Chinese cooking techniques are a set of methods and techniques traditionally used in Chinese cuisine.[1] The cooking techniques can either be grouped into ones that use a single cooking method or a combination of wet and dry cooking methods.
Many cooking techniques involve a singular type of heated cooking or action.
Wet-heat, immersion-based cooking methods are the predominant class of cooking techniques in Chinese cuisine and are usually referred to as Chinese: zhǔ (Chinese: 煮). In fact, this class of techniques is so common and important that the term Chinese: zhǔ is commonly used to denote cooking in general.[2]
Quick wet-heat based immersion cooking methods include:
| English Equivalent | Chinese | Pinyin | Description | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chinese: Shāo | Braising ingredients over medium heat in a small amount of sauce or broth and simmering for a short period of time until completion. Known as hóngshāo (红燒, lit. red cooking) when the sauce or broth is soy sauce based. | |||
| Quick Boiling | Chinese: 汆 or Chinese: 煠 | Chinese: Cuān or Chinese: Zhá | Adding ingredients and seasonings to boiling water or broth and immediately serving the dish with the cooking liquid when everything has come back to a boil. | |
| Chinese: 焯 or | Chinese: Chāo or Chinese: Tàng | Par cooking through quick immersion of raw ingredients in boiling water or broth sometimes followed by immersion in cold water. |
Prolonged wet-heat based immersion cooking methods include:
| English Equivalent | Chinese | Pinyin | Description | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bake stewing | Chinese: 煨 | Chinese: Wēi | Slowly cooking a ceramic vessel of broth and other ingredients by placing it in or close to hot embers. | |
| Steam stewing | Chinese: 焖 | Chinese: Mèn | Cooking with liquid (water or soup), covering in a tight-fitting lid until absorbed | |
| Gradual simmering | Chinese: Dùn | Adding ingredients to cold water along with seasonings and allowing the contents to slowly come to a prolonged simmering boil. This is known in English as double steaming due to the vessels commonly used for this cooking method. The term is also used in Chinese for the Western cooking technique of stewing and brewing herbal remedies of Traditional Chinese medicine. | ||
| Chinese: Lǔ | Cooking over prolonged and constant heat with the ingredients completely immersed in a strongly flavoured soy sauce based broth. This technique is different from, but in English synonymous with, Chinese: Hóng shāo (Chinese: 红燒). | |||
| Chinese: 熬 | Chinese: Áo | Cooking slowly to extract nutrients into the simmering liquid, used to describe the brewing process in Chinese herbology with the intention of using only the decocted brew. |
Steaming food is a wet cooking technique that has a long history in Chinese cuisine dating back to neolithic times, where additional food was cooked by steaming over a vessel of food being cooked by other wet cooking techniques.
| English Equivalent | Chinese | Pinyin | Description | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chinese: 蒸 or Chinese: 燖 | Chinese: Zhēng or Chinese: Xún | Steaming food to completion over boiling water and its rising water vapour. | ||
| Distillation simmering | Chinese: 醇 | Chinese: Chún | A cooking technique requiring the using of a unique lidded vessel, known as the steam-pot with a chimney rising from inside the bowl that is covered also by lid. Food ingredients are placed without cooking liquid in the vessel and the entire lidded vessel is seated on top of a pot of boiling water. Steam rising from the pot distills as hot water in the lidded vessel and cooks the ingredients while immersing it in soup. Used to prepare "pure" restorative foods such as steam-pot chicken. |
Food preparation in hot dry vessels such as an oven or a heated empty wok include:
| English Equivalent | Chinese | Pinyin | Description | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chinese: 烤 | Chinese: Kǎo | Cooking by hot air through convection or broiling in an enclosed space | ||
| Chinese: 炙[烤] | Chinese: zhì [kǎo] | Cooking by direct radiant heat typically on skewers over charcoal. | ||
| Chinese: 熏 | Chinese: Xūn | Cooking in direct heat with Smoke. The source of the smoke is typically sugar or tea. |
Oil-based cooking methods are one of the most common in Chinese cuisine and include:
| English Equivalent | Chinese | Pinyin | Description | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chinese: 炸 | Chinese: Zhá | Full or partial immersion cooking in hot oil or fat | ||
| Chinese: 煎 | Chinese: Jiān | Cooking in a pan with a light coating of oil or liquid and allowing the food to brown. | ||
| Chinese: 炒 | Chinese: Chǎo | Cooking ingredients at hot oil and stirring quickly to completion. This technique, as well as Chinese: bào chǎo and Chinese: yóu bào (Chinese: 爆炒 and Chinese: 油爆), is known in English as stir frying. This technique uses higher heat than that of Sautéing. | ||
| Chinese: [油]爆 | Chinese: [Yóu]Bào | Cooking with large amounts hot oil, sauces, or broth at very high heat and tossing the ingredients in the wok to completion. |
Kian Lam Kho identifies five distinct techniques of stir frying:[3]
| English Equivalent | Chinese | Pinyin | Description | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plain stir-fry or Simple stir-fry | Chinese: 清炒 | Chinese: qīngchǎo | To stir-fry a single ingredient (with aromatics and sauces). A plain stir-fry using garlic is known as Chinese: 蒜炒, Chinese: suànchǎo.[4] | |
| Dry stir-fry or Dry wok stir-fry | Chinese: 煸炒 | Chinese: biānchǎo | To stir-fry a combination of protein and vegetable ingredients (with a small amount of liquid)[5] | |
| Moist stir-fry | Chinese: 滑炒 | Chinese: huáchǎo | To stir-fry a combination of protein and vegetable ingredients (with a gravy-like sauce)[6] | |
| Dry-fry or Extreme-heat stir-fry | Chinese: 干煸 | Chinese: gānbiān | To scorch in oil before stir-frying (with no addition of water) | |
| Scramble stir-fry | Chinese: 软炒 | Chinese: ruǎnchǎo | A technique for making egg custard. |
Food preparation techniques not involving the heating of ingredients include:
| Dressing | Chinese: 拌 | Chinese: Bàn | Mixing raw or unflavoured cooked ingredients with seasonings and served immediately. Similar to tossing a dressing into salad. | |
| Marinating or pickling | Chinese: 腌 or Chinese: 醬 | Chinese: Yān or Chinese: Jiàng | To pickle or marinade ingredients in salt, soy sauce or soy pastes. Use for making pickles or preparing ingredients for addition cooking. | |
| Jellifying | Chinese: 冻 | Chinese: Dòng | To quickly cool a gelatin or agarose containing broth to make aspic or agar jelly | |
| Chinese: 上浆 | Chinese: Shàng Jiāng | This technique involves marinating meat in corn starch and other ingredients before cooking. This produces a velvety texture. |
Several techniques in Chinese involve more than one stage of cooking and have their own terms to describe the process. They include: