quick & easy chinese
quick & easy chinese
70 everyday recipes
by Nancie McDermott photographs by Maren Caruso
Dedication:
To the memory of Dr. Ting-Chien Lee, (1923–1985). Through his work as a pediatrician, scientist, scholar, and teacher, he made this world a better place. Through his example as a son, brother, husband, father, and friend, he showed his family and community how to live with generosity, wisdom, and love.
Acknowledgments:
Ten thousand thanks to the brilliant team at Chronicle Books: Bill LeBlond and Amy Treadwell who said “yes” and saw things through with patient wisdom; Peter Perez and Amy Portello who put my books into the limelight and kept them there; and Jennifer Tolo Pierce whose extraordinarily beautiful design illuminates this book. Photographer Maren Caruso and her team brought the recipes to life handsomely through their excellent work. Sarah Baurle, Jane Falla, and my literary agent Lisa Ekus-Saffer continue to work thoughtfully and tirelessly on my behalf. My beloved friends Jill O’Connor, Dean Nichols, and Debbie Gooch keep me laughing and looking ahead, and my husband Will Lee and daughters Camellia and Isabelle feed my heart and soul every single day.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction
Equipment & Techniques
Glossary of Chinese Ingredients
Appetizers & Snacks
Soups
Chicken & Eggs
Beef
Pork
Fish & Shellfish
Vegetables & Salads
Rice
Noodles
Sweets
Sauces & Other Basic Recipes
Quick & Easy Chinese Menus
Further Reading & Cooking
Mail-Order Sources for Asian Ingredients
Index
INTRODUCTION
It’s another way-beyond-busy weeknight, and all across the land, many a would-be cook reaches out for two things: the telephone and the take-out menu for ordering Chinese. It’s fast, handy, satisfying, and more varied than pizza, and if you’re lucky, it can be delivered to your door.
We enjoy going out to eat Chinese food too, whether we’re seated in a local mom-and-pop restaurant, a glittering dim sum palace, or a plush temple of haute cuisine Chinoise. Chinese takeout fills us up at lunch and dinner and serves as a mealtime staple on the way home from work. Enamored of delicacies such as won ton soup, mu shu pork, kung pao chicken, and orange beef, and blessed with abundant and varied sources for it, we are a people in love with Chinese food.
Our appreciation for Chinese food is so strong that a new generation of Chinese eateries has joined the marketplace in the last decade, serving up a Chinese-inspired take on fast food. Visit the food court at any major shopping mall or airport, and you’ll find multiple counters serving generous portions of dishes many Chinese people would not recognize. Meat and veggies are napped in delightfully flavorful sauces, creating delicious hybrids that we mall rats love. Major upscale chain restaurants are thriving as well, some serving pan-Asian menus and others offering their version of traditional Chinese cuisine.
Clearly we love Chinese food, and we partake of it in its various incarnations all across the land. The place we need to see it next is on our own kitchen tables. Wonderful Chinese dishes belong among the basic weeknight repertoire of the everyday cook, but right now you seldom find them there. Chinese cooking is often considered adventurous, ambitious, possibly admirable, but most of all, daunting and hard. Many a good cook has taken it up and gotten into it, but eventually the wok ends up in the garage and the dozen bottles of sauces skulk in the back of the fridge.
Quick & Easy Chinese is about cooking delicious Chinese dishes using ingredients you can easily find, tools you probably have, and the kind of time you can reasonably spare to make dinner at home. China being a rather large country with an abundance of people, climates, cultures, and cuisines, it makes sense, to me, to start small, with a reasonable, noble goal. The goal of this book is to share the everyday ways that I cook wonderful Chinese food at home for my family and friends, even on a busy day.
Bringing Chinese cooking home makes sense today. Access to traditional ingredients has never been better, with once-exotic sauces and condiments, fresh and dried noodles, and an abundance of gorgeous and good-for-you vegetables easily found around the country. Traditional cooking equipment is widely available, not that home cooks need anything fancy to cook everyday Chinese food. Stir-frying works beautifully in a large, deep skillet, and a good chef’s knife does the chopping if a cleaver isn’t among the batterie de cuisine.
