Chinese white cut chicken (bái qie ji) is a classic New Year's dish and an everyday comfort item for most Chinese home cooks. It's just a poached chicken served with a scallion-ginger sauce. While it may seem plain and simple, it takes some practice to master the cooking method and produce a juicy and flavorful chicken.

Hungry Bear turned to a recipe from The Wisdom of the Chinese Kitchen for directions. The end result was a white cut chicken that was moist and delicious. I loved dipping the chicken into the scallion-ginger sauce and spooning the sauce over steamed rice. Who knew a poached chicken could be so good!?!

Over the last few months, we've been cooking a lot of Vietnamese food. And the word, "vietnamese", in the tag/ingredient cloud (below on the right side) has grown larger, dwarfing the "chinese" tag. That's fine with me, but Hungry Bear wants to end this trend and make sure her peeps' food is more represented on SND. So yesterday, she made beef and broccoli chow fun (chao fen).

We both love chow fun, but rarely order it at restaurants because it's just too damn oily. If you have access to a good Chinese/Asian supermarket and can get your hands on fresh rice noodles (he fen or haw fun), beef chow fun is best made at home. Prepared with fresh ingredients, minimal oil and Chinese broccoli, dare I say chow fun can be a healthy, balanced meal. It's sad Chinese food prepared in most restaurants is greasy, salty and generally bad for you, whereas traditional Chinese cooking can be healthy and flavorful.

I have a lot of friends who love Vietnamese dipping sauce (nuoc cham). When they ask me for the recipe, I tell them it's a closely guarded family secret. However, I have finally received permission from my parents to disclose the formula. It took a lot of groveling on my part and even a few tears were shed, but I got their blessing.

Okay, I made the last part up, but wouldn't it be more special if it really was a secret? Anyway, every Vietnamese family has a dipping sauce recipe. The ingredients in nuoc cham are generally the same, but the proportions vary based on personal tastes and regions in Vietnam. According to Vietnamese cookbook author, Andrea Nguyen, "as you move south the sauce gets sweeter, hotter, and more garlicky."

This may explain why I don't like the nuoc cham made in San Francisco restaurants, which are generally too sweet for my tastes. My family is from the middle part of the country and I was born in Da Nang. It all makes sense now.

After last month's declaration that my mom's spicy lemongrass chicken was the dish I would eat for the rest of my life if I had to choose one item, Hungry Bear was a little sad. I had told her previously that her Hawaiian marinated seared chicken was my favorite chicken dish. Doh, how do you choose between your mom's cooking and your girlfriend's? It's a no win situation.

Despite my faux pas, Hungry Bear still made her Hawaiian chicken this past week. We hadn't seen some SNDsters for awhile and had a midweek "Sunday night dinner." We served the chicken over rice with a side of stir-fried vegetables. For dessert, we made a fantastic blueberry kuchen.

The chicken is very flavorful and tender, because it's marinated overnight in a citrus marinade. The marinade is a blend of strong flavors, particularly the Chinese five spice, fresh mint and mustard. I think the best part is the sauce created by deglazing the frying pan with some reserved marinade. The sauce contains all the caramelized bits left in the pan, and it's wonderful on the chicken and rice.