Authentic Chinese Cooking 101 - Basics

Find Joyce Chen. Love her. Hold her. Cherish her. Tell her how much she means to you. Because without her book, I'd be dead in the water. And you wouldn't have wonderful stories of my awesome cooking-gone-wrong incidents. And how sad would that be? Huh?! .. That was rhetorical, don't answer that ..

I don't know when this was published, which is really depressing since I own a copy of it, but it's amazing. Looks like it was published in .. 1963? I found it in a free book bin at my college - it was material from the public library that had been pulled from the shelves and taken out of circulation. LUCKY ME! Complete with instructions on what cookware you need, Chinese ingredients, good American substitutes, and chock-full of interesting tidbits, it's an all-around I'm-not-a-Chinese-person's Chinese cookbook. (And, p.s. I just bought a new wok yesterday from Ikea for $8. :: Arms held akimbo, head in the air, chest puffed out proudly.. ::)

Funny enough, I just checked out her web site where she advertises that her sauce products have *NO MSG ADDED!* .. One of the staple ingredients of her cookbook is MSG. Haha!  Funny. 

Actually, it's a great flavor booster. And according to several articles I've read, really not a genuine health concern. If you're interested, read the Wikipedia article on monosodium glutamate.

Now, to be fair, I'm not a huge fan of Chen's recipes, but she is from a different region of China than the food I am used to. While her ingredients are definitely genuine, if anyone can tell me how authentic/Americanized her recipes are, I'd be very grateful! 

BUT ALAS! I digress! Where I was I? ... ... ... Oh, right. So. Buy this book. If you can find it.

WHAT YOU NEED TO BUY

Most, if not all of the ingredients that Chen recommends are pretty authentic and readily available from your local Asian grocer, except the dry sherry. Since they seem to be the most common, these are the ingredients that you should have readily available in your pantry/fridge/broom closet/under the floorboards/wherever you keep your food:

light soy sauce

dark soy sauce

rice wine (you probably should get rice wine vinegar, too, or black Chinese vinegar, or both - I neglected to get either and have been using regular vinegar)

dry Sherry (usually used in place of rice wine but has slightly different flavor, so I bought both. Chen uses the dry sherry in her cookbook)

sesame oil (MUCH CHEAPER from a local Asian grocer than your regular grocery store!!!)

peanut oil

dried, red chilies

Sichuan peppercorns

fresh ginger

fresh garlic

cornstarch (from your local grocery store)

rubber gloves (I'm not kidding)

 <-- Chilies

<-- Sichuan peppercorns

Now, we need to have a short lesson on dried chilies. Just because they are dried (dehydrated) does NOT mean they are any less dangerous than in their normal state. Do not, in any way, shape, or form, attempt to touch them with your bare hands. Many recipes call for crushed chili/red pepper seeds, meaning you need to cut the chilies in half and dump out the seeds. CAUTION: THIS IS A MOST DANGEROUS ENDEAVOR AND IS NOT TO BE TAKEN LIGHTLY! THE FAINT OF HEART SHOULD NOT ATTEMPT THIS TASK!

Seriously. If you touch them with your bare hands, seeds or whole pepper, and then touch your mouth, eye, or any other sensitive part of your body, you will die. And washing your hands after handling them doesn't help.

What actually happens:

your eye stings, turns red, and waters for about ten to fifteen minutes, with lingering stinging sensations after.

What you think is happening:

YOUR EYE IS ERUPTING IN A MASS OF BLOOD, TEARS, EYE GUTS, AND EXPLODING INTO A MIGHTY CONFLAGRATION THAT WILL SOON LEAVE YOU BLIND AND COMPLETELY UNRECOGNIZABLE!!!!!!!!!

This is where the rubber gloves come in.  Mistakenly having thought my father owned a box of latex gloves, I didn't buy any. HUGE mistake. I had to wrap my fingers with cling wrap (which doesn't work, by the way) in order to work with the chilies last time I used them.

So, if you don't want to end up looking like this-

then I suggest you invest in some rubber gloves.