Cooking Chinese at home - why is it so often a pale imitation?

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cipher said:
If you can squeeze one of these into your kitchen then you're all set. :chef: ...

2holewokstove.jpg

Cipher, that IS the size of my kitchen. :LOL:
 
LOL Mish! I was still trying to figure out what that thing was. Looked like the inside of my cellphone case for all I know...
 
Chopstix said:
LOL Mish! I was still trying to figure out what that thing was. Looked like the inside of my cellphone case for all I know...

Hee, hee, Chopstix. I might charge that thing rent. :LOL:
 
Hi:

I use the base of a turkey fryer for the heat source. Plenty of BTU's for the wok. Many times what the stove op provides.

But be careful it is a little extreme but it sure does the job on a stir fry. Load the wok up and go .

Also some Asian grocries have a cooking device that hooks to a standard propane tank and is designed to cradle the wok - sells for about $50.00.

good luck
 
Chopstix said:
Thanks. That's new to me. My grandparents were migrants from Fujian province, and so were almost all of the Chinese migrants in the country where I grew up. While fish sauce was abundant locally (called patis), you'll never find it in a Chinese kitchen or Chinese food supply store. I'm not even aware of a Chinese term for fish sauce. I do know the chinese term for soy sauce and most other common ingredients though.



Chinese term for fish sauce is Yu lou(not sure if it's the correct spelling). Maybe it's a new chinese cooking thing, they also use a lot of cumin now.
 
If you have a gas stove you can go to an aisian market and get a round bottom wok and a wok ring. If you remove the grill from your burner and put the ring so that the small circle is down you can arrange your wok so that the fire is actually touching your wok. And then crank up the heat. This gets the wok nice and hot for doing stir frys.
 
A wok jet burner produces 50000-60000 BTUs whereas your standard home range produces 12000-17000 BTU's. Do you add cornstarch to thicken the sauce and make it thick and glossy? That could be something
 
be careful using the heat ring on a home stove top. the heat does build up nicely under the wok, and inside the ring, but the stove top is not intended to handle that kind of temperature. it can discolor, and even cause the paint to crack and chip off around the burners.

i'm tellin ya, the wok is only a small part of the battle. as ic said a few pages back, if your sauce is wrong, no hot wok will make it taste good.
 
buckytom said:
be careful using the heat ring on a home stove top. the heat does build up nicely under the wok, and inside the ring, but the stove top is not intended to handle that kind of temperature. it can discolor, and even cause the paint to crack and chip off around the burners.

i'm tellin ya, the wok is only a small part of the battle. as ic said a few pages back, if your sauce is wrong, no hot wok will make it taste good.

The ring came with mine, BT. Actually, I never used it. Didn't need or see the point. BTW, I have a gas stove, if that helps. IMO, as long as the oil is hot enough, you can quickly stir-fry just about anything - wok or no wok. The packets that come with a take out order, I usually toss...unless you want to sprinkle lots of sodium (essentially soy sauce) or those cheapie packets of duck/orange sauce? over your dish. Try some orange marmelade mixed with a little soy sauce and tweak it. Whatever tastes good to you - authentic or not. That's my opinion and I'm sticking to it :LOL:

Afterthought... if the oil gets too hot, smokes or whatever and you put garlic in there - disaster. Burned garlic will ruin anything. As I recall, you can deep fry, steam or even bake a cake in a wok. But, I used it for quick stir frys.
 
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I agree with Bucky. Proper cooking method is crucial but it has a lot to do with the ingredients you use. The type and quality of the soy sauce, cooking oil condiments, etc. matter a lot.

Also, things like fact that the seasoning in a commercial wok imparts a flavor to the food makes it hard to achieve exactly that flavor at home.
 
Lots of good advice, opinions, speculations here. Will go back to my original question... Alex, perhaps can you share the recipe(s) with us and we can help troubleshoot? The dish itself and prep, should give us some good insight.
 
