At Home with Chinese Cuisine (8 page)
Read At Home with Chinese Cuisine Online
Authors: T P Hong
YongChun aged Monascus vinegar (YongChun Lau Cu, GIP
) is the rice vinegar from the southern coastal province of FuJian. It is referred to as the black vinegar because its colour is blackish brown and darkens further with aging. The main ingredients include the glutinous rice, a Chhu that is commonly referred to as the red yeast rice (monascus rice, or HongQi in Chinese), sesame seeds, and sugar. In order to qualify for the GIP, the vinegar has to be aged for at least three years with the acidity level no lower than 5 per cent. They are suitable for aging. Because of its colour, one should be careful in using it for light-coloured dishes.
Red yeast rice is red in colour and is the product of rice being cultivated with the fungus Monascus purpureus. It is more popular in the South and is often used as a condiment or a natural colouring agent. It is used to prepare the red strip of barbecued pork hanging on a hook by the entrance to a GuangDong restaurant. The barbecued pork can be sliced to serve as a cold plate, or it can be used as the filling for the popular dim-sum selection of steamed buns. One can also find small pieces of fermented bean curd with red yeast rice sold in a glass jar all over China as a traditional breakfast side dish to go with congee.
Buying
tips
for
vinegar:
We will be in trouble with the shop owner if we try to open a bottle of vinegar on the spot for sniffing and tasting, or to pour it out to check its clarity and body for quality before we pay for it. But it is exactly the colour, the aroma, the taste and the texture of the liquid that are the points of reference for choosing quality vinegars. Chinese aged vinegar tends to have an amber, red-brownish colour that turns dark brown with aging. Visually, the liquid should be clear and free of floating particles. The sediment in the bottle is not itself an indicator of quality either way. The naturally fermented grain-based vinegars all have their unique aroma from the esterification process. When sniffing at the aged bottle, the aroma should be pleasing with no pungent kick on the nose.
After the purchase, taste the vinegar before using it. Acidity is the dominant taste, preferably with the absence of tannin. With aging, the acidity becomes softer and rounder. The acidity should carry with it the taste of sweetness. And the taste of sweetness is part and parcel of the umami taste. To check on its texture, pour one or two tablespoons of vinegar onto a white plate and tilt it to see whether the vinegar coats the plate. The quality one should have a thin layer clinging on to the plate.
After getting hold of the quality ingredients, we have to consider the knife work required to prepare the ingredients to the shape and size suitable for the designated cooking method. The knife work we carry out on the table during the meal in the West is to cut the food in bite size so that we can then fork the food into our mouths. This task is done in the food preparation stage in the Chinese kitchen. The most obvious reason is because the food has to be made easy for the chopsticks to pick up, which involves cutting larger chunks of ingredients into bite sizes.
Knife work makes possible the quick, high-heat style of cooking methods such as stir-frying. The most basic knife work for a quick stir-fry is to slice the ingredients thinly and in uniform or complementary shapes and thickness, so as to achieve the same degree of doneness within a very short period of cooking time. The uniform or complementary shapes and thickness likewise have a bearing on the presentation of the dish. A neatly presented dish has a positive influence on the perception of the flavour of the dish. In addition, the greater contact area of the finely sliced ingredients is conducive for the initial marinade and the final coating of the sauce for fuller flavour.
For example, tougher meat with connective tissues is normally cut across the grain so that it is tenderer when cooked. For more fragile and moist meat such as pork tenderloin, cutting along the grain is often recommended for a quick stir-fry. With more fibrous vegetables such as the leek, the knife work and the cooking method will determine their texture when cooked. Cut the stem of the leek into three-or four-centimetre sections and shred finely along the fibre (for julienne), which creates a crunchy texture when stir-fried quickly. Cut the leek across the fibre and stir-fry until soft to give a tender and smooth feel.
Practicing knife work is like learning KungFu: One has to be at inner peace. Start from the basic posture and aim for perfection through practice. If one is to take knife skills seriously, the first step is to learn how to stand properly. It is about how positioning the body vis-à-vis the work surface and cutting board in order to stay comfortable while working. It is also about how one wields the knife. The process demands concentration. One’s thought should be to follow the blade, and the blade follows our thought. Learn to work the fingers, palms, wrists, and arms in tandem nimbly and flexibly so as to work accurately, decisively, and safely.
There are more than twelve categories of knife work, and each is subdivided into more specific, technical applications. Among them, we can find similarities with how the kitchen knife is handled in the West. One can also find more detailed description of some techniques with clearly defined applications that are less common in the Western kitchen.
