The cucumber dish shown above is a classic Chinese appetizer. It’s also one of the few dishes in Chinese cuisine that serves raw vegetables. The cucumbers pieces are mixed with oil, garlic, salt, and red peppers that when combined turn out really tasty.

To make this dish you’ll need:

1-2 cucumbers
2 cloves minced garlic
2 tsps salt
1tbsp oil
1 tsps sesame oil
2 chopped spicy peppers

Cut the cucumbers into pieces then crush them slightly to release the juices. I recommend crushing the cucumber by turning the knife on it’s side on the cucumber pieces and press down firmly with your palm (crushing the cucumber is key to the success of this dish). Add the cucumber, garlic, oil, sesame oil, salt, and peppers to a bowl and stir. You can chill it in the refrigerator or serve immediately.

Excessive amounts of salt are used to make the smoked pork shown above which means this is a great dish to order with some beer. This isn’t a healthy dish by any means, it is packed with salt, it’s mostly meat, and it’s cooked in ample amounts of oil, but it’s one of those delightfully sinful dishes. Think of it as the savory version of warm apple pie with ice cream, so enjoy it, just don’t over-indulge in it.

Here’s how to make it:

500 grams of smoked bamboo shoots (sliced)
200 grams of smoked bacon (sliced)
5 cloves of garlic (sliced)
2 red peppers (sliced)
2 scallions (sliced)
3 slices of ginger
2 tsps salt
1-2 tbsp sugar
cooking oil

Add the cooking oil to a heated wok. Drop in the garlic, red peppers, ginger, salt, and sugar. Stir for a few seconds and add the bacon. Stir for several minutes until the bacon is hot, add in the bamboo shoots and stir. Cook for 3-5 minutes, the bamboo shoots should be hot. Add the scallions and serve.

Cooking oil is reclaimed from restaurants and sewage drains and is then cleaned up and refined. It’s sold back to low-end restaurants that are able to cut their oil costs by about 5o%. Unfortunately recycled cooking oil contains high amounts of aflatoxin. Aflatoxin is 100 times more toxic than arsenic.

This tofu is fried, but I’m guessing I got fresh oil. I ordered this vegetarian dish one night when I was eating alone. Silken tofu pieces were deep fried and then a selection of mushrooms with asparagus and carrot slices was added in. A sweet yet savory sauce was stirred in while cooking and the dish presents well. Unfortunately the sauce was a bit too watery making the flavors muted. This dish has a lot of potential but something is needed to spice it up.

Here’s how to make it:

Ingredients:

500g Firm tofu
200g Shitake mushrooms (fresh)
1/2 Carrot (small)
1/2 Green Pepper
1 Scallion (diced)
1 small chunk Ginger (sliced)
2 cloves Garlic (minced)
3 tbsp Bean paste
1 tbsp cornstarch mixed with 1tbsp water
Vegetable oil

Directions:

Prepare the tofu by delicately cutting it into chunks and frying in oil and set aside.

In a clean wok add a bit of oil then add the garlic, ginger, and bean paste and stir fry for a minute. Next, put the carrots, green peppers, mushrooms, tofu, and cornstarch/water mix into the wok and stir. Cover and allow to cook several minutes until the carrots are tender. Finally add the diced scallion and serve.

Two kinds of celery are found in Shanghai, standard celery as found in Europe and North America, and another type of celery commonly called Chinese celery. Chinese celery can be easily distinguished by it’s paler color and thinner stalks and is regarded as being closer in nature to wild celery.

The celery and tofu stir fry is a fine example of a home cooked vegetarian dish found throughout China. The ingredients are simple and combine into a wholesome healthy food. The textures of the celery and tofu keep my tongue from getting bored. The salt and other spices are plenty to flavor the tofu and temper the stronger flavors found in Chinese celery, without being overbearing. The celery does taste more like celery than the European kind, so be prepared.

Here’s a recipe so you can have a crack at it in your kitchen:

400 g dried tofu
400 g celery
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sichuan peppercorns
1-2 chopped scallions
2 slices of ginger
4 sliced dried peppers

1. Prepare the celery by removing the leaves and washing the stalks. Cut the stalks into 4-6cm pieces and set aside.
2. Prepare the celery by washing and then slicing into strips similar in size to the celery.
3. To cook, add a tablespoon of oil to a hot wok and coat all sides. Add the peppercorns, peppers, ginger, and spring onion and stir fry for a few seconds then add the celery strips and salt then stir for half a minute and add the tofu. Stir until all the ingredients are mixed and let cook for a few seconds before serving.

A way way spicy version of a classic dish. This dish normally is a bit less red and has a bit fewer peppers.

But the fact of the matter is, nearly every take on this dish is good. It’s so basic and as such is more or less a staple of home style Chinese food.

I’ve actually made this dish a few times so I’ll attempt a recipe here:

Ingredients:

• 3-4 cups of cabbage cut into pieces
• 10-12 peppercorns
• 3-4 dried chili peppers
• 1-2 tbsp rice wine vinegar
• 1 tsp soy sauce
• 1 tbsp sugar
• 1 tsp cornstarch
• pinch of julienned ginger
• salt

Steps:

1. Sprinkle salt over the cabbage and let it set for about ten minutes. It’s important that the salt touches as much of the cabbage as possible, it’s intended simple to extract some of the water from the cabbage.
2. Mix the rice wine vinegar, soy sauce, ginger, salt and cornstarch together in a small bowl with a bit of water.
3. Pour the excess water out of the cabbage
4. Put a few tablespoons of oil in a wok and set it over high heat.
5. Add the peppercorns and dried chili peppers to the hot oil and cook for about twenty seconds.
6. Add the cabbage to the hot wok and stir the cabbage in with the oil.
7. After several minutes and the cabbage is cooked, add the mixture in the bowl to the wok and continue to stir.
8. Remove from heat and place into a bowl for serving.

You’ll notice right away that your mixture looks significantly less red and significantly more brown. That’s the lack of chili sauce and the addition of soy sauce.

So give it a try and tell me what you think.