Cooking Techniques

Recipes Based on Sichuan Cooking Techniques

Boiling / Simmering (吨)

Boiling is perhaps the easiest method of cooking and vital to making Sichuan Soups. It's also a key step in many recipes as a way to purify meat. Boiling removes blood and impurites, which is integral to the quality and flavor of a dish. The basic ingredients needed for Boiling are Shaoxing Rice Wine, Ginger, and Scallion - Sichuan Peppercorns are also somewhat common. Regardless, the key step to any Boiled Dish is removing scum from the surface of the water. As the water boils, blood foam and impurities from within the meat will rise to the surface. By using a ladle, you can easily skim away the scum until the water is clear. A mesh strainer, or one lined with cheese cloth, can greatly assist with this task, especially when it's imperative not to remove water from the pot unnecessarily. For great recipes featuring this technique, click the following link: Boiled Dishes.

Braising / Stewing (烧)

Braising is one of the most complicated cooking methods regarding Sichuan Meat Dishes - due not to the difficulty, but to the number of steps. First the meat must undergo Boiling (吨) to purify the flavor, then it must be Stir-Fried (炒) to concentrate the flavors, and finally, it must be Braised (烧) to tenderize the meat and imbue the dish with flavor. Because of the long cooking times, Braised Meat Dishes are usually cooked with root vegetables like Potatoes, White Radishes (Daikon), and Carrots. The best Braised Dishes are those that are slow-cooked for several hours on low heat. Nevertheless, restaurants will often use pressure cookers to greatly reduce the time needed for the Braising process. A common and well-known form of Braised Dishes are Red Braised Dishes (红烧), which undergo a similar cooking process and also feature Five-Spice Flavors. The main difference is that Red Braised Dishes include Red Colored Syrup (糖色), a natural food dye made from sugar. Aside from Meats, Chicken, and Fish - Vegetables can also be Braised and Red Braised. One of the most common Vegetables for this would be Eggplant, which can undergo various cooking methods. For recipes, check out the following link: Braised Dishes.

Cold Dishes (冷吃)

Cold Dishes are not cold in the sense that they are chilled, but simply in the sense that they are not served hot. So, while some dishes are placed in a fridge before serving, others are merely served at room temperature. Many Cold Dishes are simply food tossed in a sauce and then served. Red Oil Dishes (红油冷吃) are perhaps the most well known among Cold Dishes and involve meat or vegetables served in a generous pool of spicy Red Chili Oil. Recipes can be found at the following link: Cold Dishes.

Deep-Frying (炸)

Deep-Frying (炸) follows many of the same rules and guidelines one would expect from western cooking. However, there are a few key differences. To start, most Deep-Frying for Sichuan cuisine should be done in a wok. Usually, the wok is filled about 1/3 full with frying oil, and I would not recommend filling the wok more than 1/2 full. Frying is often done at high-temperatures, and when ingredients are added, the water within them will rapidly bubble out. Fill the wok too full and boiling hot oil will be all over your countertop. The ideal temperature for the oil will often depend on the dish being cooked, but for most Deep-Fried Dishes, there will be a double-frying process to get the product ultra-crispy. During the intial frying, the oil will be about 70% of the way to reaching its smoke-point and during the second, the oil will be about 90% of the way to its smoke-point. This is for a high-powered wok burner - it's a bit different in a modern kitchen with an induction top or electric coil. No matter what, when ingredients are added, the oil will cool. With a high-powered wok burner, there will be almost no recovery time and the oil will maintain its high-temperature. For an induction top, however, the oil temperature will drop significantly and take much longer to return to its original temperature. If the ingredients are too wet or there are too many, the oil will be ruined and the ingredients will boil in soupy oil instead of frying. There are three things you can do to combat this if you're using an induction top. First, use a much higher temperature than normal. So, instead of heating the oil 70% of the way to its smoke-point, heat it to about 85% or even 90%. The ingredients will drop the temperature to about 70% when they are added. The second biggest tip is not to overcrowd the wok. Each idividual piece of fried ingredient should float with a decent amount of space between it and the other pieces. Finally, keep the pieces in the wok moving which will help water evaporate more easily. For a list of recipes, click the following link: Deep-Fried Dishes.

Dry-Frying / Crispy-Frying / Flash-Frying (干煸)

Dry-Frying (干煸) may seem like an odd term in English, but makes a lot of sense upon understanding the cooking method. Dry-Frying evaporates all moisture from the surface of whatever is being cooked. To accomplish this, the ingredient is first Deep-Fried (炸) and then Stir-Fried (炒). For meats, such as Chicken, and vegetables, such as Potatoes, this creates an ultra-crispy exterior - hence why I label them Crispy-Fried Dishes. For other vegetables, such as Green Beans, the intial frying step is quite fast and the exterior doesn't become crispy - thus I call them Flash-Fried Dishes. Both Crispy-Fried and Flash-Fried Dishes are simply Dry-Fried Dishes and use virtually the same techniques. First, the ingredient is quickly fried in super-hot oil. Then, it's stir-fried with low-moisture aromatics, dried red chilies, and Sichuan peppercorns. One common difference, however, is that Flash-Fried Dishes often use minced pork belly, which is stir-fried along with the aromatics before the main ingredient is added back to the wok. Recipes can be found at the following link: Dry-Fried Dishes.

