Get Cookin': Healthy Chinese Meal

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Fresh Peas and Snow Peas with Water Chestnuts

Name your favorite Chinese dessert. Don’t be surprised if nothing comes to mind that doesn’t involve reading. Fortune cookies are fun, but have you ever heard of anyone getting up in the middle of the night to satisfy a craving for a vaguely almond-flavored piece of roofing shingle?

Chinese cooks of yore had to manage without baking ovens and very little sugar, so sweet treats took a back seat to meat and vegetable dishes. The result? Arguably the most diverse, economical, and colorful cuisine in the world—and the most inventive. Whoever thought up cellophane noodles and a sauce based on oysters that doesn’t taste like fish deserves the culinary award of the millennium.

No matter what your gastronomic bent—vegetarian, meaty, rich, saucy, simple, spicy, or tame—you won’t go hungry when you order Chinese. For the health-conscious home cook, of course, Chinese is both a slam-dunk and a catchall description. It’s more appropriate to speak of Hunan cooking, or Szechuan, Mandarin, Cantonese, or Hong Kong style food. Today’s menu won’t take you to the outer edges of Chinese cuisine. Instead, it introduces three simple dishes with an introductory range of flavors and techniques for novice cooks. And if at the end of the meal you still long for something sweet, try a ripe orange, or that perennial favorite—kiss the cook.

Beef with Hoisin Sauce

Quick Tip

To slice small portions of beef easily, chill the meat in the freezer for 20 minutes and cut across the grain, otherwise you will end up with shredded beef.

On Western menus, beef often takes center stage. Some steak houses boast 16 ounce slabs of well-marbled heart-attack food. An ingenious way of infusing tasty morsels of beef with an array of contrasting flavors is a hoisin marinade, which is pungent, sweet, spicy, and salty. Marinating meat is a handy trick when you want to limit high-fat beef portions. Make beef with hoisin sauce a supporting player, giving equal billing to a bounty of stir-fried vegetables and rice. Buy small breakfast steaks cut from the round or slices of London broil.

Healthy Pantry

You can prepare many Asian dishes using ingredients you assemble from scratch—garlic, hot peppers, soy sauce, ginger, cilantro, and sesame oil. But to attain the next flavor level, even purists and professional chefs must rely on processed sauces, such as the various hot and sweet bean pastes, plum, hoisin and oyster sauces. They add depths of flavor not possible with other ingredients, and add little extra fat. These products require complex processing methods and their unique flavors allow no substitutions. Fortunately, most supermarkets carry a wide variety of Asian and other ethnic ingredients. Remember that one hoisin sauce is not as good as another, and unless you have sampled enough to have a favorite, a good rule of thumb is to choose the most expensive. If Asian food makes only an occasional appearance on your menus, you can refrigerate any opened jars and bottles, or transfer canned sauces to a covered glass container and they will keep indefinitely. I throw mine out after six months just on principle.

2 teaspoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon minced ginger
1/2 teaspoon five-spice powder
1 cloves garlic, crushed
1/4 cup hoisin sauce
3 tablespoons light low-sodium soy sauce
3 tablespoons rice wine
1/4 teaspoon Asian sesame oil
1 pound top round, cut in 1/2 inch by 2 inch strips
2 teaspoons cornstarch dissolved in 1 tablespoon cold water

Blend the sugar, ginger, five-spice powder, garlic, hoisin sauce, soy sauce, rice wine, and sesame oil in a shallow dish. Stir well. Add the beef and turn several times to make sure it is completely covered with the marinade. Cover and set aside for 1 hour.

Coat a cast iron or other heavy skillet with a thin film of vegetable spray. Heat until a few drops of water dance on the surface. When the pan is very hot, add the beef and discard the marinade. Stir constantly for 2 to 3 minutes, turning it to make sure all sides touch the hot skillet. When the beef is cooked to your desired doneness, stir in the cornstarch, toss the mixture for about 30 seconds or until the juices have thickened, and pour into a serving dish. Serve immediately.

