How to cook Sweet and Sour Pork

Sweet and Sour Pork, the ubiquitous and arguably the most well-known Chinese recipe in the world, is a classic Cantonese dish. Called “咕嚕肉” or “goo lou yok” in Cantonese dialect, sweet and sour pork is very pleasing to the palate because of the flavorsome sweet and sour sauce—the sweetness from sugar plus the tangy ketchup and sharp rice vinegar—with the crispy fried pork pieces. (You can check out my sweet and sour chicken recipe.) The green and red bell peppers and pineapple pieces are just icing on the cake.

The secret of an authentic sweet and sour pork dish lies in the perfect balance of the sweet vs. sour taste of the sauce. To master this dish, it’s not about the technique of stir-frying nor the use of the freshest ingredients, although both are equally important and wouldn't hurt. To me, the sweet and sour sauce is the soul of this dish. If you fail the sweet and sour sauce, you fail the dish. With that in mind, I will teach you how to make that perfect sweet and sour sauce and share with you the secret ingredients I use.

While traditional Chinese/Cantonese sweet and sour pork recipe calls for the use of rice vinegar and ketchup to bring out the sour taste, I also use plum sauce to add some extra zing, plus a few dashes of Lea & Perrins Worcestershire Sauce and oyster sauce to complete a harmony balance. They are my secret ingredients and do make a nice difference in terms of taste, in my honest opinion.

Other than the sauce, the frying batter is no less important. A great batter recipe promises crispy and crunchy coating for the pork. In my recipe below, you will also find the instructions and exact measurement to make the batter. It is simply awesome!

Rasa Malaysia’s Secret Ingredients for Sweet and Sour Pork:

1. Plum Sauce

2. Lea & Perrins Worcestershire Sauce

3. Oyster Sauce (my not-so-secret seasoning medium)

So, discard the canned pineapple juice or orange juice in the Americanized sweet and sour pork recipe. Do try out my secret ingredients above the next time you prepare sweet and sour pork.

Anyway, once you master the techniques of making sweet and sour sauce, you can pretty much whip up any sweet and sour dishes in a jiffy: pork, chicken, fish, or shrimp…just don’t tell Panda Express my secret recipe!

How to make spice chicken(La Zi Ji)

Ingredients:
1 lb chicken breast/tender--cut into small cubes
6 tablespoon vegetable oil
6 pieces of ginger
3 cloves garlic--cut into thin slices
2 green onions--cut into 2 inch lengths
10 to 15 dry chili pepper--cut into small pieces
10 Sichuan pepper corns
2 teaspoon Sichuan Bean sauce
2 tablespoon toasted sesame seed
1 tablespoon Sichuan Pepper Corn oil

Marinade:
1 teaspoon rice wine
2 teaspoon dark soy sauce
1 teaspoon light soy sauce
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon sugar

Marinate the chicken for 30 minutes or longer.

Heat up the vegetable oil until you can feel the heat above it. Put in the chicken. Keep frying the chicken until the water come out of the chicken (you will see it become smaller and the surface become golden brown). This will take up to 20 minutes. Make sure to stir the bottom once in a while, so that the chicken will not stick to the bottom of the pan. (If you have a deep fryer, feel free to use it. I tend not to deep fry the chicken)

Take the chicken out, there should be a little oil left in the pan. If not, add a tablespoon of vegetable oil.

Put in the  bean sauce, ginger, garlic, dry chili pepper, and Sichuan Pepper corn. Stir fry everything for about a minute, until you see the dry chili pepper turn dark red.

Put in the chicken. Stir everything evenly, so the chicken will be coated with the sauce. Some oil may come out of the chicken, so there should be enough liquid to cook everything. 

Put in the sesame seed, stir everything evenly.Pour in the Sichuan Pepper Corn oil, stir it evenly.

You are ready to serve.

 I sometimes save about one teaspoon sesame seed and put it on top when I transfer the chicken to the serving plate. It just gives a better presentation that way.

