Recipes from Lucy Wong. Based on I Won’t Go To China by Enda Wyley.
© Copyright reserved. The O’Brien Press Ltd www.obrien.ie
Chinese cooking uses few ingredients, usually just those that are available in
every Chinese kitchen eg soy sauce, oyster sauce, sesame oil, ginger, garlic,
spring onions and Five Spices. Vegetables are easy to grow, are cheap, cook
in a short time in very hot woks, are tasty, full of nutrients, and go well
with rice which is an important staple food, especially in southern China.
Noodles are another staple food, made from wheat, especially in northern
China, but are also served at birthday feasts as a way of wishing people a
long life. Seafood is expensive and served at special banquets, and duck or
goose would be used at very special meals.
Chinese people living in Ireland usually celebrate Chinese New Year. Mainland (communist)
National Day of Celebration is 1st October and Taiwan’s National Day is 10th October. Both
Taiwanese and Mainlanders hold their own parties at home or in restaurants and the Chinese
Chamber of Commerce holds annual New Year parties in restaurants and invites the ambassador from
the People’s Republic and others.
One of Chinas’s most famous dishes is Peking Duck, slices of duck wrapped in a thin pancake.
Pork is the favourite meat in much of China – families make hundreds of jiaozi (wrapped dumplings,
usually filled with pork) for New Year’s Eve feasts, and in the past many families would keep a few
pigs which would be killed to provide meat for festivals.
REAL CHINESE FOOD
Recipes from Lucy Wong. Based on I Won’t Go To China by Enda Wyley.
© Copyright reserved. The O’Brien Press Ltd www.obrien.ie
Traditional Chinese Green
Vegetable
Very common dish at everyday Chinese
dinner
400g Choi Sum or Pak Choi
6 tblsps cooking oil
4 – 5 tblsps oyster-flavoured sauce
1 tsp salt
sesame oil to drizzle on top of dish at the end
1.
Wash vegetables thoroughly, and top and tail into pieces of equal length.
2.
Fill pot or large saucepan with boiling water with one teaspoon of salt