Cutting (
切
), cross-hatching (
剞
), horizontal slicing (
片
), and chopping (
剁
, including mincing) are the most common categories of knife work in China. Shaving/peeling (
削
), jointing/boning/filleting/dressing (
剔
), and pounding (
拍
) are also common. Splitting and hacking (
劈
, when using more force to cut open a carcass or splitting a fish head into two), turning, and food carving (
旋
) are predominately for the professional kitchens.
Cutting is probably the most universal knife work there is. Under this category, the Chinese include the following basic cutting techniques that we practice often but do not categorically divide them as such.
- •
Straight cut: This is the most common knife work in the kitchen. Hold the knife at a 90° angle to the cutting board. - •
Push cut: The centre of gravity is towards the base of the knife. The tip of the knife normally points towards the front left in an angle if you stand parallel to the cutting board. The contact point with the ingredient is in the middle and the base of the knife. Push the knife away when cutting. - •
Pull cut: This is the opposite of the push cut. The centre of the gravity is towards the tip of the knife. This is a technique for shredding, for example, soft vegetables. The gentle action of pulling the tip of a sharp knife towards the body while cutting across the mushroom is a breeze. - •
Sawing cut: This is for slicing bread with a serrated bread knife. - •
Rocking cut: This is for cutting in half a firm squash or a giant watermelon. - •
Slant cut: It is about holding the knife at a slant to cut diagonal slices. - •
Roll cutting: It is a technique of cutting that starts from one end of the vegetable, straight cutting at a 45° angle. Roll the vegetable 90° towards the body. Repeat the cutting at the same angle to obtain pieces of similar size. It is done to increase the contact area with the heat and seasonings. It is also done for presentation purposes.
Preparing julienne (long, thin sticks) or strips is shredding in Chinese knife work vocabulary, and dicing includes preparing mirepoix (roughly diced) and brunoise (finely diced). Both shredding and dicing belong to the broader category of cutting.
Cross-hatching is a category of knife work that is closely associated with Chinese cooking. One often sees chefs scoring a diamond pattern in the skin of the duck breast or scoring the sides of the fish with diagonal cuts spacing out evenly; these are the examples of cross-hatching. Cross-hatching is called Ji in Chinese. Ji is a curved knife for carving. It is also a category of knife work in the context of food preparation. This knife work is often deployed on ingredients sensitive to the heat such as kidney, gizzard, or squid. The raw surface of the ingredient is cut with horizontal, vertical, and/or diagonal knife patterns. With the cooking heat, the ingredient will curl up, and the effect of the knife work shows through. It can turn into a variety of shapes. The more delicate one can look like a chrysanthemum or grapes, or have sophisticated geometrical patterns. Flavour-wise, the cuts give greater contact areas for picking up cooking juice or sauce.
A sharp knife is essential to do the work and will allow more control not to cut the ingredient all the way through while doing the incisions. The depth of the incision is usually about two-thirds of the thickness of the ingredients – or if one wishes to challenge oneself, four-fifths of the way down. Aesthetically, chefs are after a uniform depth and gap between the cuts. Once cooked, the uncut side curls up, and there is a neat pattern on the cut side opened up as intended.
In the context of food preparation, the proficiency of knife work goes beyond mastering the basic techniques. Experienced domestic cooks are often equipped with a basic knowledge of home butchery because the Chinese use a wide range of meats from the animals and are quite specific about the texture of the cut to match a particular cooking method with the necessary knife work.
The JiangSu dish of Meatballs (Lion Head) with Crab Meat is a good example. The choice of meat and the required knife work explain its court cuisine origin. The ideal cut for this dish is the side pork with roughly 70 per cent of lean meat and 30 per cent of fat. The meat has to be diced as finely as possible and then coarsely chopped to the size of pomegranate seeds. Cutting the meat finely first and then chopping it coarsely are important for the texture of the meatball. It is equally important to throw the chopped meat around in a bowl to tenderise it. After two to three hours of gentle simmering in liquid, the result is a tender, melt-in-the-mouth texture. If one thinks a meatball is a meatball, buy a pack of machine-minced pork with no indication which cut it is from and try out the recipe in this book for comparison purpose. The contrast in flavour as the result of the knife work will be revealing!
When I started to learn to handle the kitchen knife, the first thing my mother taught me was how to bend the fingers that hold the food for cutting inwards towards the palm, and how to let the blade lean against the second section of the fingers. The fingers that hold the food can then lead the blade with the cutting motion safely. She also showed me to scrape the thumbnail very gently with the edge of the knife in an angle to find out whether the knife is sharp enough to use. If it is a smooth encounter, the knife needs sharpening. She said that the sharper the knife, the less likely one will injure oneself.
