Asian food may be the easiest way to be creative when cooking. The essence of Oriental or Asian food lends itself to almost any flavors or food items.

DEEP-FRYING comes from the Orient, with really hot oil. You can deep-fry almost anything, and it doesn't soak the food with oil as other methods since it is so hot and fast, it sears in the flavors but the oil doesn't penetrate the food. For a creative way to use Oriental frying, try coating chicken or fish pieces, pork or beef, in beaten egg whites and dredge in rice flour, or wrap them in wonton papers and crisp fry something. Add veggies, flash fry them, and you have a delicious meal, healthy, and ready in minutes. Add the soy sauce to taste after cooking.

STIR FRY is with less oil but still on high heat. Peanut oil is best for almost all Oriental foods, since it withstands higher heat without burning. Almost anything can be stir-fried, except dairy products. Even tofu can be made delicious with stir-fry cooking. Chop the chunk of tofu into cubes, just less than one inch across. Plop the tasteless morsels into the hot wok, and add fresh grated ginger, hot oil, garlic, and let the tofu begin to brown just a bit, then dump on top of bitter greens. Drizzle some teriyaki salad dressing over the top and plop a few grapes and mandarin oranges with some almond slivers over the top. You'll never say, "I hate tofu," again.

RICE dishes are staples of oriental cuisine: Indian, Japanese, or Chinese (the list goes on but I won't name all the countries of the Orient, here). Middle Eastern foods are often accompanied with rice, also. Rice lends itself to almost all proteins and veggies. Make anything you usually serve with potatoes and use rice instead for a nice change from the weekly "If it's Thursday, it's meatloaf."

"Rice, with meatloaf?" you ask. Sure, topped with brown gravy, it's great. Try putting some rice in the meatloaf and topping it with Teriyaki sauce instead of catsup or tomato sauce; it's much better. Make a sweet and sour (easy on the sweet') sauce instead of gravy, laced with soy and ginger, even hot mustard or peppers.

SAUCES AND CONDIMENTS are how we turn regular food into Oriental food, with hot spicy mustard and soy sauces, for instance. Feel free to experiment with seasonings and sauces. Sweet and sour sauce is great, made with a pineapple chunks with the juice and apple cider vinegar and cornstarch for thickening. Want to use a different thickening agent? Go for it. Prefer to use orange juice over pineapple? It's okay, it's your dish. Feel free to go crazy and have fun, cooking, that's what cooking should be and Oriental foods are a great place to experiment.

Some tips:

Hot Chinese mustard is just mustard powder, mixed with water, made fresh. How hot it is will depend on how fresh the mustard is. It loses its heat with time.

Soy sauce should never be added until after the cooking process. Teriyaki sauce can be added to toppings that will be baked, but not cooked more than fifteen minutes at 350 F. They both will become bitter if they are cooked too much or too long.

Enjoy being creative, look through some cook books for ideas, but don't feel trapped by the exact recipe, experiment, live dangerously, and above all else, have fun. You're friends and family are going to love your Oriental food; trust me. They don't like it, bring it over to my house. My friends will appreciate it.

Learn more about this author, Will Kester.
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