西人中餐系列 Chinese Food for the West

“Can you make chicken without bones?! 可以做不帶骨頭的雞肉嗎？!”

by Mr Large 西人大班

西人大班總是很amazed我們東方人啃骨頭的能力，住上海的時候，每次去吃中餐，每次點雞肉，他都會問“帶骨頭的嗎？”，很抱歉，可能我們賤骨頭，所以特別愛啃骨頭。

2019年最後做的一頓飯是在美國，人在美國country side一個大廚房，要思考如何利用西方資源做出西方朋友會喜歡吃的中餐，算是2019年最後一個給自己的挑戰！

在經過幾輪各超市的走訪調研，菜單終於定下來：薑蔥油雞，炒土豆絲，蒜蓉菠菜。

這菜單對大家來說是家常便飯，但說實在，要在不做sweet and sour pork的前提下，做出符合從未來過亞洲的西方朋友的口味，也不是很容易，跟幾個香港朋友討論的時候，其中一個說「喂，你做的蔥油雞千萬要煮到骨頭還是血紅色，然後還整隻雞還原在盤子，西方朋友應該會被嚇壞!」，我跟朋友說「哈，這一點我早就想到，因為西人老投訴我做的雞太多骨頭，所以，你放心，我打算用去骨雞排去做」。

再來就是蔬菜類的兩個菜，蒜蓉菠菜是西人點名的，去到country side的超市，真的沒太多蔬菜可選擇用來做中餐，最後，突然靈感到，西人不是很喜歡土豆嗎？那麼，我國偉大的炒土豆絲不就正合適嗎？

Mr Large is always amazed by how good Chinese is eating chicken with bones. When we lived in Shanghai and went to Chinese restaurant, he always wondered why we can’t find a Chinese chicken dish without bones! My last cooking in 2019 was done in the US country side. Mr Large asked me to prepare a Chinese dinner for the family. Honestly, it is not easy at all to get the ingredients you need to prepare for the Chinese dishes not mentioning that it’s not easy to design a menu for Western people who have never been to Asia.

After some researches done in the grocery stores, here is my dinner menu: Chicken in green onion and ginger sauce, Stir fry potato slices and Stir fry spinach with garlic. This may sounds a very simple dinner for Chinese. I want to make something apart from Sweet and Sour Pork which is most commonly found in the Chinese restaurants outside of Asia.

My HK friends also reminded me to ensure the chicken is fully cooked and do not “restore” the whole chicken to put on the table. I was laughing and said “I know!”. I found that the toughest part of designing the menu is the vegan dish. Not much of choices here of veggie for Chinese cooking. Yet, all of sudden, I remember that the Stir fry potato slices is one of Mr Large’s favourite dishes. In his words – we don’t have this dish in the US!

清炒土豆絲 Stir Fry Potato Slices

材料 : 土豆，少許蒜和蔥末

做法

Ingredients: Potato, minced garlic, chopped green onion

Steps:

1. Peel the potato, cut into thin slices
2. Rinse the potato slices via water at least 3-4 times. This is a very important step to rinse out all starch and so the slices won’t stick together when you stir fry them
3. Heat up the pan in high heat. Stir fry the potato slices for 1-2 minutes. Add the minced garlic and salt to season. Stir fry for another 3-4 minutes.
4. Add chopped green onion and serve

很感恩的是，西人朋友們很捧場，表示Excellent！應該不是純粹給我面子吧，讓我更有信心繼續為西人朋友們做中餐了，呵呵！

I’m glad that Mr Large’s family is very happy with the meal and said “Excellent”. This gives me confidence to cook for them and of course to share more recipes of Chinese dishes for friends here!