Chinese Takeout

Chinese Takeout is almost a staple food in our house.

When I am pulling a late night consulting for a client, or when my wife and I have just had “one of those days” and neither one of us is feeling adventurous, Chinese takeout  is what we seek out.

Fortunately, Chinese takeout is one of those culinary delights that is ridiculously easy to cook, requires only a dozen staple ingredients, and if you keep prepared ingredients around, can be cooked and on the table inside of 30 minutes.

The secret to fast Chinese takeout is having the ingredients prepped and ready to go.

And having more than one wok to cook in.

The first is easy to achieve; buy a bunch of groceries, chop them up, and freeze what can be frozen, the remainder can be stored in the refrigerator in various containers for when needed.

Just make sure you label each container with the name of the food and the date you prepared it.

As for the second point? More than one wok… well, nothing says you have to cook your Chinese food in a traditional wok.

You can purchase electric griddles, skillets, woks and various other cooking surfaces that plug in to a wall socket for very little from companies such as Hamilton Beach or Breville. Our two electric griddles, and two woks cost us less than $250 total for use at home. They aren’t professional grade iron, but they don’t need to be.

Having two or three woks makes putting together four or five takeout dishes a snap.

I wouldn’t trade my cast iron woks for at least several tonnes of tea from China, but the electric woks are vastly more convenient to use and wash up.