Chinese Cuisine

What is Chinese home cooking?

Chinese home cooking is not Chinese restaurant food. It is faster, simpler, and built around a handful of techniques that produce extraordinary results from ordinary ingredients.

A Chinese home cook does not spend hours on elaborate dim sum every night — they stir-fry vegetables in 8 minutes, braise pork belly on Sunday and eat it three ways through the week, and keep a pot of congee ready for whenever someone needs comfort.

The three pillars of Chinese home cooking are wok technique, sauce construction, and ingredient preparation. Master those three and every Chinese recipe on this site becomes accessible.

What are the essential Chinese cooking techniques?

Stir-frying: Chinese stir-frying requires high heat, a small amount of oil, and ingredients cut to the same size so they cook in the same time. The goal is wok hei — the smoky, slightly charred flavour that comes from cooking over intense heat. At home, achieve this by preheating your wok until it smokes before adding oil, cooking in small batches so the temperature does not drop, and never crowding the pan.

Braising: Chinese braising uses soy sauce, rice wine, and aromatics (ginger, garlic, star anise, cinnamon) to build deep flavour over low, slow heat. Pork belly, beef brisket, and tofu all benefit from Chinese braising. The braising liquid reduces into a glossy sauce that concentrates over the cooking time.

Velveting: Velveting is the Chinese technique of marinating protein in cornstarch, egg white, and rice wine before cooking. It creates the silky, tender texture that defines restaurant-quality Chinese dishes. At home, velvet chicken or beef by coating in cornstarch and a small amount of oil, then blanching briefly before stir-frying.

Sauce construction: Most Chinese stir-fry sauces follow a ratio — 2 parts soy sauce, 1 part rice wine or rice vinegar, 1 part sesame oil, with sugar and cornstarch to taste. Mix the sauce before cooking starts. Never add ingredients to the wok one by one — the heat moves too fast.

What do you need in a Chinese pantry?

• Soy sauce — light soy sauce for seasoning and marinades, dark soy sauce for colour and depth in braises.
• Oyster sauce — thick, rich, slightly sweet. The backbone of most Chinese stir-fry sauces. For a complete guide to this ingredient, see What is oyster sauce and when do you use it?
• Sesame oil — finishing oil only. Added at the end of cooking, never used as a cooking fat.
• Rice wine (Shaoxing wine) — used in marinades and sauces. Adds depth without overpowering. Substitute dry sherry if unavailable. For a complete guide to this ingredient, see What is Shaoxing wine and can you substitute it?
• Rice vinegar — mild, slightly sweet. Used in dipping sauces and cold dishes.
• Cornstarch — used for velveting proteins and thickening sauces.
• Ginger — fresh only. Used in almost every Chinese dish as an aromatic base.
• Garlic — fresh only. Never garlic powder in Chinese cooking.
• Doubanjiang (chili bean paste) — the backbone of Sichuan cooking. Fermented, spicy, deeply savoury.
• Five spice powder — used in braises and marinades. Contains star anise, cloves, Chinese cinnamon, Sichuan pepper, and fennel.
• White pepper — sharper and more floral than black pepper. Used in soups, congee, and fried rice.