The Doctor Is Operating, on 16 Dishes Yet

Lester Lee is one of those rare doctors who makes house calls--even though the little black bag is replaced by grocery sacks and the medication vials by jars of such condiments as black bean sauce and hoi-son, a Cantonese barbecue sauce.

While most physicians these days specialize, Lee, 36 and single, puts an unusual twist on the term. His specialties are internal medicine and gourmet Chinese cooking, and the house calls generally involve the latter. He enjoys putting on meals of 15 or 16 courses for friends and associates at their homes.

Lee learned his medical skills at UC Davis and UC Irvine and his culinary skills at the knee of his grandfather, who for years before his death in the 1970s operated a popular Chinese restaurant in Stockton.

“As a child, I would stop by the restaurant almost every day, and he would show me how to chop this or cook that,” Lee says, “and after more than 9 years of that routine, I learned a lot.”

The 4-star restaurant, called Shangri Lee after his grandfather, Soon Lee, is gone now (although the entire area is known as Lee Center) because no one in the family had any interest in the business.

“My brother is a CPA and my sister is an attorney and neither can even cook,” Lee says.

But he finds cooking both fascinating and challenging when he can fit it in after his daily chores in his private practice in Huntington Beach and as medical director of the Institute of Sports Medicine at Anaheim General Hospital. He has even written a cookbook, “Men at Wok,” currently being prepared for publication by Cambridge Press.

“These days, I find myself leaning of necessity toward dishes that are quick and easy, rather than the many-course meals I like to both cook and eat,” he says.

An example is the recipe for snow peas, shrimp and cashews that he shared with Guys & Galleys. He makes his own black bean sauce for the dish but says commercial brands are perfectly acceptable and save time.

But, given the time and an invitation, Lee has been known to show up at a friend’s house with all the fixings for a meal that included 3 appetizers, 2 soups, 4 kinds of rice and 9 to 13 entrees.

“My favorite meal,” he says. A partial itemization shows mushroom spring rolls, Chinese dumplings with plum sauce, sizzling rice soup, bird’s nest soup, rice with curried shrimp, fried rice with oyster sauce, cracked lemon crab, lobster with black bean sauce, Chinese barbecued squab, asparagus with oyster sauce and black mushrooms.

“It takes me between 12 and 14 hours to do it all properly,” Lee says, “but I thoroughly enjoy it.”

Because his grandfather was from Canton, it is Cantonese dishes Lee knows most about and generally prepares. “The main differences in Chinese cooking,” he says, “really has more to do with spices and preparation than in the foods themselves; it’s a matter of different oils, differences in slicing and dicing, things like that.”

Each week, Orange County Life will feature a man who enjoys cooking and a favorite recipe. Tell us about your candidate. Write to Guys & Galleys, Orange County Life, The Times, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, Calif. 92626.

DR. LESTER LEE’S SHRIMP, SNOW PEAS IN BLACK BEAN SAUCE

Ingredients

1/2 pound fresh snow peas

1/4 pound butter

1/4 teaspoon sesame oil

2-3 ounces black bean sauce

3 water chestnuts, thinly sliced

1 clove garlic, crushed

1/2-pound medium whole shrimp

1/2 cup dry-roasted cashews

Preparation

Devein snow peas and stir-cook to taste in half the butter in wok or heavy frying pan. Add sesame oil and cashews. Stir-fry a few moments, then add bean sauce and water chestnuts. In separate pan, melt remaining butter, add shrimp and garlic and stir-fry until shrimp is cooked. Mix ingredients of the two pans and serve immediately. (Serves 4.)