Chinese Cooking Methods

Chinese traditional catering culture has a long history. Chinese people have invented frying, roasting, boiling, stewing, smoking, grilling, and other cooking methods, and also learned some other techniques from other ethnic groups to make a variety of dishes.

Frying

Heat the oil in the wok, add the ingredients and seasonings, and quickly mix over the high heat. Frying includes quick-frying, braise-frying, stir-frying and so on.

Braising

Add water or soup-stock after frying and braise over low heat to make the food tasty and rotten. Braising includes brown, white and dry-braising.

Steaming

Place the food in a steamer and boil the water to cook the food in the vapor. Steaming consists of basic steaming, rice flour steaming and brew-steaming.

Deep-frying

Add much edible oil to the wok and put the food into the oil to cook quickly with the heat until the food turns golden yellow.

Stir-frying

Cook the ingredients quickly in edible oil, sauce or broth with high heat. Stir-frying can be made with oil, sauce or broth.

Sautéing

Cook the food in a wok with a little hot oil. It can be made with or without water.

Roasting

Put the seasoned ingredients on the grill or in the oven to heat and cook thoroughly. It can be divided into dry-roasting, raw-roasting and charcoal-roasting.

Salting

Put the clean ingredients in a container and add salt or soy sauce to preserve. It can be made with salt or soy sauce.

Flavor-potting

Add raw or cooked ingredients to the boiling marinade to get the special flavor.

Smoking

Put the processed ingredients over the burning tea leaves, pine branches, brown sugar or other fuel. It consists of raw smoking and cooked smoking.

Jellying

Add agar or pectin powder to the cooked food and curdle it into the jelly form.

Stirring

Add seasonings to raw vegetables or cooked meat, mix evenly and serve when tasty. It can be divided into cold mixing and hot mixing.

Precooking before Stewing

Cook or semi-cook several ingredients before frying, braising or stewing together.

Quick-boiling in Broth

Put the ingredients into the boiling broth, add chopped green onion and bruised ginger, and take out into the bowl when the broth boils again.

Slippery-frying

Thicken with mixture of cornstarch and water or pour hot oil onto the dish to make it tasty and tender. It can be made with oil, vinegar or thickening.

Quick-boiling in Water

Put the ingredients in boiling water or oil until half-cooked, and take out for other cooking.

Stewing

Put the ingredients into the pan with water, add seasonings like ginger, scallion and cooking wine, and cook over the low heat until thoroughly cooked.

Boiling

Put the ingredients into the pan with cold or boiling water and cook until cooked or thoroughly cooked.

Fry-simmering

Add a little broth to the fried, braised or boiled food and cook with a very low fire until there is no more broth.

Grilling

Wrap the seasoned meat in tinfoil and bury it in hot salt or wrap it in gauze and bury in hot scallion sections to cook over the low heat.

Dip-boiling

Dip the thinly-sliced ingredients in the boiling soup until cooked and take out to eat with seasoning sauce.

Pickling

Soak vegetables and fruits in the container with salt, wine, cold boiled water, rock candy and condiment for a certain period of time. It can be made with salt or sugar and vinegar.

Wine-steeping

Steep the meat in high-quality wine and serve either cooked or raw, such as wine-steeped chicken and shrimp.

Quick-boiling

Put the ingredients in boiling water or broth to cook quickly.

Baking

Put the seasoned ingredients in a pan or on the grill to dry over low heat.

Simmering

Put the ingredients in a wok to cook over the low heat until thoroughly cooked or the broth becomes silky.

Drying

Pickle the ingredients with salt, wine and condiments and dry in the shade with wind until the food goes completely dry for long-term preservation.

Crisping

Deep-fry the food, take out and cool down. Then, deep-fry again or add vinegar to crisp it.

Vinasse-steeping

Steep the dry fish or meat in vinasse for long-term preservation and steam with seasonings before eating.

Sugar-coating

Coat the ingredients with sugar to steep, boil or bake into cakes.

Inverting

Put the properly processed base in a bowl in order to keep it from being scattered and add seasonings onto it. Steam in the steamer and invert onto a plate to serve.

Assorting

Slice the cooked meat or vegetarian food and assort on a large plate in order. It is also called Assorted Cold Dish.

Brothing

It is also called pasting or potaging. Cook the ingredients into soup-stock and add thickening.

Saucing

Steep the ingredients in soy sauce or thick broad-bean sauce for a certain period of time and cook before serving.

Raw Stir-frying

Put a little edible oil in the wok, then add the ingredients, constantly stir-fry with a turner to dry over low heat and season.