How to cook Fried Rice

Many of my America friends like Chinese style fried rice. Today I will show you how to cook it.Fried rice is a tasty dish that is traditionally made from steamed rice stir-fried in a wok, but it can also be made in a pan. Fried rice is delicious with a variety of ingredients, including almost any type of vegetables, meat, and eggs. Not only is it easy to make, but it's absolutely delicious. If you want to know how to make fried rice, just follow these steps.

Cook 4 cups of white rice. Just place the rice in boiling water and cook it for the amount of time listed on the instructions. Some types of white rice can take just 10 or so minutes to boil, while others can take 30 minutes or more. You can also microwave instant rice in the microwave, but it may not be as tasty.

Prepare the vegetables. First, wash 2 cups of carrots, 1 medium onion, 1 clove of garlic, one ginger root, and 1 cup of bean sprouts. Then, dice the carrots and onions, and mince just 1 tsp. of fresh ginger. Set these ingredients aside.

Pour 2 tbsp. of vegetable oil into a large pan. The pan should be very deep, almost like a wok. Place it over medium heat. Make sure the pan is clear of any trace of water, because the oil crackles and flies everywhere.

Cook the vegetables in the pan for 3 minutes. Place the carrots, onion, garlic, bean sprouts, and ginger into the pan. Throw in 1 tsp. of salt and a pinch of black pepper. The vegetables should sweat a bit, but they shouldn't turn brown.

Throw 1/2 lb. of cooked chicken into the pan. You can use chicken that you've cooked for another meal the day before, or buy or make cooked chicken especially for the fried rice. Just dice the chicken into thin strips and place it in the pan.

Put up to 2 tbsp. of sesame oil into the frying pan. You can gradually add the oil when it becomes necessary -- you don't have to throw it in at once.

Add three eggs to the pan. Crack the eggs into a bowl and whisk them together. Then, pour the eggs into the pan.

Toss the cooked rice into the pan. Fry the rice and the other ingredients together for 2-3 minutes, just enough time to heat up the rice and mix the ingredients. Keep stirring as you fry the rice. Add 3 tbsp. of soy sauce to the mixture and fry the ingredients together for another 30 seconds. Then, remove the pan from the heat.

Serve. Place the rice in a dish and garnish it with a few sprigs of green onion. Enjoy this dish as a main course.

How to cook Mala Xiang Guo

During the rain days I often don’t want to go out shopping to buy ingredients to cook. I open my fridge and see what I still have and try to cook with that. This is one of the main reasons why I like to cook Ma La XiangGuo: because you can put everything in this what you like…well almost everything.

It is spicy, hearty and ideal for when it is getting colder outside. The version below is a vegan, but you can add streaky bacon, shrimp or boiled quail eggs in this stir-fry if you want to add some more protein in this this. When you choose for a vegan version add in mushrooms as they are packed with umami flavor.

Let's start:

Heat up 6 tablespoons vegetable oil in the wok. Add in the dried chili and stir fry till fragrant and remove the chili from the oil and set it aside for later.

In the oil add in ginger, garlic and leek and stir fry till fragrant.

Add the dry spices: bay leaves, start anise, Sichuan pepper corn, Chinese black cardamom, cinnamon bark and continue to fry that for 1 minute till it release aroma.

Add 2 tablespoons of Sichuan bean paste and 1 teaspoon of sugar and stir fry till the oil change to red color.

Stir-fry the vegetables: add the firmest one first: potatoes, lotus root, broccoli and then the softer ones like mushrooms.

Add in the tofu skin and season it with 2 tablespoons cooking wine and 1 tablespoon light soy sauce and season with salt to taste.

Drizzle in 2 teaspoons sesame oil, earlier fried dried chili and coriander (leave some on the side to garnish)

Transfer to plate and garnish with some fresh coriander and serve with rice. Hope you like it.

Chinese Lantern Festival

     This week, my hometown's people talk a lot the Lantern Festival. And lots of historical cities hold lots of parties to celebrated the festival. The Lantern Festival is celebrated on the 15th day of the first month of the lunar calendar, and it falls on Thursday this year. The festival, observed by the lighting of lanterns, also marks the end of Chinese New Year celebrations, which began on Feb. 19.

