Yuanjia's Cuisine

It is said that corns can help one lose weight. Women especially like corns because they can also help maintain breast health. Corn seeds - the white little stuff inside each corn - is an amazing antioxidant. Surprised? haha EAT MORE CORNS!

Today I mainly just wanted to intake some starch, so I decided to use corn, potato and cream / milk / butter to help me with my goal. This side dish turned out very tasty and I believe I will do this again.

All you need is:
1 can cream style corns
3 red potatoes
1/2 cup of milk (doesn't matter what kind)
1/8 cup of butter
some salt

Peel and chop potatoes into little cubes. Boil them in small amount of water with some salt until it tendered. Remove all the water, add corns, milk and butter. Heat and mix until it boil gently. Add salt to adjust to your taste.

Though I heard someone said catfish is for fry but never for bake, I did enjoy today's baked catfish. It is REALLY simple and won't take you more than 5 minutes to prepare!

Wash your catfish. Apply some salt on both sides of the catfish fillet. Put it on heavy duty aluminum foil. Add 1 teaspoon of olive oil, 1/8 cup of melted butter, some black peppers and grounded garlic. Bake under 450 degrees for 15-18 minutes. DONE!

It was gone in a minute...

Ingredients:
1 cup butter
1 cup white sugar
1 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
2 cups flour
1 cup cocoa
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
3 cups oats
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Procedure is exactly the same as chocolate chip cookie except that you should put oats along with chocolate chips into the big bowl. Here's chocolate chip cookie's procedure. Enjoy!

Ingredients:
2 eggs
1 sliced onion
2 chopped tomatos
1 cup sliced mushrooms
5 pieces of bacon
cheese

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees.

Stir the eggs till they are uniformly mixed. Pour egg mixture onto the glassware, and bake it until it solidifies.

Fry onion, tomatos, mushrooms and bacon. Then transfer them on top of the egg layer. Spray some cheese. Bake for 20 minutes. Enjoy!

This is one of the best dishes I've done so far! The chicken skin is stretchy and a little bit crispy while the meat is delicate. The char siu and honey flavor is totally absorbed by the chicken wing thus the flavor is uniformly presented at each layer of the meat.

To marinate the chicken wings, you need:
Char Siu sauce 3 spoons
Honey 2 spoons at least
Heavy soy sauce 1 spoon

Marinate in the fridge airtight for at least 24 hours.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Bake each side for 30 minutes. To get a cripsy chicken skin, you can bake a little bit longer. Done!

My first time try baking cookies! I originally did not plan to make cookies until next week. However, when I got back last night, I was hell starving - I just had a bit of bread as lunch.. As such, I started making cookies in like 20 minutes. Believe it or not, this is actually super easy! I will make some oatmeal cookies and whatever cookies next time, cuz IT IS JUST THAT SIMPLE!

Ingredients:

• 2 1/4 - 2 1/3 cups flour
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1 Cup shortening or 1 Cup (2 sticks) butter
• 1/2 - 3/4 Cup packed brown sugar (total sugar should equal 1.5 cups)
• 3/4 - 1 Cup white sugar (total sugar should equal 1.5 cups)
• 1 - 2 tsp. pure vanilla
• 2 eggs
• 1 1/2 - 3 Cups chocolate chips
• 1 Cup chopped walnuts (optional)

This is a simple but tasty dish. It does not need lots of time for preparation. Highly recommended for people with busy schedules :)

Ingredients:
mushrooms
bacon (doesn't matter which flavor)
white or sweet onion
2 tablespoon of butter
cheese (doesn't matter which flavor)
salt
cooked rice

Slice bacon, mushrooms and onion. Fry with butter. Add cooked rice, mix well. Salt may be added to adjust to your flavor. Then transfer all the materials into a glassware. Preheat the oven to 220 degrees. Add some cheese on top of the rice. Bake for 5-10 minutes till cheese melt.

Enjoy!

