"I like eggplants and tofu but I never try to make this dish. When my mother cooks this dish, she puts in lots of sugar. I reduce the amount of sugar, and it tastes good. I learned cooking skills from my mother, but I improved the seasoning myself. My mother is from Nanjing, so her taste is really heavy and my dad and I can't take it. I usually follow my instincts not recipes when cooking, and so far, so good.

 

"There is always a market in every neighborhood in Shanghai, and I can walk five minutes to buy ingredients. In the US, I have to walk 15 minutes or take the train to a market. I don't cook often here because I feel it is inconvenient to go to a market."

Braised tofu and eggplant

Ingredients:

1 long eggplant

2 packages of firm tofu

1 scallion

3 tablespoons soy sauce

1 teaspoon sugar

1 teaspoon oil

Some water

Directions:

1. Cut eggplant, tofu and scallion into small pieces

2. Put eggplants pieces into boiling water until they become soft, and pull them out

3. Put some oil into a pan and fry tofu

4. Add seasoning and eggplant pieces to the pan; simmer for five minutes