Sliced Boiled Pork 白切肉

• Pork belly, approximately 7 ounces, for one person. If you buy it at Chinese supermarkets, you can usually just find the meat labeled as 白切肉 at the meat counter.
• Garlic, 1 clove
• Soysauce and/or Memmi soup base (麵味醬油) and/or Seafood soy sauce (蒸魚豉油) and/or Oyster Flavored Sauce (蠔油)

1. Boil water, and drop the pork loin in it. Cook for 15-20 minutes.
2. Pick up the pork, let dry somewhat, and slice into thin slices.
3. Mince the garlic and mix with the sauces to make dipping for the otherwise bland meat. The sauce mix I used today were made of: 1 tbsp of oyster flavored sauce, 1 tsp seafood soy sauce, 1 tsp soysauce, and 1/2 tsp of boiling water.

Note: originally I used pork loin in the recipe, as it is leaner. But it doesn't taste nearly as good as using pork belly with the occasional stripes of fat.

Chinese style beef noodles, hot 紅燒牛肉麵

• Beef loin (for stew) 1-2 lbs
• Thai peppers, between 1 and 10 (depending on how hot you want it to be. I use usually about 2 or 3 per lb of beef)
• Soy sauce, 1/2 cup
• Ginger, 3 thumb-size pieces
• Chinese five-spice 1 tsp or Dried star anise, 5-6 stars
• Salt 2 tsp
• Shanghai style noodles (thick round ones) or Shang Dong style noodles (wide flat ones), 8 - 10 ounces.

1. Cut the beef into stew-size chunks (cubes about 1 - 2 inches per side).
2. Boil pot of water (about 3 times volume of beef). After it boils, add beef, soysauce, ginger, five spice/star anise, and salt.
3. Let simmer for 2+ hours. (I leave mine in a crock pot for 5 or 6 hours).
4. When ready to eat, boil noodles, strain, and add beef along with soup.

Chicken of interesting flavor, stir-fried

• Chicken breast cutlets, approximately 8 ounces
• Old bay seasoning 1 tbsp
• Garlic, 1 clove
• Soy sauce, 1 cup
• Sugar, 1 tsp
• Sesame oil, 1-2 tbsp
• Vinegar, 1-2 tbsp
• White sesame seeds, to liking

1. Cut chicken into small bite-sized pieces.
2. Marinade for 15 minutes to half hour in soy sauce, Old Bay, minced garlic, sugar, sesame oil, vinegar, and sesame seeds (i.e., mix everything up and let sit).
3. Heat pan up with a dash of olive oil. Turn heat to medium.
4. Add the mixture to pan. Stir occasionally (not too much).
5. When mostly done, add 1 tbsp water and cover for 2 minutes.
6. Uncover and serve.

Japanese-style Tuna, served over rice

• Tuna steak/filet, approximately 8 ounces
• Cooked Japanese/Chinese rice, approx 1.5 cups (I recommend the Nishiki 錦 brand)
• Olive oil and sesame oil
• Salt
• Furikake (i.e. seasoned dried bonito flake and sesame seed mix), usually found in Asian supermarkets. There are many flavors available, tonight I used seto fumi 瀬戸風味.

1. Find a largish bowl, put the rice in the bowl. The rice should come up to about half way. (The bowl is for eating out of.)
2. Slice the tuna steak. Whether to cut along or against the muscle grain is up to you. Slice it to about 1 cm thick pieces.
3. Heat a frying pan with some olive oil and some sesame oil.
4. Quickly pan-fry the tuna on both sides. We want both sides to turn to a grayish brown color, BUT, don't let the whole piece be cooked. We just want the top and bottom sides to be cooked, there should be a sliver of pink/red showing in the middle. You should end up with about 1/3 of the thickness of the tuna to be raw, and 2/3 (1/3 on top and 1/3 on bottom) cooked. The reason is that fully cooked tuna, especially those pan-seared, becomes dry and disgusting to chew, and it also loses the nice fishy flavor. (In short, it starts to taste like canned tuna...) Also, raw tuna holds together better than cooked tuna: leaving the center raw ensures that you will end up with tuna slices, and not tuna flakes that just fall apart. And the chewy textures enhances the eating experience. And don't worry about 1/3 looking like a lot of raw fish: after the tuna is taken off the pan, the remaining heat should be able to cook it a bit more so that by the time it is served, only a tiny sliver of pink is noticeable in the center.
5. Cover the rice with the tuna slices fresh off the pan, if you want, you can layer them nicely. While layering, sprinkle tiny bits of salt and liberal amount of furikake on each piece (notice that we didn't use any other flavoring when cooking).
6. It is ready to eat! Side dishes and vegetables are up to you.

Chinese water spinach, stir-fried

• Chinese water spinach (空心菜), for one person
• Salt, small amounts
• Chinese fried garlic (油蒜酥)

1. Cut the water spinach to 2-3 inch long segments, wash.
2. Heat up frying pan (optionally add oil). Turn heat to medium.
3. Put in water spinach, stir quickly and constantly for about 1 minute, before fully cooked.
4. Add the friend garlic and salt. Season to preference.
5. Stir for another 30 seconds to a minute.
6. Add small amounts of water (a few tbsp).
7. Cover, turn heat down to low, let sit for 2 - 3 minutes.
8. Uncover and serve.