If you are worried about having to lie through your teeth when you tell your wife you love her cooking, it’s time to become your own cook! With gas prices steadily on the rise, eating out in good, fancy restaurants with delectable Chinese cuisine, often seems like a bad financial decision. If Chinese food tickled your palate like no other cuisine ever has, learn all you can about Chinese cooking and how to recreate those delectable dishes. Chinese cooking is easy, simple and CAN be done by anyone who has the appetite for it.

Walk with a Wok

Learning to cook is like taking a baby’s first steps. You need a lot of patience as you build on your cooking skills, and just like how babies learn their first steps, be willing to commit mistakes. You won’t perfect your Chinese meal on your first try, but it should not deter you from trying again, until you get a meal done, distinctly, the Chinese way.

To start, invest in a cooking a wok. This is, undoubtedly, the most important cookware in every Chinese home, and in yours now as you venture into Chinese cooking. Woks comes in many models, shapes and sizes, but for beginners, a standard wok made of carbon steel works perfectly. Complete your cooking utensils by buying a spatula, cooking chopsticks and a good set of knives. Avoid using a metal spatula on a non-stick wok; obviously, you would not want to scrape the non-stick portion of your wok.

A good knife is an indispensable kitchen tool in most homes, but in preparing ingredients for a Chinese recipe, a good knife can be very useful with meat often cut in thin strips, and vegetables, save for leafy ones, are cut diagonally to ensure that they cook fast.

The Heart of Chinese Cuisine

Unmistakably Chinese foods are drenched in spices, sauces and seasonings, but I highly recommend you try this hot sauce for a spicier treat. Sesame oil, vinegar, soy sauce and cornstarch should be handy in your kitchen. Rice wine is also a favorite soup base so this is a method you should begin learning.

Methods of Cooking

Chinese love to fry, stir fry and deep-fry, so you should learn how to do things right. There are two rules to remember when you fry foods: do not scorch it and always heat up the wok to maximum heat as the oil should be hot before you put in your meat or vegetables. This will lessen the time your food is drenched in oil. Greasy foods are a no-no in real Chinese cooking.

Also, before you use your wok for the first time, you should clean it well to ready it for the tough job ahead. The best way to do it is to clean it with ordinary kitchen soap and water then wipe it dry. Next, coat its insides with cooking oil and put it over low fire as you rub the surface with a soft cloth. This will further clean your wok of residue left when it was manufactured and just like how you break in automobiles, your wok works better if it is prepared this way.

Finally, get hold of a good Chinese cookbook – in English! Buy one that has illustrations and easy-to-follow steps. Choose a beginner’s cookbook to start, and later as you progress inyour cooking and eating Chinese food skills look to more advanced books. Also, don’t forget that the Internet is a big cookbook for you to choose your recipes from. Manmande chi ba (Eat slowly)!