To bring Chinese cooking home, it makes sense to focus on China’s home cooking, the way literally millions of Chinese people cook in ordinary or even modest kitchens, every single day. Hong Kong seafood is fabulous, hand-tossed noodles are astounding, and dim sum parlors are a hoot, but none of these Chinese culinary experiences have much to do with a family cooking and eating dishes to go with rice. Starting with home cooking, I’ve worked out versions of traditional dishes that are simple, straightforward, and accessible to everyday cooks in the West, because that is exactly what they are within Chinese cuisine.
Here you will find recipes for Chinese dishes that are delicious and doable. My choices reflect the breadth and complexity of Chinese cooking, with dishes from Chinese home kitchens in the city and in the countryside; from overseas Chinese communities in Asia and in the West; from Singapore, Hong Kong, and Taiwan; and from the Chinese American restaurant repertoire, which was my first introduction to this extraordinary cuisine.
Like the land from which it grew, Chinese cooking is a big, bold, complicated, endlessly varied, mysterious, intriguing, and fascinating subject, full of detail, contradictions, and lore. Chinese restaurant menus bulge with edible offerings, but not every beloved Chinese dish is in this book. There are two reasons for not including them all. First, I adore going out for Chinese food. I love the round tables, the energy, and the chance to share dishes rather than choosing one entrée during a restaurant meal. Second, many classic Chinese restaurant dishes are beyond the scope of most home cooks, even in China. Sizzling rice soup, whole fish steamed or fried, Peking duck, and honey-coated apples are a few of the not-quick-and-not-easy dishes well worth the journey to a Chinese restaurant.
Going out for Chinese food puts me and my family in a boisterous room full of happy people, feasting on an abundance of tasty dishes. Chinese people consider eating out a basic component of culinary life. They love dining out in restaurants plain and fancy, and they delight in picking up food to go from street vendors and food stalls. But what Chinese people still do, every day, all around the world, is cook simple, wonderful Chinese food at home. So do I, and so can you.
My wish for you is that this book guide you toward putting delicious Chinese dishes on your table, for your own delight and for people you enjoy. I hope that you enjoy shopping for the ingredients, chopping them up, and catching the aroma of garlic and ginger as they sizzle in the pan, and that as you toss and season and ladle out these dishes, you cook up lots of good times with family and friends.
EQUIPMENT & TECHNIQUES
When teaching my students about Chinese cooking, the quintessential message I present is to focus not on the first word, Chinese, but on the second word, cooking. Certainly even a small aquaintance with Asian cuisines shows that there is a world of difference, but the basic aspects which matter in home cooking are universal kitchen truths, useful anytime and anyplace you cook.
The key to happiness and good results in most cuisines, but particularly Asian cooking, is good knife skills. Knowing how to hold and use a good knife is extremely helpful to you in the kitchen. While books can convey many
culinary techniques, knife work calls for observation and practice and ideally instruction from a person who knows knives as the primary kitchen tool. Look for classes at cooking schools in your area, within culinary arts programs at professional culinary schools, or in culinary arts programs at community colleges and technical institutes. Or talk to chefs and cooks in restaurants where you enjoy eating and see if you can work out a trade (perhaps your famous chutney, spiced almonds, or pound cake in exchange for a session of instruction in knife skills).
Preparation is the central step in Chinese cooking. An emphasis on sauces and seasonings stirred together and added during cooking; fresh vegetables and fragrant ingredients chopped, sliced, and minced; organizing ingredients; and setting the stage are crucial to enjoying the process, much more so than in the West. Here we employ an oven in which heat does its slow steady work, and a stove with many burners. With our tradition of cooking vegetables in pots with water and minor seasoning, many cooking steps can take place in sequence in Western cuisines.
Think of a stew, for which you season and brown meat in a heavy casserole, and then add onions, garlic, and a little wine and stock. Let it simmer awhile as you chop and add potatoes, mushrooms, and carrots, tossing in some thyme, and perhaps stirring in a roux at the end. Your process and pace differ considerably, as do the resulting dishes.
