Chinese food, by way of Omaha

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Hello KKF! My name is Andy and I am a dad and home cook.

A month or two ago, I decided to try my hand at cooking Chinese food. Why? Well, it's fun to learn about new (to me) types of food, I get to do more knife work, and I think it will be a way to introduce a lot more vegetables into my diet. As a bonus, there is always some cultural education associated with learning about new kinds of cuisine. So I bought a cook book, Every Grain of Rice, got some pantry staples from the nearest market, and tried a few recipes. Last week I visited the larger Asian grocery in town and was very surprised at the terrific selection, particularly produce. I think I will have easy access to most ingredients that I need.

This thread is my attempt to share my thoughts on learning to cook a new cuisine. This is not a thread on how to cook. I'm a half-way decent home cook but I have absolutely no training cooking Chinese food - or any food traditionally associated with any Asian country. This is not a an attempt to explain Chinese cuisine. I don't have that knowledge and I doubt I could distill centuries of culinary traditions in an enormous country even if I wanted to. I'm pretty ignorant on this topic, so I want to learn. I'm going to read, I'm going to cook, and I'm going to ask questions (lots of them). Hopefully those of you with some answers are willing to share them.

After a half a dozen dishes, here are my initial thoughts. First, Fuschia Dunlop is an absolute gem. Her book explains things well and the recipes in her book are extremely approachable. Are they "authentic?" I don't know, you tell me, but they feel like genuine food that is not dumbed down. Second, Sichuan peppercorns are amazing! I've never eaten Chinese food in a restaurant that was not the typical Americanized Chinese food. My first reaction to them is citrus, not heat, and I've really enjoyed what their flavor profile adds to dishes. Third, there is a lot of cutting involved - totally a good thing. From prep of ginger, garlic, and green onion, to greens, peppers, and carrots, to proteins, almost everything touches the knife. It adds time to cooking. Particularly if you don't prep that quickly. But it is time well spent and can be pretty relaxing. Most of the dishes that I've prepared can be mostly prepped in advance, which is nice. Fourth, my wife and I have enjoyed everything. There's no magic involved, Ms. Dunlop's recipes make it pretty easy if you have basic kitchen skills. That makes it a shame that more of these recipes aren't found in mainstream restaurants across America.

My plan is to supplement this thread over time with thoughts on techniques, recipes, equipment, ingredients, etc. I'll also throw out a lot of questions because I have a lot to learn.

First two questions.

1. What is your favorite Chinese dish to make and why?
2. What preparation(s) do you recommend as an introduction to tofu?

Thanks in advance!
 
1. I like to make steamed seabass/cod/black cod with soy sauce, ginger and scallion. This is because the ingredients are readily available, unlike ingredients of many other Asian dishes.

2. Agedashi tofu. Get some extra firm silken tofu, press the water out, roll in potato starch, fry them up and you'll get some delicious gooey tofu!
 
You have what in my opinion is the best book to start with for Chinese cooking. I own her other three cookbooks as well as books by Eileen Yin-Fei Lo and Grace Young but Land of Plenty is, by far, my most used.
It is difficult to pick a single dish but Mapo Tofu is probably the one I make the most often. However, that comes with a caveat as I'm a not-quite vegetarian so I make it minus the pork or beef. I'm still experimenting to find the best meatless version but I most commonly use mushrooms, either fresh or dried, in place of the meat.
Along with Mapo Tofu I make Dunlop's Spicy Tofu with Garlic Stems when garlic stems, shallot stems, or ramps are available.
Inspired by @boomchakabowwow I intend to get the Thunder Group wok burner and a good wok (I have a Western flat bottom wok now but neither that nor my coil electric cooktop are really appropriate) and start more serious deep frying and wok work outside during Minnesota's five months of decent outdoor cooking weather.
 
When not eating out, I try to keep meals at home fairly healthy if possible. I grew up with Cantonese/Hong Kong style foods. I have a number of dishes I like to make that are simply steamed.

My go-to would have to be steamed black bean spare ribs, similar to what you would find at a dim sum restaurant. I can prep and marinade 2 meals worth for my family in 15minutes including clean up and store in the fridge. At dinner time, I simply pop it in a steamer for 18mins and make a pot of rice and steam veggies, using the same sauce for everything.

