Place watercress over noodles and flash fry beansprouts for 30 seconds with some salt, pepper and a dash of Lee Kum Kee Pure Sesame Oil. Pour beansprouts over the noodles. Garnish with spring onions. Place the steak in a mixing bowl and massage the marinade ingredients into the meat, saving the cornflour until last. Mix the sauce ingredients together in a separate bowl.

Anna Chan, founder of Asian Leadership Collective, grew up as a self-proclaimed "British Chinese takeaway kid" and believes that the Chinese takeaway meal is quintessential to the definition of British Chinese food: "I remember the food from behind the counter. It's food that is adaptable, agile to the tastes and trends of the local palate." She says she craves crinkle cut chips and her dad's curry sauce, and will always ask for egg noodles with beansprouts, king prawns and onions – the curry sauce to be poured on top. However, the food Chan ate at home was different to what was served in the shop, which was more traditional Cantonese and Hakka food. Heat 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil in your wok over a high heat until smoking hot. Swirl the oil around the wok a little and then add the marinated beef and sear for 1 minute on each side. Next add the sliced red onion to the wok and start to fold through. Add the spring onion and garlic and continue to stir-fry for 1-2 minutes, giving the wok a good shake every 20-30 seconds. Place room-temp eggs into boiling water for 5½ minutes. Remove and cool in cold water. Peel eggs and soak in mixture for 30 minutes. Following the success of his mobile kitchen, School of Wok opened its first permanent professional kitchen in May 2012 in Covent Garden, near London’s Chinatown. Since then, the School has gone from strength to strength, winning The British Cookery School Awards in 2014, and teaching over 60,000 students the secrets of Asian cuisines. Heat 5-6 tbsp vegetable oil in a wok over a medium heat, then add the paste. Reduce the heat to low and fry for 8-10 minutes until it turns a dark orange or brown. Stir in the liquid ingredients, bring to the boil, then reduce the heat to low and simmer for 4-5 minutes until the sambal stops steaming and starts to sizzle again. Keep scraping the bottom of the wok every so often to create a ‘chilli jam’ underneath the oil. Transfer to a sterilised jar, seal and leave to cool. Store in the fridge for up to 1 week.Soak the dried red chillies in hot water for 10 minutes, then drain. Mix the sauce ingredients together in a small bowl. Dab a little water all around the edge of the pastry, then fold the top of the pastry over the filling until it meets the bottom edge and press down, closing the edges of the pastry to make a half-moon shape. Now, holding the side edges of the pastry, with the half-moon still pointing downwards, pull the two edges (cat ears) upwards to meet in the middle, creating a ‘fat cat’ shape. Place 1-2 tbsp vegetable oil in a frying pan on a medium heat. Place fish skin side down. Press fish with a spatula for 30 seconds. Turn to medium heat and cook until fish is half cooked. Turn fish. Finely chop the pak choi, kale, garlic, ginger, spring onion (scallion) and coriander (cilantro) and place in a large mixing bowl, then add the minced pork and the marinade ingredients and mix well. To make the fat cat fold, place one dumpling pastry flat on a clean surface. Place roughly one teaspoon of the marinated mix in the centre of the pastry.

What seems to be missing from the social media conversations is the people behind the food. All these dishes that are clearly loved by many are, and always have been, created by people – and are most often about family.Meanwhile, heat 1 tablespoon of oil in a frying pan over a medium heat. Place the tofu into the middle of the pan and the carrot quarters around the edges. Fry, turning from time to time, until the tofu is browned on both sides. Now add the spring onion around the edge of the pan and continue to fry for 1-2 minutes. Pour the miso glaze over the top of it all and bring to a vigorous boil for 2-3 minutes until syrupy in texture. If you want to add the classic soft-boiled egg, for a non-vegan version, add 15-20 tablespoons of dark soy sauce to a pan of boiling water and cook room temperature eggs for 6 minutes. Cool in iced water, peel and leave in the cooled soy liquid until ready to serve. The vastness of what British Chinese food is, and can be, in the UK is rapidly expanding. Jason Li, an ex-restaurant manager who currently runs a London-based Shanghainese supper club called Dreams of Shanghai, arrived in the UK in 1993 and has seen an evolution in the type of Chinese cuisine on offer over the past few decades. "It used to be 99% Cantonese food, and then 10 years ago, we saw a rise in Sichuan food," he said. "Now, there are a lot different cuisines, catering to new Chinese migrants such as students." Additionally, a wide range of people come to his supper club, often with some connection to China and wide knowledge of the cuisine. Chop 10 large red chillies, 2 red onions, 2 lemongrass stalks, 1 thumb-size piece galangal or ginger, 6 garlic cloves, 6 macadamia nuts (optional), 1-2 tsp belacan or toasted shrimp paste (vegetarians can use 2 tsp ready-made crispy fried onions), then whizz with the soaked chillies to a smooth paste in a food processor.