(5) Fried chicken wings

I used to consider fried food as a simple dish before. How could it be difficult? All I have to do is to dip the ingredients with batter and bread crumb, then put them into hot oil.

However, after one home economic (家政) class which the teacher asked us to fried onion rings in senior high school, I realized that frying food is not as simple as I thought because I fried at least five burned onion rings and another five raw in the beginning. The members of our cook group and I got very tired to measure and control the temperature of the oil, not to mention frying something merely "eatable."

Fried food seldom appears on the table of my home, not only because fried food is high-calorie and unhealthy but also because it’s troublesome to cook.

However, sometimes when my mother has no ideas about what to have as the main dish of dinner or feels lazy to prepare for meals, she will go to traditional market and buy some fried chicken wings from a vender. The vender is a generous and tender guy so my sister and I love him so much when we were still young and had spare time to go to traditional market with mother after school. Buying ingredients, observing how my mother cooked and at the same time sharing something interesting happened in school, and taking a bite secretly after the dishes were done are important parts of my childhood. Every time I got nostalgia, I recall and miss the taste of my mother’s dishes, the surrounding of traditional market, and the memories of the past.

As results, we take fried chicken wings as an example here. There are lots of tips of frying food perfectly. The most important of all is the temperature of oil; the second is the time, which means how long you fry.

After the batter is done (you can adjust the consistency by yourself, which decides the quantity of the crisp coating and whether the wings are heavy or not), dip the chicken wings in it.
Heat the oil. We don’t have to pour much oil in pan because it’s hard to dispose the used oil for ingesting them is not good to health; nevertheless, it is so wasteful to abandon it. Besides, using special one like sesame oil will add the chicken wing extra taste and aroma.

The temperature we need is around Celsius 165 degree. In order to measure the temperature, I use wooden chopsticks for help. When you put a chopstick into it and every part that stays in oil all bubbles, it’s time to fry the wings. Once you put the wings into the pan, don’t flap them until the lower side is well-shaped. In my opinion, it takes practice and patience to observe the best timing of scooping wings up.

The idea of placing green onion and pouring sauce (mixture of soy sauce, used hot oil, vinegar, sugar, and rice wine) on the wings which shown in the first picture is from traditional Chinese cuisines, which we can fine out in many restaurants.

(4) Rare cheese cake

Couple years ago, there’re still only few cake specialty stores in Taiwan. After the chain cake and bread store” 85℃” rises and spreads sharply, the opportunities of eating and knowing desserts become higher. 85℃ is famous for its low price and good quality. I remember that when one of the branch stores opened in Tainan, my hometown, my father often bought one or two cakes for my sister and me as dessert. At that time, we all considered cakes as a symbol of novel and happiness.

During that time, my favorite one is cheese cake. It’s not only delicate and delicious but also cheap. After years, when I browse recipes and surf the cooking websites out of interest, I surprisingly find that actually cheese cake is an easy-to-make and hard -to-fail dessert.

We can divide cheese cake from two different kinds according to the way it is made. The first kind is well-baked and another is much simple, only need to be froze. I am going to introduce the simple one.

Ingredients:
Cream cheese: 250g
Butter: 20g
Gelatin sheet: 3 pieces
Sugar: 50g
Whipped cream: 125g
Wafer: 50g

1. Put cream cheese at room temperature making it soft; dip gelatin sheets in cool water.

2. Shatter wafers into powder and then mix it with melted butter. Paste the finished product on the bottom of your container. You can replace wafers into cake or other cookies you like.

3. Add sugar into cream cheese, and heat it until it melt into half-liquid. Remember that don’t heat any dairy products directly on the stove. Take a bigger vessel pouring in some water, then put the container which has cream cheese in it. After cream cheese melt, add whipped cream and gelatin sheets. Keep stirring during the whole process.

4. Pour the finished product into the container which already pasted a wafer layer. After it cools, put it in refrigerator for two to three hours.

The marble-liked pattern on the top is also easy to make. When you finish the last step before send the cake into freezer, drain some melted chocolate on it and then use a toothpick draw circles casually.

(3) Miso soup

Miso soup is the most basic cuisine in Japan. It’s not only delicious but also good for health. Miso is made from soybean, which has lots of nutrition. It also stimulates metabolism, which means that it’s helpful when you need to go on a diet. Besides, it assists body with exhausting harmful remains. Above all are partly the reasons why most of Japanese stay in good shapes and live a long life.