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mish, i wasn't referring to packets of duck and soy sauce (i agree they're not very good), but rather ordering your entire entree steamed, with the sauce that the dish would have been served in on the side for dipping, such as garlic sauce, kung pao sauce, or even oyster sauce.
my friends started doing this years ago to save calories, and i eventually adopted the idea, for health reasons initially. one time when i was making a stir fry at home, i was out of jarred hoisin sauce, but i had leftover garlic sauce from takeout, so i used that, and no one could tell if it was take out or homemade.

like you said, a decently hot wok with good oil, so long as it's not over crowded, will stir fry almost as well as a restaurant's wok.
 
buckytom said:
mish, i wasn't referring to packets of duck and soy sauce (i agree they're not very good), but rather ordering your entire entree steamed, with the sauce that the dish would have been served in on the side for dipping, such as garlic sauce, kung pao sauce, or even oyster sauce.
my friends started doing this years ago to save calories, and i eventually adopted the idea, for health reasons initially. one time when i was making a stir fry at home, i was out of jarred hoisin sauce, but i had leftover garlic sauce from takeout, so i used that, and no one could tell if it was take out or homemade.

like you said, a decently hot wok with good oil, so long as it's not over crowded, will stir fry almost as well as a restaurant's wok.

Thanks BT. I was more referring to those little packets, you know the ones I mean. Not from the good take out places, like the ones you're referring to. Listen up folks, get rid of em from the fridge where they're all piling up. They are old and useless.:ROFLMAO: Those mustard and ketchup packets, give them up too. Do they even have an expiration date? How 'bout those mayo, relish and tartar sauce packets, hmmm. :LOL:

There's an excellent Japanese restaurant here I've ordered from...their sauces are delish- as well as their tempura, gyoza and teriyaki...but never have enough sauce to save.
 
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mish said:
Listen up folks, get rid of em from the fridge where they're all piling up. They are old and useless.:ROFLMAO: Those mustard and ketchup packets, give them up too. Do they even have an expiration date? How 'bout those mayo, relish and tartar sauce packets, hmmm. :LOL:

I hear ya there mish. The only problem is, convincing my MIL. She's a total packrat, and saves EVERYTHING!
 
i save those packets and bring them hiking in the summertime on the appalachian trail. thru hikers are thrilled to have salty and sweet condiments to add to their very boring dehydrated meals. the beer we bring also doesn't hurt.

the last time i left a small supermarket shopping bag full, and the hikers that came thru the shelter shared them over the next few weeks.
 
buckytom said:
the last time i left a small supermarket shopping bag full...

BT, you win. With a supermarket shopping bag full of condiments, I'd follow you around with my hot dog and hamburger.:LOL:

Whoa, what were those two last posts about. Whew, glad they were deleted. What?! the heck was that! Thank you site helpers/admin.
 
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I love Chinese food too and I've found that it's usually the recipes - not the temperature of the pan that were lacking. I've cooked on both electric and gas. I've found a couple that work for me and I learned through experience that I need to have the correct ingredients. The cookbook that I fall back on most is Classic Chinese Cooking by Nina Simonds.
 
There used to be a restaurant in Waikiki called the Great Wok of China, or something like that. Mom, Dad and I sat there and watched them make our dinner. The things I most noticed was that there was a lot more fat and a lot more heat than we would use in a modern home kitchen. Mom and I were astonished at the number of times the chef put a ladle of oil into the wok, for dishes that were not supposedly fried. I think, too, that a lot if it is learning to manage extremes of heat. This was enormous amounts of heat. But we tend to be afraid of fat here, and that fat is the flavor and texture of even the leanest of foods. I don't think I'll ever get the same flavor and texture of good Chinese food, but now I know why.
 
There is one simple thing you can do that will help that I haven't seen mentioned anywhere except in Barbara Tropp's first book.

It's called something like..... "tempering" the meat (that's not the correct term). But anyway, you can do it in oil, or in water. I think oil may be more traditional, but water is much simpler and seems to work fine.

For a stir fry, after you cut the chicken or pork into small pieces, add 1 or 2 T soy sauce, then 1 t or so of cornstarch, stir it around, and then add about 1 T vegetable oil. Then heat a pot of water to boiling. Dump the meat into the water, stir to separate, and leave it on (high) for about 2 minutes. The water will just barely get back to boiling.

Then dump everything in a strainer. Add this meat to the stir-fry when the recipe calls for it.

Doing it this way makes the texture of the meat feel "slippery" - just like that in a Chinese restaurant, and definitely different compared to just stir-frying in the normal way.
 
My gas cooker has a wok burner incorporated into the hob... I use it for lots of things, not just chinese style foods - I find it sears meat beautifully!
 
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