| How to cook chinese food like a chinese restaurant
Posted: 7/3/2008 1:11:48 PM | It's not the msg or peanut oil. It's the cooking method(s). Meat has to be marinated, the right kind and cut the right way. For example you only use chicken thigh meat, very seldom breast meat. It's cut across the grain (all meat is) and marinated for at least 30 mins.
Things are cooked individually, quickly, and till not quite done. At the end you toss them all in together with the final sauce and cook for 2 minutes.
It took me a long time to be able to cook the same as a restaurant and the only thing that changed over the years was the technique.
Keep in mind this kind of food existds because they had very little fuel for a fire and they'd have to make a small fire out of small bits of wood. It would burn very hot, but not for long. The cuisine evolved around that.
Cook things one at a time. Makes a HUGE difference; the wok stays hot and a pile of goo slowly simmering in a wok isn't every going to be authentic. | |
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| Soy Sauce
Posted: 8/9/2008 4:52:30 AM | kemra1
Hey! *L* I am now the proud possessor of 2 bottles of Aloha shoyu
erm ....and a bottle of Lee Kum Kee black bean sauce *L*
the local Japanese market has stocked it again.........
And to be a little on Topic here
the key to good chinese cooking is a combination of things
ingredients ( both fresh and bottled/jarred/ dehydrated , etc) technique ( stir fry or long simmer-- deep fry) cooking vessels ( wok--hotpot, etc)
and knowing the damned recipe !*L* Over here in the states
what we mostly eat as "Chinese Food" is usually an Americanized version
of something from a Particular place in China | |
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| Soy Sauce
Posted: 8/16/2008 4:49:51 PM | I must confirm that what we eat in chinese restaurants is "taylored" for western taste. Back in my days as housekeeper for a hotel in Italy I remember we often had groups of chinese visiting. One particular group refused any western food,so we contacted a chinese restaurant to come in and cater for them.
Now I love a chinese on a saturday evening,but on sunday a morning?? The STINK when I walked into that place!! Bamboo,long green fried things,mushy rice....nothing like anything I'd ever eaten...... and it was their breakfast!
By the way,they fry with soy oil.
Aren't there any chinese members on POF that could give a few tips? | |
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| How to cook chinese food like a chinese restaurant
Posted: 8/16/2008 10:45:59 PM |
Aren't there any chinese members on POF that could give a few tips?
Chinese home cooking is very different that Chinese restaurant cooking. Heck, most of your generic "Chinese food" from your typical places in the US aren't even really Chinese food anymore. You'll never find any of the stuff on the menu here if you ever go to a restaurant in China. And if you know how to order from the "special" Chinese menu at some of the more authentic places, they are really more home cooking than anything else.
Actually there is a VERY good article on Chinese cooking in this month's Men's Health magazine. It talks about how most Chinese restaurant cooks have about as much culinary training as the teenager that's flipping burgers at a fast food place. And also a lot of these brown sauces are pretty much out of a big can. So if you want food to taste like your average Chinese place, maybe you'll have to find out where they order their canned sauces.  | |
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| How to cook chinese food like a chinese restaurant
Posted: 8/16/2008 10:52:36 PM | I said it somewhere in here, but it bears repeating. Irene Kuo's The Key to Chinese Cooking is the only book you need to make the real thing from mostly supermarket ingredients. The "key" is the first, short section of the book, about 80 pages of complete techniques. Study that first, then dive in. Easy Peasy!
Vulf  | |
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| How to cook chinese food like a chinese restaurant
Posted: 8/17/2008 3:36:02 AM | Well, someone did ask if there is any Chinese forumites....
• Hot Burner
There is no substitute for a hot flame. The authentic chinese taste referred to is the 'just-about-to-burn' taste infused into the food. Indeed, that taste is still there when you eat the previous night's leftovers cold from the fridge! The Chinese refer to it as the 'breath of the wok'. So, you need to stir fry in a very hot wok and the high heat needs to be maintained. (Hence, a previous poster pointed out cooking in small batches so as to keep the temperature up. Indeed, most chinese at home without a high flame burner use this method.) If one has a well seasoned wok, it is almost a natural non-stick pan. You know you have mastered it when you can judge the point just before the food is burned and take it out of the wok.
