Easy Chinese Recipes. Bee Yinn Low
for meats and seafood. It’s used primarily as flavoring oil and not as a cooking oil. When shopping for sesame oil, look for the dark-amber 100% pure sesame oil to achieve the best results.
Soy Sauce I can’t think of a Chinese pantry without soy sauce—a condiment made of fermented soybeans, salt, and water. There are many types of soy sauce in the market: light soy sauce, low-sodium soy sauce, superior soy sauce, mushroom-flavored soy sauce, and the list goes on. For the recipes in this book, I use a regular soy sauce. I recommend getting soy sauce that’s made in Taiwan or Hong Kong. Dark Soy Sauce As its name suggests, this is a darker, blacker, and thicker variety than regular soy sauce. Please take note that dark soy sauce is used for adding color to the food and not so much for its taste, so use it sparingly.
Star Anise is an 8-point star shape seed or fruit of the star anise tree. Star anise is an important spice in Chinese cooking. It’s one of the major ingredients used in Chinese five spice powder and used to infuse the Tea Leaf Eggs (page 107) in this cookbook.
Sweet Bean Sauce There are many types of sweet bean sauce, but the most common ones are made of fermented soybean paste with sugar, thickened with flour. It’s the essential flavoring sauce for Sichuan Twice-Cooked Pork (page 77). Sweet bean sauce can be found at Asian supermarkets or online stores. If you can’t find it, you can replace it with hoisin sauce.
White Pepper comes from the pepper-corn plant. In Chinese cooking, white pepper is definitely the preferred choice because of its milder taste. White pepper is available in both powder form and whole peppercorns. For Chinese cooking, the former is mostly used to flavor sauces, soups, or as a table condiment or marinade.
Water Chestnuts are aquatic plants that grow in marshes. It’s an important ingredient in Chinese cuisine because it adds a sweet taste and lends a nice crunch to the final product. Fresh water chestnuts are available in Chinese or Asian supermarkets, but canned water chestnuts can be found at regular food stores.
Wood Ear Mushroom refers to a tree ear fungus. It’s sometimes marketed as wood ear mushroom, or black fungus. Wood ear has a very mild flavor; it’s mostly revered for its crunchy texture, making it excellent for hot and sour soup, siu mai, water dumplings, and some stir-fry dishes. Wood ears are always sold dried in packages, and need to be reconstituted with hot water before using. Commercially, they are available whole or shredded. I always get the whole ones because they can be easily reconstituted with water and cut into thin strips or whatever the shape called for in the recipes.
Spring Roll Wrappers Spring roll wrappers can be found in the frozen section of Chinese or Asian markets. They usually come in two sizes: 4-inch or 8-inch squares. I prefer the latter because they are easier to handle. Please take note that the best spring roll wrappers should be very thin. I don’t recommend egg roll wrappers, which are pale yellow in color and much thicker. Egg roll wrappers are used to make the American-version of egg rolls and not the traditional crispy Chinese spring rolls.
Wrappers There are a variety of dumpling wrappers available at the market: wonton, pot stickers, siu mai, jiaozi, gyoza, etc., and it can be overwhelming if you are not familiar with them. Don’t be confused by the name—they are actually quite similar except that wonton wrappers are usually yellow in color because of the addition of egg (or artificial coloring) in the ingredients. Here are my simple pointers when shopping for dumpling wrappers:
1 Pot stickers, jiaozi, and gyoza wrappers are pretty much the same product. They are usually round.
2 Wonton wrappers and siu mai wrappers are similar to each other. They are pale yellow or yellow in color and usually come in squares.
3 For Pork Dumpling Soup (page 52), if you can find Siu Kow (Water Dumplings) wrappers in your store, use them, but if not, wonton wrappers will work just fine.
The Basics
This is a collection of basic recipes that will make this cookbook more accessible for you. This is by no means the most comprehensive list of basics for Chinese cooking, but sauces such as Sweet-and-Sour Sauce (page 30), Chinese Barbeque Sauce (page 29), Cantonese-Style Steamed Fish Sauce (page 28) are very versatile because they can be easily adapted to create vegetarian or vegan dishes. I have also included simple flavored oil recipes—Chili Oil (page 27) and Sichuan Peppercorn Oil (page 27)—two wonderful infused oils for authentic Sichuan dishes. Condiments and dipping sauces such as the Pickled Green Chilies (page 28) and the Sweet-and-Sour Sauce complement freshly made dumplings and noodle dishes beautifully!
Steamed Rice Mi fan
Steamed rice is the foundation of Chinese cooking—it is the staple of almost every Chinese meal. The Chinese words chi fan, which literally means: “eat rice” are probably two of the most beloved words in the Chinese language. Chi fan evokes many happy visual images in my mind: when a father comes home after a hard day of work and greets his family over the dinner table; a hungry child eagerly shoveling a bowl of steaming hot rice to his mouth using a pair of chopsticks; fond memories with my late parents when I piled their favorite foods on top of their rice as they smiled contently at my loving gesture. You can’t make Chinese food if you don’t know how to prepare moist, soft, and fluffy steamed rice. Here is my steamed rice recipe for use with an electronic rice cooker or stovetop preparation.
Serves 4
2 cups (400 g) rice, long grain or jasmine rice
2 cups (500 ml) water
Using an Electronic Rice Cooker
1 Place the rice inside the cooking pan of an electronic rice cooker.
2 Rinse the rice with cold running water, swishing and stirring quickly by hand. When the water turns murky, drain the water immediately. Repeat the same for 3–4 times until the water becomes almost clear. Drain the excess water and leave 2 cups of water in the cooking pan.
3 Turn the heat on the rice cooker to boil the rice (according to your rice cooker’s manual).
4 Stir and loosen the rice immediately with the rice spatula after cooking has completed.
Using the Stovetop
1 Place the rice inside a pot.
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».
Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.
Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.