UNIT VI - CHINESE CUISINE

INTRODUCTION OF CHINESE CUISINE

Chinese cuisine is an important part of Chinese culture, which includes cuisine

originating from the diverse regions of China, as well as from Chinese people in other
parts of the world

Because of the Chinese diaspora (emigration), Chinese cuisine has influenced many
other cuisines in Asia, with modification made to cater to local palates.
The preference for seasoning and cooking tachniques of Chinese provinces depend on
differences in historical background and ethnic groups

Geographical features including mountains, rivers, forests and deserts also have a
strong effect on the local available ingredients, considering climate of China varies from
tropical in the south to subartic in the norteast.

Imperial, royal and noble preference also plays a role in the change of Chinese
cuisines. Because of imperial expansion and trading, ingredients and cooking
techniques from other cultures are integrated into Chinese cuisines over time.

Features of Chinese Cuisine

Chinese cuisine, rich and colorful has, as its main features diversified color, aromatic
flavor, and excellence taste. To make real Chinese dishes, none of the three
characteristics – color, aroma and delicious taste should be excluded.

Diversified Colors: Chinese food preparation has paid attention to aesthetic

appearance. To have a bright, pleased and harmonious color is one of the main
principles when cooking dishes. Two or three ingredients with different colors are added
as decoration to complement the main ingredients.

Aromatic Flavor

Usually aniseed, Chinese cinnamon and other spices are added to help dispel the
ingredients particular smells, such as foul, fishy and mutton smells.
Also some other flavors like shallot, ginger, garlic or chili, cooking wine and sesame oil
are added to make the dishes fragrant in flavor.

Excellent Taste:

Taste can be divided into five classes – sweet, sour, bitter, hot and salty in Chinese
cuisine.

Seasoning such as soy sauce, sugar, vinegar and salt in proper amount and in different
sequence, contribute to the taste of the dish. Those in southern China like to add more
sugar when cooking.

Texture: Texture is another feature of Chinese cuisine.

A dish may have just one or several contrasting textures such as tenderness, crispness,
crunchiness, smoothness and softness.

Texture to be avoided are sogginess, stringiness and hardness.

Cooking Method

Chinese divide the temperature of heat into ‘Military’ (High, fierce heat and medium) and
‘Civil’ (low gentle and weak) heat.

High or fierce Heat: Usually used for quick cooking of crisp and tender foods. Different
types of frying, steaming and instant boiling etc.

Medium or moderate Heat: can be used for quick-Braising stewing and boiling.

Low or gentle heat: Used for slow cooking, allowing the flavors to penetrate through all
the ingredients such as roasting and simmering.

Weak heat: Used for long cooking, turning hard ingredients to soft ones such as
braising.

Following are some commonly used methods in Chinese cuisine

1. Chuan-Quick or rapid boiling:
This simple method is used for making soups.

Bring water or stock to boil over high heat, add the ingredients and seasonings
as soon as the soup reboils.

2. Shaun-Instant Boiling
Thinly sliced ingredients are dipped into boiling water for a second or two then
served with a dip sauce

Keeps ingredients fresh and tender.

3. Ao-stewing or braising:
Flavor a little hot oil with spring onion and ginger root, then stir fry ingredients for
a short time.

Add stock and seasoning and simmer over low heat. Food will be soft and
tender.

4. HUI-Braising:
Method of cooking a dish that contains several ingredients.

Stir fry the ingredients first, add water and seasonings. Boil over high heat for
short while then thicken the gravy with diluted corn water before serving.
5. Ban-Mixing salads: this method doesn’t actually involve cooking, but simply calls
for cutting the raw or cooked ingredients and dressing it with seasonings.

6. Glang-Hot salads: Here the raw ingredients are par boiled or blanced first then
dressed with seasoning. Difference between cold salad and hot salad
dressing are as follows:

Cold salad dressing – soy sauce, Vinegar and sesame oil

Hot salad dressing: Ginger shreds, Sichuan peppercorns, salt, sugar and
sesame seed oil.

7. Yan-Pickling: Pickle the food with salt and sugar or with salt and wine. Dishes
prepared in this way have subtle fragrance and crispness.

8. Jian-shallow frying: A flat bottomed pas is used with little oil and medium or low
heat.

Seasonings are added when food is half done. The pan should be turned from
time to time during cooking so that heat is evenly distributed.

9. Ta-pan-Frying: Ingredients are coated with batter and fried in a small amount of
oil on both sides over a low heat until down.

Seasonings and sauce are added towards the end of cooking.

REGIONAL CUISINE OF CHINA

A number of different styles of Chinese cuisine. These styles are distinctive from one
another due to factors such a availability of resources, climate geography history
cooking techniques and lifestyle.

One style may favor the use of lots of garlic and shallots over lots of chili and spices,
while another may favor seafood over the use of meats bur perhaps the best known and
most influential are:

 Shantung Cuisine
 Sichuan Cuisine
 Cantonese Cuisine
 Peking Cuisine

Shantung Cuisine:
 This cuisine is from eastern region of China
 Wide variety of fruit, vegetables and fish is used light and delicate seasoning
 Foods are stir fried and Steamed mostly.
 Soy sauce from this area is considered best in China.
 Famous dishes is El carp (fresh fish braised in a delicate soy sauce based sauce
with vinegar, sugar, rice, wine and ginger
Peking Cuisine:
 This cuisine is from northern region of China (BEJING)
 Noodles, pancakes and dumplings are famous from this region as wheat and
corn is produced instead of rice.
 Many foods are preserved with less use of meat and excessive use of garlic,
onions, leeks and sesame seeds.
 LA-MEIN is famous dish which is a hand made noodles cooked in a soup or
braised in sauce and served with shredded Chinese mushroom and minced pork.
Sichuan Cuisine:
 This cuisine is from western region of China.
 Sichuan cuisine has strong flavorings and hot spices liked red chilies, pepper
corns, ginger.
 Different fruits vegetables, meat are also used.
 Sichuan chicken is a famous dish of this region
Cantonese Cuisine:
 This cuisine comes from southern part of the country. Foods are not overcooked
and less use of garlic is done.
 Sweet and sour dishes dim sums are best preferred.
  Stir fry and steaming are the most common methods of cooking.
 Famous dishes are Dim sums which are minced prawns, minced pork and
vegetables wrapped in thin flour-based skins and steamed, fried or deep fried.