Home Style Cooking (家常菜)

Home Style Cooking isn't necessarily it's own technique but simply modefying other cooking methods to include common ingredients. Home style dishes often feature vegetables not used in restaurant versions of the dish. These usually include Green Bell Pepper, Red Bell Pepper, and various types of Mushrooms like White Button Mushrooms, Enoki, Shimeji, and Black Wood Ear Mushrooms. Since almost any dish can be made with Home Style Cooking, this is a rather broad category and many recipes can be found at the following link: Home Style Dishes.

Pan-Frying (煎)

The character here for Frying is called Jian (煎), and it means to fry or shallow-fry against the surface of a wok or pan. Unlike with Stir-Frying (炝炒), Pan-Frying doesn't focus on quickly moving the ingredients in the wok. Pan-Frying, instead, focuses more on allowing the product to cook against the cooking surface. Think of pancakes, which in Chinese are written as Pan-Fried Biscuits (煎饼). Pancakes are cooked fully on one side, flipped once, and then fully cooked on the other side. So, with Pan-Frying, the products are not Stir-Fried but cooked in a single layer, flipped over, and cooked on the other side. This does not mean that ingredients in the wok are static. Most Pan-Fried Dishes gently swirl the ingredients in the bottom of the wok, before flipping or gently stirring them. This is even common in Lightly Pan-Fried Dishes (小煎) in which small pieces of ingredients are fried for a short amount of time. To shorten the time, ingredients are often first Deep-Fried (炸) and then Pan-Fried like with Lightly Pan-Fried Fish (小煎鱼). Because fish is quite delicate, it cannot be Stir-Fried and Pan-Frying is a much gentler option. Salty Fried Pork (盐煎肉), likewise, focuses on gently swirling and tossing the ingredients in the wok instead of vigorously stiring them. Finally, Pan-Frying does not searing. While this can be the case, searing or charring is often undesirable hence the swirling motion used to keep the ingredients moving. For recipes, click the following link: Pan-Fried Dishes.

Spicy Boiling / Water Boiling (水煮)

Spicy Boiling in Chinese literally means Boiling in Water (水煮). However, this is not the same as Poaching (煮) in which ingredients are added to boiling water. I clarify by using the term Spicy Boiling or Spicy Boiled, because the ingredients in these dishes are not boiled in water but in a sizzling-spicy (麻辣) soup. Obviously, the main part of that soup is water; nevertheless, it's heavily flavored by Sichuan Chili Bean Paste and Pickled Red Chilies. Spicy Boiled Dishes are composed of both meat and vegetables layered on top of each other. The vegetables are cooked before the meat and are either stir-fried or boiled in the spicy soup. To make the soup, Ginger, Garlic, Pickled Red Chilies, and Sichuan Chili Bean Paste would be stir-fried in a decent amount of oil, several cups of water would be added, and then the liquid brought to a boil. The meat would be added to the boiling soup and cooked until just done. The meat would be removed from the soup and layered on top of the vegetables; the hot soup would be poured around the meat; and, tons of aromatics, chili flakes, and Sichuan peppercorns would be sprinkled on top. The final step of any Spicy Boiled Dish is to splash hot oil over the toppings creating a sizzling-spicy-fragrant Oil layer. A large heat proof bowl or round casserole dish would be the best vessel for serving. For recipes, click on the following link: Spicy Boiled Dishes.

Stir-Frying (炝炒)

Stir-Frying is one of the most important skills in Chinese cooking. I actually have two different cooking techniques combined together to represent Stir-Frying. These are Qiang (炝) and Chao (炒). There is little difference between these two words, and they are often combined together and used interchangebly. Generally, however, Qiang (炝) means to stir-fry with slightly less oil and at a faster pace than Chao (炒), which seems to be just a general term for Stir-Frying. There are also Lightly Stir-Fried dishes (小炒) in which small bits of ingredients are quickly stir-fried. For both Qiang (炝) and Chao (炒), there are no absolutes in the amount of oil used when stir-frying. Use about 1/4 cup of Oil for stir-frying as a general rule unless otherwise stated. Always pull the wok away from heat when adding aromatics like garlic and ginger, and always splash sauces such as soy sauce and shaoxing rice wine around the sides of the wok. For recipes featuring this cooking technique, click on the following link: Stir-Fried Dishes.

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