The recipe is very simple and the ingredients are very common. The most interesting part of it is that you can add ingredients you like, such as tofu, fish, pork or vegetables. In Japan, people sometimes cook miso soup with a variety of ingredients and have it and rice as a meal.
Miso can be divided into many categories, such as red miso, white miso, soy sauce miso, and so on. Every kind has different flavors and advantages. Nevertheless, they all have one thing in common, which is that they are not appropriate to heating for a long time, or the fragrance will disappear.

Steps:
1. Prepare the ingredients you like and cut them into mouthful cubes. Tofu, green onion is the basic. Pork with vegetables or fish with kelp is recommended.
2. Boil a pan of water. If you ingredients are not easily to become cooked, such as clams, radish, fish, and meat, remember to put them directly after water boils and before it’s done, mix miso into the pan. However, if your ingredients are easily cooked, such as tofu and vegetables, you can add miso ahead then put the ingredients. The point is that don’t cook miso for a long time.
3. During the time that waiting for the second boil, never turn the flame to high. After it boils and all the ingredients are cooked, this soup can be perfectly served.

I like to add noodle or rice in the finished product and it can be an easy and delicious meal.

When you get familiar to this cuisine and the specialties of miso, you can make some changes. For example, add lot ingredients and more water and turn it into a chafing dish; or mix two different kinds of miso making the flavor of finished product more amazing and deep. The rest of miso can be use in a variety typrs of cuisines, such as the dressing or paste on roasted fish, pork, or lumps of rice.

Except some patient and practice, it's really not difficult.

(2) Sweet red bean soup

Sweet red bean soup is the most common dessert in my family. There’s a famous sweet soup store near my home in Tainan, and I love its sweet red bean and green bean soup a lot since I was still studied in high school. I think the reason why I love it so much is because that it’s not only delicious but also partly my precious memory of hometown and simplicity.

The first one in my family decided to try to make the sweet soup himself is my father because he was recalcitrant and believed that he can also make red bean soup which is as perfect as the one sold in store. As a result, he bought a pack of red beans and started his experiments. During that time, we made and tasted it together. Although in the end the person who made it successfully was my mother, my father insisted that he was an important and essential assistant. However, no matter who was the person who made the soup, this dessert already become part of my family memories.

Actually this dessert is easy to make and good for health. Red beans contain lots of vitamin B and minerals. Green beans, in Chinese medicine, can reduce the accumulated poison and exhaust bad air in the body. Both of them are good for human and appropriate to hot summer.

Steps:

1. Wash the beans and pick up the bad or small one. Add water in a pan, the height of it should cover over the beans, and heat it by high flame until it boil.
2. After it boils, pour a cup of water and wait for boil again. Then discard all the soup in order to eliminate the dirt and mouth-puckering taste.
3. Pour water in it. The ratio of beans and water is 1:4 or 1:5(at your will). Heat it at high flame. When it boils, turn to low flame.
4. Keep stewing it. When the central part of bean starts to soften, add sugar. Then you can adjust the amount of sugar and decide the soften degree by yourself during the process.

This recipe is different from those traditional one, we don’t have to dip the beans for hours and, in fact, omit this step will preserve the fragrance and flavor of beans. You can add other ingredients like sweet potatoes, Job’s tears, or oats. No matter eat it when it’s still hot or become cool is really an enjoyment.

(1) Taiwanese style cucumber pickle

Every time I go to a Chinese restaurant or noodle diner, I always expect whether it has cold cucumber pickles as a side dish. It is special and filled of nostalgic old Taiwanese flavor. Although every experienced cooker will say that it’s easy to make, for normal people as me it’s hard to keep a steady quality and good taste.

Each restaurant has delicate differences. In my opinion, the best way to find a best recipe is to try yourself because everyone has dissimilar preference. As a result, I provide a most prevailed one and the advantages of it Is that it’s easy to make and adjust.

Steps:

1. Wash cucumbers carefully because they often have lots of insecticides remains. Cut them into cubes and use the back of a blade to pound them. This step helps the pickle get flavor efficiently and well.

2. Sprinkle some sugar giving them stirring, and then add salt repeating the same step. Add sugar before salt can prevent cucumbers from losing too many water, which attributes to the sense of crisp. Wait for 30 minutes, pour out the exhausted water. (You can also preserve it if you can accept the flavor.)

