Chinese Food Blog

Saturday, April 26, 2008

Chinese Cooking Sauces

One thing we learned very early on is that Chinese food and Chinese cooking are greatly complimented by the key ingredients of the sauces. You can see this very easily in the American Chinese food cooking trends. It is mainly a mixture of vegetables enhanced with Chinese sauces. These cooking sauces are used as garnishes and in preparing many types of delicious authentic recipes. Most of our favorite Chinese dishes, like noodles and fried rice are made with a variety of spices and sauces making them very popular and savory meals Chinese vegetarian cuisine recipes.

In America, Chinese food has been used in ways that are non-traditional and has taken on some of its own new traditions. Their sauces have become famous as dipping sauces and cooking sauces that are mainly used for different types of meat dishes like pork or chicken. Sweet and sour sauce was originally used as a simple sauce for fish dishes in different parts of the world but was used to create American-Chinese dishes such as sweet and sour chicken when it was introduced in America. Along with sweet and sour sauce, some other types of sauces used in America to enhance flavor in popular Chinese foods such as noodles, fried rice and other Chinese dishes are chili oil, oyster sauce and garlic sauce.

Chinese cooking with its tasty dipping sauces is also a fun way to liven up a meal and something that my children love! Try serving the dipping sauces in a small bowl along with the meal to accompany Chinese appetizers like pot stickers, spring rolls and egg rolls. Let the kids have their own bowl to dip and watch their faces light up. One of the main reasons my family loves Chinese cuisine is that there are so many different types of flavors that can be easily incorporated into everyday meals. Some of the most famous are chili oil, sweet and sour sauce, hot mustard and garlic sauce. Chili oil is made from chili peppers and is normally used in stir-fry and to enhance the flavor of other dishes such as noodles. Another favorite and one that has been used for many centuries in China is sweet and sour sauce.

Its main ingredients of sugar and wedding vinegar make it a very popular choice and one that adds savory flavor to Chinese dishes when combined with tomato sauce. Garlic sauce and hot mustard sauce are great sauces that work well with a variety of Chinese appetizers. Any of these sauces are easy to make and will give your meal that special oriental flavor your family will love!

Because Chinese cooking sauces are an easy way add great flavor to Chinese meals and are so adaptable, they have become very popular in China and around the world...making Chinese food a truly international cuisine. It is easy to experiment with all the many sauces and spices Chinese food has to offer and even come up with your own favorite combinations! From sweet and sour sauce to garlic and hot mustard, Chinese cuisine and its many sauces have proven to be an all time favorite that my family loves. Try it out on your family and I am sure that they too will look forward to your special night of Chinese cooking.

Friday, April 4, 2008

Buying a Roast

A teacher was giving her class a test on birds. She decided to test in a different manner. Rather then in text she gave her students pictures of birds, but just with their legs showing. The students had to figure out the name of the birds the legs belong to make meal planning.
A male student took a look at the test, grab the paper, stormed to the teachers desk, threw the paper on her desk and started to leave the room. The teacher stopped him and asked for his name. The student turned, pulled up his pant leg and replied, “you figure it out”.
To Make Soup
When buying a roast from which the bone has been trimmed, remember you pay for the bone. Make sue you ask for it and use it making meat broth or soup stock. When the bone is cooked in water for a long time, a substance inside It changes into gelatine. This dissolves in hot water and so is present in the soup stock.
Soup stock is improved be adding some meat. The toughest cuts-such as the shank-which are rich in extractives are best. Very little nourishment is dissolved out in water, use the soup meat in left-over dishes. To improve flavour add onions or Oxon cubes.
Browning the meat improves the flavour. In making soup, brown one-third of the meat in marrow or fat. Add cold water to cover the bone. Heat to simmering temperature, and cook slowly for about 3 hours. Vegetables may be added in the last hour. Celery leaves for added flavour.

Monday, February 4, 2008

Your Food to a Crisp

To avoid this and to get the most of your firewood, take your time and start early. Red glowing embers give off tons of heat and don't have big flames. If cooking in a fire pit or large grill, start your fire early and keep adding wood for a while to build up a deep core of hot, glowing red embers at the bottom. Then let the top wood burn down until you barely have any flames left, just a big, deep pile of red embers. These embers give off a lot of heat and because they don't have large flames, they are less likely to char your food to a crisp.

Only then should you lay your grill grate across and add your food. If you are cooking a lot and the heat starts to die down, stirring the embers with a poker helps to get more oxygen to the wood and will increase the heat for a while. If you really need more fuel, you can add firewood to the side and only push it over, under the cooking area, when it has burned down and no longer has large flames.

Also, for these larger roasts, laying them directly over hot embers can burn the surface long before the interior is even warm. Finally, the rotisserie can hold your food a considerable distance above your wood fire so that you can even cook over open flames without your food burning. If high enough, only the rising heat, not the actual flames, reaches your food, which is perfectly rotated in the aromatic smoke. Therefore, prep time is reduced as you don't have to burn your wood down to embers first, although some embers help to supply adequate heat. For grilled leg of lamb and whole chicken and game birds, rotisserie cooking over a fire pit is one of my favorites!