Within Chinese cuisine, the actual cooking time for many dishes, even soups, is measured in minutes, with a few or many small steps having been taken to set the stage. Often the preparation can be done ahead, or in stages. If you have someone helping you with these preparations, it creates pleasure while speeding things up a bit, though you can create these dishes without assistance, quickly and easily.
If you’re planning a special Chinese meal, make yourself the executive chef. Think through what needs doing and when, and consider what you enjoy most. Then recruit a helper or two if you can, and delegate a few tasks to them. For the benefit of enjoying your cooking, you will probably find willing workers who take direction well, in anticipation of enjoying the result.
But remember that this is the quick and easy edition, in which laborious banquet menus are omitted and speedy and sensational weeknight dishes are the way to go. Even if you are on your own, a recipe like Everyday Green Beans (page 119) and a platter of Ham-and-Egg Fried Rice (page 134) can be on your table with a few minutes of preparation and a quick turn at the stove.
For equipment, keep it simple. A wok is designed for stir-frying and can be adapted for steaming and stews as well; but a large, deep skillet and the usual saucepans of a Western kitchen are all you need for cooking the dishes in this book. Spatulas that turn burgers and pancakes will work fine for scooping and tossing lo mein noodles, and a pair of spring-loaded V-shaped metal tongs makes a fantastic stand-in for cooking chopsticks and for working with any kind of noodles or pasta.
For insight into the world of wok-cooking, both in terms of traditional culture and of getting a tasty dinner on the table, spend time with The Breath of a Wok, by Grace Young (see page 182). Even if you don’t own a wok or plan to buy one, Ms. Young opens a window into the Chinese kitchen, and you will enjoy the view.
GLOSSARY OF CHINESE INGREDIENTS
ASIAN SESAME OIL
This is made from white sesame seeds that are toasted to an aromatic, golden-brown state and then ground to extract their oil. Treasured predominantly for seasoning rather than cooking, this tea-colored oil comes in small glass bottles and is used throughout Asia, a teaspoon or two at a time, to flavor soups, dressings, stir-fried dishes, dipping sauces, and more. I consider it an essential item in my pantry, along with soy sauce; it provides extraordinary and delicious flavor and aroma in the simplest way, a drop or a dollop at a time.
ASIAN SESAME PASTE
Like tahini, Chinese-style sesame paste is made by grinding up white sesame seeds, but in this case the seeds are toasted first to develop a nutty flavor and handsome café au lait color. Typical brands come in 7-ounce jars, possibly labeled “sesame sauce” rather than “sesame paste.” Expect the paste to be very thick, and possibly with a thin layer of oil on top. Use a fork to carefully mix the oil back in a little, but don’t worry; mixed or not, it will deliver marvelous flavor. Peanut butter makes a very good substitute, with freshly ground unsweetened types providing the closest match. Asian sesame paste keeps for about 2 months on the counter and a little longer if refrigerated.
CHENKIANG RICE VINEGAR
Made from sticky rice and salt, this robust Chinese vinegar provides a handsome, deep-brown color as well as rich, complex flavor to Chinese sauces, pickles, stir-fries, and dipping sauces. You can substitute red wine vinegar, apple cider vinegar, or even balsamic vinegar with good results.
CHILI OIL
A fiery essence of dried red chili flakes cooked in very hot oil, this condiment is widely available in Asian markets, and also easy to make at home (page 175). You can use the oil only, or a mixture of oil and chilis and seeds right from the jar, in dipping sauces, marainades, and any recipe calling for chili sauce or hot sauce.
CHILI-GARLIC SAUCE
This chili sauce is made from fresh hot red chiles mashed up with garlic, vinegar, and salt, creating a thick, tomato-red puree, fiery and delicious with visible seeds. Asian markets have it, but you can also find it in many supermarkets, sold in small plastic jars with parrot-green lids and a rooster on the label.
CHINESE-STYLE BLACK BEANS
See Fermented Black Beans.
