Cooking Blog
Cooking Blog
Sichuan cuisine (romanized as Szechwan cuisine) is a style of Chinese cooking originating from Sichuan Province. It has bold flavors, particularly the pungency and spiciness resulting with preparing dishes with garlic and chili peppers, and the unique flavor of cooking with Sichuan peppercorn. Other well …
Chinese chicken salad is great for using leftover roasted chicken pieces, whole rotisserie chicken or boneless grilled chicken breast. Using your imagination, you can add many fresh ingredients (contemporary textured vegetables). Use Arugula, swiss chard, spinach besides the basic iceberg shredded lettuce. The sweet-tangy and …
I have taken the traditional Korean barbeque Asian flavor marinade and chosen a non-traditional cut of meat, a chuck roast, generally a tougher cut for this recipe. This flavorful marinade breaks down the tough connective tissues resulting in a flavorful seared tender beef covered with onions, mushrooms and ginger and a savory-sweet gravy melting in your mouth with each bite. On a Ketosis Diet, this easy recipe is great for beginners and delivers incredible results every time. Chuck roasts are inexpensive cuts of beef that cook at a low temperature for a few hours. Serve healthy vegetables on the side with the roast and you have a one-dish meal prepared.
There are so many regional varieties of BBQ around the world. Korean BBQ apart from the traditional American BBQ, has an Asian flavor of soy sauce, garlic, ginger, sesame oil and sometimes a distinct “sweet” taste of ground pear and honey. Korean BBQ is one cuisine that is quickly increasing in popularity across the United States. American BBQ styles include cuts of pork, ribs, brisket, or chicken and is dry rub or basted in BBQ sauces, slowly roasted then smoked. Korean BBQ will generally center on beef and pork that is marinated, sliced, grilled or pan seared. A well-known traditional Korean barbeque dish Bulgogi is served at many Korean restaurants.
Generally cooking a chuck roast or rump roast, 3-pound roast cooks 3-3.5 hours, cooking a 4-pound roast for 3.5-4 hours and a large 5-pound roast for 4.5-5 hours. Check the roast with a fork, if it is tough, the roast needs more time to cook. Always keep the top covered to ensure even cooking and a constant hot temperature. Select a roast that has marbling in it- this cut carries flavor and helps make the gravy flavorful and mouth-watering!
Add soy sauce, sesame oil, rice vinegar, rice wine and brown sugar to large mixing bowl.
Whisk marinade mixture until brown sugar has dissolved.
Add sliced ginger and garlic to marinade and mix.
Add spicy chili sauce if desired to add a hint of spicy flavor. Mix marinade to combine all ingredients.
Clean two brown onions and thinly slice and add to marinade.
Marinate chuck roast.
Add sliced onions to marinade and cover chuck roast. Refrigerate for at least 8 hours.
Chuck roast marinated for two days.
Add chuck roast to large dutch oven and brown all sides of roast. Add garlic pieces and sliced onions to pan and caramelize.
Remove onions and garlic pieces after caramelizing.
Add beef broth and additional water if needed to cover all of the meat. Add garlic – onion – ginger mixture on top of the meat.
Cover with a foil lid and seal well. Cook for 2-3 hours until tender.
Remove roast from pan and let rest for 30 minutes.
Take remaining juices and thicken to form a gravy to serve with meat.
Pour gravy over meat and heat in 250 degree oven 5-10 minutes. *Watch carefully that the meat doesn’t burn from the slight sugar in the gravy.
Serve pot roast with fresh veggies and quinoa…a great meal on a KETO Diet.
This quick to prepare Bok Choy stir-fry recipe only takes 15 minutes and produces a wonderful vegan-friendly side dish. Add meat and additional aromatics to the dish and turn this one-dish meal into a quick entree in no time. Add this flavorful stir-fry veggie recipe …
This flavor-packed roasted chicken uses a “wet” curry rub. When marinating, some of the liquid will evaporate and the spices will bind to the food. This recipe has curry powder, cumin, garlic powder, fresh ginger root and fresh garlic. There is a small amount of …
Sushi on a low carb diet is a challenge! Usually, low carb sushi choices are limited. Most sushi is high in carbs, because of the rice and the different “sweet” sauces. When eating at sushi restaurants, you really have one keto friendly option, which is sashimi.
With a busy schedule and limited time, I’m constantly creating food that I can prepare the ingredients and it will only take 20 minutes and it’s ready to serve. I enjoy taking prepared foods and improvising by adding new ingredients to make a “quick” healthy snack or meal.
I’ve taken ahi tuna and “spiced” the recipe to create “Ahi poke sashimi with a spicy zing”. This simple and quick recipe can be prepared ahead of time and added to other recipes, “Stuffed Avocado with Ahi”, “Ahi on Cucumber Slices” or a (low carb grain cracker) with Wasabi Mayonnaise, “Ahi Avocado-Ginger Salad with Spicy Sriracha Mayonnaise”. Use your imagination with the ingredients!
