Chinese Cooking Methods

Home Style Cooking By Linda Carter-Holman

A chinese meal does not feature one main dish, but rather a number of dishes of equal importance. At family meals or for informal entertaining, all the dishes are placed on the table at once. This makes it unnecessary for the hostess to leave the table once the meal has started. Each person has a bit of each dish with rice. Soup is not served at the start of a meal, as in western-style eating, but in banquets is served between other courses. In family-style meals it is placed on the table and everyone helps themselves just as they do with rice. It is not necessary to have one dish for each diner.

Chinese cooking seem difficult at first glance. But there are many cooking methods which are familiar to the western cook -- boiling, braising, stewing, simmering, steaming, deep frying. Not as well known is cooking in stored heat, which takes longer but makes good sense because it saves fuel and yields good results.

Then there is the quick stir-frying method which always fascinates the newcomer to Chinese cooking. It looks very impressive but there is nothing to it except split-second second timing and this is easily mastered with a little practice. All that is necessary is to have every ingredient prepared and ready within reach befrore starting to cook, because there is no time to go looking for a sauce or seasoning once cooking is under way.

It is for this method of cooking, in particular, that food is cut into paper-thin slices or slivers because the cooking time is so short. The principle is that the ingredients which require longer cooking go into the wok first, to be followed in turn by the others. It origniated out of the need to save fuel, and that is as good a reason to use this method today as it was centuries ago.

Then there are recipes in which more than one method is used. This is called cross-cooking or combination cooking. A duck may be steamed until tender, then boned and cut into pieces and deep fried so that the outside is crisp and crackling, the inner portions meltingly soft. Or bite-size pieces of poultry, meat or seafood may be briefly deep fried and set aside, and just before serving they are stir-fried with the other ingredients and seasonings.

What to cook on
Quick, high instantly controllable heat is what makes chinese cooking a pleasure, so gas is therefore the most suitable fuel. But there are ways of using electricity to advantage. One is to buy a flat-bottomed wok -- an invention which takes into account the fact that people in Asian countries who live in modern blocks of flats have to cook with electricity. The flat base gives better contact with the hotplate and prevents wobbling. The high, flaring sides of the wok enable the cook to toss, flip and stir without ingredients being scattered as may happen in a conventional frying pan or skillet.

Electricity is not flexible like gas, and different methods have to be used to achieve the same results. With an electric stove, heat one hotplate on the highest setting, put the wok on it and let it get very hot before adding the oil and ingredients to be cooked. When less heat is needed, lift the wok off the hotplate (turning the heat down would not reduce it quickly enough). If the dish needs simmering after the initial cooking on high heat, have another hotplate ready on simmer setting and transfer the wok to this.

If you can get only round-bottomed woks, use a metal collar or ring which will hold the wok in place and steady it. These rings are sometimes necessary even on gas stoves, depending on the design. It is essential you should feel confident that t he wok is held steady.

The rings are ususally made of anodized aluminium and are constructed with sloping sides so one opening is smaller than the other. There are holes in the ring to allow ventilation. When high heat is required, use the ring with the large opening upwards so that the wok sits close to the source of heat. When simmering, the smaller opening should be uppermost so that the wok is held higher up and further away from the heat.

If cooking for a number of people, remember to cook two batches of the dish rather than double the quanitites. This applies to stir-fried dishes especially, for if too much is added to the wok at a time, the heat will not be sufficient to seal the juices in and the food will stew rather than fry.