Tag: vegetables

Meatless Monday, recipes, Simple Recipes

Three Chinese Summer Cold Dishes – Tomato Cucumber and Wood Ears

When you think of summer food, salad usually comes to mind (got to love a good summer salad). They are, actually, just as common in Chinese cooking, although instead of having a mix of different leaves, Chinese veggie cold dishes are usually made from a single ingredient. These are all very easy to make, so here are three salads with different flavours! They can all be prepared in advance and left in the fridge for dinnertime – no need worry about wilting leaves. Continue reading “Three Chinese Summer Cold Dishes – Tomato Cucumber and Wood Ears”

blenderandbasilLeave a comment
Courgette pancakes hu ta zi
Meatless Monday, recipes, Simple Recipes

Courgette Pancakes – a Hu Ta Zi Recipe from Beijing

Summer has brought courgette spaghetti/noodles onto the shelves in some supermarkets here, so yes, this is another courgette recipe! If you can’t buy courgette spaghetti, then just spiralise a normal courgette.

Hu Ta Zi is a snack from Beijing, and is originally made with calabash (bottle gourd), but as that’s difficult to buy in many countries, I’ve adapted the recipe using courgette, and it’s just as delicious! The pancakes is best served hot, and usually dipped in a rice vinegar, soy sauce and garlic powder/chopped garlic sauce. However, they are also delicious by themselves. Continue reading “Courgette Pancakes – a Hu Ta Zi Recipe from Beijing”

blenderandbasil2 Comments
Tofu and Chinese Cabbage
Meatless Monday, recipes, Simple Recipes

Tofu and Chinese Cabbage

Just home from a trip to Kyoto, the city of tofu, I’ve been thinking more about easy home-cooking tofu recipes, and this tofu and Chinese cabbage combo is a typical one to make at home. It’s not quite a completely stir-fry recipe, so I haven’t called it as such. You will need to drop the tofu and the cabbage leaves into boiling water to remove the slightly odd taste that tofu sometimes has when you just unwrap it, and will need to wilt the cabbage a little so that you don’t need to stir vigorously once it’s in the oil pan – so as not to break the tofu apart. Continue reading “Tofu and Chinese Cabbage”

blenderandbasil1 Comment
Meatless Monday, recipes, Simple Recipes

Steamed Enoki Mushrooms with Garlic – a ‘Cooked Salad’ Recipe

In hotter weather, salads are a go-to food. This enoki mushroom recipe is a Chinese cooked salad, which means that like last week’s aubergine recipe, the mushroom is steamed before the sauce goes on, and the mushrooms soak up the flavours as it cools with the sauce.

You can also look into using other sorts of mushrooms, like oyster mushrooms, although it would be best to slice them thinly, as enoki mushrooms are naturally so thin and absorb the flavours easily. Continue reading “Steamed Enoki Mushrooms with Garlic – a ‘Cooked Salad’ Recipe”

blenderandbasil1 Comment
Steamed_Aubergine_Eggplant_with_Tahini
Meatless Monday, recipes, Simple Recipes

Steamed Aubergine with Tahini Sauce – a Chinese Salad

Aubergines (or eggplants) are my favourite – not only healthy, but they are a veggie that can be cooked in so many different ways! Now that the weather is getting warmer, this simple Chinese salad recipe is very tasty – and can be prepared in advance. Not only so, steaming preserves the vitamin content really well.

Continue reading “Steamed Aubergine with Tahini Sauce – a Chinese Salad”

blenderandbasil4 Comments
recipes

Aubergine/Eggplant and Beans Stir-Fry (Qiezi Doujiao)

We’re starting January with a simple Chinese veggie recipe, as we’re probably all nursing some headaches and watching the scale. Aubergine and spice also makes a very warming combination, so it’s good for the winter months! The recipe does require oyster sauce, but if you can making a vegetarian version then you can get vegetarian oyster sauce made from mushrooms instead. Continue reading “Aubergine/Eggplant and Beans Stir-Fry (Qiezi Doujiao)”

blenderandbasil1 Comment
Shredded_Potato_strips_Stir_fry_with_vinegar
recipes

Shredded Potato in White Vinegar (Cu Liu Tu Dou Si)

Potato is such a versatile ingredient – boil it, bake it, mash it, make chips with it… or shred it for this stir fry recipe. This simple recipe tastes just as good once the potatoes have gone cold, so it’s a refreshing one to try (despite the spice) now that the weather’s hotter. What gives this its refreshing nature is the vinegar. Usually in Chinese cooking, when you mention vinegar, you’d automatically think of black vinegar from Zhenjiang. However, here you should go for white wine vinegar instead. Continue reading “Shredded Potato in White Vinegar (Cu Liu Tu Dou Si)”

blenderandbasil2 Comments
Corn_and_Pine_Nuts_Stirfry_Song_Re_Yu_Mi
recipes

Chinese Corn and Pine Nuts Stir-Fry (Song Ren Yu Mi)

With spring in the air, we’re here to share another light and easy Chinese veggie recipe this week. Pine nuts are not only subtly fragrant but extremely nutritious, and make up the main ingredient of this week’s recipe, along with corn.

I’ve always got some frozen corn in the freezer as it’s so versatile and easy to store (not to mention tasty!), so this recipe is often a go-to if the fridge and food cupboards are looking a bit bare.

Continue reading “Chinese Corn and Pine Nuts Stir-Fry (Song Ren Yu Mi)”

blenderandbasilLeave a comment
Green_Bean_Dry_Fry_Stirfry_Gan_Bian_Si_Ji_Dou
recipes

Dry fried green beans with chilli (gan bian sijidou) – a simple veggie recipe

Now that spring has arrived, it’s time for lighter food, but still with a touch of warming spice. That’s why we’re sharing this vegetarian dry fried green bean with chillies recipe today. It’s a very quick and simple recipe, and you need very few ingredients to cook it – mainly just the green beans and chillies! Although you will need to fry the green beans twice, you will only need one wok, as the oil is recycled.

Continue reading “Dry fried green beans with chilli (gan bian sijidou) – a simple veggie recipe”

blenderandbasilLeave a comment
Clearspring_Umami_Paste_Chinese_Mixed_Veg
product review, recipes

Chinese mixed vegetables (Su Shi Jin) with Clearspring Umami Paste

Chinese cooking can often be at odds with a vegetarian diet (of course, there are exceptions), and that’s partly because in Asia, umami, aka the fifth taste, is just as important as your sweet and your sour. This is what made MSG such a core ingredient. This is also the taste that Clearspring‘s organic Japanese umami paste offers to provide in a form that’s much healthier and still suitable for vegans. As a fan of Clearspring’s miso, I was keen to try out their umami paste when Clearspring offered samples.

Clearspring_Umami_Paste_Chinese_Mixed_Veg

The paste comes in two flavours, ginger and chilli, and in a tube form that’s easy to squeeze and easy to store. This recipe uses the ginger version, as it’s a traditionally non-spicy dish.

Continue reading “Chinese mixed vegetables (Su Shi Jin) with Clearspring Umami Paste”

blenderandbasilLeave a comment