Wok

Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

(Spicy Pork with Bean-Thread Noodles) In this classic Chinese preparation, delicate, clear bean-thread noodles are dressed with a spicy sauce and flecked with bits of pork — the "ants" of the dish's curious name. Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

Ginger and garlic give these pea pods a hint of Asian flavor, but we think they're a good all-purpose side dish.

Chinese viceroy Li Hung Chang, visiting San Francisco's Palace Hotel in the 1890s, requested vegetables with a bit of meat "job suey," or "in fine pieces," and chef Joseph Herder obliged.

Active time: 45 min Start to finish: 45 min

Active time: 40 min Start to finish: 9‚ hr

This sauce, allegedly from Hong Kong, is called XO to equate its extravagance with that of "extra old" fine brandy (though there is none in the recipe). Many versions of this sauce exist, but they all include dried scallops (sometimes called conpoy), an ingredient highly prized in Chinese cooking for its flavor and texture, and costly Chinese Yunnan ham, which is unavailable in the U.S.

Nixon's re-establishment of relations with China led Americans to discover, among other things, that there was more to Chinese cooking than the Cantonese dishes we had all grown up with.