Home
» City specials
» Hangzhou
Easy-to-prepare cold dishes for hot summer
Print Edition
HANGZHOU housewives know how to spend less time in kitchen when weather is hot — they prepare dishes by boiling, instead of frying or stir-frying. This has double benefits: less cooking oil and more fresh taste. Shanghai Daily gives you four recipes today.
Green soybeans are widely used in Chinese cooking. They are tasty, flavorful and nutritious. Summer is the season to eat boiled green soybeans with pods. It is a side dish to go with liquor or rice wine.
Method: Wash green soybean pods, use scissors to cut off the ends of a pod so that salt and seasonings can enter the pod. Put soybeans in a pot and cover with water, add salt and red pepper (if you like spicy food), and marinate them for one hour.
Then add a few drops of oil in the pot and bring it to a boil. Remove the lid and let it boil for two more minutes, then turn off the gas. Leave the pot for 20 minutes to let the beans simmer in remaining heat.
Housewives usually cook a large pot of green soybeans and save the rest in a refrigerator. The dish can be served warm or cold.
Sliced cold chicken, pronounced baizhanji in mandarin, is a popular Shanghai dish and is a good choice for dinner in summer. Its preparation is as simple as it sounds.
Method: Have a whole plucked chicken and two large pots ready. Fill one pot with water and put it in an refrigerator. Put the chicken in another pot and cover it with water, then add in ginger, scallion and rice wine.
Boil the chicken until the water starts to bubble, turn off the gas, take the chicken out and put it in the chilled water. This is to tighten the skin and lock in the juice and flavor of chicken meat. After five minutes, put the chicken back to the hot pot and put the chilled water back to the refrigerator. Put the lid on and boil the chicken for three more minutes, then turn off the gas and wait for 45 minutes. Use a chopstick to stab the meat. If no bloody water flows out, it is done.
Put the chicken back in the chilled water to let it cool off and keep the skin elastic. Then slice it and serve with mashed garlic in soy sauce.
Cold noodles with creamy sesame sauce and shredded cucumber is a classic summer food for Hangzhou people, served both as breakfast or dinner.
Method: Prepare cold noodle does not generate much heat. All you need to do is boiling the noodle for 90 seconds and rinse them in cold water. Then, add shredded cucumber, two spoons of creamy sesame sauce and some salt. That’s it!
You can enhance the flavor by adding sliced jelly fish or sliced beef or whatever you like.
This dish can be done in just five minutes and tastes delicious because river shrimps can retain their tender texture and flavor in a quick boil. Pink shrimps in savory brine can also reduce internal heat.
Method: Wash shrimps with shells, put sliced scallion and ginger in a pot of water, add some rice wine and bring the water to a boil. Then put in shrimps and salt and cover the pot with a lid. Keep it boiling for two minutes over medium heat with water barely cover shrimps.
Turn off the gas and leave the pot for 15 minutes so that salt seeps into shrimps. The dish is best served warm or at room temperature.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
