The secret to Chinese (Asian) cooking is….
heat. After traveling and cooking Asian for 40 years I can tell 99% of the Talk folks who ask “How?” that the answer is more heat. About 30 years ago I sent home (from Kuala Lumpur) a 15 kg. gas propane ring and my cooking improved 100%. Then 10 years ago I bought a free standing Viking, three ring, natural gas burner ($1500. bucks) and thing just got easier and better. Think about it…..when was the last time you saw a real Asian chef cooking on an electric hot plate or even a typical gas range. No, they cook on a rimmed hole with what looks like a dozen blow torches facing upward. Heat equals quickness. You stand there and keep the food moving for just a bit of time, while the Food Network chefs (sic) put everything in a wok and go off to do something else. You never see an Asian chef leave the wok after adding something. Get yourself some heat and enjoy.
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16 Comments:
This may be nitpicky, but there are many different countries and cuisines in Asia. So wouldn't Asian cooking be too general a term? And I didn't know that "chefs" was an archaic spelling. What's the modern spelling?
gingercookiewithlime at 12:39PM on 09/07/09
@Fredrickson - I appreciate the input (don't know if you saw my fried rice thread). I have an electric stove, alas, so there's a limit to what I can do in the way of heat, but I'll step it up a bit and see if it makes a difference.
@gingercookie: "sic" is used when you copy a mistake and want to make it clear it's not yours - so I think Fredr is cheekily letting us know that calling most food network cooks chefs is a mistake.
lemonfair at 3:57PM on 09/07/09
Re: "chefs" I believe the comment was to indicate that OP does not believe the people appearing on Food Network qualify as actual chefs.
dbrackst at 4:03PM on 09/07/09
@lemonfair - that's only if it's a direct quotation. It wasn't a quotation so I assumed "sic" was being used in its other sense to point out an unusual spelling. Either way, it was used incorrectly.
gingercookiewithlime at 4:27PM on 09/07/09
1) Everything prepped in advance. Cut, filleted, chopped, julienned and sliced into pieces that will cook evenly.
2) SCREAMING HOT PAN.
3) Fearlessness around high-heat cooking.
Don't cook with sesame oil, it's a finishing oil. Drizzle a little on your finished dishes for the flavor and aroma. If you use it to cook, it becomes mucky, greasy, and loses both its signature flavor and aroma.
therealchiffonade at 4:38PM on 09/07/09
You're absolutely right about the heat...... it's the bucks that get in the way. Speaking of Food Network chefs, isn't chef rachel auctioning off her stove? lol
lochaven at 8:48PM on 09/07/09
I thought it was sesame seed oil.
Go figure.
oh_no_eric at 9:34PM on 09/07/09
My chinese flavour musts:
- Cutting your veggies in a diagonal manner: my papa always told me to do this for stir-frys but I don't remember the logic behind it--anyone?
- fish sauce definitely
- as others said sesame oil
- chilis of some kind
- ginger
I tend to get a pretty authentic flavour if I use these
hungrychristel at 10:07AM on 09/08/09
um, @ginger totally agree with you. asian is WAY too broad to generalize. as an asian, i have to say that yes, high heat temps can be seen as a more omnipresent than in western cuisine culture, but as far as every asian family/home owning one of those wok-in-a-hole doo dads, that is a little ridiculous. our family cook used a gas range. and i remember country side trips to my both paternal and maternal grandmothers as a small child, where the cooking would take place on some kind of outdoor fire, with a variety of what we today would call artisanal vessels (clay pots, pans, etc). some of the local dives/street vendors would have the wok with gas torch ish - but again, they were professionals.
emmeleau at 11:03AM on 09/08/09
I also agree about "asian" being too-broad of a term. I immeidately made an assumption that I retract :)
wow; quite a lot actually!?!?
hungrychristel at 12:40PM on 09/08/09
msg?
gastronomeg at 12:44PM on 09/08/09
There's a lot more to Asian food than stir-frying. Reducing all Asian cuisines to stir-fries is like saying that Americans only eat cheeseburgers.
SqueezeBottle at 12:45PM on 09/08/09
I've seen a couple of mentions of "sesame oil." I take it you all mean as a finishing oil? Use canola or peanut oil to cook - higher smoking point.
therealchiffonade at 12:51PM on 09/08/09
@chiff: oh for sure! sesame oil for aroma only. haha
Also chiff, if you havent tried it I like to use grapeseed oil for stirfrys. It doesn't leave the same lingering taste as a canola or peanut oil for me. A bit more pricey but I think its worth it. :)
hungrychristel at 12:58PM on 09/08/09
Some Chinese cooks use lard, some use rapeseed oil, some use peanut oil. It depends on regional styles and specific recipes.
@hungrychristel - I'm no Chinese food expert, but from what I know fish sauce is not typically used in Chinese cooking. It's more common in other Southeast Asian cuisines, but I've never seen it in Cantonese, Sichuan, Hunan, Peking or Shanghai dishes I've sampled or cooked. The most common Chinese flavours are ginger, scallion and soy sauce. Garlic is also used a lot. Sesame oil is used sparingly in the south and more heavily in the north. Shoaxing wine and Chinkiang vinegar are also typical Chinese flavours. Oyster sauce is greatly abused by Cantonese cooks.
SqueezeBottle at 1:45PM on 09/08/09
@squeezebottle: ah great tips. graçias
hungrychristel at 2:08PM on 09/08/09