Mango Chicken

This mango chicken dish combines sweet and sour flavors. The sauce is made mostly of mangoes and roasted red peppers which give it an intense red color. I battered and fried the chicken, but you can save time by just stir frying it.

Orange Beef

One of the first Chinese dishes I ate was crispy orange beef, and I loved it. It was the perfect mix of salty, spicy, crispy, sweet, and sour. Every time I've had it since then I've been disappointed it wasn't quite as good as that first one. This was my attempt to get as close as possible to recreate that dish.

Shred a Pepper

This style of cutting peppers is going to be used in the dish in the next post, and I wanted to explain it first. It is one way to cut a bell pepper into short, skinny pieces, that I refer to as a "shred". I use this more often for red peppers than for green peppers, because red peppers are more intensely flavored and small pieces spread the flavor around.  This goes great in salads, slaws, soups.

Pork/Asparagus/Red Pepper Stir Fry

This is a quick stir-fry that can be done quickly, and used with almost any combination of meat and vegetables.  Here I used pork, red peppers, and asparagus.  These three complement each other well - they are all strong flavors that don't interfere with each other, and visually, they are all different colors and are easily cut into a long thin shape.

Homestyle Chicken Soup

Vegetable broth isn't much of a meal by itself, so I used it to make some chicken soup!  I call this "homestyle" because I'll often make a hot and sour "Asian" soup, and this uses no spices or soy sauce and is neither spicy nor tangy.