Top 5 Chinese finger food
1. Potstickers
These popular dumplings, steamed on one side and pan-fried on the other, are easy to make. Usual ingrediences of Potstickers are ground pork/beef/prawn and cabbage or other vegetables. Serve Potstickers with vinegar, or soy sauce with ginger, or soy sauce with hot chili oil.
Homemade potstickers are never as delicious as those in roadside little restaurants, maybe because you may not have a big fring pan and a huge wood lid that matches the size of the pan.
2. Spring Rolls
Spring rolls are an excellent choice for a New Years celebration, as they symbolize wealth for the coming year. The ingredients are usually similar to those of potstickers but have more vegetables. Serve Spring Rolls with soy sauce or vinegar for dipping.
If you don't like DIY to make the skin and stuffing, you can buy ready-made spring rolls in supermarkets and fry at home.
3. Prawn crackers
Prawn crackers consist of deep-fried crackers made of flour or potato flour and flavoured with prawns. They are usually white, pale pink, or light brown in colour. Despite the high amount of shrimps used, any shrimp taste is usually quite subtle. Some prawn crackers are made with dried shrimp and hence a light shade of pink.
Prawn crackers are a traditional complimentary side dish and may accompany Chinese takeaway in UK. You can buy package of shrimp chips at any Chinese/Asian supermarket.
You then deep-frying them in oil. In only a few seconds they expand from thumb-sized semi-transparent chips to white fluffy crackers, much like popcorn, as the small bubbles of air trapped in the flexible chips expand. If left in the open air for more than a few days, they start to soften and become chewy and therefore are ideally consumed within a few minutes of being fried.
4. Fried stinky tofu
A soft tofu (bean curd) that has been fermented in a unique vegetable and fish brine. The blocks of tofu smell strongly of certain pungent cheeses, and are described by many as rotten and fecal. Despite its strong odor, the flavor and texture of stinky tofu is appreciated by aficionados, who describe it as delightful. The texture of this tofu is similar to the soft Asian tofu that it is made from. The rind that stinky tofu develops from frying is said to be especially crisp, and is usually served with soy sauce, sweet sauce, and/or hot sauce.
The idea of stinky tofu is similar to that of green/bluenish stinky cheese. Unfortunately, I never see fried stinky tofu at any restaurant outside China.
5. Spareribs
There are a number of Chinese spareribs to choose from, including classic Cantonese Honey Garlic Spareribs (in the photo), spicy Salt and Pepper Spareribs, and Spareribs With Black Bean Sauce. All of them are very popular dish on the menu in any Chinese restaurants or takeaways in UK.