The Chinese cleaver is often mentioned as the choice of knife for preparing Chinese food. It is an experience one should not miss to get the sense of why a relatively heavy knife with the sizeable blade
is what so many Chinese prefer. It is exactly because of the weight of the knife that the Chinese find them easy to use. The weight gives the forward or backward rocking thrust and a momentum to the cutting motion.
To serve the basic needs, two cleavers are needed. One is a cleaver with a thinner cross-section for finer cutting, slicing, and shredding; it’s called a slicing knife. The slicing knife usually comes with a rectangular shape blade – that is, the cutting edge and the spine of the blade are of the same length. It can also come with a knifepoint and a curved edge for smoother cutting or rocking motions. While making the selection, try to hold the knife in your hand and make sure it is comfortable to hold. A knife weighing just under 400 grammes is about right. The Chinese cleaver does not have finger guard, which is a noticeable difference with the much lighter Western alternatives. A knife without the finger guard makes sharpening and honing much easier.
The second cleaver needs to have a thicker and heavier blade for heavier tasks such as chopping large bones. It is called a hacking and heavy-chopping knife, and it only comes with a rectangular-shaped blade. The Western cleaver can be considered as a substitute, but it needs to be sharpened first. Chinese tradesmen who make a living on sharpening knives describe the initial sharpening of a Western manufactured knife as “breaking the blade”, as in training a wild horse.
High-carbon stainless steel, carbon steel, and stainless steel are the three most common materials for the construction of cleavers. High-carbon stainless steel knives from reputable manufacturers are my first choice because they are rust and stain resistant, and the blade can be honed to a fairly sharp edge. The carbon steel knife has the sharpest blade among the different materials, but it is fussier to look after; it can turn rusty if the blade is not wiped dry after washing. And acid in food can cause stains on the blade that are difficult to remove. Stainless steel blades are rust and stain resistant, but they become dull fairly quickly.
Design safety is a consideration when shopping for cleavers. It is preferable to choose a knife with a full tang handle that is triple riveted; that means that the blade extends all the way through the length of the handle (the tang), and there are three rivets that secure the tang to the handle. The handle can be made from natural materials like wood and bone to stainless steel and high-tech materials such as ABS (an amorphous thermoplastic terpolymer) and G-10 (a fibreglass based laminate). I normally place my trust on the reputable manufacturers for their choice of the material. I will then make sure that the shape of the handle allows me to have a firm grip, and that the shape of the handle gives a big enough gap between the knife-holding fingers and the cutting board.
To keep knives in prime condition, it is advisable to store them with their sleeves on, especially when they are being kept in a drawer with other kitchen utensils. Knives jostling about with other metal objects can damage their blades. In order to keep the blade sharp, every kitchen needs knife sharpeners or the sharpening steel. From time to time, the blade should be sharpened using a whetstone or honed by professionals. In China, life is easy for the householders who need knife sharpening; tradesmen on their bike or tri-cycle can easily be found parking by the roadside near the residential areas or traditional markets to service knives inexpensively. All they have is a bucket of water, a towel, a wooden bench with a piece of whetstone tied onto one end, and a pair of skilful hands.
From time to time, I visited relatives who still lived in the countryside. They had a rice field to attend to, producing a sufficient crop for the family for the whole year. They also had a vegetable patch that supplies seasonal vegetables for the kitchen all year round. Their kitchen was a simple room with a traditional stove that has two burners and burns wood collected from nearby hills. The kindling was a well-wrapped-up bunch of straw. Two giant woks sat on the burner almost in perpetuity, and the layer of patina on the woks was shiningly black; it told the story of time and care. An old cleaver with wooden handle was all I saw of kitchen knives. It was a heavy cleaver with a chunky rectangle blade. My relative said it was a matter of practice to use it to slice the meat thinly. She smashed garlic cloves with a gentle tape of the blade. The blade was also used for scooping up morsels from the cutting board destined for the wok. She used the cleaver to slaughter the chicken and chop it up into pieces with ease. She said the knife had been in the family for two generations, and she has been using it since she married into the family twenty-odd years ago. I fell into thought, staring at the set of kitchen utensils I had bought for her years ago. They decorated a corner of the kitchen and went unused. The peasants’ way of working in the kitchen must have had profound influence on the evolution of the design of the cleaver in China. Watching how the cleaver was used, I realised that one could comfortably travel the seven seas and feed oneself well with just a cleaver alongside, free from a drawer of kitchen accessories.