The Most Popular Stir-Fried Dish
As Easy as Cooking Stir-Fried Cabbage
Is this the best recipe for making Stir-Fried Cabage (Chao Bai Cai), or is there a better way? It would be interesting to know if anyone is using another method that works better.
Stir-Fried Cabbage (Chao Bai Cai)
Ingredients:
1 pound Cabbage or Napa Cabbage, washed, well-dried and sliced
2 ounces Pork, such as Pork Chop of Bacon, sliced finely Continue reading
Hot, Sweet, Salty, Sour and Bitter
Variety in Flavor, Ingredients, Color
“Food is eaten not just for nourishment. For a Thai, it is an art, a topic of conversation, a source of pleasure.” — Kreesnee Ruangkritya [1]
Deva, Thailand, 15th cent.
The core concepts of Thai cooking are hot, sweet, salty, sour and bitter. A well-designed meal offers a variety in flavors, preparation methods, ingredients, and color.
So if a Red Curry is the main dish, the cook woul Continue reading
Fish Sauce, Nuoc Mam and Sea Ghost Fingers
The National Dish Is a Soup — Even at Breakfast
“Only the French imposed their own cuisine upon their Asiatic possessions.” — David Dodge [1]
“He was not yet Ho Chi Minh. It was 1917 and he was Nguyen Ai Quoc and he was a pastry cook under the great Escoffier.” — Robert Olen Butler [2]
Three Crabs Brand Fish Sauce
Vietnamese cooking is light and delicate, healthy, and remarkably varied. Its famous dishes can be very unusual and even have poetic names, like one for Crab Claws called Sea Ghost Fingers. Continue reading
A Fanfare of Chopsticks
The World’s Best Cooks
“There would have been universal insistence, with a fanfare of chopsticks, upon irresistible Chinese food.” — Richard Hughes [1]
“It would not be an overstatement to maintain that the Chinese are the best cooks in the world.” — V. R. Burkhardt [2]
Jade Chopsticks
Collected by Berthold Laufer
Chinese food is everyone’s favorite cuisine, it seems. This holds true whether you are chef, foodie, food writer, or ordinary eater.
It is true not only in China, but Chinese food is hugely enjoyed in Japan, Australia, North and South America, and Europe. These days, excellent Chinese food is increasingly available in the Middle East and Africa, as restaurants open to serve expatriate Chinese workers in those regions. Continue reading
Do You Stir-Fry?
The discovery of how to stir-fry foods, in deepest antiquity, was one of China’s greatest contributions to world gastronomy. It is not only a safe way to prepare food, but it is delicious and one of the things that gives Chinese food is distinctive character.
Yu Cai Chao Ji Pian
Yu Tsai Stir Fried with Chicken Slices
Stir-frying is very ancient and is a style that makes Chinese food taste Chinese. It has its own special word in Chinese, chao 炒, which according to Matthews Chinese dictionary means literally, “to roast in a pan, to fry.” [note 1]. There is a misconception among many non-Chinese cooks who try to do it about just what this term means and how to stir-fry. Continue reading