When Americans think of Chinese cooking they think of Panda Express or that it’s complicated. On the contrary, in China Chinese cuisine is famous for being simple. To make Chinese dishes you really don’t need that many kitchen appliances or ingredients (a wok, chop sticks and a large knife). I learned about a few Chinese cooking essentials in a class taught by Anna Wu. (cost 150RMB, $23) (about 4 hours)

 

5 Essentials to Know While Cooking Chinese:

1) Most dishes will have sugar and salt to balance the flavors.

2) Most of the Chinese dishes are made in a wok and done on gas stoves. The biggest secret to making Chinese dishes is to put oil (Sunflower, Olive, or Corn) in the wok and let it heat up before you cook food in it. When you are cooking and the food starts to stick in the wok, just add water or oil. Never add too much water, you can’t take it away. Add water slowly to the wok. If you do this well, you won’t have to add corn flour.

3) When Chinese prepare homemade meals they usually do one dish that has a little meat and lots of veggies to keep it simple.

4) To make cooking even simpler the Chinese like to tear some of the veggies with their hands instead of cutting them.

5) In almost every Chinese dish there is either a light or dark soy sauce. The difference is thickness and color when you use dark soy sauce. Light soy sauce is more salty.

 

Anna Wu taught us four recipes. She has kindly given me permission to share one here on my blog.

4 Chinese Dishes

Dish 1: Jia Chang tofu with bamboo shoots, black fungus and peppers (Jia chang dou fu)

Dish 2: Cucumber salad with garlic and rice vinegar (Pai Huang Gua) [This is a cold side dish served like an appetizer in restaurants. If you make this at home treat it like a salad. Don’t leave the vegetables and the sauce together as leftovers but separate until you will eat it.]

Dish 3: Stir fry clams with chili and garlic (Chao Ga La)

Dish 4: Fish Flavored Eggplant (Yu Xiang Qie Zi)

(Jia chang dou fu)

Jia Chang tofu with bamboo shoots, black fungus and peppers

By Anna Wu

Preparation time: less than 10 mins.

Cooking time: 20 mins.

Serves 2-4

Ingredients:

• 1 tbsp sunflower oil for stir fry and 5 tbsp oil for frying the tofu
• 250g firm tofu cut into 8-10mm thick slices in triangular shape or rectangular shape
• 5 pieces dried black fungus, soak in warm water for 10 minutes or until soft, tear in pieces and leave the hard bits in the middle, keep the water
• 1 small carrot peeled and sliced into thin pieces
• 1 green bell pepper, sliced into pieces
• 100g bamboo shoots, sliced into thin pieces
• [1/2-1tbsp oyster sauce]
• 3 garlic cloves sliced into big pieces
• [3] fresh red or green chili (optional) seeded and [tear by hand] [each chili will add to the spice of the dish]
• 1 tbsp chili bean paste [don’t add salt to the dish because the paste is salty]
• a thumb-sized piece of fresh root ginger sliced into big pieces
• (optional, if not thick) 1 tbsp cornflour mixed with 2 tbsp water
• sea salt and 1 tbsp white sugar
• 1 splash Kikkoman light soy sauce
• (optional) [add Chinese cooking oil]

Cooking Steps:

• Preheat a wok or large frying pan on a high heat and once it’s very, very hot add 5 tbsp of peanut oil and swirl it around
• Fry the tofu both sides in a low heat until golden and soft in the middle and set the tofu aside on top of a kitchen towel to drain the excess oil
• Add 1 tbsp oil in a clean pan and stir-fry the garlic and ginger for 30 seconds, keeping everything moving around the wok quickly, add mushrooms, bamboo shoots, stir-fry for a minute [move the tofu to one side of the pan]
• Add the tofu back in with a good pinch salt, sugar, chili bean paste, soy sauce, keeping moving around the wok quickly over a high heat
• Add the water just to cover everything (from soaking mushrooms) and put the lid on, seasoning for 1 minute or 2 with medium low heat
• Remove from the heat and add carrots and peppers, stir in cornflour and give it another good shake to make sure nothing sticks to the bottom, turn the heat off

Share your favorite Chinese recipe in the comment box below. 

 

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