Chinese Cooking at Home

Making authentic Chinese food at home is an easy and great way to engage with Chinese culture. With some local ingredients, the right tools, and some handy instructions, you can cook Chinese food so easily. 

As a foreigner, you may think eating out in Beijing is so cheap and easy. However through your stay in China, you should learn authentic Chinese food recipes, so you can enjoy Chinese food after leaving China. Moreover, in Beijing, local Chinese ingredients are very cheap and easy to buy, so the home-cooked food is much cheaper than eating out. You will also have fun at home cooking. 

Now the question is how to get started Chinese cooking at home? Here we will look over the basics of Chinese cooking such as the kitchen, ingredients, tools, and recipes.

Chinese Kitchen

A typical Chinese kitchen is usually small with limited space. It contains a gas stove with 2 or 3 burners, a fridge, and a sink. In typical Chinese apartments, you may not find a microwave, oven, and dishwasher. If there is plenty of space in your kitchen you can buy a microwave or oven. However, for authentic Chinese dishes, you would not need an oven or microwave. 

Chinese Ingredients 

Local Chinese ingredients that use in almost every authentic Chinese dish are ginger, garlic, leek, or spring onions. You can also add some dried ingredients into your dish, some of them are common in Chinese food. However, ingredients can be varying for different Chinese cuisines. 

The list of ingredients will vary for different types of Chinese dishes. The good thing is that local spices, sauces, and paste need for Chinese food are cheap and easy to get. So you can easily start cooking at home. If you are not living in China, you can get all Chinese ingredients in Asian supermarkets and online. 

Here are some common Chinese ingredients with Chinese name and character:

Rice – mǐ 米

Salt – yán 盐

Peanut oil – huā shēng yóu 花生油

White pepper – bái hú jiāo fěn白胡椒粉

Sugar – táng 糖

Cornstarch, or potato flour – yù mǐ diǎn fěn 玉米淀粉 or qiàn fěn 芡粉

Light soy sauce – jiàng yóu 酱油 shēng chōu 生抽

Dark soy sauce – jiàng yóu 酱油 lǎo chōu 老抽

Oyster sauce – háo yóu 蚝油

Chinkiang black vinegar – chén cù 陈醋

Shaoxing rice wine – liào jiǔ

Sesame oil – xiāng yóu 香油

Rice vinegar – bái cù 白醋

Dried shiitake mushrooms – xiāng gū 香菇

Dried wood ear mushrooms – mù’ěr 木耳

Here is a list of some common pastes, sauces, and spices you need in your kitchen to cook Chinese food:

Chili oil – là jiāo yóu 辣椒油

Sesame paste – zhī ma jiàng 芝麻酱

Chili oil with chili flakes – lǎo gān mā 老干妈

Sichuan bean paste – dòu bàn jiàng 豆瓣酱

Fermented black beans – dòu chǐ – 豆豉

Sichuan peppercorns – huā jiāo 花 椒

Dried hot chilies – gān là jiāo 干辣椒

Sweet bean paste – tián miàn jiàng 甜面酱

Flour­­- miàn fěn面粉

Cassia bark – guì pí 桂皮

Star anise - bā jiǎo 八角

Five-spice powder – wǔ xiāng fěn 五香粉

Dried shrimp – xiā gān 虾干

Rock sugar – bīng táng 冰糖

Authentic Chinese Recipes

There are many cookbooks available in the market. You can easily find tasty authentic Chinese recipes in cookbooks. Fuchsia Dunlop’s cookbooks are famous for typical Chinese recipes. You can buy her books and try the recipes at your home. I have many Chinese recipes books and had tried a lot of recipes from Fuchsia Dunlop’s cookbook. It makes my life so easy. Now I can cook many authentic Chinese dishes at home. 

Learning the Basics in a Chinese Cooking Class

If you want to learn Chinese cooking from someone professional, you can go to some cooking school. There are many cooking schools in Beijing. Classes are usually offered during the weekend, both traveler and expats can get cooking classes there. 

Cooking classes can be of many types, and you will learn different cooking skills. In some cooking classes, you will learn knife cutting skills, making and shaping noodles, and basic cooking, but all work will be done by a professional chef you have to watch only. In other classes, you will learn to cook yourself. So while signing up for a course, make sure to check what you will learn in the class, would it actually be able you to cook yourself.