(Serves 4)

Carrots and Cabbage in Oyster Sauce
Chinese cabbages are so different from the familiar Western variety as to be almost unrecognizable. The queen of cabbages is the curly headed Napa, with delicate leaves and a sweet, refreshing taste. Bok choy, pleasantly pungent and variously called Shanghai greens and Chinese cabbage, has the look of miniature leafy celery. Carrots add sweetness and color. Why a pinch of kosher salt in a dish that uses soy sauce? Because it artfully marries the flavors. However, if you don’t have kosher or sea salt, skip this step. Regular table salt is too harsh.

Be Prepared

The key to a smooth stir-fry is organization. You don’t want to hunt through your cupboards to find cornstarch the moment before the dish is ready to go from wok to table or the vegetables will overcook. Measure your ingredients before you start and then just add and stir as the recipe directs.

1 teaspoon peanut oil
1 pound baby bok choy, washed and halved lengthwise
4 green onions, sliced lengthwise
2 large carrots, peeled and sliced in thin sticks
1/2 cup low-fat chicken broth
1 tablespoon minced ginger
3 tablespoons oyster sauce
1 tablespoon rice wine
1 teaspoon sugar
1/2 head Napa cabbage, shredded
1/4 teaspoon Asian sesame oil
Pinch of kosher salt
2 teaspoons cornstarch dissolved in 1 tablespoon water
3 cups cooked rice

Health Note

In modern Chinese restaurants, contemporary health concerns often marry ancient cooking traditions. Today’s recipes often call for smaller portions of high-fat meats and ingredients tossed in a minimum of oil. Yet soy sauce, a staple throughout Asian cooking, remains a required element. Its high sodium count can be a concern, but low-sodium soy sauce is a common and acceptable substitute.

Heat the peanut oil in a wok or skillet with a tight fitting lid until a spray of water dances on the surface. Add the bok choy and onions and toss briefly until the onions begin to wilt. Add the carrots and chicken broth. Bring to a boil, cover, and reduce the heat. Simmer for 2 minutes. Add the ginger, oyster sauce, rice wine, and sugar. Raise the heat briefly and toss well until the mixture just begins to bubble. Cover and simmer for 2 more minutes.

Stir in the Napa cabbage and stir-fry for 30 to 45 seconds until the cabbage begins to wilt.

Stir in the sesame oil, kosher salt, and cornstarch mixture. Toss continuously over high heat until the sauce begins to thicken. Serve immediately with the cooked rice.

(Serves 4)

Fresh Peas and Snow Peas with Water Chestnuts
So crisp, the snow peas refresh as a salad course does. If possible, hunt down an international market that sells fresh water chestnuts. Crunchy, fresh tasting and totally unlike the mushy canned version, they will help you understand the popularity of this tuber in Chinese cooking. Mexican jicama is a good substitute, or as recommended here, celery.

A Word About Cooking With a Wok

What wok, you might ask, if your starter kitchen hasn’t progressed past the one-pot-fits-all stage. Can you prepare a Chinese meal without a wok? Of course. A sauté pan with a tightly fitting lid (or large sheet of foil) will work. A cast iron skillet was the means to many delectable stir-fry dishes until I invested in a wok. But the old saying, “use the tool that fits the job,” applies most aptly in the kitchen. Woks can take the heat a stir-fry demands, and their unique shape keeps the food over the heat at all times. Check out the selection of woks at http://www.pacificrim-woks.com

1 teaspoon peanut oil
1 ten ounce package frozen peas, thawed
1/2 pound snow peas
2 fresh water chestnuts, peeled and sliced, or 1/2 cup diced celery
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/4 cup low fat chicken broth
1 teaspoon fresh, minced cilantro

Heat the oil in a skillet or wok until a spray of water dances on the surface. Add the peas, snow peas and water chestnuts and toss thoroughly for 1 minute. Add the kosher salt, sugar and chicken broth and when the mixture just begins to bubble, lower the heat to a simmer, cover and cook for 2 minutes.

Uncover, raise the heat and toss continuously until the liquid all but evaporates. Sprinkle with the cilantro and serve immediately.

(Serves 4)