Why is good (Americanized) Chinese food so hard to find?

[chinachef]

hi droxford,and everybody,in oversea,chinese food's name different with china,so iam very hard to know,but never mine,u just tell me what u want(food name)where u find it,so i can find it,then explain for u.but ,u must give me more time,thanks,hope u understand my poor english

[BubbaGourmet]

chinachef;
I think your English is pretty good! I wish I could communicate in ANY other language...at least more than well enough to get my face slapped!

[wdj03]

Hi, I know this is an old thread but I found it in a search...

I have no problem cooking up the veggies and meats.. All I need to know is how to do that darn brown sauce that the resturaunts do..

I've tried several different recipies that I've found on the net, but none of them are remotely close..

The common sauces I've seen are Black Bean Sauce and Oyster Sauce, but I don't really think that either of those are what I'm after..

This should be something that's easy to find.. how many thousands of Chinese resturaunts/buffets are there in the US? Almost all of them serve this exact sauce with several of their dishes.. I just can't believe that of the millions of people on the internet, nobody besides those owners know how to make those sauces.. Is it some sort of ancient oriental secret?

Any suggestions?

[jennyema]

Ther are different variations of "brown sauce" but a very common one is based on a combo of hoisin sauce, reg soy sauce, dark soy sauce, garlic, maybe ginger and some beef broth.

I am friendly with the owners of the best chinese restaurant here who disclosed a professional secret, which is chicken or beef broth in small amounts to enhance sauces.

[Lugaru]

There's some very authentic places in downtown boston (chinatown) but that's because there are enough chinese people to make it good buisness.

One thing that changed the way I see cooking was a job interview I had. I am Mexican and the guy was an american chef who traveled through mexico and was obsessed with it's cooking so we talked like for 2 hours. Turns out that he's made authentic Mexican food a bunch of times but you cant even give that away to americans, it's too complex. Americans want sharp cheese, bold spices, combination plates, things made from wheat, things that are deep fried... so in the end he makes americanized Mexican food and make's a lot of money in the process. There is really no point trying to change americans, they are very happy the way they are.

Edit: just wanted to second the idea of making good chinese at home is tough. The other day I made general tso's chicken and a simple operation that I expected to take 40 mintues took 2 hours... of course it's because my electric deep frier is really small but still...

[wdj03]

Originally Posted by jennyema

Ther are different variations of "brown sauce" but a very common one is based on a combo of hoisin sauce, reg soy sauce, dark soy sauce, garlic, maybe ginger and some beef broth.

I am friendly with the owners of the best chinese restaurant here who disclosed a professional secret, which is chicken or beef broth in small amounts to enhance sauces.

That sounds pretty close to what i want..

Any ideas on proportions between the hoisin, broth, and soy sauces?.. If I can just get in the ballpark then I can fine tune it with ginger, garlic, pepper, etc..

[GB]

Originally Posted by jennyema

I am friendly with the owners of the best chinese restaurant here.

OK Jenny, spill the beans...which restaurant?

[Haggis]

The reason for the lack of places is probably the same reason as here in Australia. It is probably due to the case that sometime in the late 60s/70s people started to get a taste for Chinese food (I know it's the case here in Australia, you can look at common cookbooks of the time and see how the recipes for Chinese-style dishes just spring up) as people began to diversify their palates.

A number of entrepreneurial Chinese ex-pats saw the chance to take advantage of this by opening their own restaraunts to proudly display their countries cuisine, and they started making money off it. This led to other people following suite, and more people etc etc all looking for a chance to make a buck, so the quality may have dropped off in these establishments as this became their one and only motivating factor. Oh and the whole fast-food/takeaway culture certainly didn't do any favours. So they are still around making a buck off busy, drunk or people who are not picky about what they eat (or they just do not know any better because they have not had anything better).

I still do not think I have had anything close to authentic Chinese cooking here, and may not for ahile unfortunately. The funny thing is that right now Australia (and especially Sydney) is flooded right now with Thai restaraunts and Australia is infatuated with them (though it might have begun to shift away now, everyone loves Thai but people might be looking for other alternatives. My Dad thinks it might now be a push for middle eastern cuisine, and I saw it might be a push back to traditional French cuisine.I will always love Thai, probably my favourite cuisine) but the quality in most of them is generally quite good. You would think the same thing wouldve hapened as did in the case for Chinese, but I think that the Thai's came too late and restaraunters on the whole have developed their tastes and expectation so on the whole they expect food of high quality.

Anyway thats my take on it, sorry about the essay.

[Shunka]

I agree with both of you Lugaru and Haggis. I grew up near the border here in AZ and I know that most of the Mexican food I grew up eating is different than that further south in Mexico. I live in northern AZ now and what they serve for Mexican food is so different. I think that most different cultural foods are changed to reflect what the public in that area will want. My late father-in-law grew up on Sumatra and he taught me many of the dishes that he grew up with, although now it is hard to find them prepared the same way. I had not ever tried Indonesian food before I met my husband and his father encouraged me to learn Chinese cooking; for which I am very grateful. I will check to see if I might have his old recipe for the sauce.

[thier1754]

I think one of the difficulties in duplicating Asian food at home is that they work with extremely high temperatures in large woks and work very fast...