Monday, December 31, 2007

Food Cooking Shows

Food cooking shows are the "in" thing right now. We love the idea of making food and combine it with reality television and suddenly we come back week after week to see what happens next.
Fox Network has uncovered a phenomenon with the cursing antics of Chef Gordon Ramsey. We cringe at his explosive attitude yet are somehow sympathetic at his attempts to turn would-be chefs into professionals.

We might not want to put ourselves on the line of fire but we love watching other contestants wither under his furious stare and tirades. Our kitchens may not be stocked with fois gras but we still take something away from each episode.

Food Network has a reality show titled "Who Wants to Be the Next Food Network Star" where amateur and professional cooks alike are given tasks to perform that somehow weed out the would-be television chefs from the rest.

We root for our favorite contestants as the season progresses until only one contestant remains. He or she is then given a food cooking show of their very own. What is the fascination with meal preparation shows? Perhaps it is the ease at which dishes are prepared. It might be the professional cookware and charming personality of the hosts.

Some of the most popular meal preparation show hosts is not formally educated at cooking schools. Thus they give us hope that anyone can prepare delectable dishes from the comfort of their own home. Whatever the reason behind our fascination, these shows has become an integral part of television viewing. As great chefs from the past such as Julia Child pass on, a new generation of friendly, knowledgeable faces comes to the forefront of culinary society.

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Preliminary Reading of The Cooking Recipe

After the preliminary reading of the cooking recipe you will have a general idea of how the dish is cooked and what ingredients to buy. Make sure that all the ingredients are ready before you begin your cooking adventure. It is very frustrating to realize that you have run out of the ingredients half-way through your cooking. You will loose all the momentum and enthusiasm once this happen Taste the healthy chinese food.

You will also need to have the right type of ingredients. For example, if the cooking recipe says prepared mustard, do not assume that you can substitute it with dried mustard. They are two completely different ingredients and substituting one for the other will have disastrous effect on your cooking. Another thing worth mentioning is make sure you have enough of the ingredients. Double check to ensure that you have enough of everything before you starts to cook. Imagine what will happen if you don't have enough flour when baking a sponge cake!

Have The Equipment/Utensil Ready

Just as important and often overlooked is to have all the equipment and utensils ready before cooking. If you do not have the equipment or utensil, try borrowing them from your friends. You might only need to use the utensil mentioned in the cooking recipe once and so it is cheaper to borrow. If your friends do not have the items you are looking for or if you foresee that you are going to use it more than once, then buy it. Also, check that the equipment or utensil is in working order before starting your cooking.

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Creative Raw Food Recipes

They lend variety and change and make the food more acceptable, interesting and tasty. Making and testing recipes with raw foods can be a good and creative pastime. Moreover in a combination of a variety of fruits and vegetables in a food recipe, the items complement each other by providing the required nutrients which a single food item may not provide in sufficient measure. Creative raw food recipes satisfy the palate, increase the appetite and provide ample nutrition Chinese recipes chocolate fondue for two.

Vegetable Salad
A vegetable salad consisting of as many items as you like can be made out of all varieties of leafy greens such as romaine, endive, spinach cabbage, shredded mushrooms, sliced carrots, grated or sliced bell peppers, all colors zucchini, grated green beans, finely sliced tomatoes, chopped cucumbers, sliced sprouts, all kinds beets, grated celery and so on.

Non-starchy Vegetable Salad
A non-starchy vegetable salad can be prepared from beets, turnips, carrots, parsnips, summer squash, cabbage, cauliflower, brussels sprouts, green corn, green peas, string beans, asparagus, onions, egg plant, okra, kohlrabi, endive, lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, celery, chard, spinach, dandelion, and all plants used as greens, etc.

Monday, December 17, 2007

A Vegetable Salad

Food recipes remove the monotony of same food taken day and night. They lend variety and change and make the food more acceptable, interesting and tasty. Making and testing recipes with raw foods can be a good and creative pastime. Moreover in a combination of a variety of fruits and vegetables in a food recipe, the items complement each other by providing the required nutrients which a single food item may not provide in sufficient measure. Creative raw food recipes satisfy the palate, increase the appetite and provide ample nutrition unknown story of chinese cuisines.

Vegetable Salad
A vegetable salad consisting of as many items as you like can be made out of all varieties of leafy greens such as romaine, endive, spinach cabbage, shredded mushrooms, sliced carrots, grated or sliced bell peppers, all colors zucchini, grated green beans, finely sliced tomatoes, chopped cucumbers, sliced sprouts, all kinds beets, grated celery and so on.

Non-starchy Vegetable Salad
A non-starchy vegetable salad can be prepared from beets, turnips, carrots, parsnips, summer squash, cabbage, cauliflower, brussels sprouts, green corn, green peas, string beans, asparagus, onions, egg plant, okra, kohlrabi, endive, lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, celery, chard, spinach, dandelion, and all plants used as greens, etc.