Other dishes I like to do include steamed chicken with minced ginger/garlic/scallion,
and also whole steamed fish with LOTS of ginger and scallion on top and drizzled with soy sauce and hot oil.

Stir frys are fun too. Nothing special there though. Just pick a protein and some veggies and toss in a wok.
 
You have what in my opinion is the best book to start with for Chinese cooking. I own her other three cookbooks as well as books by Eileen Yin-Fei Lo and Grace Young but Land of Plenty is, by far, my most used.
It is difficult to pick a single dish but Mapo Tofu is probably the one I make the most often. However, that comes with a caveat as I'm a not-quite vegetarian so I make it minus the pork or beef. I'm still experimenting to find the best meatless version but I most commonly use mushrooms, either fresh or dried, in place of the meat.
Along with Mapo Tofu I make Dunlop's Spicy Tofu with Garlic Stems when garlic stems, shallot stems, or ramps are available.
Inspired by @boomchakabowwow I intend to get the Thunder Group wok burner and a good wok (I have a Western flat bottom wok now but neither that nor my coil electric cooktop are really appropriate) and start more serious deep frying and wok work outside during Minnesota's five months of decent outdoor cooking weather.
Do it! If I can help in any way ....


oh. I’m one of the few that is NOT a fan of the Wokshop in San Francisco. Total tourist trap.
I looked for a wok that was thicker. I hated the ones that I could grab the sides and flex the bowl. I like them made of thicker stock so they feel rigid.
 
Do it! If I can help in any way ....


oh. I’m one of the few that is NOT a fan of the Wokshop in San Francisco. Total tourist trap.
I looked for a wok that was thicker. I hated the ones that I could grab the sides and flex the bowl. I like them made of thicker stock so they feel rigid.

I agree, Wokshop feels very much like a tourist trap. However, since they speak english there, I'd still say it's not that bad. I've bought a few items from them. The prices there are almost as good as some other chinese restaurant supply stores in SF but without the potential language barrier.

And to the OP about your second question:
Sticking to the steaming, I'd recommend steamed silken tofu with ground pork and scallions
 
I own every book Fuchsia has published and I've spent some time in Sichuan. Her recipes are very close to what you would be served there given every chef makes a few changes to any given dish.
 
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The plan for tonight was salt and pepper squid and braised choy sum.

That didn’t happen. When I got to the market, I wasn’t feeling braised veg, so I grabbed green beans instead. Also grabbed some tofu to have on hand, tracked down an employee to help me finally find some fermented black beans, and got the squid. Also grabbed a flat bottomed wok, because heck it was $17.

Oops, rookie mistake. I didn’t ask the guy at the fish counter to clean the squid and didn’t think about that until I got home.

So, I pick up the kids, unpack groceries, and realize €*$&, I gotta clean this squid (which I’ve never done) while feeding a 6, 4, and 2 year old.

Plan B. @DitmasPork to the rescue!! I decide to try and replicate his baked crispy, spicy tofu from last week. Rookie mistake #2, tofu is kinda delicate. Let’s just say we didn’t end up with perfect squares like he did. But damn. It was good. Really good. I was completely and utterly satisfied with dry stir fried green beans, rice, and baked tofu. Tomorrow I can figure out how to clean and prep squid.
 
A friend used to keep me supplied with squid he caught right off the dock in down town Seattle but that has been a long time ago now. It would take me a while to remember how to clean them too.
 
A couple of videos and I managed to work my way through the squid. Couldn’t figure out how to get tubes and still get all the guts out though.
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I really hoped that I’d have made more progress by now. I’ve tried 3-4 more dishes out of the cookbook, but now it’s time to get my butt back in gear.

It’s Lent, so fish fry Friday, right? Sweet and sour fish tiles (tang cu wa kuai yu). I used cod, mainly because I didn’t want to make an extra grocery trip and it’s what Trader Joe’s had. When I make it again, I’ll use something a little less dense. Otherwise, I’ll follow the recipe again to the letter.

This was really damned good. Light years better than the syrupy Americanized sweet and sour dishes. Great balance. Lots of garlic and ginger to give the sauce depth.

