7 Chinese Kitchen Tricks That Save You Time and Money

📖 Get Make It Go Further — the habits from my mother's kitchen, written down for an American grocery store (244 pages, 46 dinners): https://mrsjinkitchen.com Beef and cabbage stir-fry from the cheapest cut in the store, my mother's way: cut across the grain, coated in cornstarch, cooked in three minutes, sauced from a jar you make once. If dinner takes 40 minutes, costs $30 and comes out tough, nobody showed you that time and money are the SAME trick. Every measure is below. Hao ma? 🍚 THE CLOCK 15 minutes at the cutting board, 3 minutes at the stove. Slice and freeze on Sunday, cook any Tuesday. 🍚 THE CARD: MY MOTHER'S CHEAP-CUT BEEF AND CABBAGE Serves 4. 1 lb (450 g) beef chuck or flank, the cheap cut, sliced ¼ inch thick ACROSS the grain (short fibers are tender) 1 tbsp cornstarch + 2 tbsp water + 1 tsp oil, stirred in a cup (the coat that keeps the water in) ½ head green cabbage, about 1 lb, sliced thin 3 slices fresh ginger, 2 green onions cut fine 3 tbsp oil for the pan THE JAR: ½ cup soy sauce, 2 tbsp sugar, 2 tbsp rice vinegar, 1 tbsp cornstarch, ½ cup water. Shake in a jar. Keeps 3 weeks in the refrigerator door. Use 4 tbsp per dinner. 3 cups cooked rice Slice the beef across the grain, every piece the same thickness. Toss with the cornstarch cup and let it sit 15 minutes while you cut everything else. Cut the cabbage, ginger and green onion. Shake the jar. Put every bowl beside the stove. Only now light the fire. Heat a wide pan on high until a drop of water skips. Add 2 tbsp oil and the ginger. Add half the beef in one layer, leave it 30 seconds, toss 30 seconds, out. Repeat with the rest. Add 1 tbsp oil and the cabbage. High heat, 2 minutes, until the edges brown. Beef back in. Pour in 4 tbsp from the jar. Toss 30 seconds until it thickens and coats everything. Off the heat. Green onion on top. Serve over rice. 🍚 I WILL NOT ARGUE Chicken thigh or pork shoulder in place of beef, cut the same way. Broccoli or green beans, blanched 1 minute, in place of cabbage. Sesame oil at the end, or none. 🍚 THE PAN IS HONEST Tough → cut with the grain. Dry → stayed in after it changed color. Burnt pan → fire lit before the board was empty. Wet and gray → crowded pan. Thin sauce in the bottom → jar went in before the pan was hot. Tastes like the bottle → it was the bottle. Brown bits on the pan → the cook's reward. 🍚 ONE QUIET THING ABOUT THE STORE Chuck is about $6 a pound; the cut with the good name is about $15. A bottle of stir-fry sauce is about $5; the jar costs about 50 cents to fill. About $8 for this dinner against about $25 the other way, in half the time. Nobody is cheating you. A name on a label costs money. 🍚 THE HABIT Sunday: fill the jar, slice 3 lb of the cheap cut, freeze flat in 1-lb bags. Bags keep 3 months; thaw overnight in the refrigerator. Whole ginger lives in the freezer and grates frozen. The jar never goes in the freezer. 🍚 WHAT I WOULD ASK OF YOU Carry two things: the knife across the grain, and the jar in the door. Then tell me if the cheap cut came out tender, honestly how many bottles are in your refrigerator door, and your state. 🍚 NEXT TIME IN THIS KITCHEN The jar, a head of cabbage and nothing else. #chinesecooking #cheapdinner #stirfry 🥢 Subscribe for a new kitchen habit every week — ordinary groceries, better dinners.