Food reading
What Makes Chinese Food So Good?
The tips from a Reddit discussion I saved, on why restaurant Chinese food tastes different from what we make at home. Summed up here in our own words.
The tips
Velvet the meat
- Coat thin strips of meat in egg white, cornstarch, a splash of Shaoxing wine (or sherry), salt and a little sugar.
- Let it sit about 10 minutes, then blanch it quickly in hot water or oil before the stir-fry.
- It keeps the meat tender and stops it drying out over very high heat. It is common in American Chinese restaurants, less so in home cooking in China.
Get the wok much hotter
- A home stove cannot match a restaurant wok burner, which puts out several times the heat of a whole range into one small circle.
- Some cooks set the wok on an outdoor propane turkey-fryer burner (with a wok ring) to get there.
- Without it, a very hot cast-iron pan gives some of that charred, smoky flavor, especially for fried rice.
Stock the right pantry
- Shaoxing wine, light and dark soy sauce, oyster sauce, hoisin, sesame oil and MSG.
- Ready-made sauces and chicken stock powder (Lee Kum Kee is the brand people name) are what many restaurants use.
- An Asian market is far cheaper for all of it.
Have everything ready first
- The cooking takes 2 to 3 minutes, so cut everything and mix the sauce before the wok goes on.
- Most home sauce recipes need more oyster sauce than they call for. Homemade chili oil helps a lot.
To see the heat difference, watch the Bon Appétit video the thread pointed to, where a test kitchen cook and a restaurant wok cook make the same dish.