Micky's Favorite Taiwanese Recipes (2024)

Description:

Tomato egg is probably one of the most common dish in home cooked meal. It's easy, it's cheap, and it tastes great! Every mom has her own way of making this dish!

Prep Time: 5 mins

Cook Time: 5 mins

Ingredients:

5 eggs beaten well

1 large tomato cut up in medium-sized pieces

2 stalks green onion chopped

salt

pinch of sugar

oil

Instructions:

1. Heat up oil (a generous amount) in a pan in high heat and scramble the eggs.
2. When the eggs start to brown a little, add the tomatoes.
3. When the tomatoes become soft, mix in the salt, sugar, and green onions and then turn off the heat right after.

Description:

Quick, simple, and practically fat free. Great dish to prepare ahead of time and put in the refrigerator.

Prep Time: 10 mins

Cook Time: 5 mins

Ingredients:

2 long eggplants

4 tablespoons soy paste

2 tablespoons cold water

2 tablespoons black vinegar *optional*

2 tablespoons chopped cilantro

1 tablespoon minced garlic

a little bit of chopped red chili pepper *optional*

Instructions:

Suggestions:

Another variety of this dish is a little more sour and spicy, which is why I had the vinegar and chili as optional ingredients.

Eggplants tend to darken pretty quickly after being exposed to air. You can soak the eggplants in saltwater for a little bit to prevent the color from changing.

How to choose eggplants

I recommend these long skinny eggplants because they will give you a more even cut and the flavor and texture would be closer to the Taiwanese style dish. Make sure to pick the firm ones, not soft because the soft ones are too old.

Kimlan Soy Paste

I recommend this brand of soy paste because of its flavor. It has a very pleasant sweet flavor versus the cheaper brands which are just bland and salty. In fact, Kimlan any sauce are more favorable in any Taiwanese cooking.

Description:

This is a Taiwanese/Japanese delicacy. It's salted mullet roe/caviar and it goes great with rice! This is a very popular gift item during the Chinese new year and is usually a side dish that goes with drinking.

Prep Time: 10 mins

Cook Time: 1 min

Ingredients:

2 Tbsp Kaoliang liquor (if you can't get this, regular cooking rice wine will work)

1 piece mullet roe

a few slices apple, Korean pear, Dikon, or garlic stem *optional*

Instructions:

Suggestions:

Good Mullet Roe is hard to come by. Wild caught ones are usually imported from China, and contains high amounts of liquid making the roe soggy. Farm raised mullet roe tastes much better.

Description:

Hmm.... Oyster Omelette! I don't think you can find this dish anywhere else in the world!!!

Prep Time: 20 mins

Cook Time: 15 mins

Ingredients for the red sauce:

1 Tbsp all purpose flour

1/2 Tbsp ketchup

2 1/2 Tbsp Chinese Sweet Chili Sauce

1 Tbsp sugar

1/2 Tbsp peanut butter *optional*

3/4 cup water

Instructions:

Ingredients:

1/2 cup sweet potato starch

1/4 cup starch (tapioca or corn starch)

3/4 cup water

pinch of salt

10 pieces of fresh oyster

2 cups chinese vegetable (napa cabbage, water spinach, your choice)

1 egg

Oil or Lard

Instructions:

Suggestions:

If you don't like the taste of the oyster, you can substitute with shrimp.

Chinese Sweet Chili Sauce

You should be able to find this in most oriental markets. It's not very spicy, just a hint, and it's sweet.

Sweet Potato Starch

This is also quite common in most oriental markets. Although it says tapioca startch... it's actually sweet potato starch, or yam starch.

Description:
Taiwanese people don't just fry their chicken... That flavor, that crispiness! Here's the secret!

Prep Time: 15 mins + overnight
Cook Time: 10 mins

Ingredients:
2 chicken breasts
1 egg yolk
1 cup sweet potato starch
1/4 cup corn starch

Seasoning:
1/2 cup soy sauce
2 Tablespoons cooking wine
2 Tablespoons sugar
1 Tablespoons minced garlic
1 Tablespoons garlic powder
1 Tablespoons 5 spice powder
1 teaspoon white pepper
frying oil

Instructions:

1. To prep the chicken breasts, butterfly them, and pound them with a meat pounder until they're evenly flat.
2. In a large bowl, mix minced garlic, soy sauce, cooking wine, sugar, half of the 5 spice powder, white pepper. Marinate the chicken in this sauce overnight.
3. Next day, add egg yolk and corn starch into the marinated chicken and mix it well. This is what keeps the coating from separating from the chicken.
4. On a plate, mix sweet potato starch, rest of the 5 spice powder, and garlic powder. This is the coating for the fried chicken.
5. Place the marinated chicken breasts on the plate one by one and coat it completely with the mix. Let it sit for about 5 mins before frying so that the sweet potato starch has time to stick onto the chicken.
6. Heat a pot of frying oil under medium heat. Make sure the oil is not bubbling or else it will cook the meat too fast. If you're using a deep fryer, do not exceed 160 C or 320 F.
7. Fry the chicken until golden brown and remove from the oil. Turn the heat to high or around 180 C or 360 F.
8. Dip the fried chicken back in to the hot oil for about 10 seconds to give it crispiness.
9. Place it on a metal rack to drain out the excess oil, then cut it up to serve.

Suggestions:
You can use Pork instead of chicken to make the famous Taiwanese Pork Chop Rice!

Taiwanese Chicken Nuggets
This is as popular as the fried chicken, and it's really not that different. Instead of using a whole piece of chicken breast, just cut it into cubes. And then just add basil into the oil along with the chicken during the last dip in the hot oil. That's all!

