This is how you make Chinese food easy to cook at home
Lauren Taylor chats to the chef about his getting classical umami flavours in home cooking.
Food from your favourite local Chinese takeaway might be comforting and familiar, but due to the speed it’s cooked – with a lot of deep frying – and cost-saving ingredients, it’s not the healthiest.
“Everything’s pretty much deep fried because it’s the speed of cooking,” says chef and restaurateur Kwoklyn Wan. “If people are able to take the time and get some nice ingredients, you can actually make really nice food at home that tastes very similar, if not exactly the same, as their Chinese takeaway flavours. But it’s not got all the horrible nasties in there.”
Wan – who’s brother is fashion consultant and presenter Gok Wan – grew up in his grandfather’s Chinese takeaway (Leicester’s first in the Sixties) and his dad’s Cantonese restaurant in the Seventies. “It was our playground. Unlike the children on our estate, who were going out to play, we were at the restaurant, hiding under tables and making dens – that was our playground,” says the chef.
In the Seventies and Eighties, even in small villages, there was a Chinese takeaway at the end of the street, says Wan. “And that’s where most people had their first experience of Chinese food.”
So how can we easily create this much-loved cuisine at home?
The basic flavourings
For anyone starting out in Chinese cookery, there are only a handful of ingredients you need, Wan says: a good light soy sauce, a dark soy sauce (used for a little bit of sweetness”), oyster sauce (“a very, very small amount”) and sesame oil.
“Soy sauce is seasoning, it adds a saltiness to the dish but it’s also got that umami,” says the chef, whose latest cookbook is Chinese Made Easy.
“We talk about MSG [monosodium glutamate] in Chinese cookery, and none of my cookbooks actually incorporate MSG at all, for the reason being, is that you get that umami kick from soy sauce, you get it from fish sauce, you get it from oyster sauce. So a lot of the ingredients already have this umami in there. If you learn to season your food correctly, you don’t need MSG.
“In Cantonese food, especially, we always season the dishes at the very, very end with a little bit of sesame oil. And that’s where you’re going to get those authentic Chinese flavours when it comes down to cooking the food.”
Prep everything first
“I always say to everybody, before you start cooking, make sure that everything’s chopped and prepared, and you’ve got your sauces out already. Because we’re cooking in such a hot wok, you don’t really have the time to disappear, go and find that bottle of soy sauce, and then get back before it starts to burn. So just make sure you’ve got everything ready.”
Keep it moving
“Get yourself a wok, and it hasn’t got to be one of these £200 woks. You can go and get a £20 non-stick wok,” says Wan.
“A traditional wok has got a round bottom, purely because of the way that it used to sit on the stove. In UK, our woks have flat bottoms so they sit on top of a gas cooker or electric induction. It’s got high sides, so once that food goes into the wok and the oil is hot, it has to move.
“When you cook your Chinese food, everything is normally done on high heat. So make sure that when you prep the veggies, cut them nice and small, and same with the meat. So everything cooks really, really quickly.
“Make sure that that oil is as hot as you dare take it, so everything actually stir fries. You actually want the food to ever so slightly burn a little bit.
“You want to let it sit long enough to get a little bit caramelisation. But when it starts to get that colour, you have to keep moving it.
“That method is called ‘wok hei’ or ‘the breath of the wok’ and it adds the smokiness to the food.”
Stay away from packet sauces
“They’re very westernised,” says Wan. “And obviously shelf-safe, they tend to have preservatives in there, so will affect the flavours ever so slightly. And chances are, when they were made, they probably weren’t made with authentic Chinese ingredients.
“A packet of black bean sauce – there’s nothing like making your own black bean sauce. If you can get to a Chinese supermarket and get yourself some fermented black beans, it makes all the difference. All you need then is a little bit of stock, a little bit of salt and sugar, a little bit soy sauce, and you’ve got a fantastic black bean sauce that isn’t from a packet.”
“If you really want to achieve authentic Chinese flavours, you have to use Chinese ingredients. Depending on where you live, if you live in a major city, the big supermarkets will have a world aisle where you can normally get Chinese soy sauce, Chinese oyster sources, the sesame oils.
Try the velveting technique
“Velveting is a technique that we use to marinate the meat. When you go to a Chinese restaurant or takeaway and you eat a piece of meat, it’s always juicy, because it’s been velveted.
“If we got a chicken breast and just fried it off, it’d be cooked, but it wouldn’t have those flavours, it wouldn’t be juicy, whereas, because we velveted it, it’s smoother and velvety when you eat it, and makes it really tender. It breaks down those muscle fibres and the proteins. So when you actually cook the meat, it stays really juicy. It melts in the mouth.