     The festival also is known as the Yuan Xiao or Shang Yuan festival. The word “yuan” (元) refers to the first month of the lunar calendar, and “xiao” (宵) is an former way to refer to night in Mandarin. Thus, Yuan Xiao and Shang Yuan mean “night of the first month” or “first month” festival, respectively. 

     There is a very important thing about the Lantern Festival: The Sky Lantern! The sky lantern probably was invented before Late Han Dynasty. A prime minister Kung-Ming used sky lantern for military liaison purpose during Three Kingdom epoch (221A.D.). Some people still call the sky lantern as Kung-Ming lantern.During the night of lantern festival, Some people in Taiwan will fly the sky lantern by writing their wishes on the paper lantern and pray their wishes come true. Long time ago, people thought the lantern will fly up to the heaven. The god of heaven will receive their messages and will give them blessing.There is a story for this custom. Once a village was attacked by the private. When the private ship came, people ran to and hide in the mountain. When private left, some one in the town flew the sky lantern to tell people in the mountain safe to come home. It happened on the 15th lunar day in that year. Now people do the same way to depict their peace, safety and without accident.

     All the Chinese festival come with a great food. Be a foodie, I made Yuan-Xiao (元宵) by myself in the Thursday midnight. Because the Lantern Festival is also called Yuan-Xiao Festival. This is because Chinese eat Yuan-Xiao on this day. This custom originated from the Eastern Jin Dynasty in the fourth century, then became popular during the Tang and Song Dynasty. Yuan-Xiao made of sweet rice flour into sticky glutinous balls. They can be filled in with sesame, red-bean or peanut butter paste. Usually, they are severed with sugar water. But some people still  make salty Tang-Yuan.

SEJC in ATLANTA

1. Thursday afternoon check in for Southeast Journalism Conference at Ramada Plaza get my name tag and the conference guide. I am very exciting to join the SEJC. I driving about 3 and half hours for travel here with my classmate Katie, Tiffany, and Dettloff. 

2.We hang out at Atlanta downtown and have dinner. Singing song in the cab.

3.The conference start, we sitting ready to listen the big people speech. And I learn a lot about how important the international news and the guys speak a lot about Chinese.

4.During the conference, everybody is listening carefully.

5.Take photo with my professors and classmates. We are here for SEJC in Georgia State University.

6.We finish Friday conference and waiting for the hotel shuttle. We dressing good. Hah...

 7.In the Best of the South Awards Banquet!!! I am very honored Troy University get the best college video news program and best college TV station.

8.We all happy to get the Ranked 1st!!!

 9.Saturday conference I went to two great section for listening.

10. SEJC is a great chance to learn some new knowledge and meet some new people. Here is the newspaper and magazine from journalism schools.  

why iPhones are better than Android phones

I'm one of the apple fans in the world. In this blog, I want talk about why the Iphones betterthan the Android phones.

If you buy any of the best smartphones, you'll be in good shape.But if you're having trouble deciding between iPhone and Android, here are some ways the iPhone trumps Android.

I think the iPhones get the best apps first. Even though the iPhone has a smaller market share, developers still tend to make the best apps for iOS first. Yes, you can find most of the same popular apps on Android, but they don't always have the better features and designs. If you care about having the best apps on your phone, you're better off with iPhone.

And the iphone have better looking. With a few exceptions like the gorgeous HTC One and Xiaomi Mi Note, there aren't many great-looking Android phones out there. Many are chunky and plasticky. The iphone consistently have a better designs than Android phones.

The best thing I like iphone because they have the best after sale service. For example, if I break my screen, I can go apple store get a new one because I have the insurance. But others Android cannot do it.

And I think iphone have the best camera. Few Android phones have cameras as good as the one on the iPhone 6. (The Samsung Galaxy Note 4 stands out pretty well.) The iPhone 6 camera takes great photos and includes nifty features like the ability to shoot slow-motion and time-lapse videos. Plus, rumor has it the next iPhone will have a camera that rivals DSLRs.

The last reason iphone better than Android phones is the software in iphone will always be up to date.

Here is all my opinion. Hope you like it.