As a Beijing expat you may think, eating out Chinese is so convenient and cheap in Beijing, why should I cook Chinese food at home? Good question.
Here are a couple thoughts:
So how do you get started with cooking Chinese food at home? Let’s go over the basics: the kitchen, utensils, ingredients, recipes, and outside help.
A typical kitchen even in a nice Chinese apartment is rather small with limited counter space. It features a gas stove with 1 or 2 burners, sometimes 3 burners in newer buildings, a sink and a fridge.
Oven, microwave, and dishwasher are usually absent if you don’t live in an apartment that is geared towards foreigners. You can easily buy a small oven or microwave, e.g. at Walmart, Carrefour, or online, but finding a place in the kitchen to put it can be a bigger challenge. And for typical Chinese dishes, you won’t need one.
Typical fresh ingredients that go into almost every dish are garlic, ginger and spring onions or leek.
In addition, you need some dried and other non-perishable staples. Some of those are common across many Chinese dishes. But with China’s many different cuisines, ingredients vary.
So depending on the type of food you like, the list of spices, paste and sauces will vary and can be long.The good thing is that everything is easy to get here and doesn’t cost much. I think this gives you the license to experiment. (If you are reading this and are not living in China, many ingredients are available in Asian supermarkets and online.)
Let’s break it down into the more common basic staples first:
Additional sauces, paste and spices to have in you kitchen cabinet or fridge that are used in many Chinese dishes:
We found great authentic Chinese recipes in Fuchsia Dunlop’s cookbooks. We prepared many recipes from her book Land of Plenty and Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook. My sister loves her latest book Every Grain of Rice: Simple Chinese Home Cooking, which I gave to her when she tried to recreate some authentic Chinese dishes back home after visiting us in Beijing.
Do you rather have someone show you how to cook Chinese food than try it by yourself? Beijing has a couple of cooking schools for foreigners, targeting both expats and travelers. Classes are offered during the week and on weekends.
The cooking classes can vary in how hands-on they are. In some, you will learn some knife skills and, for example, making and shaping noodle dough but the actual cooking is only demonstrated by a chef. In other classes, you will have more opportunities to stir the wok yourself. When signing up for a class, make sure you understand if you will actually be able to do some cooking yourself if that is what you are after. Check out the Resources page with links to cooking schools.
Not all kitchens in the world are the same, or even similar. It’s not just that cooking methods differ between nations; it’s that the layout, appliances, storage, etc. can be vastly different as well.
A typical Chinese family kitchen with Disinfection Cabinet (UV disinfection and drying function)
When entering a typical middle-class Chinese kitchen, you’ll often find an appliance set under the counter that looks from the outside like a dishwasher. But don’t put your dirty plates in there and expect water to clean them up. This appliance is not a “washer”, but instead a “dryer”. Dish dryers super heat everything inside basically to the point of sanitation. Or, if you just don’t want to eat off of cold plates, the dryer will warm them up for you.
While a staple of most western kitchens, don’t expect to find an oven in China. The Chinese rarely bake. Chinese dishes are mostly made up of ingredients – like starches (noodles and rice), vegetables, and meat – that are already precut and mixed together before being served. This is why cooking in a wok makes sense. So, every kitchen has a stove, but usually that’s all. Counter-top toaster ovens are sold for those who need the ability to bake or toast.
And speaking of stoves, western kitchens usually have 4 to 6 burners on top as western food is mostly cooked separately (vegetables are cooked separately from the starch and meat). But Chinese stoves are mostly sold with only 2 large burners and maybe a small third burner to keep water warm. Some nicer stoves for more modern apartments may come with 4 or more burners, but it’s still fairly rare.
Simple storage rack in Chinese kitchen
To the side of the stove most kitchens will come with a tall, narrow, double-decked drawer. Pulled out, the drawer has wire racks inside, not solid bottoms and the width of each rack is barely wider than a wine bottle. What could this be used for? While western kitchens rely mostly on dry herbs and spices, Chinese cooking often incorporate liquid flavoring – such as vinegars, cooking wines, soy sauces, flavored oils like sesame, chili sauces, etc. This narrow draw is perfect for holding these bottles and stored in a convenient spot. From drawer to pan is less than 1 meter (3 feet).
Ever went to the living room to pull out a cold beverage or grab some meat to make a sandwich? Few Western homes have refrigerators outside the kitchen since it makes sense to having the cold items close to where you need them for cooking. However, Chinese kitchens tend to be on the small side and thus not all have room inside to put a refrigerator – especially a refrigerator of any modern respectable size. Thus, for most Chinese, the purchase of a larger (or newer) refrigerator often means having to put it in another room.
Cleaver and round wooden chopping blocks
Most western kitchens use an assortment of knives of all different shapes and sizes used for varying cutting purposes. However, in most Chinese kitchens, you may only find one or two knives, and each will probably be a different sized heavy-metal, razor-sharp cleaver. Chinese cooks can slice, dice, chop, and mince nearly anything with a 5lb. cleaver – they’re not just for hacking through chicken bones.
You may have only seen a chopping block in the movies, on TV, or in an Asian restaurant, but most Chinese kitchens have them. Flat, thin cutting boards grace nearly all western kitchens, but the Chinese seem to prefer something much heavier and longer lasting.
When traveling in China, try to find opportunities to visit people’s homes to see these differences for yourself. Many good quality tours from reputable companies will offer travelers the chance to visit regular people’s homes so you can see how that particular family really lives.
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