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Chinese cooking techniques (Chinese: 中餐烹調法) are a set of methods and techniques traditionally used in Chinese cuisine. The cooking techniques can either be grouped into ones that use a single cooking method or a combination of wet and dry cooking methods.
Contents
Single
Many cooking techniques involve a singular type of heated cooking or action.
Wet
Wet-heat, immersion-based cooking methods are the predominate class of cooking techniques in Chinese cuisine and are usually referred to as zhǔ (煮). In fact the term zhǔ is commonly used to denote cooking in general.
Quick
Fast wet-heat based cooking methods include:
Prolonged
Prolonged wet-heat based cooking methods include:
Air-based
Food preparation in hot dry vessels such as an oven or a heated empty wok include:
Oil-based
Oil-based cooking methods are one of the most common in Chinese cuisine and include:
Stir frying
Kian Lam Kho identifies five distinct techniques of stir frying:
Without heat
Food preparation techniques not involving the heating of ingredients include:
Combination
Several techniques in Chinese involve more than one stage of cooking and have their own terms to describe the process. They include:
- Simmering meat for a prolonged period in a broth (滷; Lǔ) or (炖; dùn)
- Chilling the resulting meat and broth until the mixture gels
- Quick precooking in hot water (燙; tàng)
- Finished by stir-frying (爆; bào, 炒; chǎo) and 燒; shāo)
- Deep frying (炸; zhà) the ingredients until partially cooked
- Finishing the ingredients lightly braising (燒; shāo) it to acquired a soft "skin"
- Stir-frying (爆; bào or 炒; chǎo) the ingredients until partially cooked
- Cover and simmer (燒; shāo) with broth until broth is fully reduced and ingredients are fully cooked.