•Cleaning the wok
Someone suggested not to clean the wok properly so as 'to build the cumulative taste'. This is pure nonsense, not to mention the health aspect as well. However, it is true that a wok should not be cleaned with any detergent. Hot water, slight scrub (no metal scrubber) and a rinse would suffice. (Always clean immediate after stir frying... even before you serve the dish out! )
As to the taste, it all depends on the dish you are cooking. A novice can always rely on oyster sauce to provide the taste in stir fry. (Don't forget oyster sauce is salty, so is soya sauce - so, if you use both together, make sure use less of one compared to the other. Always balance it with a pinch of suger.
Never use MSG... it was introduced by lazy & incompetent cook. A balanced solution of salt & suger will do the same.
Happy cooking.... | |
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| How to cook chinese food like a chinese restaurant
Posted: 8/17/2008 4:10:34 AM | Hi OP,
I'm not sure if the Chinese restaurants over there are the same as the ones here and I couldn't help with authentic flavour, but I do love Chinese food and there are a few things I keep in my kitchen for it...
Fresh ginger, chilli and garlic
One oil that can take a high heat and sesame oil to use more like a dressing after cooking
Chinese five spice powder
cornflour (I think over there it is called cornstarch)
Soya sauce, tomato puree, brown sugar for marinades, eg for sweet and sour add pineapple juice. Saki or sherry isn't essential but makes a difference.
In reply to all the comments on woks, it depends on what kind of cooker you have. Woks are designed to keep the food in the hottest part of the pan when using a big flame, a round bottom pan on a flat cooker top is crazy when you think about it, so unless you're going to buy a special cooker, buy a pan suited to make the best of the cooker you have. Mine is halogen rings so I use a flat bottom pan. Its not as good as a big flame obviously, but its the kind of cooker that tells you what pan to use.
For Thai, fresh chilli and limes, bars of condensed coconut milk and jars of Thai curry paste are my key ingredients. (There are good curry pastes out there that make it silly to mess around trying to make it)
For Indian, cumin and cardamom pods seem to be worth stocking in addition to all the usual things. For an easy way to add flavour to plain rice, just empty cardamom pods in the pan at the start of cooking.
I dont have a massive budget for food or much time to spend on doing it, or much room in my kitchen for lots of stuff I wont use often so these are things that you can buy in and wont go off if you dont eat the same thing every other day etc.
I tend not to use cookery books very often any more, but when I eat out if I enjoy it you can bet Im making a mental note of the flavours and if there is any I dont recognise I ask. Then I'll have a go at it the same week while I still remember. | |
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| How to cook chinese food like a chinese restaurant
Posted: 8/19/2008 10:10:44 AM | I have found the secret to Chinese Fried Rice is to cook the rice the day ahead before frying or at least a few hours before, refrigerate.then fry... Add a little Sesame Oil...not too much, it can be overpowering..but a little with peanut oil adds a nice smokey taste.. soya sauce, the light is more flavorful, mushrooms and green onions..
Very yummy! | |
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| How to cook chinese food like a chinese restaurant
Posted: 8/19/2008 10:39:05 AM |
everything is fried in peanut oil.
It isn't fried but stired. Something is very different with fried, which usually uses for cooking vegetables. In fact, many kinds of food aren't stired but steamed and boiled, such as cooking fish and meats. Cooking Chinese food isn't very difficult for a family, getting some fresh ginger, garlic, pepper, and green onion or soy sauce and vinegar as spicies for cooking. Any good oil is fine. | |
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| How to cook chinese food like a chinese restaurant
Posted: 8/19/2008 11:56:03 AM | Just a question. Why would one want to? After living in China for four years, I've been virtually unable to eat in American Chinese restaurants, even in China Town, the food so little resembles Chinese food. One of two exceptions is Peking Duck, which the worst restaurant hasn't been able to ruin yet. And there is a very good restaurant in Chevy Chase, that actually makes very good jiaozi. Finally, if you can find a restaurant that serves breakfast on the weekends, it's likely to be very good. (Foreigners don't tend to like/accept Chinese food for breakfast, so it hasn't been altered for Western tastes.) Hint: if you see PINK sweet and sour pork -- run for the hills.
