Cooking Chinese for the Olympics! This is Recipe 2 in the series and another home-style Chinese dish for you to try.

(Recipe 1: Ground Beef with Beijing Sauce Over Noodles)

Oh…and there’s a contest in the middle of this post!!!

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Last fall, my parents treated Scott and I to a 10 day group tour around China. Our first stop was Beijing, and first thing I noticed was how clean the city was. I literally could eat off the streets, as there was an entire team of sanitation engineers whose sole job was to scrape gum off the streets and sidewalk. I’m so not kidding - they wore white gloves and could scrape even crusty, 2 week old Bubbalicious in one quick motion.

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As promised, I’m doing a series of simple Chinese dishes as we lead up to the 2008 Beijing Olympics. I’m hoping to post a new recipe at least 4 times a week, though that might be a little ambitious and make my family very hungry for something like spaghetti or meatloaf.

This dish, Ground Beef with Beijing Sauce over Noodles is so flexible - you can use ground turkey, chicken or even pork. If you don’t have Chinese noodles, serve over rice or any type of pasta. The greatest thing about this recipe is that the entire thing comes together in 15 minutes (if using noodles) and costs around $5 to feed a family of 4. How can you beat that?!

Normally, I’d serve this over rice, but I had some of these wonton noodles leftover from my

Crab and Pork Wonton Noodle Soup recipe that we’re currently testing for my Steamy Kitchen cookbook. (Come take a look and join the testing group if you’re interested!)

So, as thrifty as I am, I’ve served this over noodles instead of rice. You can do either.

There are certain dishes that my Mom always says in Chinese, “goes very good with rice,” meaning, You’re gonna eat A LOT of it and won’t be able to stop. This is one of those dishes where before you even know it, you’ve eaten the entire pot with rice or noodles!

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My editor, Jeff Houck, sent over a picture of pan-fried Scrapple slice and my heart fluttered like crazy. “Scrapple? Scrapple! What’s Scrapple? I asked him,” and within 30 minutes was off to the supermarket to find Scrapple, a distant cousin to Spam.

Yes, I have an odd fascination with meat that comes in it’s own coffin.

“hmmm…I wonder if I could showcase the otherwise disgusting “meat” in a edgy, fashion-y, Bon Appetit-esque yet appetizinng way. I mean, when was the last time you saw a photo of canned ham and said, “DAMN…that’s a mighty fine piece of ass?!”

While I was there, I went bezerk and ended up with a basketful of “meat” products along with a variety of ingredients to concoct four different recipes. And really. That’s how my “meat” adventure began.

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from Steamy Kitchen food column in Tampa Tribune

Writing and editing more than 100 recipes for a cookbook that I’m doing is no easy task. In fact, it’s quite a bit more intense than I had ever imagined. The more-than-occasional brain farts and writer’s block are tough, and usually I can deal with those moments by distracting myself with a massive, industrial-sized roll of bubble wrap. It’s uniquely satisfying, covering three out of five senses in less than two seconds.

pop! pip! pop!

Sometimes, when the stress of writing turns into a gnarly tumbleweed, the giant roll of bubble wrap finds its place under the desk, propped between my feet. I unroll a nice, perfect, clean sheet onto my lap, I take a deep breath and let my hands wring the shit out of those air pockets.

POPOPOPOPOPOPOPOPOP!!!!

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If you are curious to see what happens behind the scenes when I’m cooking live on television - as part of the morning news broadcast - here it is. I brought along my super cool point-and-shoot camcorder, the

Flip Video Ultra and gave you a quick tour in the studio and the studio kitchenette. It’s a long video - about 10 minutes - but you’ll see the entire filming while sitting propped up on top of 2 boxes and a plate on the kitchen counter. Yeah - so part of my head is cut off!

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I just read an article about a man in India who created a tree that grows 300 varieties of mangoes.

Although the original tree is more than 80 years old, this man has grafted different mango saplings onto it. It’s kind of neat and strange at the same time.

But, it got me thinking: If I could have one tree in my backyard that could grow 300 varieties of something, what would I want? Three hundred is a big number, and I’d probably get tired of that one thing - even if it were chocolate: dark, milk, semisweet, truffle, bittersweet, cordial-filled, pistachio-topped, caramel-injected, syrup, frosting, nibs, bacon-flavored, powdered, and on and on.

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from Steamy Kitchen food column in Tampa Tribune

It never fails that at least twice a day, I’m asked, “so when are you gonna start your own restaurant?” My reply is always the same, “only when I have an extra million in the bank and I don’t have to worry about making money.”

I know a restaurant is just too much for to handle for my delicate psyche. How would I ever explain to the IRS why “weekly psychotherapy” is part of operating expenses? And the only way I’d be able to handle the long hours and hard work is with back to back shots of double espressos followed by a Red Bull chaser. But really, with that regimen, I’d scare off innocent, unsuspecting people with, “DUDE! YOU! NEED! TO! TRY! MY! SESAME! SHRIMP!” leaping out of the doorway and shoving a sample in any open mouth passing by. Yeah, maybe hyperactive, assertive marketing wouldn’t work well.

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Thanks to two of my favorite bloggers WhiteOnRice and Wandering Chopsticks, I learned a few secrets to some great recipes that I shared on TV last month…come take a look at the video:

(by the way, ABC7 upgraded their video application, now it plays on both PCs and Mac!)

When you get to ABC’s site, click on FEATURED VIDEO right below recipe name.

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from Steamy Kitchen food column in Tampa Tribune

If I had to just choose one thing, “my killer app” in the kitchen, it would be salt. It doesn’t matter what cuisine I’m cooking, salt is the basis of flavor in a savory dish. Call me a salt snob, but I stay away from the regular table salt, mainly because it tastes like crap! The granules are way too fine, the anti-caking agent just sounds gross and added iodine is sooooo 1920’s. The taste reminds me of…um…getting smacked in the face with a salt lick dipped in a vat of bitters?

Normally, I use kosher salt in the kitchen, mainly because of the texture and cheap price. I really like the feel of kosher salt in my fingers as I’m seasoning, and I’ve learned to season by sight, feel and taste. I’m just too lazy to bust out the measuring spoons, because each time, I have to wash and wipe dry the set of awkward, clanging, dangling spoons for fear of tainting the oregano with chili powder or powdered sugar with vanilla extract. How inefficient! Wouldn’t it be cool if spice jars came with twist lids that doled out the spice in teaspoon increments? What a great product idea. And if you steal my idea, at least take me out to dinner. But I digress. Read the full story

from my column in Tampa Tribune

Tat-tat-taaaat-tat-tat-taaaat-tat! That, my friends, is the beautiful sing-song sound of Chef Martin Yan’s cleaver as he chops bok choy. In fact, everything about Martin is musical, from the lyrical harmony of his Chinese accent (yes, it’s real - I asked) to the way he rhythmically pulses the food processor. Brrrrrr…brr.brr…brrrrr.

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