Another Shanghai cuisine - Sweet Fried Shrimp. Shanghai cuisine is famous for its delecacy and sweet flavor. This dish appropriately demostrated shanghai cuisines character. The crust of the shrimp is crispy while the shrimp's flesh is soft and stretchy. Let's follow the recipe and try it out yourself!

15 Freshwater shrimps
5 thin slices of ginger
1-2 green onion
3 table spoon of heavy soy sauce
3 table spoon of cooking wine
1 table spoon of sugar
6 table spoon of oil

Heat the oil till about 430 degrees. Fry shrimp till the crusts crack or desociate from flesh. Take out shrimps, and remove the oil with only 1 table spoon left in the pan.

Heat the oil till about 400 degrees. Fry green onion and ginger. After 10-20 seconds, add cooking wine, heavy soy sauce and sugar. Mix the sauce well, then put in the fried shrimp and mix with the sauce. DONE!

Remember to turn off the cooking gas early so that the sugar won't get darken and overcooked. :)

Woot!! Chicago is really hot and humid recently. I don't even have a fan with me. This is intolerable!!! I apologize that I did not post anything in the past few days, but it is really the weather that was erasing my motivation to try new recipes and write blogs. However, this drink made a total difference! I feel so refreshed now and I'd like to share the joy with you guys!

All you need is:
strawberries
regular yogurt - I used peach flavor, my favorite!
milk
ice

You can adjust the relative amount according to your flavor. Blend them, and here you go!

This is another traditional Shanghai Cuisine besides Braised Pomfret. I almost failed today because I added too much water and did not realize that I need to boil off all water in the end. As a result, I ended up boiling a whole pot of water and waited for half an hour ( I was starving to death an hour ago, so while waiting, I ate two loaves of bread.. :( )

Here's how I cooked...

Beat an egg and prepare in a small bowl.
Prepare some cornstarch in a small plate.
Use the back side of the blade of a knife, tap two sides of the pork rib vertically and then horizontally. This way, connective tissues in the muscles will be broken and this will result in a better texture of the meat.
Immerse the pork rib in the beaten egg, then lay the pork rib on cornstarch to add the cornstarch to two sides of the pork rib.
Fry two sides of the pork rib till they turn white.
Take the pork ribs out.
Fry green onions and gingers.
Add cooking wine, heavy soy sauce, pork ribs, and water (cover the pork ribs)
NOTE: Do not add too much water even though it cannot cover all the pork ribs. Otherwise, you will end up waiting for all the water to be boiled off for half an hour as I did tonight..
Cover the pot, wait till water starts to boil.
Flip the pork ribs and wait for another 5 minutes.
Then add some sugar, use high temperature to boil off the water.
If you see the sauce becomes viscous, then you can turn off the gas and enjoy the Shanghai Braised Pork Ribs!!

It was actually much easier than I thought. Compare to eastern cooking, one of the advantages of western cooking is that you just need to prepare the materials and oven's gonna do everything else for you. Set an alarm and you can relax and do whatever you want.

So for baking steaks, all you need to do is marinate the steak first for 30 minutes with 4 table spoons of soy sauce. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Transfer the marinated steak onto one layer of heavy duty aluminum foil. Add some olive oil, some black peppers and garlic. Bake for 15 minutes. Then flip the steaks over, and add black peppers and garlic and bake the other sides for 10 minutes. It's that simple!

This is amazing! You know what? For the very first time, my dish tasted exactly like my mom's cooking! The brased pomfret I did tonight, totally reminded me the wonderful days 2 years ago when I was living with my parents and enjoying various kinds of brased food I like...

Mom, Dad, I miss you..

The cooking experience today was actually a little bit scary. I literally "dissected" the pomfret and I was scared a whole crap out of myself when I touched the soft internal organs.. IT WAS DISGUSTING! I can't image 10 years later when I will be in the medicine field, I will have to touch fresh meat and organs almost everyday! That makes me excited though. Not everyone has the opportunity to do that, right? Teehee.