“Always put on a pair of disposable plastic gloves and really massage the meat. The more that you handle that meat at this stage, the more tender [it will be].”
Chinese Made Easy by Kwoklyn Wan is published by Quadrille, priced £22. Photography by Sam Folan. Available now.
Words by Lauren Taylor, PA
Braised black pepper beef
Serves 2; Preparation time: 5 minutes, plus 20 minutes marinating; Cooking time: 1 1⁄2-2 hours
“Exquisitely succulent beef brisket, marinated and simmered in a robust sauce, pairs harmoniously with vegetables in this truly delightful dish,” says Kwoklyn Wan. “Enjoy with steamed rice.”
INGREDIENTS
- 450g-500g beef brisket, cut into 2.5cm cubes
- 2tbsp vegetable oil
- 1 large onion, sliced
- 3 garlic cloves, crushed
- 1 green pepper, sliced
- 1tbsp cornflour, mixed with 2tbsp water
- For the marinade:
- 1⁄2tbsp fish sauce
- 1⁄2tbsp ground black pepper, plus extra
- for dressing the dish
- 3tbsp oyster sauce
- For the sauce:
- 350ml beef stock
- 1tbsp light soy sauce
- 1⁄2tbsp dark soy sauce
- 2tbsp Chinese rice wine (Shaoxing wine)
- 1tbsp brown sugar
METHOD
Begin by marinating the beef; add all the marinade ingredients to a bowl and spend one minute massaging them into the beef. This process will help break down some of the muscle fibres, making the beef even more tender. Leave to marinate for 20 minutes.
Place a heavy saucepan over a medium-high heat, add the oil and then the marinated beef. Once browned on all sides, remove the beef and set to one side.
In the same pan, add the onion and cook until browned, then add the garlic along with the green pepper and cook for a further one minute or until fragrant. Now add the sauce ingredients, deglaze the bottom of the pan and return the browned beef to the pan.
Once the sauce begins to come up to the boil, reduce the heat to very low, cover and cook for one and a half hours, or until the beef is super tender. (If your sauce begins to evaporate during this time, add more beef stock.)
To finish, give the cornflour mixture a stir and slowly pour it into the sauce, stirring at the same time. Once the sauce thickens, switch off the heat. Serve on top of freshly steamed rice with a final sprinkle of freshly ground black pepper.
Crispy cheesy crab wontons
Serves 4; Preparation time, 15 minutes; Cooking time, 4 minutes
INGREDIENTS
- 24 wonton skins
- Vegetable oil
- Dipping sauce of your choice
- 300g crab sticks, finely chopped
- 75g onion, finely diced
- 75g carrot, peeled and finely diced
- 75g spring onions, finely diced
- Pinch of salt
- 180-200g cream cheese
METHOD
Place all the filling ingredients in a large bowl and mix very well.
Separate the wonton skins, then take one skin and place roughly half a tablespoon of filling in the middle. Pinch in the four sides so they meet in the middle, creating a star-like shape.
Repeat with the remaining wonton skins and filling. In a wok or deep saucepan, heat seven and a half to 10 centimetres of oil to around 180C, then add the wontons in batches and fry until golden brown and cooked all the way through. This will take around four minutes per batch.
Remove the cooked wontons and allow to drain and cool slightly before serving. Serve with your favourite dipping sauce and enjoy.
Red chilli paste glass noodles
Serves 2; Preparation time, 10 minutes; Cooking time, 5 minutes
“These noodles take inspiration from Korean flavours, being bathed in a spicy, tangy sauce featuring gochujang paste and Korean chilli powder, then tossed with crisp beansprouts, carrots and cucumber”, says Kwoklyn Wan.
INGREDIENTS
- 100g glass noodles
- 150g beansprouts
- 60g carrots, peeled and cut into thin matchsticks
- 80g cucumber, cut into thin matchsticks
- 3tbsp gochujang
- 1tbsp gochugaru
- 2tbsp rice vinegar
- 1tbsp sugar
- 2tbsp water
- 2tbsp fish sauce
- 2 garlic cloves, minced
- 1tbsp sesame oil
- 1tbsp toasted sesame seeds
METHOD
Place the glass noodles in a bowl and cover with boiling water. After two minutes, drain and set the noodles to one side.
Place the beansprouts, carrots and cucumber into another bowl and pour over boiling water. Steep for two minutes, then drain.
Mix all the sauce ingredients together, except the sesame seeds, and stir thoroughly ensuring the sugar is dissolved. Now add the noodles and drained vegetables. Mix well, ensuring all the ingredients are covered in the sauce.
Transfer to serving bowls and sprinkle with the sesame seeds to serve.
Chinese Made Easy by Kwoklyn Wan is published by Quadrille, priced £22. Photography by Sam Folan. Available now