Oriental dishes popular at our house
Oriental food has always been very popular at our house. The prep time is a perfect opportunity to catch up with our visiting children while they participate in getting the meal ready to cook. We have had occasional mishaps such as a trip to doc-in-a-box for stitches when someone (fortunately not one of our children) got carried away with a cleaver while separating baby back ribs. Other events have turned out to be so time-consuming that even we realized that some dishes, like moo shu pork, should only be enjoyed in a restaurant. The pork filling took some creativity since we combined several recipes to arrive at the taste we were looking for. And then there were the pancakes. Since the pancakes are actually made with two pieces of dough pressed together for the cooking process, and then carefully separated upon completion, it took a very long time, as in all day, to finish the dish. It was very good, but not good enough to warrant the preparation time.
Today's recipes are much quicker to prepare, and as with many Oriental dishes, a lot of the initial preparation can be done ahead of time. Pick one of the entrees, and serve with rice (we prefer brown basmati), or prepare the veggie-fried rice as an accompaniment.