I found liver, intestine, and whatever stuff. I also found the heart hided right below the gill. I remembered my mom has told me one day that if one breaks the gallbladder, the pomfret would taste bitter. So I was very careful pulling the stuff out and tried to find the gallbladder, but I failed. Whatevers, I did not see the green fluid oozing out, so it was all good.

So first, you wanna pick a fresh pomfret. If the eyes of the pomfret are clear, then yes this pomfret is fresh. Then you wanna remove all the internal organs and the gills. Fry the pomfret till it turns golden. Then take the fried pomfret out. Make sure that it is well cooked already. What I mean well cooked here is that you can even go ahead the eat it after frying the pomfret. Then put in ginger, green onion, cooking wine, 2 table spoon of heavy soy sauce, and 5 tea spoon of sugar (you can even put more!!), briefly heat for 10 seconds and then put the pomfret in. Cover the pot. Use low temperature. After 5 minutes, flip the pomfret over and cover the pot and cook for 5 more minutes. After 10 minutes in total, remove the cover and use high temperature to remove water until the sauce gets very viscous or thick. At that time, if you have not freaked out, you win!

This is another dish I did several days ago. I liked the color so I uploaded here. :)

LOL Baking vegetables again!

Baking corns is very simple and the crispy while watery taste of the baked corn makes kids who hate vegetables go crazy! Want to try out the recipe yourself? Here we go!

You first need to open the husks (don't remove them as they can help trap water in so that the corn won't dry out) and remove the silks. Then you brush some butter on the corn. Sparkle some salt and black peppers on it. Then re-cover the corn with the husks.

Next, you want to roll heavy duty aluminum foil lengthwise around corn and twist ends. Bake at 450 degree for 25 minutes. Serve immediately!

I'll upload the pictures later tonight as I'm studying in a classroom without my camera with me..

Today, I repeated the chilli fried rice, and here's the picture! Yea I told ya it looked appealing right?


So while I was chopping the pork, I actually saw two kinds of meat, or in a more scientific way, two kinds of muscles (forgive my nerdiness) - red and white muscles. I'm sure you all have heard of that, but what exactly are they?

Well, essentially, red muslces are red is because that they contain the oxygen binding protein - myoglobin. They use oxidative metabolism to generate ATP (an energy source). And they are very resistant to fatigue. White muscles are white is because of the absence of myoglobin and a reliance on glycolytic enzymes. They use both oxidative metabolism and anearobic metabolism to generate short bursts of speed and power.


Though most people believe that eating white meat (or white muscles... eerr sounds wierd) is healthier, those who have anemia and especially women should actually eat more red meat because red meat has myoglobin which contains ion. This is what you need when you are suffering anemia.

Well, the only thing that I'm not sure about was the white thing between white and red muscles when I had a hard time breaking it. It is very elastic and strong. I assume it is bundle collagen fibers.. Anyone knows?

I need to go to class soon, so I'll just type the ingredients this time. Enjoy!

0.5lb steak
1 yellow onion
1 green peper
1 table spoon light soy sauce
2 table spoon heavy soy sauce
3 teaspoon sugar
2 teaspoon corn starch
some black peppers

Fry sliced onion first until it turns yellowish, then add cut green pepper to fry until it changes color slightly.

Fry chopped steak till median (or to your taste), add onion and pepper, soy sauces, and sugar. Till the onion gets the dark color, add corn starch (it should be fully mixed with a little bit of water), and you are done!

I apologize for this late update. I just got back home from the beginning of intensitive study for this summer. Sign.

Ok so, today I did something real simple but elegant enough (well at least for me it was really elegant) to keep me awake till 1am - baked sweet potato!



I still remember when I was little, I used to have 1 baked sweet potato everyday after school. The astonishment and joy of having the first taste of it is still so fresh that I cannot forget about it even in a foreign country. You know, I love sweet food and how can I refuse to have it as it just feels like warm sweet feather?

