Every Grain of Rice: Simple Chinese Home Cooking (50 page)

OTHER ESSENTIALS

食鹽

Salt
(
shi yan
)

A fine-grained table salt is best for fast wok cooking and for mixing sauces: salt in the form of flakes or larger crystals won’t disperse or dissolve quickly enough.

鮮湯

Stock
(
xian tang
)

Fresh stock is clearly not a larder ingredient, but it’s helpful to have some frozen or canned stock to hand for making soups and stews. Water can generally be used as a substitute for small amounts of stock in sauces, though if you have frozen some homemade stock in ice cube trays, you will have small amounts readily available. I tend to make chicken stock, or chicken and pork bone stock, in large batches when I know I’ll be at home for a few hours, then freeze it in one-quart containers. Canned chicken stock can also be used, as can chicken or vegetarian stock granules, although do take care with adding extra salt when using bought stock or granules, which may already be salty. Vegetarians can also make a good stock from sprouted soy beans (tap
here
), or fall back on the rustic Chinese tradition of using the silky cooking water left behind after cooking a pot of rice or noodles as a comforting base for soups.

糖

Sugar
(
tang
)

White granulated sugar is the main sugar used in the Chinese kitchen. Brown sugar (known as “red sugar,”
hong tang
, in Chinese) is used in some dishes, as is rock or crystal sugar (
bing tang
). In this book, sugar means white sugar unless otherwise indicated.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book, simple as it is, has grown out of many years of cooking and eating in China, and it would be impossible to list here the names of everyone who has played a part in it. I would like, however, to thank a few people in particular.

The team at Barshu restaurant in London have been a fantastic support to me in so many ways. Owner Shao Wei and managers Juanzi, Sherrie Looi and Anne Yim have done everything possible to encourage me in this and many other projects. Head Chef Zhang Xiaozhong has been extraordinarily generous with his expertise, answering innumerable questions and helping me with the testing of recipes on several occasions. I’m also very grateful to Chef Wei Guirong, who assisted me in cooking for the photoshoots, and from whom I have learned so much in terms of dumpling-making. Chefs Fu Bing of Baozi Inn and Li Xue, Zhou Bo and Zheng Qingguo of Bashan have given me advice on certain recipes; and all the other staff have been delightful colleagues.

In China, A Dai (Dai Jianjun), the owner of the Dragon Well Manor restaurant in Hangzhou, has been one of the strongest influences on my research and my cooking in recent years. I find his passion for China’s traditional cuisine, culture and agriculture, and his efforts to preserve them for future generations, tremendously inspiring, and I’ve had the most wonderful times with him and his team, going fishing, gathering wild fruits, sharing meals in rural homes and, of course, eating the incomparable food in his restaurant. So thank you to A Dai and to everyone in the great
cao tang
family for making me feel at home, especially Chefs Dong Jingmu, Guo Ming and Yang Aiping, Qian Lu, Zhou Shifu, He Shifu, Xiatian and Xueyan.

In Chengdu, where my Chinese culinary explorations began and which remains one of my richest sources of recipes, my old friends Yu Bo and Dai Shuang have patiently answered a stream of questions, accompanied me on market visits and fed me with unbelievable delicacies. Their commitment to their craft is remarkable, and their knowledge of Sichuanese cuisine truly astonishing. A big thank you to them, and to the other staff of their marvellous restaurant, Yu Jia Chu Fang, in particular Xiao Huang and Guo Liang.

For their encouragement and support over many years I would like to thank Wang Xudong, editor of
Sichuan Cuisine
magazine; Professor Jiang Yuxiang of Sichuan University; Professor Du Li of the Sichuan Institute of Higher Cuisine; Liu Yaochun and Liu Jun; Sansan and Liu Wei; Feng Quanxin and Qiu Rongzhen; Li Shurong; Feng Rui; Susan Jung and Nigel Kat; Lai Wu; Lan Guijun; Hugo Martin; Francesca Tarocco; Nunzia Carbone; Gwen Chesnais; and Wu Xiaoming. Special thanks also to the amazing Rose Leng for arranging a couple of emergency shipments from Hong Kong at inconceivably short notice!

Back home, thank you to Lambros Kilaniotis for his ceaseless support and enthusiastic eating—I couldn’t have done this without you; Zoë Waldie, my ever-wonderful agent; Carolyn Dunlop, for her help in testing (and tasting!) recipes; Anissa Helou for fun, food adventures and writerly camaraderie; Chef Jerome Henry for trying out some of my recipes; Seema Merchant, for her invaluable advice; Nikki Johnson at the BBC for her patience, forbearance and good humour; the staff of the Shanghai restaurant in Dalston for advice on tofu; and my local guinea pigs Sam Chatterton Dickson, Cathy Roberts and Simon Robey for their comments on my culinary experiments.

I’m also very grateful to my editors, Richard Atkinson and Natalie Hunt at Bloomsbury, and Maria Guarnaschelli at W. W. Norton, for their enthusiastic commitment to the book and the immense creative effort they have put into its production; to Caroline Clark for her beautiful designs; to the very patient and apparently unflappable Lucy Bannell for her work on the text; to Chris Terry for his mouthwatering photographs; and to Cynthia Inions for her styling of the shoots.

