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About LinkBacksThanks for the recipe Nick... Was wanting to compare and contrast as my wife makes a stonking hot and sour (will ask her to write the recipe up at some point)
Thanks for the recipe Nick... Was wanting to compare and contrast as my wife makes a stonking hot and sour (will ask her to write the recipe up at some point)
hmmm Tom Yum soup
my Virtualisation Blog http://jfvi.co.uk Virtualisation Podcast http://vsoup.net
MSG is a flavour enhancer, and is used quite a lot in the Chinese catering trade. Chinese home cooking will hardly ever use MSG, and I remember a small pepper pot of MSG lasted my mother a few years.Originally Posted by menthel
But you'd be surprised how often MSG appear, products like certain brands of soya sauce, oyster sauce, etc. containg MSG.
Black bean sauce....
TBH, there is no such thing as black bean sauce. Jars of black bean sauce which you can buy in supermarkets are for convenience more than anything. Imagine a normal 'wet' stir-fry (one with more sauce, I'll explain at the bottom), toss in some ground black beans, and the flavour of the beans goes into the sauce and hence your dish.
A word of warning, eating too much black beans will blur your vision.
'Wet' stir-fry - one where the dish ends up with sauce. Cooking like any other stir-fry but adding extra stock/water towards the end of the cooking to help mix the flavours around and cook any veg that has been added late. The sauce is thickened right at the end of cooking with either corn flour or corn starch. The way the thickener is applied help add a 'sheen' to the dish.
'Dry' stir-fry - eg. Singapore fried vermicelli. Hot wok with very hot oil is needed in the wok to cook this without the food sticking to the wok. Small amounts of water may be added whilst cooking to ensure it doesn't get too dry, but never a lot, so no sauce at all.
I've tried sauces in the past but usually make it from the "fresh" beans now (ones in 'cakes' that are in plastic bags)... To get it like I've had in restaurants / takeaways I use garlic and ginger, loads of peppers - which are put in right at the end and some sliced chillis... Oh and some rice wine and soy sauce... I've been told to soak the beans (cuz they're well salty) but the results are usually quite variable (but always similar to what it should taste like - just often too weak, too strong or too salty)... It always smells right but taste wise it can be well off. Is this just variation in the beans that I buy or am I just crap?
I presume you mean temporarily?
Hi ive always had trouble with fried rice dishes whereby making them taste like a takeaway dish.
can you reveal the secret to that perfect fried rice.
The quality of packaged black beans now are of a quite high standard in that they have been precleaned, and filter......you would expect to find stones in amongst them before. So as it is now, there isn't any need to soak them, just make sure you don't put (if any) salt into the dish you are cooking.I've tried sauces in the past but usually make it from the "fresh" beans now (ones in 'cakes' that are in plastic bags)... To get it like I've had in restaurants / takeaways I use garlic and ginger, loads of peppers - which are put in right at the end and some sliced chillis... Oh and some rice wine and soy sauce... I've been told to soak the beans (cuz they're well salty) but the results are usually quite variable (but always similar to what it should taste like - just often too weak, too strong or too salty)... It always smells right but taste wise it can be well off. Is this just variation in the beans that I buy or am I just crap?
I presume you mean temporarily?
Do you season the meat before cooking? If you do, you won't have to put in all the seasoning you mentioned whilst cooking, and the black beans will enhance the already exisiting flavours.
Temporarily or not, I'm not too sure, but prolonged eating of black beans do blur your vision. My father used to work in Hong Kong's jewellery trade, and it was common practice throughout the trade not to eat black beans, as they needed their vision to be 100% looking at gems all day for flaws, etc.
Use overnight boiled rice. Boil your rice in the usual manner (some prefer to put slightly less water so it comes out a bit dryer), and leave it to cool and then place in the fridge over night.
Some places cook have egg fried rice which are quite brown in colour, this is done by adding a little bit of dark soya sauce. Oh, and make sure the pan/wok is very hot when frying the rice.
Hello
This forum should be time locked to only be open an hour before standard meal times!!! Reading some of the recipes has left me gagging to eat a chinese meal at quarter to nine in the morning.
Definitely going to try the crispy beef for cup final lunch tomorrow.
Something that I have discovered just recently might help to eliminate rubbery textured chicken - which can happen if food is wok cooked too short or too long. One day I made an Indian curry in a wok and when it needed to simmer for 20 minutes I put one of my Wonder Cookers (a reflective lip-inverted lid that changes the way things cook on the stove top) on top of the wok - it just fitted. Chicken came out with a superb texture. Tried the Wonder Cooker trick with cooking a chinese meal and was very surprised that it kept the chicken perfectly tender, even though the cooking time was relatively shorter. Made the stir fry veggies wilt down much much quicker as well.
Confession: I've given up trying to make my own "authentic" sauces. Ingredients are too hard to source (npi) where I live and if do manage to get the stuff I usually end buying more than I can use. Also, I've made some nice chinese/indian meals, but the extra hour or two it takes to make up the quite complex recipes really hasn't been justified in the enjoyment level of the finished meal compared to plopping a supermarket bought jar in with some chicken and stir fry veg.
In a Chinese home do people typically bother to make sauces from scratch or do they just stick a load of sauce jars in their shopping trolley?
Crikey! Am I feeling hungry or what!
Cheers
snedger
Where can you get all sauce nowadays???? when i was young the only place you could
get it was the co-op but i havent seen it anywhere for years and years.
-
so do you sell dishes from all those countries? I have noticed that many chinese
restaurants are putting chinese/japanese in their signs now. I have yet to go into
one that can even make remotely nice japanese food. Infact its completely different
and has always been horrible. Wagamama being a prime example. This isnt aimed at you just a general observation.
Last edited by Kumagoro; 20-05-2005 at 09:41 AM.
Snedger, the best way to avoid chewy chicken is to get the wok really hot and fry the meat in small batches so the wok doesn't cool down. This way, the meat is seared on the outside and doesn't ooze all its juices out as it cooks.
If I'm doing a large stir fry for 6 or more, I'll fry all my meat in batches, removing each batch to a bowl, then cook up the veg for the stir fry and add the meat back in near then end... comes up superb, every time!
Nick,
Cheers for that tip! I was removing the chicken before putting in the veggies, but only 'cos there wasn't room for both meat and pre-wilted veg. Looks like that by accident I might have been helping to improve texture!
Nearly 11 o'clock and I'm not less hungry! Must hold out 'til lunch time.
Cheers
snedger
how do you make chicken and casewnut meal
how do you make really light fluffy prawn crackers? i can eat them day in day out but dont know how to make them
Buy them and fry them...
Seriously, in a chinese supermarket I bought a pack of probably around 1000 crackers for about £5 or something. Then just deep fry them for about 15 seconds.
damn thats cheap, there usually about 1.50 for a bag full of them
Make sure the oil is very hot and use clean oil.how do you make really light fluffy prawn crackers? i can eat them day in day out but dont know how to make them
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