Thursday, 11 July 2013

Chinese Cooking Methods

Chinese cuisine enjoys high fame around the world. Not only does it have a reputation of being delicious, it's also considered an art form in its own right. Chinese cooking involves exploring the combination of the ingredients as well as paying particular focus on the complex process and equipment involved. Different ingredients are cooked using different ways, while the same ingredient may be used in different dishes to provide different flavors and appearances. You will find hundreds of cooking methods in China. However, the most typical methods are stir-frying, deep-frying, shallow-frying, braising, boiling, steaming and roasting.


Stir-frying
Probably the most frequently used method is stir-frying. This methods cooks processed ingredients at high temperature for a short period of time. Edible oil can be used as the heat conductor. Usually, a wok can be used at high heat, edible oil is added accompanied by ingredients and seasonings. Because of the short period of time involved in the process, ingredients largely keep their vitamins and minerals. Stir-fried meat is typically juicy and attractive, and vegetables are usually tender and crispy.

Deep-frying
Deep-frying uses a lot more edible oil than stir-frying (the ingredient ought to be fully submerged in the oil), producing crisp-textured food. The most popular method of preparing deep-frying dishes would be to cut the ingredients into medium-sized pieces or chunks, soak them in prepared seasoning for some time, coat with cornstarch (optional), and lastly fry in hot deep oil over medium heat. The density of coating determines the levels of crispness and tenderness inside and outside of the ingredients used.

Shallow-frying
Because the name implies, shallow-frying is a cooking methods using less edible oil than deep-frying minimizing heat than stir-frying. Shallow-fried dishes are often rather tender inside, appearing golden or slightly burnt outside. The components for shallow-frying are usually cut into slices or flat pieces and rubbed with seasonings. To help make the outer skin crispy, the components are also slightly coated with cornstarch after being seasoned. When cooking, the components should be shallow-fried on one side first after which turned to the other.

Braising
To cook large-sized ingredients melt-in-your-mouth, braising would be to add ingredients and seasonings inside a wok or a saucepan at the same time, include some water, boil it after which simmer it for one hour or even more. The ingredients are usually cut into cubes or diamonds. To prepare dishes by braising, the ingredients particularly the animal ingredients should be eliminate the fishy smell in boiling water and rinsed in water that is clean first, and the sauce is thickened either with cornstarch or reduced by simmering finally.

Boiling
Boiling might be considered the simplest among all china cooking methods. It simply involves placing food in boiling water. It's mainly used for cooking small-sized and soft ingredients, specifically for most of the vegetable soups like Tomato and Egg Soup and Tofu Soup. Prepared ingredients are put into a wok, along with water and appropriate seasonings once the surface of the water is continually agitated by large bubbles. Dishes cooked by boiling always taste fresh and clear, for this takes a shorter time than braising.

Steaming

A unique cooking method invented in China is steaming. It's widely used for steaming buns and dumplings in northern China, where individuals live on wheaten food. The process involves placing the components in a steamer basket that is placed over water inside a steamer pot. Steamed food contains more nutrition compared to boiled for less nutrition is leached in to the water. Very little edible oil and much less seasonings are used (most Chinese just steam beaten egg just with salt), so the food’s natural flavor is maintained as well as enhanced.

Roasting

Roasting would be to cook the food over the open flame of charcoal or perhaps in an oven. The moisture from the food is removed whilst seasonings rubbed in externally. The outside of the roasted foods always gets drier and browned, but flavors are retained that has been enhanced. Many ingredients can be roasted, including all sorts of meat along with most root and bulb vegetables. To roast food, the components must be cleaned, seasoned and basted with edible oil to be able to reduce the loss of moisture within the ingredients during the roasting process.

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