When my Chinese husband and I first got back from China, he was *desperately* looking for ANY job. So even though he was a physicist, he applied at a restaurant as a Chinese cook. He was asked if he knew how to cook Chinese food. He said, yes, he'd been cooking it all his life. He was elated when he got the interview. Two hours later, the manager called back: the owner wanted to know if he'd ever cooked in an American/Chinese restaurant, because the two weren't the same. . . . He didn't get the interview, but that experience explained a lot to both of us, lol!
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| How to cook chinese food like a chinese restaurant
Posted: 8/30/2008 8:47:38 AM | | anytime i make fried rice I use rice cooked the day before that has been cooled in the fridge, I read somewhere that typically fired rice is made from leftover rice , fresh rice will tend to get soggy when it is fried | |
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| How to cook chinese food like a chinese restaurant
Posted: 8/30/2008 9:02:47 AM | It's a myth all Chinese food is cooked in peanut oil. Poeple with peanut alergies would have a real problem with that. Safflower oil or even "vegetable" oil is used.
I use olive oil. It's not supposed to work, but it does. I've been using it in this for decades. | |
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| How to cook chinese food like a chinese restaurant
Posted: 8/31/2008 2:52:10 AM | the oil doesnt really matter that much really
in our restaurant we used blended vegetable, peanut, canola, depending on the dish sometimes though too
the main thing to remember for sir frying is to cut the items thinly, have a very hot wok/pan, and either marinate the meat first, prepare the sauce you want first, or both, there isnt really much time to be messing around trying to find stuff or mixing things together when wok cooking, anyone here ever used a turbo wok burner? your dish is done in about 30 seconds | |
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| How to cook chinese food like a chinese restaurant
Posted: 8/31/2008 10:28:31 AM | | Most Western Chinese restaurants aren't really Chinese restaurants that have added some western food cultures in oder to attract western people. However, in California and New York city, there may have some really nice Chinese restaurants although they also mix some western food cultures. | |
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| How to cook chinese food like a chinese restaurant
Posted: 8/31/2008 10:42:24 AM | If by "turbo" burner you mean the concave ones that a wok will fit into, then yeah, I have one. Amazing things and dangerously hot.
In reading over ther responses I guess I conclude it's the amount of heat things are cooked with. With a not hot enough burner it's gonna taste like some 50's Kraft recipe.
If shrimp smoke madly when you dump them into a hot wok, it's hot enough. There's a "burny" thin outer crust to them when they're cooked hot enough, but the inside shouldn't be much above warm. Short and fast. That's the proper way. Uh, for Chinese food anyway. | |
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| How to cook chinese food like a chinese restaurant
Posted: 9/26/2008 2:11:58 PM | Most posters already mentioned the "secret".
Very hot wok and big relatively to the amount of food, peanut oil, thinly sliced meat and vegetables, fresh green onion, garlic and ginger, soy sauce, corn starch, drops of sesame oil at end in some dishes.
Just one one point to add, you need to blanch some hard to cook vegetables before cooking. And bring the meat to room temperature before cooking.
No MSG, good chef don't use MSG.
No olive oil, yes, it taste different. Most people can't taste the diff. But a person who's not used to olive oil would tell something is not right if a Chinese dish is cooked with olive oil. | |
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| How to cook chinese food like a chinese restaurant
Posted: 9/28/2008 5:29:45 PM | For Chinese, food, you don't have to blanche any vegetables ahead of time. If it's something like broccoli or gai lan that take a little while longer to cook through the stems, you can add your liquid to the wok and cover the wok for a minute or two to steam them right in the wok (through figure out the order of adding ingredients and timing to do this so that you're not overcooking other ingredients at the same time. For example, you can cook your protein in the dry wok, and remove and reserve it separately, and then cook the longer veggies dry first with a little oil and then covered with a little liquid. Then you can recombine the two).
The stirfry mistakes I see most often are over-cooking, so I wouldn't encourage you to be pre-blanching veggies. The only things that I wind up pre-blanching are medium soft tofu (cut it up first and treat it gently when you put it in the stirfry after) and maybe taro root if I was making a dish of that.
Also, there are some bottled sauces that can help with making a deeper flavour - like oyster sauce, or bean sauce, or hoisin sauce. Use soy sauce instead of salt to make things salty because it adds depth of flavour too. | |
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