Help me cook for Chinese children!

Two links: http://lilyng2000.blogspot.com/p/recipe-index.html - I've tried her recipes and they're pretty authentic and easy to follow. She's a Chinese grandma who migrated to the US and cooks for her grandkids. In the recipe index, scroll down and look under "Soups" and also "Veg". http://www.chinesesouppot.com. The Cantonese in particular tend to be big on soups, so I searched to see if there were any Cantonese soup websites out there. The Chinese Soup Pot website seems legit and the "Recipes" section looks good. If they're sick, the earlier recommendation to make congee is also a good suggestion. It's a comfort food that's easy to swallow and digest when sick. Good luck!

Assuming these are Chinese-American kids I don't think you necessarily have to cook Chinese food for them. You mentioned they like pizza, fish sticks, hot dogs, etc. so I imagine they would like other American "kid food" as well. As other commenters have mentioned, kids can have picky taste, and growing up as a Chinese-American kid myself, I know I'd have been pretty fussy about eating vegetarian and not getting any meat. As a kid, I loved pizza, hamburgers, chicken nuggets, mac and cheese, and all the other type of stuff you'd find on kid's menus. I wasn't much of a snob about only eating Chinese food. And I didn't really come to like veggies until I grew up. Is the problem specifically that they only want Chinese food, or are they just not eating what you've cooked so far?

I've been trying to teach myself how to stir-fry using Grace Young's http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1416580573/metafilter-20/ref=nosim/. It's a really remarkably good book at giving fundamentals of the technique, and the recipes have all been turning out great. She has a whole chapter on Vegetable and Tofu recipes, if you want to keep it vegetarian. It looks like she has some recipes published on http://www.epicurious.com/tools/searchresults?search=grace+young, so that may be someplace to start, too. And as a former vegetarian who nervously taught herself to cook meat, it might help to buy sustainably-raised (unground) beef and start there if you want to add in meat -- it's safe to eat at a wider range of temperatures and less likely to create cross-contamination issues.

http://yireservation.com/ is an excellent blog that has authentic recipes for Chinese food. You didn't mention where in China are the parents from. I'm asking this because there are a lot of regional variations in Chinese cooking and some Chinese people only like food from their home region and don't like food from other Chinese regions. So I would take their regional preferences into account when you are cooking. I think the key is to shop at a Chinese market. There're many Chinese leafy greens that are easy to cook with the Chinese cooking method that are not available in a Western supermarket. But my recommendations for basic and easy Chinese cooking are as follows: 1. Stir fry, stir fry, stir fry! Basically wash and chop up the veggies, put some oil in the wok, wait for the oil to sizzle a little, put the chopped up roots part in the wok first, when that has been mostly cooked, put the leafy part in, when almost part, put some salt in or hoisin sauce. That's it! You can add a little water to the wok during the cooking process if it gets smokey. You can use this basic stir fry method for pretty much any leafy green in a Chinese market. That's the way my mother and all my Chinese relatives cook veggies 70-80% of the time. 2. Blanche/steam veggies and make a Chinese cold dish. You can do this with any leafy greens or veggies like eggplants, celery, etc. No need to blanche/steam cucumbers. The basic sauce for the cold dish consists of minced garlic, soy sauce, http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0000D198T/metafilter-20/ref=nosim/ sesame oil. You can add crushed Chili peppers, either dry or fresh if you like some spiciness and minced ginger (optional). Again, my mom and all my Chinese relatives use this basic sauce for pretty much any Chinese cold dish. The ratio of soy sauce to vinegar varies depending on personal taste. 3. For soup, the basic Chinese soup are pork bone based. But this method also works with beef bones. Get some pork/beef bones (this can be cheap neck bones or chopped ribs, just bones with meat on them). Again, go to a Chinese supermarket will help because Chinese people don't use the meat the same way as Westerners, so a Chinese market will have meat chopped up differently. Boil the bones in water, when water boils, remove the water and scum. Put bones in fresh pot with fresh water with sliced garlic, sliced ginger, one star anise and turn on high. Once water start boiling, turn to medium. You can put any root vegetables in the soup at this time, potatoes, carrots, daikon radishes, winter melons, etc. You can also add things like kelp, shitake mushrooms, just don't add anything that will cook too fast compared to the root veggies. Wait for water to boil again, get rid of any scum that forms on top throughout the cooking process. When the root vegetables are almost done, you can put chopped up leafy greens in the soup or just wait until the root vegetables are done. Season with salt and pepper. Voila, you have soup! This is the basic soup method my mom uses 90% of the time when making soup. You can add 1 or 2 dried chili peppers for a kick, but that's optional. 4. Hot pot/Shabu Shabu. Super easy meal. You can get hot pot base sauce packets in Chinese supermarkets. Throw the base sauce packets in with water, wait for it to start boiling and start cooking/eating. You don't need to cook anything ahead of time. If you have not had hot pot/shabu shabu before, go to a hot pot/shabu shabu restaurant or check out Youtube videos to see how it works. 5. Dumplings. You can include a variety of meat/veggies in a dumpling and it's fun to include the kids in the process by having them making the dumplings. You can buy dumpling wrappers in Asian supermarkets. Same principal works with steamed buns. Anything goes in the filling. You can search on http://www.yireservation.com for recipes on how to make dumplings and stuffed steamed buns. Youtube is very helpful for making items like this. BONUS: You can make extras and freeze them for next time. If both of those are too intimidating to try make them yourself, you can get frozen steamed buns and dumplings easily at any Asian supermarket. Both Korea and Japan have their versions of these two foods, so you can get them at Korean/Japanese supermarkets too.

