Chinese cuisine is quite popular around the world because of its complex flavours and simple recipes. Though often simple, there are some tricks that you should know if you want to cook tasty Chinese food in your kitchen.
Three things that you should keep in mind while cooking Chinese food:
- Chinese food is not only about taste. The look of the dish is also very important. You should try to add a variety of vegetables to your plate in a colour pattern that pleases the eye. Mix the meat and vegetables in your serving plate to make the food look even more delicious by giving it a beautiful texture.
- Fresh ingredients are the best when it comes to taste. No matter how many frozen ingredients you have stored in your fridge, adding fresh meat and vegetables to your dish will add all the more flavour.
- It is important that you are well prepared before you begin cooking your dish. Be sure of the recipe and make all the preparations beforehand like keeping the vegetables chopped, the sauces prepared.
Now that you’ve gone through some basic things that you need to keep in mind while cooking Chinese food, let’s look at some tricks that will help you cook great Chinese food in your kitchen:
Up Your Stir-Frying Game
Most Chinese recipes require you to stir-fry vegetables before you proceed any further. While stir-frying seems like a pretty simple task at a glance, it is not that easy to do it perfectly. To perfectly stir-fry your ingredients, you need to have a good idea of how long each one takes to be done.
Adjusting the timing of your stir-frying based on the time each ingredient takes to cook is critical if you want a perfectly balanced mixture. The best way to add flavour to your stir-fried ingredients is to add a few spoons of ginger and garlic with the oil in your pan. It’s best if you put in the protein-rich ingredients first, then add in veggies that take a long time to cook and lastly add those that get done in a few minutes.
Steam is Important
Many Chinese recipes entail steaming the ingredients. It is a simple process but enhances the quality of the food manifold. Steaming helps make the ingredients tender and make them aromatic. Steaming meat products like fish and chicken along with fillings will help in tendering the meat while also allowing it to absorb aromas of all the ingredients and giving it a great texture.
In fact, you can simply put together some ingredients, steam them, and then serve them with a garnish of dips and soy sauce and the diners will already be licking their plates.
Keep the Use of Rice and Noodles in check
Did you know fried rice is one of the most popular oriental dishes? It is a staple food in South China. It is an essential part of Chinese cooking. Mostly, Chinese dishes use long-grained rice but you can use any rice as long as you cook them well. Noodles are another important part of Chinese food. They are one of the most flexible ingredients as they can be used in many forms in a lot of recipes.
While using these ingredients it is essential to cook authentic Chinese dishes, most people use too much of it and ruin the whole dish. The Chinese use these ingredients a lot but they are in small quantities. There are larger portions of meat or vegetables. So, keep in mind to use only a little rice and noodles in your dishes and keep the main focus on other ingredients.
Try to Make Your Soups Thick
If you are familiar with cooking Chinese soups, you would know that most of the soups have very little ingredients and often simply consist of vegetables and broth. Yet, these soups are extremely flavourful and filling. The reason is that ingredients like corn flour or potato flour are used in the soups to thicken them up a bit. Adding these ingredients also help in adding more flavours to the soup.
Chinese food is very delicious if cooked right. You can find a lot of places on the net that provide you with recipes for Chinese dishes. Try them and serve your guests with a lip smacking food.
