Easy Chinese Recipes. Bee Yinn Low
involved in Chinese cooking. I studied the recipes earnestly, and for the first time, I started grasping the basics: how to cook meat to velvety tenderness, how to ensure that vegetables are crisp, and how the seasonings need to complement and balance the natural flavors of the ingredients. I followed the booklet’s recipes, went through my share of trials and errors, and soon after that I started cooking Chinese food successfully. I produced aromatic and mouthwatering ginger and scallion chicken— one of the classic Chinese stir-fry dishes. I made restaurant-style sweet-and-sour shrimp with the robust flavors that intermingled with the succulence and texture of the shrimp. I served glossy green vegetables with oyster sauce that were crisp and crunchy.
As I started to master the art of fundamental Chinese cooking, my creations started to get unanimous nods and praises from my family and friends, marking the defining moment in which I had blossomed into a good cook. It was also then that I became a die-hard aficionado of Chinese cuisine, a cuisine that I have resolved to continue learning about, experimenting with, and, of course, eating!
Over the ensuing years, I was fortunate to have had many opportunities to travel all over Asia, especially to China and Hong Kong. With each journey, I discovered and experienced something new about Chinese cuisine. In the small alleys of Beijing’s hutong, I sampled brightly flavorful jiaozi and dumplings, and reveled in freshly made noodles and soups. In a 1930’s era mansion in Shanghai’s French Concession, I savored impeccable and refined Shanghainese cuisine. At a roadside stall in Chengdu, Sichuan, my taste buds were treated to the explosively flavorful, tongue-numbing, lip-tingling spicy mala Sichuan concoctions. In a fine Cantonese restaurant in Hong Kong, I was immersed in a gastronomical ecstasy after a 10-course Cantonese banquet dinner of supreme delicacies. On the island of Xiamen, in the Fujian province, I was treated to an array of delectable seafood dishes that were remarkably succulent and tasty. This amazing cuisine is a culinary celebration of gastronomical variety in both texture and taste making it my favorite cuisine in the world.
Basic Cooking Techniques and Tips
Chinese cooks place a heavy emphasis on basic cooking techniques and tips. In fact, they are as important as the recipes—a great recipe might turn into a complete failure without proper execution during the preparation and cooking process. This chapter covers some basic Chinese cooking techniques and kitchen tips that I have learned from professional chefs, my late mother, and other experienced home cooks. These are my golden rules for making scrumptious Chinese food at home.
How to Tenderize Meat
This technique is best used for chicken breast, which is usually dry, coarse, and chewy. For the illustration here I use chicken breast, but this technique also works for beef and pork. If you already have a tender cut of beef, this technique is not necessary unless you want the texture to be silky smooth like the ones served at Chinese restaurants. If you like the natural meaty taste of beef, please also take note that this technique will result in losing that beefy flavor.
8 oz (250 g) chicken breast
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 Cut or slice the chicken breast per the recipe instruction. Make sure it’s cut or sliced into uniform pieces.
2 Mix the baking soda with the chicken. Make sure the chicken breast is evenly coated with the baking soda. Set aside for 15 minutes.
3 Place the chicken in a colander and rinse thoroughly with cold running water. Rinse a few times if desired. Pat dry with paper towels. The chicken is now ready for the marinade or whatever preparation is called for in the recipe.
TENDERIZING MEAT Texture is a highly prized component in Chinese cooking, especially when it comes to proteins. Meat—especially chicken, pork, or beef— is always cooked so that the result is a silky-smooth mouthfeel that is succulent and tender, with a glossy sheen. Traditionally, velveting is a technique used in professional and home kitchens for tenderizing meat. Meats are cut into uniform pieces, coated with an egg white and starch mixture, and then cooked to the desired satiny consistency. A few years ago, I learned a quick tip from a Chinese chef, who uses baking soda as the secret ingredient in his restaurant. He taught me the following technique, and I have been producing the most amazing, tender, and juicy stir-fried meats at home ever since. Baking soda, or sodium bicarbonate, is an alkaline agent at pH8.2. As such, it neutralizes the acids and breaks down the proteins in the meat and therefore makes a superb tenderizer. Another plus, it also acts as a deodorizer to rid the meat of any potential foul smell it might have. If you are skeptical about using baking soda in home cooking, please don’t be because it’s an essential ingredient in baking. My technique calls for baking soda as a “dry rub,” it’s rinsed off thoroughly before cooking. Of course, this meat tenderizing process is optional, so it’s up to you. However, if you want to impress your family or guests with perfectly tender, smooth, and succulent meat, here is how you can do it.
How to Cut Beef Against the Grain
Examine and identify the direction of the muscle or the grain on the beef carefully. The grain will run in one direction. Using a cleaver or sharp knife, slice the beef crosswise, or against the grain, into bite-sized slices. Personally, I get the best results when I cut or slice the beef at a slightly slanted angle. This ensures that I get a bigger piece of the tender, soft, and melt-in-your-mouth meat after it is cooked. It makes a big difference, so do not slice or cut the beef parallel to the grain or you might get a piece of meat that’s as tough as jerky after cooking.
CUTTING BEEF Have you ever wondered why the same cut of beef would yield a completely different texture if cut incorrectly? Cutting or slicing beef against the grain is a basic technique that a home-cook should learn. The difference is tender and juicy beef versus rubbery and chewy beef. Cutting beef against the grain is the most critical step in preparing beef dishes.
How to Make Your Shrimp "Bouncy"
8 oz (250 g) shelled and deveined shrimp
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 tablespoon egg white
1/2 tablespoon tapioca starch (preferred) or cornstarch
1 cup ice cubes
1 Rub and massage the baking soda on the shrimp and put in a bowl. Add cold water until the shrimp is submerged. Add the ice cubes to the water. Set aside for 30 minutes.
2 Place the shrimp in a colander and rinse thoroughly with cold running water. Rinse a few times if desired. Pat dry with paper towels.
3 Add the egg white and starch to the shrimp and mix well. Leave the shrimp in the refrigerator for at least 4–6 hours or best overnight. You will notice that the flesh of the shrimp firms up and becomes denser. The shrimp is now ready for use.
"BOUNCY” SHRIMP Have you ever had Chinese shrimp dishes or dim sum where the shrimp are so crisp and crunchy that they literally “bounce” in your mouth? In Chinese, this revered texture is called “ shuang cui.”
My uncle told me that Cantonese chefs—especially those specializing in dim sum—treat and drain their shrimp with cold running tap water (water massage) for hours, which eventually results in that dense and bouncy texture that we all love. This technique certainly works but it’s not sensible for a home kitchen because gallons of water will be wasted.
After extensive research and many conversations with Chinese chefs and restaurateurs, I eventually came up with the technique that delivers a satisfactory result for home cooks. Again, the secret ingredient is baking soda, which is used to treat the shrimp before they are coated with an egg white and tapioca starch or cornstarch mixture, a process my Chinese chef