Sonic Supper!

Archive for the ‘Chinese Food’ Category

Singapore is a melting pot bubbling over with tourists, inhabitants and expatriates from all parts of the world, and these people naturally have diverse eating habits. Through the ages, the Chinese, Malay, Indians and the foreigners (westerners) have cast their influence on Singapore’s food recipes and there is no doubt that Singapore is a food lovers’ paradise.

Singaporeans love to eat out and there is a feast of multicultural cuisine waiting for them in restaurants and especially in hawker centers and food courts. Here is a list of the major types of foods you can feast on in Singapore:

1. Malaysian Food: Malaysian food, also known as Malay food, is a popular in Singapore simply because Malaysia is Singapore’s neighbor and there are a whole lot of Malaysians living there; Spicy Malaysian gravies are laced with belachan, which is made from baby shrimps and the Malaysian desserts are usually based on coconut milk, palm sugar and freshly grated coconut. Then, of course, there are the rice and noodles too, which any Malaysian cannot live without. All these go to make an exotic eating experience. Some Malaysian food you must try out in Singapore: Laksa (coconut-based gravies) and Satay (grilled and skewered meat).

Chinese cooking has yielded some of the most delicious foods that are available, but you may feel as if the techniques used to prepare and cook the foods are too complicated or unfamiliar to produce good results. The truth is that Chinese cooking is simple, and can be done by almost anyone.

Chinese cooking is usually done in a wok or a bamboo steamer. A wok is simply a large, bowl shaped pan that can hold soups, stews or stir fry easily. Bamboo steamers are made from bamboo, and are used to make dumplings, meats and vegetables.

You will use the bamboo steamer inside the wok, which will be filled with water. You do not need to use a lot of water, but you will want to make sure that there is enough water so that the wok does not dry before the food is cooked, and that the water is boiling before you add the steamer.

You will also want to line the bamboo steamer with either cabbage leaves or lettuce leaves to make sure that your food does not stick to your steamer. Most Chinese foods can be cooked with these two simple cooking utensils.

The lowly dumpling. In Western-style cooking it is a simple staple, a source of carbohydrates and a great comfort food. However, made in the Chinese way, it is an artistic creation from the kitchen. Chinese Dumplings (Jiao Zi or Gow Gee, in the Mandarin dialect) are a mixture made of dough filled with meat, chicken and/or vegetables. It is frequently dished up as part of dim sum. The correct preparation calls for plenty of time, patience and effort but the end result, when done properly, are definitely worth it.

Ingredients

Dough:

360 g white flour
240 - 350 ml water
1 tsp salt

You will need to buy the right variety of Chinese flour, which can be either rice flour or wheat flour. Normal plain white flour has a completely different consistency when mixed with water and cooked.

Make sure that the water is extremely cold, in fact nearly freezing. Mix the salt and flour together and add 240ml of the water. Blend well into a smooth dough adding extra water if the consistency is too dry. Knead well and make sure that the end result is a smooth ball. If you inadvertently add too much water, just balance it with a little more flour. Cover the dough and let it rest for at least half an hour.

When ringing in the new year in traditional Chinese fashion, you have to consider the importance of Chinese New Year food as well. Food plays a huge part in such celebrations. The Chinese New Year is a particularly special one. It is one of the most important Chinese holidays. Sometimes called the Spring Festival, sometimes called the Lunar New Year, it takes place on the first day of the first lunar month, as denoted by the Chinese calendar. It ends on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month.

Now, back to the subject of food - it is indeed hugely important during this celebration. Foods which are considered lucky and fortuitous are served throughout the entire fifteen days. The qualifications for lucky or symbolic foods vary.

In some cases, foods are considered precursors of good fortune because of how they appear. A whole chicken, for instance, is a symbol of family togetherness. Thus, offering a whole chicken during the Chinese New Year festivities promises that the family will remain together throughout the coming year.

Everyone knows eating delicious Chinese food usually comes with a price: all those sodium, extra fat, and high-calorie dishes don’t bode well for those watching their diets. Your typical Chinese restaurant will pile on the oil and salt in order to maximize the taste and decrease their costs. Fresh ingredients usually cost more, and unless you are at high-end Asian dining establishment, expect the extra oil and salt (hidden in soy sauce, table salt, and oyster sauce, just to name a few) to end up on your plate and in your stomach.

The good news is that you can learn to make yummy Chinese food at home, which ensures you’ll be the master of your kitchen and be able to regulate exactly what goes in your Eastern meal.

1. First, grab your Chinese recipe. Google any good stir-fry recipe to get you started.

2. Find a wok and turn up the temperature. A wok is better than a regular pan since it distributes the heat more evenly, allowing your food to cook faster and thus soak up less oil. Cooking a a higher temp increases that effect.

Are you looking for that great flavour that you find in Chinese recipes, but simply do not know where to start? Or maybe you think it’s too hard or takes too much time. Well, you don’t have to be a professional cook to prepare some great, quick, and easy meals for the whole family. I’ll help you bring home the restaurant flavour with a few quick recipes.

