Chinese Cooking Techniques and Tips You Can Do at Home

Chinese Cooking Techniques and Tips You Can Do at Home
By Carolyn Anderson

Traditional Chinese cooking is known to be a healthy way of cooking. Aside from having more vegetables in their ingredients, the Chinese cooking techniques are also quick and allow the nutrients to be retained in the food.

One thing that makes Chinese cooking appealing is that, recipes often include fresh vegetables that make the dishes bright-colored and crisp. Indeed, Chinese cooking techniques allow vegetables to appear bright-colored, appealing, and not overcooked. Usually, vegetables are stir-fried or blanched to retain the color, texture and of course the nutrient content, thus giving you a healthier meal.

One technique in Chinese cooking is that, a variety of vegetables and meat are added in one dish to have balance, and there are more of the vegetables than the meat. Meat is usually just added for flavor and not the main attraction of the dish. Because Chinese cooking often promotes variety as well as the yin and yang combination of ingredients, it is a lot healthier than meat-centered dishes.

Stir-frying is one of the popular Chinese cooking techniques that allow quicker cooking time but it also means you have to prepare everything you need before starting to cook. You have to make sure you have done all the cutting of vegetables and meat which may involve, mincing, dicing, slicing or crushing. Meat is often chilled in the freezer before cooking to make it easier to prepare and slice. Cutting the vegetables as you cook will not be good in this cooking technique as it can ruin your dishes or overcook your ingredients.

Keep in mind though that in stir-frying vegetables, you have to keep in mind that softer, more tender and leafy vegetables go last in the wok. If you are not quite sure which of the vegetables cook easily and what vegetables should go first, you can stir-fry them separately and combine them later, keeping in mind always not to overcook them.

Steaming is also another commonly used technique in Chinese cooking that also promotes healthier dishes as no oil is used and lesser nutrients are washed away with water. You can steam any Chinese recipes - from dumplings to vegetables and meat and get the flavor as well as the nutrients of the dishes.

Double boiling is another technique that is quite similar to steaming but uses the boiling water as well as the steam to cook the food. This is done by half immersing the casserole of ingredients into the boiling water inside a larger pot, covered by its lid. This will allow the food to be cooked by the boiling water as well as the steam coming from it.

For some other Chinese cooking techniques, you can also substitute meat with tofu or bean curd, substitute salt or lessen salt by adding more herbs and spices to the dishes. Spices is important part of cooking the Chinese way and among the spices that you can use to make healthier and better tasting dishes are ginger, Sichuan peppercorns, star anise, Chinese hot mustard and many other Chinese herbs and spices that are not only providing flavor to your dishes, but also have medicinal and health benefits as well.

Carolyn Anderson loves to experiment and explore healthy ways of cooking. To have access to hundreds of healthy Chinese recipes you can do at home, check out Healthy Chinese Cooking. Also check out Americas Most Wanted Recipes, a great guide for you to learn to cook like a master chef.

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