by Silvia Blach

Chinese food is a delicious way to expand your personal cookbook, especially if you love to use simple, fresh ingredients with short cooking time. These top ten dishes are favorites all over the world, and are must-haves in your collection of Chinese food recipes.

Fried Rice – A staple 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 ingredients and rice to make it. Of course, you can use fresh ingredients but it’s recommended 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 pork, beef or chicken, ham, prawns and vegetables such as bean sprouts, peas, celery, corn and carrots. There are many types of fried rice but the more popular ones are the Yongchow and Fukien fried rice.

Kung Pao Chicken – Kung Pao chicken or Kung Po chicken is a Chinese dish from Sichuan 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 briefly stir-fried with unsalted roasted peanuts, red swee peppers, rice wine or sherry, hoisin sauce, sesame oil, oyster sauce, and chili peppers. Alternatively, you can use pork, beef, shrimp or scallops in place of the chicken.

Moo Shu Pork – This is a dish of northern Chinese origin and a favorite of many. Ingredients in a Moo shu pork recipe often include green cabbage, carrots, wood ear mushrooms, bean sprouts, scallions, scrambled eggs and day lily buds. Bok choy, bell peppers, celery, Shiitake mushrooms, snow pea pods and onions are occasionally used. The vegetables are cut into thin and long strips before cooking, with the exception for bean sprouts and day lily buds. Fried Moo shu 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 right before eating.

General Tso’s Chicken – General Tso’s chicken is a Hunan food that tastes spicy and sweet and highly popular in Chinese restaurants in America and Canada where it’s often listed as a “chef’s specialty”. General Tso’s Chicken recipe commonly involves battered chicken deep-fried and marinated with garlic, ginger, soy sauce, rice vinegar, Shaoxing wine, sesame oil, scallions, hot chilli peppers and sugar.

Spring Rolls – Spring rolls make excellent appetizers and snacks. They are similar to egg rolls, but are slightly different to its cousin. Springs rolls are generally smaller, have thinner skin and less filling than egg rolls. To make a spring roll, chopped meat and thinly cut strips of vegetables are wrapped and sealed in a circular or square rice paper. It is then deep fried till crispy and golden brown. Serve this crowd pleaser piping hot.

Chinese Dumplings – Chinese dumplings are a wonderful addition to your home cooked foods, and can be prepared simply and quickly using just a few ingredients. The key to making an excellent dumpling is to ensure that all of your ingredients are finely chopped, so that each of the dumplings cooks in the same amount of time.

Orange Chicken – This tasty Chinese dish is made of chicken chopped into bite size pieces and battered, and then fried with thick sweet and spicy chili sauce flavored with orange. The traditionally Chinese recipe for orange peel chicken as it’s sometimes called, is to deep fry the chicken first and then stir fry it in a lightly sweet soy-based sauce flavored with dried orange peels. Vegetables like bok choy and baby carrots are used as the garnishing. However, cooks in Western restaurants do not use dried orange peel but rather fresh orange peel or orange juice and a substantial amount of sugar to make the sauce. Steamed broccoli and dried chili peppers are used as garnishing instead.

Sweet and Sour Pork – This savory-sweet highly popular Chinese dish is of Cantonese origin. It is a good dish to prepare when you are planning on having guests, who will be wildly impressed with your cooking skill. As with other Chinese food recipes, the key to making a great Sweet and Sour Pork dish is in the sauce made of ketchup, sugar, soy sauce and white vinegar. Its ingredients include pork, pineapple, bell pepper and onion chopped into bite size pieces.

Chow Mein – In American Chinese cuisine, Chow Mein is a stir-fried dish consisting of noodles, meat such usually chicken, pork, shrimp and beef, cabbage and other vegetables.

Chop Suey – Chop suey or “za sui” or “shap sui” literally means ‘mixed pieces’ is an American-Chinese dish usually employs leftover meats and vegetables stir fried quickly in a sauce thickened with starch. It is a great dish when you need to use up the last of yesterday’s pork roast of chicken and can incorporate meats of any kind such as fish, chicken, shrimp, pork or beef and various vegetables from celery to bean sprouts and cabbage. Chop Suey is often served with rice.

Chinese Food Recipes is an online recipe and cooking website offering plenty of free Chinese recipes and Asian recipes.

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