What’s In My Chinese Kitchen?
Feb 7th, 2008 by admin
Gong Hei Fat Choi! Happy Chinese New Year! Another exciting year of cooking and discovery starts today…
This post was inspired by a question that my journalist friend Susan S. Cheung asked me, in relation to her article A British Born Chinese Guide to the Chinese Kitchen for British Chinese community website DimSum. Based in upstate New York, Susan writes features for DimSum and her local paper Spotlight on various aspects of Chinese life and culture, and I’ve learnt much from her. Best of all, she’s an excellent cook! She wanted my opinion on what kitchen essentials one would need in order to prepare simple Chinese food. I felt a bit embarrassed to be asked this, as she’s clearly more of an expert than me!
In 1996, my mother sent me some of her personal recipes for Cantonese food when I went to live in Beijing for a couple of years. She didn’t think I would survive on northern Chinese food without some good home-style Cantonese cooking. Needless to say, I never got round to trying any of the recipes and instead ate out far too much, enjoying all kinds of food from jiaozi to Xinjiang grilled skewers, and of course dim sum every Sunday.
Ten years on, I started World Foodie Guide and have added these precious recipes to share with you. I’ve also become more interested in cooking as a result, particularly Chinese food.
I never used to discuss food in such detail with my mother. When I was growing up, I would watch her prepare meals in the kitchen, but always preferred to observe rather than help her out. But now we exchange cooking tips by email and she’s even left a comment about one of my own recipes – to add some ginger to my XO scallops with noodles!
Chinese home-cooked food is very different to restaurant food. It is much simpler, healthier, free of MSG and more importantly, made with love. In Ang Lee’s Eat Drink Man Woman, cooking is used as a means of communicating love for one another within the Taiwanese family of one man and his three adult daughters. And throughout Qiu Xiaolong‘s excellent Inspector Chen series of crime novels, there are wonderfully vivid descriptions of Shanghainese food, especially of simple meals cooked at home.
So, to answer Susan’s question. In my opinion, you don’t need many things in your kitchen to start cooking simple Chinese food. This is what my husband and I currently have in our kitchen, which has been enough to make a good number of Chinese dishes. And we don’t use these solely for Chinese cooking either, as they are versatile enough to be used in other types of cuisine.
We don’t cook Chinese food that regularly, apart from dumplings, noodles, hot pot and the occasional stir-fry (try stir-fried morning glory with fermented bean curd, it’s delicious!), which goes to show that these are just very useful products to have in any kitchen. If you’re about to start stocking up, get the basics first, and add some of the other useful ingredients later.
Basic ingredients:
- soy sauce (dark and light versions)
- sea salt
- white & black peppercorns
- ginger (choose the freshest pieces possible)
- garlic
- spring onion
- groundnut or peanut oil
- cornflour or cornstarch (useful for thickening sauces)
- dried noodles (I have many varieties)
- rice (I use Thai fragrant rice)
Other useful ingredients:
- XO sauce (an essential for me)
- sesame oil (I use a Japanese brand, but any good quality version is fine)
- Sichuan chilli oil
- tofu (pre-packed soft or firm Japanese tofu that will keep for ages)
- sesame seeds (toast in a hot, dry pan)
- dried rice vermicelli (smaller packs are easier to use than large ones)
- Sichuan peppercorns (roast and grind before use to create that numbing and spicy sensation)
- sweet chilli sauce (good for making dips)
- Thai fish sauce (good for stir-frying)
- Chinese cooking wine (I have a bottle of Shaoshing)
- dried scallops
- dried Chinese mushrooms
- fresh red and green chillies
You can store dried scallops and dried mushrooms in the fridge, where they will last for months if properly sealed in airtight containers. They are expensive, but the pricier, the better the quality. My mother gave me some from her precious stash once, to make her Chinese tofu with dried scallops and mushrooms.
Other fresh ingredients can be bought when you know what you’re going to cook, including:
- noodles (from the fridge section of any Chinese supermarket, which will keep for a few days)
- tofu (as above)
- Chinese greens (I like gai lan, tong ho, choi sum and dou miao – pea shoots)
- coriander
- mushrooms
- fish (Chinese people like whole fish, but if you prefer, buy fillets)
- seafood
- meat
In terms of equipment, one needs very few specialist items. Apart from our normal pots and pans, we have:
- one wok
- two bamboo steamers for dumplings
- one metal rack to steam things on, that goes inside the wok or large saucepan
- pair of long cooking chopsticks
The wok is multi-functional, for stir-frying things of course, but also for steaming things like fish. My mother has a great steamed fish recipe and she always uses a wok. You can also just cook with it as you would a normal pan, and leave things to simmer or cook slowly. It’s easy to clean and it’s a great piece of equipment to have. Ours doesn’t have a lid, but it would be very useful to buy a wok with a lid. We use the lid from our large pan when we need to use one.
When we started making steamed and pan-fried dumplings, we invested in two bamboo steamers. They’re not big as they have to fit into our largest saucepan, one at a time, rather than stacked up. About six or seven dumplings can fit into one steamer. You can place it in the wok, on a metal rack. This metal rack is very useful for steaming things, whether in the wok or large saucepan, as it raises the dish above the water.
We make rice in a saucepan, but if you wanted to, you could buy an electric rice cooker if you were going to use it on a regular basis. After many years of not owning one, I’ve bought a new rice cooker. It’s very useful, even just for steaming dishes placed over the rice (again on that indispensable metal rack!)
I’ll be writing more on how to use different Chinese condiments, cooking and dipping sauces. You’ll find these in the The Larder section. Meanwhile, have a look at some of the Chinese recipes on World Foodie Guide, if you want to start cooking right away…
Let me know what’s in your Chinese kitchen!