Actually baking sweet potatoes is really easy. Easier than I thought. You simply just need to wash the sweet potatoes without pealing them. Then pierce them a little bit to allow gas coming out while baking to avoid blowing up in the oven. Preheat the oven to about 375 degree. And bake the sweet potatoes for 55 minutes or until they soften. Serve immediately.

Hope you will enjoy it as I always do! :)

Ok, today was a huge success!! I finished a huge plate of chilli fried rice. It's mainly because the fried rice not only tasted special - crisp and soft all combine in one with a little bit of chilli sauce that evoked my taste buds, but it also looked refreshing - the green of chinese borccoli, the orange of carrot, the yellow of fried egg, and the fleshcolor of pork. Plus I was starving so badly after I got back home - I woke up at 8am to take the first MCAT course this summer, which was a diagnostic test that lasted for about 5 hours; Then I rushed to a computer lab for work with only a pack of chips in my hand and that was my lunch.

This meal was the gift of today :)

Of course I know you must be dying to know what recipe made this meal so appealing. And there it is:

Sticky white rice
1 Carrot
0.5 lb chinese broccoli
2 eggs
0.3 lb pork
2 table spoon of salt
2 table spoon of cooking wine
1.5 table spoon of spicy bean sauce
Note: Again, all measurements are estimated!

First, cook sticky white rice properly. I know you all know how - use a rice cooker!
While cooking the rice, take a big pot and pour some water in. While waiting for the water to boil, wash the chinese broccoli, and cut into small pieces (about the length of your thumb =p). You can also start pealing the carrot and cut it into small cubes (about 1'' x 1'' x 1''). Cut pork into the similar size as that of carrot.
When water starts to boil, put cut broccoli in briefly until they change to dark green. Then take them out.
Add some oil to your pan, and some cooking wine and fry your pork. Also, fry eggs and carrot, seperately.
Lastly, fry your cooked sticky white rice (you can add some water if the rice is too dry) with boiled broccoli, fried carrot, meat and egg. Add salt, spicy bean sauce. And you are done!

You see, I even forgot to take a picture of the dish today because I couldn't wait to taste it and I totally forgot about photos lol

Bon appetite! :D

Remember my grand failure yesterday? Yup. I just added one more sauce today and it tasted so good. Guess what was it?


The answer is Char Siu Sauce! tada!

So the ultimate sauce ingredients are:

3 table spoon of char siu sauce
2 table spoon of light soy sauce
1.5 table spoon of vinegar
1 table spoon of bean sauce
1 table spoon of ketchup
1 table spoon of honey
1 table spoon of corn starch
2 teaspoon of sugar
1 teaspoon of salt
some black pepper (optional)
Note: all the measurements are estimated! I never use table spoon or teaspoon for eastern cuisine cooking..

Go ahead and try it out! Don't be afraid to make it sweet!

I will try to use the sauce to treat chiken wings over night and bake them the next day in the oven for 1 hour. How excited!

After a whole day of work, I was exhausted and starving. Thinking of all the food in the fridge, I frowned. What should I cook today? Hmmm I have eggplants, carrots, mushrooms, chinese broccoli, and pork fillet. I googled and found a dish called chilli and sour eggplants. Sounds yummy! And what's exciting about it was all my childhood memory about chilli and sour dishes my mom made. It just made my mouth watery.

After I got back home, I started my third job today immediately - cooking!

And here's my work...


Actually I was looking for soy sauce, vinegar, and chilli sauce. BUT, after tipping the whole closet off, I still could not find anything that can be chilli enough. Remember, without chilli sauce or hot sauce, the sour vinegar would taste really strong and I definitely don't want that. So instead, I put in a whole lot of sugar and sweet sauces: ketchup and honey. As a worst possible substitute of hot sauce, I used bean sauce, which turns out not bad. Corn starch is also necessary to thicken the juice.

I hope I could make this dish better, but it was my first try. And it was eatable..