Spicy Beef, Shrimp, and Bok Choy

* 1/4 cup Shao Hsing rice wine

* 1 1/2 tablespoons oyster-flavored sauce

* 2 teaspoons cornstarch

* 4 teaspoons canola oil

* 3/4 pound sirloin steak

* 1/4-1 teaspoon crushed red pepper

* 10 raw shrimp

* 1 pound bok choy

Instructions:

1. Whisk rice wine, oyster sauce and cornstarch into a small bowl until the cornstarch is dissolved.

2. Heat 2 teaspoons oil in a large nonstick skillet or wok over medium-high heat. Add beef and crushed red pepper. keep cooking, stirring, until the beef begins to brown. That should take about 2 minutes. Add shrimp and continue to cook, stirring, until the shrimp is opaque and pink. Again, this should take about 2 minutes. Transfer the food to a plate.

The world we live in is full of varied cultures & traditions, each one featuring their own unique way of cooking & hence offering a diversified taste. Chinese cooking is one among the most followed ones.

As a nation, China has several festivals and traditions. Accordingly they have varied dishes for each event. In America, Chinese skills of cooking are looked upon as an art. For centuries together, their delicious delicacies are tickling the taste buds of the Americans.

Here are a few key features of Chinese cooking:

1. Chinese cooking is relatively quite easy and quick.

2. The specialties in Chinese items are categorized as per the nation’s culture, festivals & districts.

3. Some examples are steamed fish, Doufu, dark vinegar rice served with ginger, din sum, etc.

4. Cooked tea is the most preferred drink with the Chinese cuisine. In china, different varieties of tea are planted, hence, it becomes a part of their daily routine.

5. The basic ingredients of Chinese food are water and/or oil.

6. Chinese cooking takes care of everyone’s personalized tastes as the food items that can be added to these dishes are quite optional and can be modified as per an individual’s choice.

Gewurztraminer, meaning ’spiced or perfumed traminer’ is a wine grape variety grown in cooler wine growing areas of the world. Often referred to simply as Gewurtz, the grapes have a pink to red skin colour which produce a white wine with a high natural sugar content. The style of wine made is usually off dry which emphasises the flavour of exotic fruits.

The Gewurztraminer grape is grown in Alsace in France, as well as in Germany, Australia, New Zealand and the U.S. The advantage of any vine grown at altitude is the long slow ripening period which concentrates the sugars without losing much of the valuable acidity. This prolonged ripening process is what gives varieties like Gewurtz their uniqueness.

Like Riesling, Gewurztraminer is a challenging grape variety to grow. It buds early in the spring, so is vulnerable to frost damage, which in turn causes a reduction in yields (though desirable for quality), but can make the wines more expensive. Harvesting at precisely the right time is vital to capture the fresh acidity as well as the luscious flavours. Get this wrong and the typical Gewurtz character of a flamboyant bouquet of lychees, passion fruit and roses will be lost.

Some people will write Chinese food off as fatty and full of MSG (Mono Sodium Glutamate). Saturated fats and excess salts are considered bad for the heart and so it follows that Chinese food is unhealthy, right?

Wrong Some Chinese dishes, corrupted to become popular to western palates, fit this bill. Authentic Chinese food is not fatty, and MSG, if used at all, is used sparingly. In fact Chinese food has a long history of being directed towards promoting health; a much longer one than any local ‘fad’ in the west.

Some history

Although united 2000 years ago, China never developed a state system for healthcare until recently. Citizens had to take their own measures when sick, and since these were often too expensive, that meant avoiding sickness in the first place if at all possible.

The first principles of food therapy were established nearly 4000 years ago, though it was only during the Tang Dynasty (608-906 AD) that this form of knowledge became really popular. Four ‘pillars’ were identified as crucial to staying healthy: lifestyle, diet, exercise and mind. Of these diet was considered the most important, probably as it was the one over which people had the most control.

The Chinese Food Market uses Red Rice for numerous things. They commonly use it as a food dye. They also sell it as dried grains, powders and paste. Did you know that they used it for Chinese herbal medicine? I will tell you why they do that, and what side effects you may experience.

First the Chinese food market red rice is a form of yeast rice. Which gets the name from purple fermented rice, which gets its color from the mold it grows in. It then is sold in all the Chinese food market as whole dried grain, pasteurized wet aggregate, and a ground powder. Also, it was used as a food dye, until chemical coloring came along.

When they get the crop of rice it takes a long soak in water until the rice is completely saturated. Then basically there is two ways the raw rice can be cooked. You can either steam in for sterilization, so that it can be used in cooking or you can also immediately inoculate it. They way you inoculate it is mixing M purpureus spores or some of the powdered red yeast rice. They then contain it an incubation environment that pretty much stays around room temperature, anywhere from three to six days. After this incubation is over it should turn bright red on the inside and a red purple on the outside rice. They then can sell it as a dried grain, or even pasteurize it to sell as a wet paste, as well as a fine powder. Too this day, they are the largest maker of Red rice.