I paired the fish with green beans stir fried with fermented black beans and ground chiles. Good fish on its own, better with the fish. The beans were salty, a little spicy, and had a ton of umami punch from the black beans.

Overall, this was my favorite meal so far out of Every Grain of Rice.

Question: just how slow am I? Using one wok and staying organized, this took me about 2 hours to make. Not complaining - it was an awesome meal, but it feels like it could be done a lot faster.

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I applaud trying new cuisines! Chinese is nice (or annoying) in that you really do need to prep a lot of things ahead of time. In french/italian, I can get away with prepping as I go but chinese is harder.

My biggest tip is to get some dark soy. I always recommend this because I could never reproduce my grandmother's cooking until I bought dark soy. My dad never used dark soy and he always complained that he couldn't make stir fried beef taste the same. The answer is dark soy!

1) I like stir fried vegetables for the flexibility. It works just as well in a chinese dinner as an italian dinner. Almost all veggies can be stir fried. Get the freshest veggies you can, break or cut them into bite sized pieces (I like large bite sized) and cut some garlic. Hot pan, oil in, veggies in with a little salt. Cook until they turn a little darker but still have a crunch when you bite into them. Add garlic. Some people add garlic earlier, but I need to get my pan too hot so I always burn the garlic if I add early. I also like raw garlic. You can add soy but if your veggies are fresh I prefer salt. Make sure to leave the veggies crispy if they're fresh! If they're old, soy and whiskey. Maybe black bean or shrimp paste if they're really gone. Fish sauce and hot pepper is another choice, but thats more vietnamese imo.

You seem to like fish. I don't get fresh enough fish for steaming. I think steamed fish requires exquisitely fresh fish. So, I pan fry in neutral oil. If a whole fish (much preferred, head on, fins on, scaled and cleaned, gills off), stuff the cavity with garlic, ginger and green onions. Pan fry on each side and finish in the oven. While the fish finishes, heat a 1/4 cup of oil with some garlic in a small pan. When the fish comes out, plate it, add soy, and pour the oil on. Garnish with julienned green onions (1/2 bunch / person) tossed with salt and a little neutral oil.

If you get good fresh chicken, steamed chicken is heavenly. Dunlop has recipies for poached chicken, but I prefer to steam it. Same idea but you place the chicken on a deep pyrex plate and steam it. I prefer boning instead of choping through the bones, but personal preference.

Someone already mentioned black bean spare ribs. You can also do it with just soy but it isn't as good. I highly recommend making your own black bean paste. Many people like to leave the beans whole, but I don't like biting into them when I eat so I make a paste.

2) Tofu is delicious. My favorite is variants of ma po tofu (ground meat and hot pepper. I add black bean paste sometimes). I think they key is to use soft or silken tofu and be gentle. I don't think firm tastes good, too grainy for me. I also love pan fried soft tofu. The contrast of texture is fun.

If you are ok with a meat dish, I love ground pork with tofu. 1 lb ground pork 3 eggs, 1 package soft tofu, 1 package silken. Mix pork, eggs, dark soy, light soy, and a little garlic in a bowl. Take 1/3 of the soft tofu and break it up into meat mixture to lighten it (think souffle). Cube all the rest of the tofu, leaving the silken in larger cubes (because its hard to handle) and distribute into 2 9-10 in heat proof plates (I use pyrex pie plates that some people use for apple pie). Add your meat mixture on top. Steam for 15-30 minutes or until set and fully cooked (thermometer or poking with a chopstick). More authentic recipes adds preserved eggs, but its a little stinky. Actually, I don't think authentic recipes have tofu.... I think they add chinese sausage. I prefer the tofu.


Last tip: I'm a little obsessed with rice. Make sure to wash the rice before you use it. You want to get the starch (or dirt and bugs) out of it. I also like soaking the rice for 15-30 minutes, then pouring out the water and re-measuring. I stole this idea from Shizuo Tsuji's japanese cookbook. If you are using the finger method, the measurement will be all messed up by soaking the rice. For me, it's 1 index finger nail worth of water without soaking and 1/2 index finger nail worth of water with soaking. But, I use the markings on the side of my rice cooker for more accurate measurements ;) I also recommend reducing the water until it tastes too dry for you, but I'm a huge fan of dry rice.
 