NOTE: When eating out, avoid seaweed salads that are marinated in mirin or other sweeteners, imitation crab has carbs and any “sweet” tasting sauces. Alternative rice-free rolls: cream cheese, smoked salmon, avocado and cucumber, Spicy tuna or Hamachi with avocado and tobiko, Rainbow roll, Spicy toro handroll.
How to Choose Sushi-Grade Seafood
Since most sushi or sashimi includes raw seafood ingredients, it is essential to know how to select the correct fish, and how to keep it fresh. Proper food-safety precautions are the key to creating good sushi, as this will minimize the risk of foodborne illnesses associated with eating raw fish.
Raw fish is not something to be afraid of. Virtually every fish or sea creature is edible, it’s just that not every fish can be eaten raw. Knowing which sources are safe is the best place to start when choosing your sushi ingredients.
Fish safe to eat raw
Chinese Long Beans (also known as “Chinese Green Beans”, “Yard-Long Beans”, “Chopstick Beans” “Snake Bean” or “Pea Bean”) are grown in subtropical/tropical climates and most widely grown in warmer parts of South Asia, Southeast Asia and Southern China. This bean is a staple vegetable in …
My Chinese sparerib “riblets” recipe is a quick appetizer or side dish that is cooked in a wok or braising pan. This recipe is great on a KETO diet and easy to prepare. I have created this recipe by adding additional ingredients to the traditional …
If you love Thai cooking as much as I do… prepare my quick KETO and gluten free recipe cooked in a braising pan. A flavorful, savory, creamy chicken and vegetable dish in one hour.
Thai curry refers to dishes in the Thai cuisine that are made with various types of curry paste. Most Thai curry dishes are made with curry, coconut milk, meat, seafood, vegetables and herbs. Curries in Thailand mainly differ from the curries in Indian cuisine in their use of ingredients (herbs, aromatic leaves over a mix of spices).
Spaghetti squash is a great alternative to white rice or pasta (high in carbohydrates) on a KETO diet…especially when a dish has a flavorful gravy or sauce.
Spaghetti squash can be cooked in a variety of ways, including baking, boiling, steaming or microwaving. Once cooked the meat of this fruit can be prepared in a way that its “strands” look like and are as long as traditional spaghetti noodles. It is wonderfully served with or without sauce as a substitute for pasta, and its seeds can be roasted, similar to pumpkin seeds.
A quick one dish meal on a KETO DIET… I enjoy cooking colorful food, don’t you? I took a tomato based flavor and created an Asian flavored ground chicken stuffed bell pepper recipe – Spice up your life with this recipe. The spicy savory chili-black …
Asian braised short ribs when slow cooked for hours, are tender, juicy and literally fall-off the-bone great! Make sure you get a meaty short rib with delicious marbled fat. This creates a lot of flavor in a small bite and is flavorful on a KETO …
Chinese takeout restaurant favorites have a “westernized” menu of egg foo young, chow mein, beef and broccoli, egg drop soup and egg rolls…the typical cooked dishes are full of oil and sodium. I’ve prepared a vegetable egg foo young recipe “take – out” version at home that is low fat, high protein, low carb dinner option –cooked in 30 minutes. Use your imagination and load your stuffed omelettes with extra vegetables on a KETO DIET!
Egg foo young is derived from fu yung egg slices, a mainland Chinese recipe from Guangdong, literally meaning “Hibiscus egg”. This dish is prepared with beaten eggs and most often minced ham. Most traditional Asian restaurants use up leftovers a combination of minced vegetables, eggs and small pieces of meat, seafood or poultry cooked into an omelet-style pancake.
The Chinese omelette egg mixture usually has some type of protein (prawns, shrimp, lobster or pork) with traditional Asian vegetables: bean sprouts, bamboo shoots, cabbage, water chestnuts.
Most Chinese “Take Out” restaurants prepare a well-folded omelette with non-egg ingredients embedded in the egg mixture. It is covered with a sauce or gravy. American-Chinese restaurants in the Midwest serve a sandwich which is an egg foo young patty served with mayonnaise, dill pickles with lettuce, tomato between two slices of white bread
EGG MIXTURE
COOKING EGG MIXTURE
GRAVY PREPARATION
Do you cook pork chops that are dry and flavorless? This “SPICY LEMON PORK CHOP” recipe makes a juicy and tender pork chop full of flavor with little preparation time. Only 35 minutes and a great meal on a KETO DIET! COOKING TIPS FOR PORK …
Explore this quick to prepare recipe with a wonderful Asian- inspired BBQ flavor…slow roasted tender pork with a crusty flavorful fat top. KETO Cooked.