Hi Helen Yuet Ling,
Happy New Year! Gung Hei Fat Choi!
I agree with your mum that white pepper is used in Chinese cooking. My parents only use white pepper too. The flavour is different between white and black pepper and white is more complimentary for Chinese food. I haven’t seen black pepper used in recipes for Chinese food.
When I make crabmeat, egg and sweetcorn soup (or without the crab for the vegetarian variety) or else I make a version that has minced pork, egg drop and processed peas, then I add a dash of white pepper along with a drop of sesame oil to round the soup off at the end of cooking.
Another ingredient that I forgot to mention in my article and I don’t know if you agree as to its use is to have some kind of vinegar available in your kitchen? I recommend a more milder kind, like Chinese black vinegar, or a Japanese rice vinegar or a mild white vinegar rather than a flavoured vinegar or one based on a wine vinegar. Vinegar adds a depth and another layer of flavour to a dish – especially if you work on the principles of a balance of the classic tastes in Chinese cooking: salty, sweet, sour, bitter and pungent. Vinegar is really good for tenderising meat like lamb and takes away its heavy “meaty” smell, just soak the lamb for a time in vinegar and wash off before you cook it.
Thanks for your great ideas and thoughts in your piece. And have a great year blogging in the Year of the Rat.
Susan S. Cheung
Hi Susan, Gung Hei Fat Choi to you too! Hope you’re having a good day over there.
You can tell, can’t you, that I didn’t consult my mother on ingredients in the kitchen?! Of course she uses vinegar (I think it’s a mild one too), but I’m not quite sure how. So I will ask her right now! I do have white wine vinegar, as well as rice vinegar, by the way…
All the best with another year of features writing!
Helen Yuet Ling
Hi Helen,
Happy Year of the Rat!
Do you ever use 5-spices powder? It is an excellent substitute for the braising herbs and spices (e.g. aniseed, cinnamon sticks, peppercorns etc etc) and is great for marinading lamb chops and other meats.
I may be biased, but I also find the cane sugar tablets (or sticks) gives a special edge, compared to granulated sugar or brown sugar.
Both these two ingredients are essential for the traditional Teochiu goose, which I made for Chinese New Year. I have a recipe which is adapted from the one given to me by my Teochiu mother-in-law some years ago.
The Cockroach Catcher’s wife
Hello! Happy New Year to you too!
Thank you for the 5 spices powder tip. I haven’t personally used it, but I wonder if my mother has? I will ask her when I speak to her. She does use the cane sugar tablets that you refer to though. I remember that really well.
But the Teochiu goose sounds heavenly. Is it too much of a family secret to share on World Foodie Guide?!
Helen Yuet Ling
Hi Helen,
I thought you might be interested to see a photo of how the Teochiu goose ended up on the serving dish, and posted one on The Cockroach Catcher Blog. I also posted a photo of Seared Scallops, pointing out that the sea scallop is a great natural source of glucosamine.
Thank you! It looks so delicious…
Helen Yuet Ling
Great site! It will take me several days to go over all that you have in it.
One thing I have in my kitchen are several Shaguos (sandy clay pots). I have 4 small ones I use for soups. My three daughters and I love noodle soup (Tang Mien) and I can use the same basic ingredients, but individualize each one at the same time. I love lajia, as does my 11 year old. My two other daughters don’t like too much heat, so I can make theirs less spicy. I also have two large ones for Chinese casseroles and large things like chicken or duck. I also make Jook in the largest because everyone loves it.
Good site. I’ve bookmarked it and will check it out often.
Mike Stalder
Hi Mike, thanks for visiting! What a great idea to have ‘personalised’ noodle soup. It sounds like you do an awful lot of Chinese cooking. You might like my mum’s chicken and potato stew, which is my absolute favourite. The longer you cook it, the better it is, and the next day, it’s even more flavoursome. I’ve been eating it since I was a child.
Keep in touch!
Hi
I loved your site, particularly the simple, straightforward way in which you write!
I particularly ADORE the way the Chinese do their veg (I am a hard core vegetarian); could you direct me to sections on your site where you’ve touched upon the same? No hidden animal fats, though. I want to increase my repertoire and get that spicy, nutty flavour in my kitchen too.
I am currently in Taiwan and – being completely illiterate in Chinese – can barely make my way through the ethnic food sections in supermarkets. I have copied down your essentials, but I think my struggle with labels for the same will continue!
thaanks!
Hi Lavanya
Thank you! My husband’s vegetarian (and English). It used to be hilarious when we’d have dinners with my relatives. He’d say he was vegetarian, and get offered chicken and seafood!
Everything related to recipes will be under the Recipes tab at the top of this page. Unfortunately most of them come from my mum or friend, neither of whom are vegetarian. What about the steamed or pan-fried dumplings recipe? Husband and I came up with the vegetarian fillings ourselves, but you can use anything that you can find in a Taiwanese supermarket. And hot pot is great, as you can choose any vegetarian ingredients that you like. We have it a lot in the winter. Finally, husband is great at stir-frying vegetables – really simply by frying with chopped garlic and ginger in vegetable oil! Season with salt and pepper. This is how we eat vegetables whether at home or in restaurants. Do miao (pea shoots) is delicious! See if you can find it.
Write back if you need more help. I could get my mum to write down the ingredients in Chinese, so that you can print the page off and take it with you when you go shopping?
PS Have you been to Din Tai Fung (vegetarian xiao long bao) or Slack Season Tan Tsi Noodles? They were my favourites when I was in Taipei a few years ago…
Good luck!
Helen Yuet Ling