Replicating with no roadmap

[Liveitloud]

Hello all. New member. I love Asian cuisine in all its forms. Especially anything with some heat to it. Let me start by saying that I'm not in the food industry. Just your average cook with really curious tastes. I'm the idiot you see wandering around the Asian grocery buying things that I don't even know what they are.

I have always wanted to be able to go into the kitchen and make the dishes that are served at the local take out. Pork in garlic sauce being one of my favorites. It seems like it's almost a big secret to know how to make these dishes.

I have yet to find many resources to help other than some video's on you tube. Being kind of a visual person it has helped some. I have also noticed from my wanderings at the grocery that a lot of the ingredients that I find would lead me to believe that a lot of the dishes served at Chinese restaurants are more geared to American taste buds and are not authentic regional dishes.

Long story short, does anyone have any good resources to help your average cook to get some information to help out with Asian cooking and recipe's?

[prasantrin]

You can start by browsing through this forum to look for topics which interest you. There's one about ingredients that may be useful to you, as it will help you identify things in your grocery store.

hzrt8w's home cooking tutorials are excellent resources. You can find the index here

There are also threads about recommended Chinese cookbooks that may help you.

[Liveitloud]

You can start by browsing through this forum to look for topics which interest you. There's one about ingredients that may be useful to you, as it will help you identify things in your grocery store.

hzrt8w's home cooking tutorials are excellent resources. You can find the index here

There are also threads about recommended Chinese cookbooks that may help you.

Thanks for the response. I will peruse the threads and try to learn more. I will also check out your links. Thanks a lot.

[Chris Amirault]

Rona is right: hzrt8w's home cooking tutorials are a great place to start. There are lots of other topics in the China cooking & baking forum to check out, so snoop through there; I can see you've already found the pictorial guide to Chinese ingredients. If you're use to sauteed meat and two veg and are just starting out with many of these ingredients (various tofu products, vegetable starches, shaoxing, conpoy, pork belly, Chinese pickles, on and on), simply buying them and cooking with them will teach you a lot.

How well versed are you in fundamental Chinese cooking techniques? Do you know how to steam, braise, deep-fry, and use a knife and a wok? If not, I'd grab Barbara Tropp's Modern Art of Chinese Cooking and read it, as you'll be able to get an excellent grounding in technique while making her recipes.

Finally, I daresay that many of us here will do our level best to help out! Pick a recipe you're interested in, get the ingredients, and start documenting. We'll lend a hand!

[Liveitloud]

Rona is right: hzrt8w's home cooking tutorials are a great place to start. There are lots of other topics in the China cooking & baking forum to check out, so snoop through there; I can see you've already found the pictorial guide to Chinese ingredients. If you're use to sauteed meat and two veg and are just starting out with many of these ingredients (various tofu products, vegetable starches, shaoxing, conpoy, pork belly, Chinese pickles, on and on), simply buying them and cooking with them will teach you a lot.

How well versed are you in fundamental Chinese cooking techniques? Do you know how to steam, braise, deep-fry, and use a knife and a wok? If not, I'd grab Barbara Tropp's Modern Art of Chinese Cooking and read it, as you'll be able to get an excellent grounding in technique while making her recipes.

Finally, I daresay that many of us here will do our level best to help out! Pick a recipe you're interested in, get the ingredients, and start documenting. We'll lend a hand!

Thanks Chris I appreciate it. I know how to braise, steam and deep fry other foods. Have not jumped in too deep with Chinese cooking although I just bought quite a few items at the market. From posting in another thread I am figuring out that I don't have my regions straight. I was mentioning Tonkatsu sauce and didn't realize that it's Japanese so I might be a challenge.

Products I have on hand right now are light soy, dark soy, shaohsing wine, black vinegar, oyster sauce, chili bean paste, chili paste, chili oil, sesame oil and a few other things.

I have a wok. It's just a 14 inch carbon wok. One of the 20 dollar ones. It's actually proved to be a better tool than some of the more high dollar name brand ones.

Yes I was checking out the pictures and recipes and saw a few that caught my eye. Am definitely going to try the imperial shrimp.

My passion has pretty much been dishes that are on the deep end of the scoville scale. I like food so hot that my head sweats. I would love to perfect a good chicken or pork in garlic sauce that I could pile some peppers in.

Thanks again for your help. I'll try to limit the dumb questions to a minimum.

[Chris Amirault]

Thanks again for your help. I'll try to limit the dumb questions to a minimum.

No such thing as a dumb question.

Why starting with Imperial Shrimp?

[mbhank]

Hello and welcome. Suggest you get the new book "Mastering the Art of Chinese Cooking." It is great. Also Gloria Bley Miller's "Thousand Recipe Chinese Cookbook" is still in print. You should be able to find a pork in garlic sauce receipe there and then pile on the peppers.

Edited November 2, 2009 by mbhank (log)

[prasantrin]

My passion has pretty much been dishes that are on the deep end of the scoville scale. I like food so hot that my head sweats. I would love to perfect a good chicken or pork in garlic sauce that I could pile some peppers in.

I think you need to be more descriptive. Pork in garlic sauce could be any number of dishes, especially since different regions may have different names for the same dish. I'd never have guessed that this dish would have been spicy, and I was going to point you do the pork in honey garlic sauce tutorial.

One useful thing to do is to ask the restaurant staff what the Chinese name of the dish is. It would also help to ask if it's Cantonese, Mandarin, etc. I do that a lot, so I can look up recipes online.

[Liveitloud]

Thanks again for your help. I'll try to limit the dumb questions to a minimum.

No such thing as a dumb question.

Why starting with Imperial Shrimp?

It just looked really tasty. Tonight I tried the recipe for General Tso Chicken. It was pretty good but my peppers just didn't give it enough heat. I had to go to 2 different stores to find the Chinese red vinegar but after tasting it, it was worth the trip. I am really loving these forums. I appreciate everyones help. Thanks