About Chinese Cooking
Chinese cooking has a main feature diversified by color, aromatic and excellent taste. There are 5 elements of flavors-sweet, sour, bitter, pungent and salty which are different with Western cooking of the additional one of the special spice flavors that is pungent. Chinese believe food is the most appreciate and important in their life -“Hunger breeds discontent-民以食為天” and this is the culture of Oriental Chinese Cuisine. This traditional culture believes was bringing Chinese cooking continuing developed in the highest level.
Basically, each daily meal should have “3 dishes 1 soup” with the rice but for the celebrities additional dishes will be eaten. There are 8 types of staple foods in Chinese cooking. Rice is the major staple food in the Chinese cuisine and normally eaten in form of steamed rice. In Chinese, Pasta was called as Noodle which is the secondary staple food. There is plethora of size, shape and texture of noodle and normally either come with dry or fresh. The famous noodle is called “Sou Mian- 寿面” which the noodle type is long, slim and soft. During the birthday date, Chinese people especially the eldest will eat this “Sou Mian” because Chinese believe it will bring longevity and healthy life. Besides that, soybeans, wheat, vegetables, herbs, seasoning and desserts are the staple food in Chinese cooking. The famous seasoning sauces are soya sauce, oyster sauce, rice vinegar, fish sauce, fermented tofu (furu) and hoisin sauce. For the spice types, ginger, white pepper, garlic, spring onion and sesame oil are usually used in Chinese cooking.
Chinese cooking methods can cook in technique quick time or prolonged time. For the quick time methods are boiling-煠, braising-烧, scalding-焯, frying-炸, sautéing-炒and dressing-拌. For the prolonged time methods are stewing-煨, simmering-炖, steaming-蒸, decoction-熬, roasting-烤, smoking-熏and marinating-腌. The most common for preparing vegetables are boiling, braising, sautéing and dressing. For meats and chicken cooking methods are braising, frying, sautéing, stewing, decoction, roasting, smoking and marinating. Simmering are the special methods of cooking which is also called double steaming and is normally use for cooking the soups with herbal medicine. Except the simmering method for cooking soups, decoction method also is the common method. Besides that, sometime the Chinese cooking will combine the cooking method to make the Chinese cuisine be more appetizing, delicious and exotic.
Chinese cooking style are related with the province or region. There are 8 major region cuisines such as Anhui, Cantonese, Fujian, Hunan, Jiangsu, Shangdong, Szechuan and Zhejiang. Cantonese, Szechuan, Shangdong and Jiangsu are the best well known in the world. Cantonese region cuisine is more to ingredient pork, beef, chicken, organ meats, chicken feet, duck tongue and snails. Steaming and sautéing are the most favorite cooking methods. The famous dishes are Dim Sum, Chinese Steamed Egg, Cantonese Fried Rice, Sweet & Sour Pork, Steamed Spare Ribs with Fermented Black Beans, Blanched Vegetables with Oyster Sauce, Wonton Noodle, Beef Chow Fun and Black Sesame Soup.
Spicy and pungent flavors are the most unique for Szechuan region cuisine. Garlic, chili peppers, peppercorn (花椒-huajiao) and Zhitianjiao (指天椒- zhǐtiānjiāo), peanuts, sesame paste and ginger are most common used ingredients in Szechuan cooking. The famous dishes are Kong Po Chicken, Mapo Dofu, Szechuan Hot Pot, Spicy Deep Fried Chicken and Dan Dan Noodle. For Shangdong cuisine is the north part of China cuisine which also called as Lu Cuisine. Seafood such as scallop, prawn, clam, sea cucumber and squid are the most famous ingredient in Shangdong cuisines. Tenderness and freshness are most suitable to describe Jiangsu cuisine. Jingling Salted Duck, Crystal Meat, Triple Combo Duck and Dried Duck are the famous dishes for Jiangsu cuisine.
Nowadays, Chinese cooking become popular for people around the world because of the unique taste and plethora choices. Every authentic dish is art of balance and its look like tricky. But actually it is just a simple sautéing or stir frying with a work and different important ingredients. You may try to learn it now for Chinese cooking and I assure you the Chinese food aroma will be around your home.