Serious Eats
Garlic, Ginger and Scallions: Three Pillars of Chinese Cooking
Barbara Fisher of Tiger & Strawberries has an excellent post this week on fresh garlic, ginger and scallions, the three pillars of Chinese cooking: "It is a rare savory Chinese dish which does not contain at least two and very often three of these pillars of flavor in some form or another. When stir frying, these three intrepid aromatics are usually the very first ingredients to hit the hot wok where they bathe in the sizzling oil, flavoring it intensely, so that the ingredients which follow their lead are kissed by the scent and savor of ginger, garlic and scallion."
She does a great job of explaining both why these ingredients are so important and how to cook with them, so consider this a must-read if you're at all interested in learning how to cook Chinese food.