![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kakeLast Monday I looked at how to put a meal together in a Chinese restaurant. Today I'm going to talk about serving Chinese food at home.
A note before I start: as I've mentioned before, I'm neither Chinese nor of Chinese descent. Also, I've never eaten a Chinese meal in a Chinese home. So this is all from the perspective of someone who's learned about the cuisine via books, newspaper articles, conversations with friends, blogs, YouTube videos, restaurant food, etc. This disclaimer does of course apply to all my posts on Chinese food, but I wanted to make it explicit here since I'm talking about the culture of home cooking rather than about restaurant meals or individual dishes.
Having said that, I've been cooking various styles of food for over twenty years, and I do cook Chinese food at home fairly often, so hopefully this post will be of interest to other people who want to cook more Chinese food themselves.
One aspect that's often mentioned as being intimidating is the idea of cooking more than one "main dish" per meal. You don't have to do this — noodle soups such as ![[identity profile]](https://s.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
sung's fishball noodle soup or other noodle dishes such as 炸醬麵/zhà jiàng miàn can make a satisfying and complete meal — but in general, even a very simple Chinese meal will include at least one dish per person (plus rice/noodles).
"Dish" here refers to a flavourful vegetable/meat/fish/seafood/beancurd/etc concoction. The rice or noodles provide the bulk, while the other dishes provide the interest. To get a good balance to the meal, there should be more than one of these "flavour" dishes, using varied ingredients, textures, and seasonings.
At first, this sounds a lot more complicated than simply making, for example, pasta with sauce, or stew with dumplings, or curry and rice, or sausages and mash, but in my opinion this is more a matter of practice and familiarity than anything else. There's some discussion of this issue on a thread on eGullet (if that link doesn't put you in the right place, scroll to post #77 for the start of the conversation). As the participants there point out, one key strategy is to have a repertoire of dishes that you know you can cook quickly without too much thought. Another trick is to serve some cold dishes, which can be prepared in advance and can also form part of multiple meals over the week.
Another eGullet thread, focusing on home-style dishes from the south of China, notes that steamed dishes are a nice addition to a home-cooked meal, and if you have a separate steamer this saves you from having to worry about making multiple dishes in the same wok. Soup also comes in handy.
Speaking of separate appliances, I'd be lost without my rice cooker. It does take up a certain amount of space in the kitchen, but I use it often enough that it's worth it. Particularly when I'm tired from work or in a rush to get dinner on the table, it really does take a lot of pressure off to just be able to throw rice and water into it, push a button, and not have to think about it or check on it until I'm ready to dish up.
Finally, there's not much there yet since I only started it a couple of months ago, but the "Chinese" tag on my home cooking Tumblr might be of interest.
What are your favourite Chinese dishes to cook at home? Any tips to add to those above?
no subject
Date: 2011-03-07 08:59 am (UTC)1) Slow-cooked soup, or lo foh tong (老火湯) - this is made with stuff like angelica root, goji berries, dried scallops and pork - the stuff from the soup would also be served too.
2) Steamed fish with ginger and spring onion - one of my faves and my riposte to those poor misguided fools who mock Cantonese food for being unhealthy and unsubtle.
3) Stir-fried veg - whatever is seasonal. My fave is pak choi. Depending on the type of veg, sliced beef or pork could be stir-fried in with this too.
4) Poached chicken - aka 'white-cut' chicken 白切雞
All this of course is served with loads of rice! It's also not uncommon to see people order the above dishes in a restaurant for a 'taste of home'!
Other home-style dishes might include:
5) Stir-fried eggs - not dissimilar from egg fou young! Spring onion, beansprouts, and sometimes prawns - if you're lucky - may be added.
6) Stir-fried 'dice' - peppers, onions, cashew nuts, celery, and or anything that you have to hand is diced and stir fried. Good way of using up leftover roast meats.
7) Cantonese roast meat platter - usually bought from a restaurant or in southern China, from dedicated roast meat stalls. The usual porky suspects such as siu yuk, cha siu, as well as roast duck although in Guangdong (Canton) itself, goose is more common. It's rarely home-cooked as most Chinese homes don't have an oven but it will be bought and eaten as part of a home-cooked meal.
8) yuk beng 肉餅 - steamed pork patty, not to be confused with the dish of the same name (rou bing in pinyin) which is a northern Chinese street snack. Sometimes salted fish and/or water chestnuts are added for a contrast in flavour and texture.
9) A braised dish - beef brisket, spare ribs, chicken thighs and wings in with a star-anise scented soy-based marinade...
10) Slow-cooked veg dish - might be aubergine or winter melon in with other stuff.
The mix of dishes is important with many of them being slow cooked with just a couple of stir-fried dishes to be cooked nearer the time when the food is served, so as the whole meal doesn't get cold.
By the way for larger parties of say 8 people and smaller groups of say 4 people, the actual number of dishes may not differ much. In the case of the former, larger quantities would be cooked - after all, it's a much to expect whoever is doing the cooking to rustle up different dishes.
I stress this is a very much Cantonese meal typical of Guangzhou, where my parents originate from and Hong Kong where they lived before coming to Britain. Even within Guangdong province, there are many regional variations, in particular the 潮州 Chiu Chow (aka Teochew or Chao Zhou) and 客家 Hakka (Kejia), who have their own respective languages and cultures. And then there's also variations is the dishes found in different Cantonese speaking areas with many towns and cities giving their name to dishes that you rarely see in the west. I'd also be interested to see what the food is like in those parts of Guangdong that border Hunan to see if there's a more spicy influence.
PS: Don't confuse this Cantonese spread with the foods of non-Han Chinese cuisine of say, Yunnan province. I have it on good authority that it's an easy mistake to make!
no subject
Date: 2011-03-09 02:47 pm (UTC)I'm quite a fan of stir-fried eggs, particularly eggs with tomatoes, which I often make for a quick lunch at home.