Forgot to add a few other Chinese dishes! I'm not sure if you can find some of these vegetables easily outside a Chinese supermarket: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ipomoea_aquaticaor Tong Choi (Cantonese) or Kong Xin Cai is easily stir fried with a bit of garlic. I'm not sure if you can find these now though since they tend to come in season in summer. http://yeeskitchen.com/stir-fry-dou-miao-with-garlic/ in garlic is very simple too. This too is a bit of a spring/summer veggie so may be hard to find. http://www.thebittenword.com/thebittenword/2012/08/chinese-style-eggplant.html is another vegetarian option. Chinese eggplant is different from European eggplant so watch out there. http://traditionalchineserecipes.blogspot.com/2011/05/chao-dou-ya-stir-fried-bean-sprouts.html also stir fry easily. You can add tofu puffs (http://www.fussfreecooking.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/a9.jpg) to the dish, though if you add tofu puffs, let everything steam in some broth so that the puffs can soak up more flavors. You can also stir fry edemame, tofu, and wood ear fungus (that's a literal translation). Here's a http://whattocooktoday.com/chicken-with-wood-ear-mushroom.html but with chicken. Also, drink wise, consider getting soy milk. Not the stuff you can get in your local supermarket. That stuff tastes like crap. If you can find Vitasoy soy milk, it may be closer to what the kids (I have no idea how old they are) may have had back in China. Though your best bet here is to ask a Chinese friend to help you find something more authentic tasting that doesn't require you to make it out home (though you could invest in a http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B002R44IXC/metafilter-20/ref=nosim/.)

http://goodyfoodies.blogspot.com/2014/02/recipe-chinese-fishball-noodle-soup.html is a personal favorite in my Chinese family. It's super easy and you can buy fully prepared fishballs so you wont have to worry about cooking meat. For vegetables, you might also want to try http://www.travelchinaguide.com/tour/food/chinese-cooking/scrambled-eggs-tomato.htm, http://steamykitchen.com/30476-chinese-eggplant-with-spicy-garlic-sauce.html or http://dinersjournal.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/07/recipe-of-the-day-quick-stir-fried-snow-peas-or-sugar-snap-peas/?_r=0. Depending on their ages, you might try taking them around an asian grocery store and asking if they want anything specific. When I was a kid, I didn't always know English names for the foods I liked at home, but I could definitely point out the raw form.

I am not Chinese, so I won't meddle concerning the substance. But I came in to say that while I was a graduate student, I learnt from my Chinese friends how a rice-cooker and a wok can improve your quality of life vastly. It's so easy to cook in a wok, and if you have the rice sorted, you are ready to go in very few minutes. When my not at all Chinese kids were small, we had rice and stir-fry 3 times a week, because it was such an easy way of cooking healthy food from scratch. Back then, I used my wok for western food as well, it worked perfectly for that as well. Rice cookers can often be used as steamers, so you can steam those frozen dumplings someone above mentioned - they are delicious! Remember the condiments.

Do you live near a Chinese supermarket? You could take the kids there and have them pick out stuff. They will usually have frozen dumplings which are pretty good. Maybe you could also frequent a local Chinese restaurant and chat with the owner, getting some ideas. There are some salad-like dishes in China, such as sliced cucumber in vinegar. But raw lettuce is not eaten. Getting a rice cooker is probably a good idea, and stir-frying some veggies to go with it. Scrambled eggs and good tomatoes with chives is a common Chinese dish. Are there any Chinese college students in your area? Hiring one as a babysitter might be a great way to break the cultural/linguistic gap, and most college age Chinese kids know how to cook some basic dishes.

A couple of answers and half answers ... + They've been complaining about missing Chinese food. And when I do nail something (corn soup, bok choy) they are really happy. Hence the search for Chinese home cooking. I'm not trying to feed them only Chinese food, just to expand my options a bit. + Salads, got it. Thankfully, our CSA is over for the season so we won't have so much lettuce coming at us. + I don't know where in China the family is from, but the kids only came to the US a few years ago. The kids get indignant when I ask ("Just China!!") and the parents are hard to communicate with for a variety of reasons (mostly, they're angry about the whole situation and some of that gets directed my way). I know region makes a difference. China is big. Regional cuisine varies, etc. But I've gotten a lot of suggestions here (I marked some) that sound promising.