I Cooked Four Chinese Dishes Instead of Ordering Takeout

Some dishes are not for showing off. They are for getting through the week. Steamed ribs with fermented black beans. Beef with pickled peppers and celery. Minced pork, eggs, and green chilies. Ribs braised with potatoes. One steams, one stir-fries fast, one comes together in minutes, one waits on a low flame. Together they fill a table without asking for attention.

The steamer rattles first. On a hot day, standing over a wok feels like a punishment, so the ribs go into a bowl instead. Cut small. Salt, soy sauce, oyster sauce, starch, white pepper, a little sugar. Garlic and fermented black beans are fried just until the kitchen smells like them, then scraped in with the oil. Mix with your hand, let it sit for half an hour. The pressure cooker does the rest in twenty minutes. Open the lid, scatter scallions. The meat slips off the bone. The sauce at the bottom of the plate is the best part. Spoon it over rice until the grains turn dark. If there is taro or pumpkin underneath, it disappears first. The fan clicks to a higher speed. The gas bill stays under a magnet on the fridge.

Then the beef, for nights when the appetite is flat but the body still wants rice. Slice beef against the grain. Doubanjiang, oyster sauce, soy sauce, pepper, starch. Fifteen minutes. Hot oil, slide the beef in, take it out before it has time to think. Leave the oil. Pickled peppers, pickled ginger, garlic, Sichuan pepper, small red chilies. Celery cut into lengths. Beef back in. One spoon of soy sauce, salt, a pinch of MSG. Fast. The celery stays crisp. The beef stays soft. First bowl with the beef, second with the celery, third with the pickled pepper oil scraped over the rice. Someone says, “Cook more rice next time.” The fridge hums, then stops.

The egg dish is for rushed evenings. Eggs beaten, scrambled in hot oil, taken out while still soft. Minced pork browned, green chilies and small red chilies thrown in, then the eggs back. Yellow, brown, green. The egg is tender, the pork is crisp at the edges, the chilies are sharp without being cruel. It takes less time than it takes to set the table. The plate is empty before the rice cooker has finished its keep-warm cycle. A school notice lies on the table, one corner held down by a glass.

The potato ribs are the slow one. Ribs rubbed with flour, rinsed, blanched with ginger and cooking wine. Sugar melted in oil until chestnut red, ribs turned in it until they take the color. Garlic, dried chilies, Sichuan pepper, star anise, cinnamon, bay leaf. A spoon of doubanjiang, a spoon of soybean paste. Soy sauce, dark soy sauce. Boiling water. Thirty-five minutes in the electric pressure cooker. Potatoes cut into wedges, boiled until almost done. Back into the wok to reduce. The ribs fall apart. The potatoes go sandy at the edges. The smell moves from the kitchen into the hallway, then into the rooms where people are doing other things. Someone looks for the bottle opener even though no bottles are open. The sauce is not reduced dry. A little left at the bottom is for the rice.

Four dishes. Steam saves time without giving up flavor. Pickled pepper cuts through a flat appetite. Egg and pork move fast. Braise asks you to wait. None of them needs a speech. The bowls stack by the sink. One bowl still has a streak of sauce. A hand scrapes it into the last spoonful of rice. The kitchen light goes off. “Tomorrow?” “Tomorrow.” The tap runs.