Chinese food is a great way to expand your personal recipe book, especially if you love to use simple, fresh ingredients with quick cooking time. These top ten dishes are famous all over the world, and are must-haves in your collection of Chinese food recipes.
Fried Rice - A must have dish in Chinese restaurants, fried rice is the ultimate Chinese food, and can be one of the most flexible in your cookbook because you can use leftover rice and ingredients to make it. Of course, you can use fresh ingredients but its best to use rice that has been kept in the fridge overnight for best results. Ingredients usually involved in making fried rice are eggs, scallions, diced meat of either beef, chicken or pork, ham, shrimps and vegetables such as celery, peas, carrots, bean sprouts and corn. There are many varieties of fried rice but the more popular ones are the Yangchow and Fujian fried rice.
Kung Pao Chicken - Kung Pao chicken or Kung Po chicken is a Chinese dish from Szechuan cuisine and is considered to be a delicacy. The recipe for this mouth watering dish commonly calls for diced chicken that is pre-seasoned and quickly stir-fried with unsalted roasted peanuts, red bell peppers, rice wine or sherry, hoisin sauce, sesame oil, oyster sauce, and chili peppers. Alternatively, you can use prawn, scallops, beef or pork in place of the chicken.
Moo Shu Pork - This is a dish of northern Chinese origin and a favorite of many. Ingredients in a Mu Xu pork recipe often include green cabbage, wood ear mushrooms, scrambled eggs, carrots, bean sprouts, day lily buds and scallions. Celery, onions, bell peppers, snow pea pods, bok choy and Shiitake mushrooms are occasionally used. The vegetables are cut into long and thin strips before cooking, with the exception for bean sprouts and day lily buds. Fried Mu Xu pork is then wrapped in moo shu pancakes that is brushed with hoisin sauce and eaten by hand. Moo shu pancakes are thin wrappers made of flour that is easily available in supermarkets and steamed just before eating.