Kung Pao Shrimp

Kung Pao is one of my favorite Chinese restaurant dishes.  I found this recipe from my cookbook "Madame Wong's Long-Life Chinese Cookbook".  Kung Pao was originally made with chicken but I love making it with shrimp.  It always includes vegetables (I used green peppers and scallions), whole dried chili peppers and roasted peanuts.  The stir-fry sauce is a mixture of chili paste (I used Sriracha), soy sauce, Chinese cooking wine, sugar and sesame see oil.  I also used a little oyster sauce.  I stir-fried the shrimp and vegetables separately, then tossed everything with the sauce and cooked a few minutes longer.  

Cantonese Steamed Fish

This traditional Chinese dish typically uses a whole fish but you rarely find whole fish on the American table.  I do intend to be adventurous and try it that way for a future blog post.  This recipe is so simple and uses basic ingredients that I always have in my kitchen.  The fish is steamed in a bamboo steamer for about 7 minutes.  For the sauce, heat a tablespoon of oil in a saucepan and add slivers of ginger, then slivers of scallions.  Mix together soy sauce, sugar and water and add to the oil mixture.  Raise heat until the mixture is sizzling.  Sprinkle the fish with chopped cilantro and pour the sizzling oil mixture over the fish.  I like to serve this as a rice bowl.  So easy and so delicious.