Holiday Food Preparation and Tips

菜单的选择和撘配

Ø 原则：

     §    制作简单容易

     § 菜的数量上不能多

     § 单个菜的量上要多些

     § 荤素搭配

     § 颜色鲜亮

     § 加上主食和甜点

Ø 肉量的估计 :

   § 每人 0.25 – 0.5 lb

Ø 菜例 :

    § 猪肉类：椒盐排骨，糖醋排骨，红烧肉，红烧猪蹄

    § 牛肉：卤牛肉，牛腩烧萝卜

    § 家禽：烤整鸡，烤鸡翅，烤鸭，盐水鸭, 烤火鸡

    § 海鲜：西红豆腐鱼块，酱烧鱼块，油焖虾，炒虾

    § 蔬菜：沙拉（ salad ）用你自己调的沙拉酱

    § 汤类：排骨萝卜汤，酸辣汤， 八宝稀饭， 

  § 主食类：热(凉) 拌面条，广东河粉，米饭，八宝稀饭

  § 点心类：年糕，南瓜（红薯）小甜饼，平果派， 水果

Lantern Festival of Horse Year - Sweet Rice Ball (Yuan Xiao) 2

With meat and vegetable filling

More

Steamed. Brown

Even more

How to Make Alfalfa Sprouts - Health Food
By May Huang
Alfalfa Salad:

Ingredients and Tool:

1. 1/2 T of alfalfa seed
2. water
3. glass bottle, can hold 1 1/2 cup of water

Directions:

1. soak the alfalfa seed with water in the glass bottle for 24 hours
2. draining the water from the bottle, rotate the bottle and make the seed staying on the inside wall of the bottle, and cover the bottle, and set the bottle aside, a dark place is better
3. repeat the step 2 twice a day for 8-10 days or until the alfalfa sprout is ready for use.

The following pictures show alfalfa sprout growth process.

Day 2 (after 24 hours' soaking):

Day 3:

Day 6:

Day 7:

Day 8:

Note: I learned the Alfalfa Sprout from my friend Louise

Shrimp Fried Rice

Shrimp Fried Rice
By May Huang




Ingredients:

Ingredients:

A: for marinating shrimp：
1. 15 raw shrimps, medium size (can be more or less, and different size)
2. 1 stalk of green onion, white part only, finely chopped
3. ½ t ginger root, finely chopped
4. ¼ t salt
5. ¼ sugar
6. ½ t starch
7. 1 T cooking wine
8. 1 canola oil

B：
9. 2 eggs, well beaten
10. ¼ t salt
11. 2-3 T canola oil

C：
12. 2 cloves of garlic, chopped
13. 3-4 T green peas or yang soy bean
14. 2-3 T carrot, chopped
15. ½ t salt or to taste
16. 2 C cooked rice
17. a pinch of black pepper powder
18. Few drops of sesame oil

Main ingredients are shown below:




Directions:

1. Marinate shrimps: Unfrozen shrimps, and place the shrimps to a bowl; add the remaining ingredients listed in the A except canola oil, mix everything well and set the bowl aside for at least 20 minutes.
2. Cook eggs: Heat 3 tablespoon oil with high heat. Add the egg when the oil is hot enough but not smoke, and take the egg out when the egg is ready (leave the remaining oil in the wok if any), set the egg aside.
3. Cook shrimps: add 1 tablespoon oil to the wok. Add the shrimps to the wok when the oil is hot enough. Stir-fry for 2-3 minutes or when shrimps are ready. Transfer the shrimps to a container, and leave extra oil in the wok.
4. Cook Fried Rice**: With the extra oil left from the step 3, add the garlic, and cook for few seconds. Add yang (green) soy bean, carrot, ¼ teaspoon of salt, rice, egg, and shrimps, and mix everything well. Cover the wok cook for a couple of minutes, and add the black pepper and sesame oil, mix with the rice mixture well. Transfer the rice to a serving container, and serve the rice when it is warm.

Note: **Assume that the rice is just cooked (warm) before making the fried rice. If the cooked rice has been sit in a refrigerator for a while, you will need to cook the rice for few minutes before adding the egg & shrimps; or you can microwave it to warm first.

Main steps are shown below:

Spaghetti Squish - Easy Microwave Way

Spaghetti Squish - Easy Microwave Way
By May Huang

I was used to boil Spaghetti Squish, one day at my friend's party, she cooked Spaghetti Squish using microwave, and I tried, it is easier to control, and the noodle is cruncher. So decided to share.



Ingredients:

1. Spaghetti, 1/4 - 1, depending on the size of Squish
2. 1/2 t salt or to taste
3. 1 stalk of green onion, finely chopped
4. 2 clove of garlic, finely chopped
5. 1/2 T canola oil
6. few drops of sesame oil

Directions:

1. Cut the spaghetti squish to two or four pieces depending on the size of the squish, and clean up the inside

2. Place the cleaned spaghetti squash in microwave oven and cook until soft (just turn soft), 5 - 10 minutes depending on the size of the squish

3. Cool the squish in tap water, and take the noodle out from squish, clean the noodle in water (to get rid of creamy stuff from the noodle), and drain the noodle.

See the detailed step in the picture below.