Pork shoulder, also referred to as pork butt, starts out as a mass of tough meat (tough connective tissue) wrapped in a thick fat skin. My recipe starts the pork in a high heat oven to crisp up the skin and sear the meat, then cooking slowly in a low oven for a leisurely eight-hour roast. I use a le creuset braising pan or large dutch oven. Slow cooking a pork shoulder gently breaks down the marbling resulting in mouth-watering flavorful tender meat.
Serve your pork with a pan sauce, using the juices and left over cooked marinade (drain the fat), add one cup of white wine and chicken stock. Add a chili oil and make a sweet and spicy or Chinese style BBQ flavor sauce. 
This filling one-pot “Chinese Three Ingredients Soup” dinner is quick and easy, prepared in 20 minutes, KETO cooked with broccoli slaw instead of Chinese mein noodles in a simple aromatic broth that is packed with flavor. In moments you’ve got a steaming hot bowl of …
Eggplant is considered a KETO vegetable. Eggplant is incredibly versatile and can be easily incorporated into your KETO diet. Eggplant recipes can be baked, roasted, grilled or sautéed. This vegetable can reduce your carbohydrate and calorie intake and increase the fiber – nutrient content …
STIR-FRYING, a continuous stirring-scooping-tossing motion to ensure even cooking…a quick way to cook thin uniform pieces of meat and vegetables in a small amount of fat in an open pan– a variation on sautéing. Finishing the dish by adding natural juices to the pan, letting the liquid bubble and thicken and coat the ingredients.
A GREAT WAY TO COOK ON A KETO DIET…USE YOUR IMAGINATION WITH DIFFERENT COMBINATIONS OF MEAT, FISH AND VEGETABLES.
My grandmother never had a recipe and knew the dish by smell and feel, sensing exactly when the pan was hot enough to add the meat, or how much ginger and soy sauce…enough to flavor the HOT blistering oil that she poured over the meat and vegetables. A wonderful aroma that filled the house…the ultimate childhood comfort food.
COOKING TIPS ON STIR-FRYING****
You ask is lamb good for a KETO diet? You’re good to have meat on a ketogenic diet and this includes fatty meat such as lamb, pork and poultry with the skin on. This is good news for the taste buds as fat helps …
What is your favorite way to eat rice? Plain white or fried with soy sauce? Chinese cooking and a side of rice! Rice is incredibly high in carbs and isn’t nutritious at all…other than to sop up all the wonderful gravy and sauces to any …
I transformed a classic stir fry dish that can be quickly prepared and cooked while on a healthy “KETO” diet. Cantonese beef tomato stir-fry is one of my favorite “comfort food recipes”. This dish is often served at Chinese restaurants as a “rice plate” (saucy, gravy entrée poured over rice) for a quick meal. The typical flank steak sliced into 1/4-inch thick pieces has a sauce base of ketchup, soy sauce, sugar, sesame oil, ground pepper, fresh ginger, garlic and large ripe tomatoes cut into wedges. Most Asian tomato-soy sauce bases are full of ketchup and sugar, omit them from your diet.
My version of the spicy sausage tomato stir-fry is a healthy alternative to the beef tomato stir-fry recipe. I added more vegetables; colorful bell peppers and celery to the stir-fry. The original recipe already had sliced onions, ginger, garlic and tomatoes. Use your imagination and add additional vegetables to the stir-fry mixture. 
My maternal grandfather (lovingly called “gramps”) often cooked this stir fry tomato dish with a “spicy twist”. Gramps was raised in Mississippi and often cooked with a Southern “spicyness” to his Asian cooking. He substituted a “spicy sausage” alternative to the sliced flank steak. My grandparents owned a grocery store with a full deli & fine meats butcher shop. Gramps always ground his own sausage and ground beef. I have fond memories of spending time with him at the butcher shop. Unfortunately, the original sausage recipe was never written down to add to our family heirloom recipe collection.
I took my grandmother’s simple soy sauce chicken recipe (Cantonese home-style dish) of soy sauce, garlic, star anise, water and boiling the chicken braised in a heated bath. Simmer and it is done! I updated this recipe with additional ingredients (organic coconut sugar (KETO DIET) …
This is one of my favorite “comfort foods” that my grandmother would cook for our family! I have added five spice, star anise and fresh ginger to the mixture instead of the traditional beef broth flavor. If you like a “spicy flavor”, add chili powder. As the meat marinates in the sauce (even after it is cooked), the rich flavor is absorbed in the meat. This marinade is also excellent for short ribs, beef ribs or any marbled red meat.
Spicy Asian Guy is run by Gary, I am an Asian food enthusiast who uses my blog as a platform to connect healthy ingredients and traditional Asian flavors in a contemporary cooking style. My authentic recipes have been passed from generation to generation. I continue …
