9 Chinese Kitchen Tips That Even Professional Chefs Would Appreciate

Some people see cooking as something boring and others treat it as an entertaining process. But every person that spends time over the stove cooking food tries to make their meal tastier, healthier, and better-looking. Using certain cooking tricks, you can achieve these goals. And the tricks might come from different cultures.

We at Bright Side have found some cooking tricks the people in China use. Knowing these secrets will help everyone cook as well as they do.

They wash fruits and vegetables in salty water.

In China, people usually wash their fruits and vegetables thoroughly — they first rinse them in tap water, put them in a salt solution, then rinse them again. And their method is quite right! Scientists have already found convincing evidence that washing produce in salty water helps to remove pesticides more effectively from vegetables and fruits.

An easy way of doing this is to mix 1 tablespoon of salt with ½ cup of water in a spray bottle and spray fruits and vegetables with it. Rub them and rinse well under water. After that, dry everything with a paper towel.

They boil perfect rice without measuring cups and scales.

The Chinese don’t need to remember the exact amounts of water and rice when boiling it. They just put the necessary amount of rice into a pot and put their index fingers up to the surface of the rice at the right angle. All they have to do is add enough water to cover one phalanx.

They make meals more attractive using starch.

Many of us are amazed at how Chinese chefs can make fish and meat look so shiny. The secret is the corn starch they use in almost any kitchen in the country. There’s no sauce they make without it when they are cooking at high temperatures.

They soften meat with egg yolk.

People in China can make even the toughest meat tender. To achieve this, they marinate meat in egg yolk for about 15 minutes. It might sound unconvincing because we usually use lemon juice, vinegar, and other acidic things. This technique is often called “velveting.”

Chinese chefs explain the egg yolk effect this way: it makes the mean shinier and protects it during cooking. This prevents the liquid from evaporating from the meat, so it remains really moist and tasty.

They often boil meat before cooking it

People in China put raw meat in water, boil the water, and then remove the water and keep on cooking (frying), stewing, or boiling the meat again but in fresh water. There are several reasons for this.

First, the boiling helps remove all the dirt and excess blood from the meat. Second, it softens some kinds of meat, like for example, pork. And finally, there’s a special technique for when meat is fully cooked in water and later, the flavor is added to it by frying it with vegetables and spices.

They make dumplings that are good for you

The author of this article learned an important rule for making dumplings from a Chinese person. “You only put minced meat in the dumplings, so they end up being too fatty! We make them 50% vegetables and 50% meat. It’s tasty and good for you.”

They steam a lot of foods.

Chinese cuisine consists of many meals that are steam-cooked. This method is used even for foods made of flour. The locals use a bamboo basket placed above boiling water.

In order to make good meals using steam the way the Chinese do, you don’t need to go online and look for bamboo baskets. You can use a regular metal strainer and put it above a pot of boiling water. But don’t go far from the stove: you have to make sure there’s still water in the pot.

They make desserts with plant products.

The Chinese don’t use a lot of sugar in their desserts, and jam and chocolate are not very popular there. They use plant products like sesame, beans, and sweet potatoes to sweeten their desserts. This is why Europeans often think that Chinese desserts are bland. Maybe this is why so many Chinese people are slim.

They use an ingredient that makes them healthy and young.

For hundreds of years, the Chinese have loved sesame and they add it to almost all of their meals. They also make a traditional dessert — sesame balls.

Sesame contains a lot of calcium, iron, magnesium, and copper. So, you should definitely eat more of it.

Which of these tricks do you think you will use?