4. Heat oil in a sauce pan in a medium temperature, add the garlic and green onion and cook for about for one minute. Remove the pan from heater.

5. Add spaghetti noodle to the pan, add the remaining ingredients to the noodle, and mix very well.

Serve it with any type of meals (rice, noodle...)

Cake Roll / 戚风蛋糕卷

Cake Roll - Step by Step
By May Huang

This recipe is from my friend Wen, taught by her on one of Milwaukee Woman's Club's cooking classes a year ago. I just got a chance to make this cake roll recently, shared this with my NC friends, they all like it so much! It is relatively easy to make. Holiday season is coming soon, and it is time to make good deserts.



Ingredients:

1. 4 eggs, white
2. 4 T sugar
3. 1 t lemon juice or white vinegar
4. 2/3 C all purpose flour
5. 4 eggs, egg yolk
6. 1/3 C milk
7. 4 T sugar
8. 3 T canola oil
9. 1 T fruit wine
10. ½ t back powder
11. ¼ C strawberry jelly

Directions:

1. Preparing baking sheet - cut four corners of a Parchman paper (see the picture below), and place the paper in a 11’ x 15’ baking sheet.



2. Preheat the oven with 350 F

3. Manually mix ingredients 4 – 10 well in a container, and set the container aside

4. Beat egg white in a mixer for few minutes, and add 2 tablespoon sugar, and continue beating the egg white for another few minutes, and add another 2 tablespoon sugar and 1 teaspoon of lemon juice, and continue beating until the egg white become solid shape (when using a chop stick to dip into the egg white and take it out, it should form a solid triangle, see the picture below).

5. Take about one third of egg white to the egg yolk mixture, using robber knife to lightly and quickly mix them well, and transfer this mixture to the remaining of egg white, using robber knife quickly mix everything well.

6. Pull the cake mixture to the baking sheet, and make sure that the surface is flat and smooth, bake for about 15 minutes.

7. Take the backing sheet out of the oven, and take the cake (with the paper) out quickly to counter top, cover the cake using another Parchman paper, and turn the cake upside down quickly again, sit about for 15 minutes. The cake should be worm.

8. Take the original paper off, turn the cake upside down again, spread the strawberry jelly evenly on the cake.

9. Roll the cake into a roll in the original paper, and tie both ends (see picture below), and put the cake roll in refrigerator about 30 minutes or longer.

10. Cut the cake when ready to serve.

Please see the following pictures for the detailed steps.

Moon Cake

How to Make Moon Cake (中秋月饼) - Step by Step
By May Huang









Ingredients:

1. 2 lb Cake flour.
2. 1 1/4 C sugar syrup
3. 1 C canola oil
4. 1 t backing soda
5. 1 T water
6. 4 lb read bean paste

See picture below for the main ingredients and moon cake models:





Directions:

1. Mix 1 teaspoon baking soda and 1 tablespoon water in a small bowl.

2. Place cake flour, sugar syrup, oil, and baking soda mixture in a container. Mix everything very well. The dough should be very soft. Cover the container, and sit the dough aside about 4 hours.

3. Get red bean paste to a container, and add some backed flour if the red bean paste is not dry enough. Place the red bean paste in the refrigerator for few hours (to make red bean paste solider), take the red bean paste out from refrigerator, divide the red bean paste to about 20-25 (100 gram moon cake model), and make each of them to a ball as filling, and place all balls in a plate, and put the plate back in a refrigerator if not using immediate.



4. Divide the dough to 20-25 pieces, and make each piece to a smooth ball, and roll each of ball to a round wrap, place a red bean paste filling in the center of the wrap, and wrap it to a ball again, place the ball to a moon cake model to make a pretty moon cake, see the detailed direction in picture below:




5. Preheat oven with 375 F.

6. Beat 2 egg yolk with 2 tablespoon of water while waiting for oven is preheating.

7. Place the moon cakes to oven for 7 - 8 minutes (you will need two cooking sheets), take the moon cake out, brush the moon cake with egg yuk. Reduce the oven temperature to 350 F

8. Place the moon cakes back to oven for another 5 minutes, take the moon cake out, brush the moon cake with egg yuk again.

9. Place the moon cake back for another 4-5 minutes, all moon cakes should be golden brown. Take the moon cake out, cover them when them are at room temperature .

10. Sit them for 3-4 days, then the moon cakes are ready for eating.

May Has Moved to NC State

Dear All,

I have not been updating by blog for a while. Since last summer, we started to prepare moving. And our family just moved to RTP area in NC state a couple of months ago. We are not completed settle yet. I'll update my blog with new recipes and gardening as soon we are settle.

Take care!

May

Chinese Traditional New Year Sweet - Yuan Xiao (Sweet Rice Ball )

Chinese Traditional New Year Sweet - Yuan Xiao (Sweet Rice Ball )
By May Huang



Filling with mixed nuts; purple color from beets:
Made this year:

Made few years ago:


Filling with Red Bean Paste; yellow color from butter cup:
Made this year:

Made few years ago:


Filling with black sesame paste:
Made this year:

Vegetables in May's Garden - 2010 - Part Three

Some of following vegetables are from a shared garden (with my friend)

Opa - Climbing on trees:










Baby Bao Choy:





Reddish :









Tong Hao:




Garlic:



Chinese Cabbage: