Cooking Blog
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 …
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 to your Asian menu on a ketogenic diet.
In this recipe, I cook with “miniature” often called “Baby Bok Choy”. This miniature Chinese cabbage has tender stalks without the tough fibers of full-size Bok Choy and its bright green leaves have a sweet, clean flavor balanced by a hint of peppery, mustardy bitterness (taste is similar to Swiss Chard or Spinach. This vegetable is fast-cooking, versatile, and available year-round at most grocery stores and Asian markets.
Bok Choy can also be steamed, boiled, stir-fried or microwaved until just wilted, 2-3 minutes. In many of my recipes, I also chop this vegetable in place of other greens for salads. In many of my braised meat dishes, I braise Bok Choy leaves by adding to the flavorful liquid at the end of roasting meat– I sautee the chopped leaves in the simmering pan broth, sauce or gravy produced. This produces a “silky and tender” texture and adds a wonderful flavor to the leaves without burning them.
To add aromatics like minced garlic, ginger, or chili paste, add grape seed oil to the pan first and cook the aromatics, stirring constantly, until they are fragrant, about one minute (don’t overcook or burn them). Add the broth and Bok Choy. Drizzle the veggies with sesame oil.
Bok Choy belongs to the leafy vegetable Pak choi family of Chinese brassicas. Bok Choy is also called Chinese White Cabbage, Chinese Chard, Chinese Mustard Cabbage, Pak Choi. Bok Choy has white or green, thick, crunchy stems with light to dark green wide leaves. Size can vary from 4-12 inches tall. All parts, stems and leaves, are eaten.
Store Bok Choy in a refrigerator crisper bin (32 to 36 degrees Fahrenheit). Store in a paper or perforated plastic bag. (TIP: for any green leafy veggie, I wrap a slightly moist paper towel around the whole vegetable to keep it crisp) Do not wash until you are ready to use. Use within 3-4 days.
Bok Choy is an excellent source of vitamin C, provides dietary fiber, iron, calcium and folate, a good source of beta carotene (your body turns this into vitamin A).
Add ginger, garlic, soy sauce, sesame oil, rice wine or cooking sherry and brown sugar or alternative sweetener and wisk.
Pork tenderloin (1/2 pound) trim fat and slice thinly.
Add sliced pork to marinade and refrigerate overnight for best flavor and to tenderize the meat.
Baby Bok Choy
Separate Bok Choy stems and wash, pat dry before stir frying.
If using dried, dehydrated Shiitake mushrooms, soak overnight. Rinse several times and change water. If using fresh mushrooms, rinse and pat dry.
Remove mushroom stem and slice thinly for stir-fry.
Preheat wok (very hot), add grapeseed oil to cover entire surface of pan. Heat oil until you see slight smoking.
Add garlic and ginger and caramelize (2 minutes). Remove and add after stir-frying meat.
Stir-fry pork with a continuous stirring, scooping, tossing motion to ensure even cooking. Stir-fry pork until the outside surface is browned and the center is pink and not cooked through. Don’t overcook! Remove from Wok.
Heat wok and add grapeseed oil. Stir-fry Bok Choy stems (2 minutes until stems become tender). Add mushrooms and stir-fry another 2 minutes. Add previously stir-fried garlic and ginger and continue to stir-fry.
Reduce heat to medium heat. Add saved marinade liquid to pan and cook 3 minutes until sauce thickens. Return pork and juices to pan and cook for another minute. Serve immediately over Keto riced cauliflower or quinoa or brown rice.
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 …
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 marinade (sliced ginger, star anise pods, dry sherry, beef stock and (optional) crushed red pepper flakes (to taste) for a “kick”).
You may have ordered these similar Cantonese style ribs in a dim sum restaurant (full of MSG, salt, sugar, and oyster sauce).
Fermented black bean is known as black Dou-chi and is a famous seasoning in many Chinese and Szechuan stir-fry dishes. I use the prepared black bean with garlic sauce marinade (Lee Kum Kee brand) available at most local grocery stores (Asian or BBQ sauce aisle) or at your local Asian market.
What is a riblet(s)? Riblets are prepared by butchers cutting a full set of spare ribs in sections. This produces a set of short, flat ribs where the curved part of the rib is removed and gives them a more uniform look. Cutting in between the bone will separate them into small bite size pieces.
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 …
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 Diet! There are two popular ways that they are cut, English style and Flanken. For a Chinese Asian-fusion twist to the above recipe, add ¼ cup fresh orange juice and ¼ cup hoisin sauce and 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice and 2 teaspoons finely grated orange rind.
Where All Short Ribs Come From
All short ribs are from a rib section that contains three to four ribs. Depending on where it is cut from, it can be three to five inches thick, and contains meat interspersed with a lot of muscle, fat, and tendon, which give it a lot of strong beefy flavor.
Flanken
In the flanken style of short ribs, this thin cut, which is about 1/2 inch thick, goes across the bones so that each slice contains a few pieces of bone. This is a popular way to cut the short ribs if you are going for a Korean barbecue kalbi-style result. This cut is mainly found at an Asian grocery store, you most likely have to ask your butcher to cut these to order.
English Cut
The English style of short rib cuts between the ribs to separate them, leaving a thick piece of meat sitting on top of one piece of bone. These ribs can be left as is in one long piece or cut into smaller, approximately 2-inch long pieces. Boneless short ribs can sometimes be found, which mean that the meat is cut off the bones of an English-cut short rib.
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 …
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 …
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 soup! This can also be prepared as a vegetarian gluten-free meal with assorted vegetables without the meat and seafood.
Many Chinese soups are based on chicken broth. In China, a traditional Chinese chicken soup is made from old hens and is seasoned with ginger, scallions, black pepper, soy sauce, rice wine and sesame oil. By 2000 BCE, wheat had arrived in China from western Asia. These grains were typically served as warm noodle soups instead of baked into bread as in Europe.
Chinese herbal soups – homemade remedies with herbs or adaptogens (ginseng) to help heal specific health concerns.
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 …
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) or brown sugar, fresh ginger, raw honey, rice vinegar, red chili paste, & liquid smoke). After simmering the chicken, I put the whole pot of ingredients into a container and refrigerated overnight. 24 hours is enough time to add more flavor into the skin and chicken meat. I use chicken thighs because it is more moist and won’t dry out during the second step of oven roasting to make the skin crisp. Any chicken parts can be used (chicken wings and breast meat) but don’t over cook the chicken parts in the first step of simmering in the pot.
The crispy skin is my favorite part of the chicken (great in KETO diet) with the savory flavors! The chicken meat is flavorful and just melts off the bone. This recipe provides enough chicken for 8 persons (2 pieces each). This recipe would be enough liquid to cook 2 whole chickens.
I have not tried putting the chicken pieces on a BBQ grill instead of the oven. I’m sure this would taste great grilled?… you would have to watch the heat so the soy and sugars wouldn’t burn on the grill.