Huge props for trying something different. I recall starting out learning to cook ages back, and the last cuisine I learned via recipe was Chinese.
Because... I am, and all around me were affordable Chinese eateries serving dishes that I could have for way less than the mark up on a bad steak.
These days I’ve gone back to learn again and I have recently purchased a cookbook from fuschia dunlop too. Her food is very different from the typically Cantonese and Hokkien fare I grew up eating. I find it very authentic though.

Theres so much to enjoy, but some home cooking I fall back on often becpause fast and delicious:
1. 3 cup chicken
2. Sesame oil chicken
3. Hk style steamed whole fish

Another tip. Typically you’d add all sauce ingredients at one or two intervals.
I just dump all the ingredients that are part of the sauce in that step into one bowl (sugar/soy/dark soy/vinegar/oyster etc etc) to save the cleanup, and speed up the sauce addition during high heat cooking.
Same for the aromatics that drop at once into a blazing hot pan.
Sequential stuff gets its own saucer.
 
Oh and you’ll get a lot faster as you repeat favourite recipes
 
My prep also used to take like an hour and a half, now after 2 or so years of cooking Chinese and Thai food I got faster. Still prepping is the way to go.
I literally cooked the copy of every grain of rice apart, my copy is so dirty with specks of soy and other stuff I could serve it....

that sweet and sour fish is delicious, I made it once but forgot until reading your post!
The beauty about Fuchsia Dunlop's books is that they contain info on ingredients too, you;ll just need to find a shop carrying all you need.
 
I think practice, practice, practice is probably what I need. I spent a lot of time measuring and rechecking the recipes even though they're pretty straightforward. With time I'll probably get more comfortable with them. The kids actually at the fish (without sauce), so that's another reason to make it again.

I haven't done any whole fish cooking yet. Not opposed to it at all, but my fish butchery skills amount to helping my grandma with sunfish and bluegills when I was a little kid.
 
Descaled and gutted is all you need.
It’s then ready for the steamer with just aromatics.
You can even cheat on the sauce by buying bottled steamed fish soy sauce by Lee Kum Kee (to save 5mins).
The bonus is kids won’t get weirded out by fish heads and the like.
 
teach kids that fish have heads pls....

breaking down a fish is easy, YT likely has dozens of great intro video's showing how, the advantage you have is that your knives are sharp, you can pick a proper knive AND know how to use it.

Gutting takes one slit and three fingers, descaling the back of a knife, a descaler or similar and some running water OR you get the fishmonger to do it (feels like cheating when asking but you'll regret not asking when you are cleaning up the scales)
 
It might interest you further to note that when you talk about Chinese food, it is not 1 cuisine.
In China alone, they have the 8 major styles of cuisine, and I have no idea the count for regional/ provincial cuisines. (Fifties maybe?)
Its like putting Spanish, French, Italian, German etc and calling it European food.

Strongest influence in US and Europe would be Cantonese style cuisine (Yue), more focus on the ingredients such as fresh fish to steam, whereas Peppercorn heat would likely come from Sichuan (Chuan).. Chili spices from Hunan etc.... When you start diving deeper in, you will find an endless variations to discover.. Its my life long journey to try as much as I can = ))

For Cantonese food, Garlic and Red Shallots (Baby/small ones if you can find it), is pretty core in the basic stir fry.. you can't really go too wrong when you brown those two in the oil before stir frying (Brown it and remove, store the aromatic oil for future use, or add in the ingredients just as the garlic and shallots are browning, so they do not burn and turn bitter)

Search Singapore/ Malaysia sites for more menus... there tend to be more available in English... lots of exotic/ interesting stuff to try...

Enjoy!
 
I like greens with pepper juice. I soak chilipitins (a small red pepper, hot) with rice wine vinegar. I age the pepper juice about 4 months. It works great on greens.
 
Yeah, Chinese greens can be great. I like to use a super-hot wok, some garlic in 1/8" slices, and throw in some homemade chicken stock after you've got the initial moisture out of the greens. When you do this to in-season pea vines (alas, not until around December), it's ambrosia.
 
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