Way back at the beginning of Nablopomo, I had a few comments asking for more information about how I finally (after 12 years of being with Mr. A) learned to cook Chinese food.
I had tried to cook Chinese food for a long time, but it was TERRIBLE. So bad that it was not surprising to me to work on a meal, take a taste and throw it away. I thought all Chinese food was seasoned with soy sauce. I had a vague notion that there also needed to be some corn starch and some stir-frying action. I would saute up some veggies (probably frozen mixed veggies -gag!) and throw on some soy sauce and be shocked when it tasted like ass. I was trying to replicate bad American Chinese restaurants, when I don’t even LIKE that food.
Then, last year I checked Fuchsia Dunlop’s memoir Shark’s Fin Soup and Sichuan Pepper from the library. With that one book, I gained more understanding of Chinese food than I had gathered in the whole rest of my life. I decided that 2009 was going to be the year I learned to cook Chinese. For Christmas, I asked for and received both of her cookbooks for Christmas.
Oh My God.
The first dish I made was from the Sichuan cookbook. I think it was Homestyle Bean Curd (page 315). I tried to follow the recipe as closely as possible (though I didn’t deep fry the tofu, I boiled it and just mixed it in). At that point, I didn’t even know what chili bean paste was, but soon it was to become a major feature in many, many of our meals. Who knew you were supposed to use chicken stock, not douse the dish in tons of soy sauce to make a liquid? It was a revelation.
Since then, I have tried recipes from both the books and I have discovered I prefer Sichuan style cooking more than Hunan style. I have made Mapo Tofu, several kinds of dumplings, dan dan noodles, and a variety of meat and vegetable dishes. All of them have been good. Very good.
This isn’t to say there haven’t been mishaps. After a few tries, I convinced myself I do not like Sichuan pepper, so I started leaving it out. It wasn’t until some friends took me to an authentic Sichuan restaurant that I figured out how it was supposed to taste and that I could actually enjoy eating it. Now I am experimenting with it again. I also tend to tone down some of the spiciness if the girls are going to eat with us, or I just make an identical dish without chili bean sauce for them.
At this point, I have learned enough about the basics to start trying to replicate dishes I have had in China or in good Chinese restaurants that are not in the cookbooks. Even though the spicing is different, the cooking principles are still very similar.
For example, tonight I tried to make Niu Rou Mian (beef noodle soup) similar to the la mian (hand pulled noodles) Mr. A ate while he lived in Shandong province. Those noodles were the very first real Chinese food I had ever eaten, so I have a certain amount of nostalgia for them. Mr. A ate at a little noodle shop almost every day while he lived in China, so he was eager for me to try it too.
I looked for recipes, but all the Niu Rou Mian I found looked spicy. The noodles Mr. A loved were plain, but came with chili paste and vinegar on the side. Working with some recipes online, I created my own recipe. While it wasn’t 100% the same as our beloved noodles, they were close AND they were yummy in their own right. Now I know how to tweak the recipe the next time too.
I guess the answer to the questions are: I found a good cookbook and I read about the process. I tried the recipes. I liked them (and Mr. A loved them). so I tried some more. Cooking Chinese isn’t hard, but it isn’t intuitive if you are used to cooking mostly Western-style food.
I have been thinking about trying a mini-project to cook more Chinese before the end of the year and posting the results here. Mr. A is enthusiastically in support of that possibility, but I am afraid it might be boring. I am not a food blogger. Do you all really care what we eat for dinner? Maybe I will give it a go as a side project, not as Nablopomo filler. Maybe.
