I’m a failure!

I've never made any chinese food, but when we lived in Singapore had a live-in cook/housekeeper etc.
She always used fresh unprocessed ingredients, all chopped and prepared then cooked very quickly.
There was another style of chinese cooking which I liked, which involved steaming in special wicker baskets. The dumplings were the best.

I make varied stir frys proably at least once a week usually chicken or prawns and a pack of bean shoot stri fry veg from M & S. Add a Waitrose black bean sauce just as good as the our local Chinese restaurant.

I often cook stir fry, usually chicken but sometimes pork. Belly pork pieces marinaded in garlic, five spice and soy. Grill (slightly crisp up the edges yum) is one of my sons favourite ways to have it, serve on side to keep crisp. Having everything sliced and ready to go and cooking quickly in right order is the key. I flash fry the meat first and then add it back at the end. Then fry five spice in the oil and add onion first followed by peppers and garlic etc, finish with mushroom. I usually have noodles (added last after soaking in boiling water) in with the veg. Sometimes rice on the side, plain or egg fried. I make my own sweet and sour sauce, other times I just add Soy to the veg and always have a bottle of Chilli sauce in the cupboard. I rarely use ready bought sauces in the actual cooking.

I can't make scones keep trying keep failing. Good at cakes and pastry though. Each to their own

Out of curiosity, all you clever stir fryers, do you use bought sauces or add your own? And always rice, never noodles? Last night it was the noodles that ruined it for me but they were a last minute addition intended to use up a packet stuck in the back of the cupboard. They should have stayed there! Ugh! I used a Waitrose sauce and wasn’t overly impressed with that either. Probably a poor choice of combinations on my part.

Well, as previously noted, I can't bake cakes. Anything else I can do just fine.

I can't do a Chinese meal either.

Thin slicing, heat and speed is the key. This evening we had a similar meal to hilda, but made with steak instead of chicken, spring onions and mushrooms. Fried rice with egg, onion and peas. Took next to no time and was very tasty.

hilda that sounds very yummy indeed and I have made notes, thanks.?

Nothing different to you hildajenniJ but I just don’t like the end result. Nothing like my takeaway. Lol! Maybe it’s lacking the MSG - do they really use that nowadays?

I was being a bit tongue in cheek MOnica but you are right, we all have things we can’t quite manage. I’m OK with pastry but making bread by hand? Not so good

We all have things we cannot do. I cannot make pastry, no matter how hard I try. It hardly makes me, or you, a failure.

By the way, once the chicken was cooked the veg just took three or four minutes to cook.

I made a chicken sweet and sour dish with stir fry vegetables and egg fried rice at lunch time, which is when we eat our main meal. I sliced chicken breasts, fried and added the vegetables, from a pack I might add. Then I poured over the sweet and sour sauce, from a jar (Sharwoods). I fried chopped onions in another frying pan, added ready boiled and cooled rice and when it was hot I poured over two whisked eggs, added a splash of sesame oil and served it all to DH and DS. We also had prawn crackers. It was delicious, and not difficult at all.
What are you doing wrong mollie?

You’re over cooking it,

Nooooo! Ready chopped veggie pack so no chopping at all!

If you want to make a good Chinese stir fry you spend several hours chopping up veg etc, then only a few seconds cooking it. Perhaps you did it the other way round?