college food series: BEEEEEEEF Noodle

If you want me to rate all the comfort food from top to bottom, beef noodle will definitely be first, and then it's carne asada fries XDDDDD

There are so many fancy beef noodle that people sell in the restaurants. Some of them are fantastic, but some are just lame. I've tried one that only add several chunks of beef into Yang Chun Mian (simple noodle soup) and call it beef noodle.

ARE YOU SERIOUS!? this is not tolerable. Therefore, I'm going to share my recipe so that you guys can make it yourself at home for a really cheap price.

Here we go. First requirement of this cuisine: free time. If you do not have a thermos pot, it's going to take several hours to cook because it takes a long time for the flavor to get into the soup. Just choose a free afternoon or an afternoon that you'll stay home. The processing time only takes about 30 mins, and then you can just let it cook on the stove.

Ingredients:

Beef: Okay, there are many choices, but I like to use those big chunk of roast beef. Choose a chunk that's as fat as possible, or else the meat is going to be dry and the soup won't be as flavorful (when you eat the beef just take out the fatty part, so you don't have to complain about how fat it is.) ~3lb is a good amount.

Green Onion: about 2 stems

Garlics: about 6 cloves

Ginger: about 4 slices

Chili: optional, the bean paste will dominate the flavor, but you can always add more spice to it.

Spicy Bean Paste: can be found in grocery stores, even the American ones. The difference is that Americans for some reason cannot take spicy bean paste so they only sell the non-spicy one. However, if you do not like your soup to be hot, just buy those. They'll work almost the same. 1 bottle (small one, if you get the ones that have similar size as a coke can, just use half)

peppercorn(花椒): this is harder to get. You can usually find it in a Asian super market. I'd like to use the powder so I don't have to pick those peppercorns out after cooking (super annoying).

Star Anise: about 6 to 7 pieces should do the trick.

soy sauce: enough is good. try to get the one that has dark color but not too salty. We want the color, not the taste.

Procedures:

1. heat up a pot of water. After boiling, throw the entire chunk of beef into the water. This step is for cleaning the meat. Cook it for about 5 mins.

2. Meanwhile, heat up another pot (big pot), pour some oil and cook all the ingredients listed above except the beef and soy sauce. This step is to bring the flavor out. Make sure nothing is burnt.

3. Put the beef in, add water until it's about 80% full. Add soy sauce until it turns desirable color (darkish......i can't really describe it)

4. Boil it. When it boils, turns the heat down to low (or 2-3). Let it cook for an hour or so.

5. Remember we still have a big chunk of meat? Yes! Time to cut it. Take out the beef after an hour, cut it into bite size, and then put everything back into the pot.

6. low heat to cook for about 2-3 hrs. Taste the flavor, add more soy if needed.

7. The soup is done. All you need to do now is to get some noodle and bok choy. Cook them and then add the soup in.

8. EAT!!!!!!!!

college food series: Xue Li Hong (雪裡紅)

Okay, I can't really find another name for this because it already has an official name. This is an alteration of the traditional chinese dish. Barely with my writing plz im taking a break from studying right now so i'm not gonna care about my grammar and crap.

This dish is much more complicated compared to all my other dishes, but it's still simple in general. This dish does require some preparation though.

Ingredient:

1. mustard leaf (小芥菜), you might only find it in a chinese grocery store, 1 bag

2. red chili, 2 pieces

3. mushrooms (the black ones that have strong flavors, not those you put in pasta), 2 pieces

4. ground pork, 1/2 pound

procedures:

1. the day before you cook it, wash all the leaves and layer them. put salt on each layer as shown in picture

2. put it in fridge and let it sit for one day. make sure you either put it in a bag or whatever, the water is gonna leak

3. after letting it sit for one day, take it out and wash the salt out from every single leaf. this is important, so you dont make it too salty.

4. marinate pork with soy sauce, sesame oil, a little wine, and a little sugar

5. chop all the mustard leaves into very small pieces, squeeze water out if possible

6. dice the mushrooms, slice the chilis

7. heat up the pan, fry the chilis a bit

8. put in the mushroom and pork, cook until the pork is done

9. put the pork aside and dump in the veggies

10. cook a little, then mix them all together.

11. throw in some sugar and taste if it's salty enough, if not, use some salt, don't use soy sauce

12. if it's too watery, through in some corn starch (it's better if you let it dissolve in water before pouring it in, but it's okay if you're too lazy)

13. once it gets dry enough, turn off the flame, let it sit a bit

14. DONE!!!!!!!

This dish is great with rice and noodle. You can cook some noodle soup and throw some of this in, it'll be awesome :)

College Food Series: 法國土司春捲 (French Toast Spring Roll)

I haven't had a post about this for a long time, and I'm glad that I have time right now.

This one is a little tricky, and it requires much more work compared to the other dishes. however, it's still pretty easy overall.

Ingredient:
1) yellow chives about .1 lb
2) Enokitake 1 pack
3) bean sprout 1 pack
4) toast several pieces
5) egg about 6
6) oyster sauce

Procedure:
1) heat up the pan, cook the chives, enokitake, and bean sprout until they are cooked.
2) add oyster sauce for the flavor. The amount is up to you depends on how salty you want it to be.