3. Add vinegar and sugar, the proportion is 1:1. Adjust the amount according to the number of your cucumbers. If you like heavier flavor, pound and add some garlic and chili is a good choice. Cover the container then put it into refrigerator for 1 to 2 hours. During the process, stir it casually and taste it, thus you can adjust the flavor immediately.

It’s a flexible dish. You can decide whether to eat or to adjust the flavor at any time and at your will. Besides, put it in the freeze zone of refrigerator is a novel and amazing choice in summer because there will be some ice chips around the cucumbers. Moreover, you can change cucumber into cabbage or onion, they also become delicious under this recipe.

Chocolate Ganache

Ganache is the name of a kind of approach which means adding whipped cream (and other ingredients you like) in chocolate, and it is widely used in nama chocolate, truffles, stuffing, and paste. Nama chocolate is from Japan and the word ”nama” signifies “fresh”. Chocolate Ganache has many specialties. For example, the quality of the chocolate is very soft, smooth and easy-melted. It emphasizes the original taste of chocolate and that’s also why this dessert is so wide-spread.


Last week I went home and made this dessert with my younger sister, and I found that it was not as difficult as I had thought before.

The basic ingredients are only chocolate and whipped cream but you can add some sugar, nut, wine, tea, or something. It's up to you. The ratio of chocollate and whipped cream is 1:1 and if you want your ganache softer, you can change the propotion to 1:1.2.

First, mince the chocolate and put it aside in reserve. Heat whipped cream and don't make it boil. Formal recipe has strict limits toward the temperature of all the ingredients and the environment, but in here I just make the cream hot without measuring the real temperature.



Turn off the stove, and put chocolate into the whipped cream. Cover the chocolate with cream as possible as you can.

Next, leave it alone for three minutes. It is said that this is a crucial step which determine the flavor of ganache.


After three minutes, stir the mixture in the same direction until its thickness looks like mayonnaise (美乃滋). When the mixture blend well, pour it into models.



The last step is to place it in the refrigerator, and dice it after chocolate becomes solid. The white parts are cooking paper, it prevents ganache from sticking to the model.



If you have cocoa powder, sprinkle some on the finished product because the powder not only makes it tasty but also prolong the expiration date.


Most surprisingly was that when my sister and I shared the chocolate with my "desserts-resistant" Mom, she also loved this dessert!

pot stickers (pan-fried dumplings)

I believe that almost everyone, especially students, has a packet of dumplings in the refrigerator for it's really convenient. Whenever you're hungry, a plate of hot dumplings will be served within minutes. Besides, freezing dumplings are not only easy to buy but also very cheap in Taiwan. The best of all is that although there are a variety of stuffings, poaching them doesn't take you any efforts and skills.

As a result, I have a packet of dumplings, too. However, only poaching is a little bit boring and flat. Therefore, I decide to chllange cooking pot stickers. Coincidentally the articles in this blog are only about desserts so far and it's time to do something different.

Actually I had tried to make this dish several times before and unfortunately, what I got was either a plate of poor broken dumplings or a miserable dirty pan. After these experiences, I find that a good stainless pan and some common and influential tips will help you a lot. Please don't use cheap or bad pan or you will definitely go mad.


First of all, get some dumplings from your refrigerator and give them five minutes to "warm up." Because of the ice which adheres to the surface of dumplings will melt into water if you put them into pan directly and it makes your dumplings stick to the pan. (It will drive you crazy when washing the pan.)

At the same time pour some oil into the pan and turn the stove to low flame. The quantity of oil depends on whether your pan is stainless or not.



Line up the dumplings and remember to keep some distances between each other for they will inflate later. Make sure that every dumpling is stained with oil. Then turn the stove to medium flame until the surface of every dumpling become gold and crunchy.







Take a bowl and pour water in it, and add some flour. The flour-water doesn't have to be thick. Pour the mixture into the pan and it should flow one third of the height of dumplings.



Next, cover the pan and turn the stove to low flame. Waiting for ten to fifteen minutes (it depends on the size of your dumplings) and the dish is finished! I recommend you to shovel them instead of using chopsticks.




Pot stickers smell and taste good and amazingly, the number of the dumplings which makes me full is lower than poached dumplings.