Finally, although I’ve tried to reproduce recipes faithfully and to write accurately, any errors are entirely my own.

INDEX

Page numbers listed correspond to the print edition of this book. You can use your device’s search function to locate particular terms in the text.

A

alfalfa sprouts 167

amaranth, purple 328

Purple amaranth with garlic 190

Purple amaranth with red fermented tofu 190

avocado

Silken tofu with avocado 42

B

bamboo shoots

Rice-cooked bamboo shoots 264

bay leaves 339

beancurd
see
tofu

beans (
see also
black, fava and soy beans) 149

Green or romano beans with black bean and chilli 154

Sichuanese “dry-fried” green beans 150

Stir-fried green beans with “olive vegetable” 150

beansprouts 332

Beansprouts with chilli and Sichuan pepper 164

Sprouted soy bean stock 319

Stir-fried beansprouts with Chinese chives 164

bean thread noodles 267

Bear’s paw tofu 80

beef 93

Beef and cilantro or celery dumpling filling 300

Beef with cumin 106

Buckwheat noodles with red-braised beef 286

Ho Fun rice noodles with beef 272

Red-braised beef noodles 284

Red-braised beef with tofu “bamboo” 108

Sichuanese numbing-and-hot beef 56

Sichuanese “send-the-rice-down” chopped celery with ground beef 194

Slow-cooked beef brisket with berries 110

Slow-cooked beef brisket noodles 284

Stir-fried beef with black bean and chilli 101

Stir-fried celery with beef 194

Xi’an pot-sticker dumplings 308, 311

Xie Laoban’s dan dan noodles 279

black beans

Black bean chicken 116

Black bean stock 319

Clams in black bean sauce 146

Laoganma black bean sauce 336

blanching vegetables 22

bok choy 167, 328

Baby bok choy in superior stock 176

Bok choy with fresh shiitake 180

broccoli/Chinese broccoli 328

Chinese broccoli in ginger sauce 182

Purple-sprouting broccoli with sizzling oil 168

Stir-fried broccoli with chilli and Sichuan pepper 174

Stir-fried broccoli with garlic 174

brown rice vinegar 10, 345

buckwheat noodles
see
noodles

butternut squash

Rustic steamed squash with spicy black bean sauce 222

C

cabbage, Chinese leaf 167, 328

Chinese cabbage and ground pork dumpling filling 300

Chinese cabbage with vinegar 184

camellia oil 344

carp, mirror

Mirror carp in chilli bean sauce 140

carrots 225

cassia bark 10, 339

celery/Chinese celery 328

Sichuanese “send-the-rice-down” chopped celery with ground beef 194

Stir-fried celery with beef 194

Stir-fried celery with lily bulb and macadamia nuts 196

chard

Smothered rainbow chard with garlic 188

Twice-cooked Swiss chard 186

Chef Chen Dailu’s spicy sesame noodles 282

chestnuts (
see also
water chestnuts) 124

Braised chicken with chestnuts 124

chicken 113

Black bean chicken 116

Braised chicken with chestnuts 124

Braised chicken with dried shiitake mushrooms 121

Braised chicken with shiitake mushrooms on noodles 284

Chicken stock 318

Clay bowl chicken 52

Cold chicken with ginger and spring onion 50

Cold chicken with a spicy Sichuanese sauce 48

Congee with chicken and shiitake mushrooms 263

Everyday stir-fried chicken 120

General Tso’s chicken 122

Gong Bao chicken with peanuts 118

poaching chicken 50

Silken tofu with chicken slivers and pickled mustard greens 88

Simple chicken soup 251

Spicy buckwheat noodles with chicken 268

Steamed chicken with Chinese sausage and shiitake mushrooms 114

Stewed chicken noodles 284

Stir-fried oyster mushrooms with chicken 234

Stir-fried yellow chives with chicken slivers 202

chicken fat 324

Chicken livers with Chinese chives 126

chillies 209, 338

chilli bean paste 12

chilli bean sauce 140

Chilli oil 10, 320, 338

dried chillies 10, 338

ground chillies 320, 338

Sichuan chilli bean paste 338

Chinkiang vinegar 10, 345

chives, Chinese, flowering and yellow 199, 330

Chinese chives with smoked tofu 201

Flowering chives with pork slivers 200

Flowering chives with smoked tofu 20

Golden Chinese chive omelette 204

Scrambled egg and chives dumpling filling 300

Stir-fried Chinese chives with pork slivers 200

Stir-fried eggs with yellow chives 205

Stir-fried yellow chives with chicken or pork slivers 202

Stir-fried yellow chives with venison slivers 202

chopsticks 16

choy sum 167, 328

Blanched choy sum with sizzling oil 168

Stir-fried choy sum with ginger and garlic 177

Stir-fried chopped choy sum 178

cilantro 330

Clams in black bean sauce 146

cleavers, Chinese 18

cloud ear mushrooms 231

cloves 339

Congee 263

Congee with chicken and shiitake mushrooms 263