Cook up a Chinese feast

Making your favourite Chinese takeaway dishes at home can save you a lot of money and means you can keep an eye on the fat, salt and sugar content of your food. Admittedly, it's not as spontaneous as ordering in, but in terms of actual cooking times, you'll often have a shorter wait if you cook at home.

Gordon Ramsay's sweet and spicy chicken thighs (in the video above) are quick, cost effective and delicious. Marinated until tender, the chicken thighs are then fried with aromatics for amazing flavour.

For this recipe you'll need: chicken thighs (skinned and boned), Shaoxing rice wine (or dry sherry), rice vinegar, garlic, chilli, ginger, oil, Sichuan peppercorns, orange zest, spring onions, soy sauce, sesame oil and a large pinch of sugar.

Once you have Shaoxing rice wine, rice vinegar, Sichuan peppercorns, soy sauce and sesame oil in your cupboard you'll be able to use them in a range of other delicious homemade Chinese-style dishes.

More Chinese chicken dishes:
Simple soy-glazed chicken
Classic chicken chow mein
Hoisin chicken wraps

Seafood:
Gok Wan's luxurious lobster noodles (not as hard as you might think)
Stir-fried prawns with cashew nuts
Steamed lemon and ginger sole
Prawn fried rice

Beef:
Gok Wan's tender beef noodle soup (soothing on a cold night)
Chinese beef in black bean sauce

Pork:
Super speedy noodles with pork and ginger (great for a quick supper)
Chinese barbecued pork
Pork and ginger soup
Amazing stir-fried spicy pork noodles
Easy honey-glazed Char Siu pork (barbecued pork)

Need to brush up your skills first? Try this:
Chinese kitchen essentials
How to eat with chopsticks

And finally...
If you only cook one thing, make it Gok Wan's egg fried rice. It's a great way to use up leftover rice (in fact, it's better to start with cold rice), and can be cooked in just five minutes. He says it's the first thing he ever learned to make, but it's so delicious that you'll never want to eat fried rice from a takeaway again. Fighting talk!