STAPLE FOODS OF CHINA

 Rice
 Noodles
 Soyabean
 Wheat
 Vegetables

Rice
 Rice is a major staple food for people from rice farming areas in southern China.
 Steamed rice usually white rice, is the most commonly eaten form. Rice is also
used to produce beers, wines and vinegars.
 Rice is one of the most popular food in China and is used in many dishes.
Glutinous rice (“sticky rice”) is a variety of rice used in many specialty Chinese
dishes.

SOYABEAN
 Tofu is made of soybeans and is another popular food product that supplies
protein.
 Other products such as soy milk, soy paste, soy oil, and fermented soy sauce are
also important in Chinese cooking.

NOODLES
 Chinese noodles come dry or fresh in a variety of sizes, shapes and textures and
are often served in soups or fried as toppings.
 Some varieties, such as Shou Mian (literally noodles of longevity), are symbolic
of long life and good health according to Chinese tradition.
 Noodles can be served hot or cold with different toppings, with broth, and
occasionally dry. (as is the case with mi-fun.
 Noodles are commonly made with rice flour or wheat flour, but other flours such
as soybean are also used.
WHEAT
In wheat-farming areas in Northern China people largely rely on flour-based food, such
as noodles, breads jiaozi (a kind of Chinese dumplings, and mantou (a type of steamed
buns)

VEGETABLE
 Some common vegetables used in Chinese cuisine include Chinese leaves, bok
choy (Chinese cabbage), Chinese spinach (dao-mieu), on choy, yu choy, bitter
melon and Chinese broccoli or gailan (guy-lahn).
 Other vegetables include bean sprouts, pea vine tips, watercress, celery, carrots,
fresh mustard greens, and (Western) broccoli.
 A variety of dried or pickled vegetables are also eaten, especially in drier or
colder regions where fresh vegetables traditionally were hard to get out of
season.
HERBS AND SEASONING
 Spices and seasoning such as fresh ginger root, garlic, scallion, white pepper,
and sesame oil Sichuan peppercorns, star anise, cinnamon, fennel, cilantro,
parsley, and cloves are used widely.
 To add extra flavors to dishes, many Chinese cuisines also contain dried
Chinese mushrooms, dried baby shrimps, dried tangerine peel and dried Sichuan
chilies
 When it comes to sauces, China is home to soy sauce, which is made from
fermented soy beans and wheat.
 Oyster sauce, clear rice vinegar, chili, Chinkiang black rice vinegar, fish sauce
and fermented tofu are also widely used.
 A number of sauces are also based on fermented soybeans, including Hoisin
sauce, ground bean sauce and yellow bean sauce.
 DESSERTS AND SNACKS
 Generally, seasonal fruits serve as the most common form of dessert consumed
after dinner.
 Dim sum, originally means small portion of food, can refer to dessert, pastries.
 Later to avoid the disambiguation, tian dian and gau dian are used to describe
desserts and pastries.
 Chinese desserts are sweet foods and dishes that are served with tea, usually
during the meal, or at the end of meals in Chinese cuisine
 Besides served as a dim sum along with tea, pastries are used for celebration of
traditional festivals. The most famous one is moon cake, used to celebrate the
Mid-Autumn Festival.
 A wide variety of Chinese desserts are available, mainly including steamed and
boiled sweet snacks. Bing is an umbrella term for all breads in Chinese, also
including pastries and sweets.
 These are baked wheat flour based confections with different stuffings including
red bean paste, jujube and various of others.
 Su is another kind of pastry made with more amount of oil. Making the confection
more friable
 Chinses candies and sweets, called tang are usually made with cane sugar, malt
sugar, honey, nuts and fruit.
 Gau or Guo are rice based snacks that are typically steamed.
 Another cold dessert is called baobing, which is shaved ice with sweet syrup.
 Chinese jellies are known collectively in the language as ices.
  Many jelly dessertra are traditionally set with agar and are flavored with fruits,
though gelatin based jellies are also common in contemporary.
 Chinese dessert soups typically consist of sweet and usually are hot soups.
Ex. Green bean dessert soup

DAIRY PRODUCTS
 Chinese in earlier dynasties evidently drank milk and ate dairy products, although
not necessarily from cows, but perhaps koumiss (fermented mare’s milk) or
goat’s milk.
 Tapioca pudding and “double-skin milk” as dessert is also quite popular.
 Many Chinese until recent have avoided milk, partly because pasturage for milk
producers in a monsoon rice ecology is not economic.
 Ice cream is commonly available and popular throughout China.
Equipments and Utensils

 Chinese cuisine consist of Very few equipments. To start with only four most are
essential in order to cook Chinese cuisine i.e. Cleaver, block, wok and stirrer.
 Sives, strainer, casserole, steamer etc are other equipments used in western
Version of the cuisine.