CILANTRO
Soft, lacy leaves of cilantro provide bright flavor and aroma to many Chinese dishes, and are enjoyed as a beautiful jolt of color to finished dishes as well. You’ll find it in produce sections around the country, sometimes labeled Chinese parsley, or coriander, since it is the leafy green plant grown from coriander seeds. I keep a bunch on hand and use it often. I like to put its roots in a jar of water and keep it out on my kitchen counter, along with the ginger, garlic, onions, and dried chilies, so that I can use it easily. If you wanted to store it for a few days, put roots or ends in a jar of water, cover the leaves loosely with a plastic or paper bag from the produce section, and store in the refrigerator for up to 4 days.
DARK SOY SAUCE
This is soy sauce with heft and hue, more of an increase in color and richness than in the salty character for which regular soy sauce is valued. You use this by the teaspoons, and a tiny splash turns a stir-fried dish a magnificent caramel-colored hue, while harmonizing with other flavors in the dish. I list it as optional in many dishes, since its role is often (though not always) to be colorful rather than to mediate the flavor. But if you can buy a bottle or two from an Asian source (see page 186) and keep it on hand, you will get lots of service and pleasure from it.
DRIED RED CHILI PEPPER FLAKES
Keep these on hand for scattering into stir-fries when you want a little heat, or a lot. The texture adds beauty as well as a complex heat, better to me than plain old finely ground chilies or cayenne. You can also make chili oil using these chili flakes (page 175), but treat yourself to a fresh supply if yours has been on the shelf for longer than a few months. It stays hot but loses some character, so I like to toss it into the compost and start a new culinary fire with a fresh supply now and then.
BLACK BEANS
Made from small black soy beans that are salt-preserved and fermented to develop a deep, tangy flavor, Chinese-style black beans deliver fantastic flavor to many Asian dishes. Especially popular with clams, whole fish, and other seafood, black beans tend to be chopped up or mashed with garlic and ginger before use, and then added to dishes which are stir-fried or steamed. You’ll find them in cellophane or plastic bags, or in cylindrical cardboard containers. They should be soft to the touch. Transferred to a glass jar and kept away from heat and air, they should last indefinitely at room temperature.
FIVE-SPICE POWDER
This spice mixture is a signature seasoning of the Western region of China, and is valued as a complement to braised
dishes, stir-fries, and grilled food. Made from star anise, cinnamon, Szechuan peppercorns, fennel, and cloves, five-spice powder infuses its sweet-smoky flavor into marinades for poultry and meat, which are then roasted to an aromatic and flavorful perfection.
GARLIC
Keeping fresh garlic handy gives you extraordinary flavor for simple dishes. Many supermarkets carry peeled whole cloves in jars, which make chopped garlic a very quickly produced ingredient for busy cooks. You can also use a Chinese cleaver or a chef’s knife to get into garlic cloves quickly, placing a clove on your cutting board, placing the flat blade of either knife on the clove with the sharp edge away from you, and giving the flat side of the knife a good thump with your fist. The paper will pop open and easily fall away, and the clove will be split open and easy to chop.
GINGER
Get to know fresh ginger if you don’t already consider it part of your elementary kitchen essentials. Sliced in thin coins, cut into shreds or slivers, or finely chopped for adding to stir-fries and stews, fresh ginger is an incomparable powerhouse of brilliant, cool, and astringent flavor that makes an extraordinary difference in simple dishes with very little work. I use it constantly in all kinds of dishes, and keep it out on the counter with the garlic, dried chiles, and onions so that I won’t for-get I have it on hand. I buy it often in smaller amounts since I can always find it at my supermarket, where it is stored at room temperature. To keep it long term, you could trim away any soft or tired-looking portions, wrap it loosely in paper towels, and put it in a paper bag or open plastic bag in the crisper.
GREEN ONIONS
Keeping a bunch or two of these familiar produce items makes great sense when you’re cooking Chinese and Asian food. You will use them often, for their color, flavor, and beauty; it’s an item to pick up often at the store.
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