3) heat up another pan
4) scramble the eggs and put it aside
5) smash the toast until they are flat (that means the bread is not soft anymore)
6) coat the toasts with eggs and pan fry them (french toast pretty much)
7) while you are doing it, preheat the oven to about 250 degrees
8) put some of the chives and stuff on the bread, roll them up
9) use foil to seal the rolls (shiny side facing in)

10) put them in oven for 5 to 10 minutes
11) the point of putting in oven is to dry up the extra water and let the sauce sink in a little more, so adjust the heat and amount of time accordingly.
12) when you are done, cut it open and enjoy :)

College Food Series: 青椒包肉(Ground Pork in Bellpeppers)

I wanna call it 翡翠團圓 but it's college food so it should not have such fancy name.....o well

Thanks to Veteran's day, I've got some break to create some new things. One of the reasons why I should thank the veterans lol.

Sometimes I really wish I had better skill at photo shooting, so I can actually change the name college food series to college food porn series......lol

Anyway, let's get to the topic

Since it's college food, it's really easy as any other recipes introduced in the series.

Ingredients:

1) bell peppers x 2 (I choose the green ones. they go better with the meat.)

2) ground pork 1/2 lb

3) ginger and green onion, some

Procedures:

1) marinate the pork with a little soy sauce, and the solution made of rice wine, ginger, and green onion. Pour enough to cover the bottom of the bowl. (don't use too much, or else the meat is gonna have a strong alcohol taste, unless you like it that way of course.......)

ps. to make the solution, simply pour wine into a bowl with chopped ginger and G.O. and squeeze the juice out of them.

2) chop the bell peppers into 8 pieces (4 pieces for each bell pepper)

Okay, so there are actually two ways to cook this thing.

Method 1:

Pro: meat will cook for sure

Con: longer processing time, the shape might not fit into the bell pepper

3.1) shape the pork into balls and cook them in a pan.

4.1) take the pork out, and then put in the bell peppers. Just cook one side. It's good enough.

5.1) add some salt (no soy sauce. it kills the color) to the bell peppers to add some flavor

6.1) put the meat into the bell peppers

7.1) you are done!!!!!!!

Method 2:

Pro: it stays in desired shape, shorter processing time

Con: If you are not good enough to tell whether the meat is cooked or not, you might be eating raw meat later, it's a bit hard to turn it upside down sometimes

3.2) put the raw pork into the bell peppers

4.2) put them in the pan WITH THE MEAT FACING DOWN. It simply cooks faster this way. Also because the meat takes longer to cook. While waiting for the meat to cook, add some salt to the bell peppers

5.2) when the meat is almost cooked (tricky part, be careful), turn all of them upside down to cook the bell peppers

6.2) when both the meat and the bell peppers are completely cooked (you can tell the meat is cooked by sticking a chopstick in, if it goes through without a "sticky feeling," the meat is cooked.) turn off the stove

7.2) EAT!!!!!!!!!!!

College Food Series: 碎肉玉米炒辣椒 (Spicy Ground Pork and Corns)

You know......I always find it hard to translate the dishes' names to English......

but anyway, here we go:

Ingredients:

1. corns: 1 can (non creamy)

2. ground pork: 1/4 lb (marinated with salt, sesame oil, a little rice wine, and some corn starch)

3. chill peppers (I like the red ones, they add good color to the dish, but if it's not spicy enough throw in some green, little ones. Oh they are good.)

Procedures:

1. after marinating the meat for around 15 minutes, throw in some oil into a heated cooking pan.

2. throw in the chill peppers and let it cook for about 2 minutes (or until the smell comes out)

3. throw in the meat and cook until it's cooked.

p.s. if you think it's not salty enough, add some salt. DO NOT USE SOY SAUCE. It's going to destroy the color.

4. throw in the corns and cook for 3 to 5 minutes

5. eat!!!!!

It is another great dish to go with rice, and it's awesome for lunch box as well. It's easy, tasty, and fast. Such a good dish huh? :)

College Food Series: 麻婆豆腐 (Ma Po Tofu)

I decide to start this series just because I love food. Haha, it's also a guide of how I successfully made it so I can check back in the future. So here we go

Ma Po Tofu

ingredient:

Tofu: 1 piece

The sauce pack: 1 pack

pepper corn oil: a little

ground pork: 1/4 lb

I use the sauce pack to save some time. After all we the college students don't have that much time on cooking, right?

You can get this in the Chinese grocery stores such as Ranch 99. It's around 2 bucks so it's acceptable.

Procedures:

1. boil a pot of water. We will use it later.

2. heat up another pot (or a pan or whatever you use to cook) and put in some oil.

3. cut the tofu into small cubes (the smaller, the easier the flavor goes in but also the easier it breaks, so it's up to you how big you want it to be).

4. cook the ground pork until it's fully cooked.

5. add the sauce into the pot and stir slowly.

6. meanwhile, put the tofu into the boiled water for about 30 seconds. This is an important step. You might not be able to tell the difference because this dish has a strong flavor, but for other dishes you can taste the "soil" taste in the tofu.

7. put the tofu into the pot and stir slowly. Cook it for about 5 mins.

8. add in some peppercorn oil to give it a good smell :)

9. if it's too watery, make some corn starch water (corn starch + water...DUH!! make sure you use cold water though) and put it in gently.

10. wait until it's saucy but not watery, turn off the fire.

11. eat!!!

It's a great dish with rice. I bet you can eat more than usual with this dish, so dig in!!