Couch potato - chinese dishes

This is not the name of some bakes. I just finished watching Kylie Kwong on Discovery channel - Travel and living. This is one of my favourite channel where I catch programs from travel and cooking. Kylie cooked Kung Bao chicken, and Ma Po To Fu and a few other dishes today. The seasonings she put into the dishes are namely brown sugar, then soy sauce to balance the sweetness and then black vinegar to balance the oil, then the chinese wine and sesame oil. It seems like a standard, and all the dishes looks shiny with the oil coating the ingredients. So lovely looking. How to be healthy when tasty dishes are often pretty oily. My mother used to tell me that my grandma would always tell her to cook with alot of oil, else the dish would not taste good. My mother in law's dishes are often oily too .. but of cos they are tasty.

Another program that I always watch is Nigella Express. Can often pick up some tips here and there, but I usually do not jot down and they get forgotten. Anyway, if I am to use pre washed ingredients, ready made ingredients, with all the right utensils lying around readily to be pick up and used, and do not need to do wash up after that, I believe cooking will be much enjoyable and fast too.

Ok, I just want to jot down what I have seen in Kylie's program just now.

Kung Bao Chicken (only manage to see her start from stir frying the chicken)
She mentioned corn flour coating the chicken pieces making them shiny. I think she then add the peanuts, then the seasonings, then the dried chilli, then dish up.

Ma Po Tou fu
She start with pounding a chilli paste with dried chilli flakes and szechuan peppercorns. Add oil to bind the mixture. Heat up the wok with oil, then stir fry garlic and ginger, then the prepared chilli paste. In goes the minced meat, then soy sauce and then water to "create" the sauce. I forgot what is the order of the standard seasonings thou. Then in goes the diced tofu, quick stir and dish up.

She also stir fry a dish of shitake mushroom with tomato. Looks good, but mushroom with tomato? Cant remember much of the dish now. *sigh* Thats how short my memory is. But I think the final picture of the dishes has carrot and sugar snap or snow pea.

I am not a good cook or baker, but I can sit all day just to watch all the cooking programs.