5 Spice Powder
This can be purchased at an oriental market. It is very important for this recipe because it contains a lot of the flavoring!

Sweet Potato Starch
Although the picture says "Tapioca starch" it's actually quite different. Sweet potato starch is more coarse, and unlike tapioca starch, it keeps the coating crispy. If you use tapioca starch or corn starch to fry, it'll become soggy very quickly.

Description:
Green onion pancake is easy to make. You can keep them in the freezer and take them out to fry anytime.

Prep Time: 30 mins
Cook Time: 10 mins

Ingredients:
1 bundle of green onions chopped
3 cups of all purpose flour
1 cup of water

Seasoning:
White pepper
Salt
Crisco
Sesame Oil
Soy Sauce
Chilly sauce
Vinegar

Instructions:

1. Boil the water either on the stove or through the coffee maker.
2. Use a big bowl, add the flour, then slowly pour the boiling water over the flour while stirring. The flour should turn into bread dough consistency.
3. Fold the dough over and over until it is consistent. Sprinkle extra flour if it's too sticky.
4. Break off a handful of dough, and roll it out with a rolling pin like a pie crust. Make sure to dust the surface of the table or use wax paper so it doesn't stick.
5. Spread Crisco over the top of the flat dough. Sprinkle salt, pepper, and green onion over the Crisco.
6. From one edge, start rolling up the dough into a tube shape wrapping over the green onion (like wrapping sushi). Make sure you roll your dough pretty tightly.
7. With the tube-shape dough, take one end and roll it into a cinnamon-roll shape. Tuck the end into the center.
8. Sprinkle some flour over the cinnamon-roll shape dough, now roll it flat again. If you like the pancake thin, roll it out thin. If you like it thick, then don't flatten it too much.
9. Add some oil in the frying pan, use medium heat, and fry the pancake until both sides are brown and crispy.
10. Serve with soy sauce, sesame oil, chilly sauce and vinegar if you wish.

Suggestions:
If you have a hard time rolling, you'll have to wait til I can make a video of this process...

Description:
Actually, egg rolls aren't that popular in Chinese families, at least not as much as we think in the United States. But they are delicious and much healthier if you make them yourselves!

Prep Time: 45 mins
Cook Time: 10 mins

Ingredients:
1 package of 50 spring roll skin
2 lbs ground pork
1/2 of a cabbage
1 cup carrots grated finely
4 stalks of green onions chopped
4 heads sh*take mushrooms chopped
6 heads of wood ears sliced
4 Tablespoons peanut butter (preferably not too sweet)
2 Tablespoons sesame oil

Instructions:

1. Cut up the cabbage into chunks and put them into a blender
2. Fill up the blender with water
3. Add 2 Tablespoons of salt
4. Chop up the cabbage in the blender and then pour into a big bowl
5. Repeat until all the cabbage is chopped
6. Let the chopped cabbage sit in the salted water for 10 mins
7. Drain the water, and squeeze out the rest of the water in the cabbage before putting them into another bowl. This is because cabbage contains a lot of liquid, and we don't want too much liquid in the egg rolls when we fry them. The salt gets the liquid out the the cabbage
8. Mix all the ingredients in a big bowl and stir in one direction for a few mins until all the ingredients are well-blended
9. Fry the egg rolls in medium heat and serve immediately

Suggestions:
You can make a lot of egg rolls at one time, and store them in the freezer. Whenever you want more, just take them out and fry them.

This is a wood ear. It's actually a type of mushroom. It provides a bit of a crunchy texture to the egg rolls. You can pick this up in an Oriental market. They come in chunks like this or pre-sliced, but they're dried so you'll have to soak them in water for about 15 mins to soften them.

Description:
A great breakfast OR afternoon snack. They sell this at every single 7-eleven in Taiwan! You know what they say... 2 eggs a day, 100 on tests all the way!!

Prep Time: 15 mins
Cook Time: 1 hr +

Ingredients:
a dozen eggs
1/4 cup of dark soy sauce
1 large tea bag (black or green)
2~3 star anise

Instructions:

1. Put the eggs in a pot and fill it up with water.
2. Pour the soy sauce, tea bag, and star anise into the pot and bring to a boil (put cover on the pot so that eggs will peel easier).
3. Boil for 15 mins or until eggs are mostly cooked.
4. Take each egg and crack the shells with a metal spoon. This will create the pretty lines on the eggs and help flavor them.
5. After all the eggs are cracked, put them back into the pot and continue to simmer for 1 hour.

Suggestions:
You can keep the pot of tea eggs for weeks! Just reheat it daily or twice a day. You can even add new eggs in anytime. The more you cook them, the better they taste!!

Star Anise
Star anise is a type of Asian spice. It also comes in powder form. You can pick them up in any oriental supermarket.

Description:
This is a typical cold tofu dish served in Taiwan along with rice soup and an egg cooked overeasy. YUM!

Prep Time: 2 mins!

Ingredients:
a box of silken tofu
2 Tablespoons Soy sauce
1 teaspoon Sesame oil
*1 stalk of green onions chopped*
*Japanese Bonito fish flakes*

Instructions:

1. Take the box of silken tofu out of the refrigerator, cut open the box carefully and put the tofu onto a plate
2. Cut them into smaller pieces
3. Pour the rest of the ingredients onto the tofu

Suggestions:
To make rice soup, boil rice in water (1 cup of rice with 3 cups water) until thickens

Tofu Brand: This dish doesn't taste as good if the tofu is not soft enough. The brand that I found the best comes in a box that looks like this.