What makes chinese food so unique?

Question

And don't answer high heat or MSG. How do i duplicate it? What are the temperatures for cooking? Thanks!

Answer 1

Some dish will take 2 or 3 method of cooking before the final product. For example sweet & sour pork would require you to deep fried the pork first. Followed by sauteing the sauces and maybe also blanching of vegetables. And the final cooking stage would be to mix all the ingredients together with a light toss in the wok and adding a bit of corn starch to add glossiness to the food

Answer 2

Chinese cuisine is very wide and varied. Frankly my decades-long love affair with Chinese food is restricted to Cantonese cooking (originated from south China region); Hong Kong is the mecca of Cantonese cuisine thus "Chinese food" served in overseas Chinese communities from San Francisco to Singapore and Sydney is largely Cantonese influenced. Of course there are the Sichuanese, Hunan, Hakka specialty restaurants but Cantonese tops them all in popularity.

Chinese cuisine is unique because of the various ways of cooking the awesome variety of dishes - right fire (heat), precise timing is critical for steaming, braising, stir frying, deep frying, baking, roasting, grilling to arrive at the desired result for a particular dish. Appearance, texture, taste are paramount.

Restaurants of course are able to achieve optimum cooking conditions; that's why many Chinese dishes cannot be replicated at home, unless we produce the right kind of fire (heat) like those in restaurants - most impractical.

A Chinese soup would taste far better if I use slow burning coals to cook it rather than modern electric or gas stove heating. Similarly, Chinese fried rice.

Conclusion: type of heating intensity, timing are two critical factors when cooking Chinese dishes. Not so much the ingredients.

NOTE: Use of MSG is very, very limited, sometimes never in Chinese cooking. Those who do, know little about Chinese cuisine.

Answer 3

The spices,... at least you need 5 different spices and have to know the measurements.

Chinese food secret is mostly on the order of which one go first (meat before vegetables) and temperature (very high temp and only stir for 1-2 minutes).

Most chinese food use pork oil to make it taste better.

Answer 4

Well, there are so many cuisines in China, so they're probably all unique depending on what part of that massive country you are in.  But for typical take-out (what we know as 'Chinese' here in the US), someone told me that the 3 key ingredients to mimic the takeout taste are fresh ginger, sesame oil, and sugar.  Just a pinch of sugar, but apparently it pulls together all the other ingredients and gives it a nice finish.  And while you don't want to hear this again, takeout style Chinese food does require heat that most home stoves can't really attain.  And don't forget corn starch, to make the sauces thicker but silky smooth.

Answer 5

Depends on what your cooking. Also I like the textures in Chinese food. Especially a mouth full of noodles or sushi.

Answer 6

hmmm.... i think its the high heat and msg

Answer 7

Wide variety of tastes, textures, and colors.

Chinese food is a work of art.

Anyway, buy a cookbook and follow the recipe.  Make sure you use high heat and lots of msg!

Answer 8

Garlic,ginger,sugar,cornflour,light soy chicken stock,medium sherry.Fry the h**l out of everything using little PEANUT OIL then toss in the SUGAR 1/2 tsp,add the SHERRY and LIGHT SOY finish with some CHICKEN STOCK and when boiling add 1/2 tsp CORN FLOUR mixed with a little cold water and thicken to taste.

FIVE SPICE powder can also be used and added in the initial frying...

Answer 9

the way they cook it...and the ingredients they use...