The traditional preparation of this Szechwan dish calls for great patience, because the beef is stir-fried over low heat for about an hour, until it becomes shriveled and quite crisp. However, the same effect can be achieved in less than half that time by using the combined techniques of deep-frying and stir-frying. The beef should taste spicy hot, sweet and savory at the same time. Besides rice, it goes equally well with silver thread buns.
This dish, popular in both Szechwan and Peking cuisines, either as family fare or for entertaining, can be made one day ahead. It is so named because the pork is simply boiled in a pot of clear tap water, or “white water,” as the Chinese call it. True to form, the Szechwan-style sauce evokes a wide range of tastes and aftertastes; the Peking counterpart is laden with garlic.
Although the Cantonese enjoy pork as much as all the other Chinese, they tend to eat more beef than many of their compatriots. Beef in oyster sauce is perhaps the most basic of all the Cantonese beef dishes. It is delicious also with other vegetables, such as mushrooms, celery, bamboo shoots or bean sprouts. In stir-frying beef, the Cantonese believe that it is most important to make it tender and “velvety,” and to achieve this they add bicarbonate of soda to the marinade. This tenderizing process is unnecessary in the West.
To many people, sweet and sour pork is synonymous with bad Chinese takeout food: lumps of chewy pork wrapped in thick batter, covered with a gluey and sickening sweet and sour sauce. However, when well made—crisp outside yet tender inside, topped with a well-balanced sweet and sour sauce—this is one of the most appetizing Cantonese dishes.
This is one of the most celebrated Cantonese dishes using the versatile black bean as an essential ingredient. It is served as much at home as in restaurants.
A sweet and sour sauce goes especially well with deep-fried food, not just because it whets one’s appetite but, more important, because it counteracts any trace of grease. Such is, indeed, the case with fish. There are regional variations and personal preferences, but mainly a sweet and sour sauce is a mixture of vinegar and sugar, balanced by salt, and made more interesting by the addition of other condiments. Try this one, and then concoct your own.
In many Chinese households, rice, the staple food, used to be cooked in a large, round copper pot. When there was a layer of cooked rice stuck to the bottom of the pot, it would be carefully removed, roasted over a slow fire and then used again. These roasted rice pieces, called guoba, led to the invention of sizzling rice dishes in Eastern regional cuisine. This dish is also called “Thunder bolt out of the blue,” because of the sizzle caused by the boiling sauce when poured on the crispy guoba.
Do not be put off by the large amount of garlic used in this recipe: the Chinese way of sizzling the garlic in hot oil burns off the garlic odor, and instead produces a heavenly aroma, which is absorbed by the beef.
One of the most popular Szechwan pork dishes, it is cleverly produced by combining two very different cooking methods: boiling and stir-frying.
A delicious family dish that is equally good to serve when entertaining.
The combination of meat and vegetables is a regular occurrence in Chinese cooking. Even though a small amount of meat is used, it nevertheless adds so much taste and interest to the vegetables that it is worth the effort.
A Yunnan steam pot is basically a pottery casserole dish about 8 inches (20 centimeters) in diameter and 4 inches (10 centimeters) high with a cone shaped chimney in the center of the bowl. The pot, with its tightly fitting lid, is placed in boiling water so that steam rises through the chimney to circulate inside and cook the ingredients. Chicken cooked in this way is tender and succulent, and the accompanying soup is pure and flavorful. The pot is available in some Chinese shops, but, in a pinch, a double boiler can be used.
This is a whole chicken dish, beloved of the Southern Chinese. If the chicken is hand-plucked in the old-fashioned way, it will be colored an even russet brown by the soy sauce and sugar mixture. When a chicken is machine-plucked, as it usually is in the West, the coloring will not be as successful. Fortunately, the aromatic soy sauce taste is not affected in any way.
The best time to serve this famous Cantonese dish is in the autumn and winter. The sauce resulting from this subtly balanced blend of seasonings is delicious.
Even if someone arrives unannounced, the Chinese will extend an immediate invitation to stay for dinner with the stock phrase: “We’ll just add another pair of chopsticks to the table.” However, in the kitchen there will be a stir to whip up a quick and easy dish to add to those ready to be served. This egg dish fits the bill. It takes its name from Whampoa, a port near Canton, where the technique for stir-frying eggs was originally invented. The tenderness of the egg has earned much fame for this Cantonese dish.
In this simple dish, with its slightly piquant taste, the livers are partially browned, so that they’re crispy on the outside, but pink inside. As one of the dishes in a Chinese meal, rice would be served with it as usual, but as a main course, noodles or spaghetti would do equally well. A green salad could be served afterward.
The various cooking processes used in this dish may seem too time-consuming, but the duck is at once made crispy and moist, smoky and aromatic.
The hoisin sauce adds color and flavor to the chicken in this Northern dish, and the cashew nuts provide a pleasing contrast of texture.
Although this chicken recipe is delicious, an arguably more elegant (although more expensive) version of this Southern dish uses quail’s meat and dried oysters.