Tuesday, June 28, 2011

A Beginners Guide - Getting To Know Various Chinese Cooking Techniques

Stir-Frying

A popular Chinese cooking technique is stir-frying. Normally, meat and vegetables are cut in thin strips uniformly for even cooking. Some long thin vegetables such as carrots, asparagus and spring onions are sliced diagonally to expose more of their surface for quick cooking. Measure the ingredients accurately such as sauces and other liquids and if all of them are added at the same instance, you can mix them all in a small bowl.

Stir the corn flour properly before adding it if it is included in the ingredients. As you start cooking, make sure that you evenly spread the oil in the wok and it should be hot before putting the ingredients to prevent the food from getting oily. The key to this is to toss properly to ensure that no ingredients get burned. Always check on your recipe book for the series of ingredients to be added.

Deep Frying

In deep frying, you can use wok but less oil is needed in this case. Prevent the food from getting greasy by heating the oil adequately. You will know if it’s already hot enough because it bubbles when you drop some bits of ingredients. The food that you will deep fry should be first dried well enough on kitchen paper or drained before cooking to prevent it from splitting.

Shallow Frying

Using a normal frying pan, this is just like the Western technique. From one side, fry the food and then keep it drained from excess oil before adding in the sauce.

Steaming

Simmer 2 inches of water when you use a plate in wok or bamboo steamer. You don’t need to use a rack if the bamboo steamer is large enough to stay on the sides of wok without dipping in the water. But if the bamboo steamer is small, you can put a rack into the wok and put the steamer or plate evenly to balance. Put a lid to cover the steamer or wok and occasionally check if you still need to add water (hot water should be used).

Braising

Braising is all about subtle cooking of meat and vegetables in a flavored stock as with the Western style of cooking. The technique that involves braising food in dark-colored liquid like soy sauce giving it a brown or red color is termed as red-braising.

Lastly, serve your delicious Chinese cuisine on the Chinese dining table. Learn more for free.

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