Every Grain of Rice: Simple Chinese Home Cooking (5 page)

One other useful tip is that some Chinese dishes mix more than happily with dishes from other culinary traditions. I sometimes serve Sichuanese red-braised beef with mashed potatoes. A Chinese soup can be enjoyed at the start of a non-Chinese meal, and there’s no reason why you can’t serve the leftovers of a Western stew, or a salad, as one dish of a Chinese meal. (I’ve even, on occasion, eaten cubes of Roquefort instead of fermented tofu with my breakfast congee!) The essence of the Chinese way of eating lies in the overall structure of a meal, with its grains and shared dishes, rather than in any particular dish or ingredient.

I’ve included a few suggested menus (tap
here
), which may be useful as guides.

SERVING QUANTITIES

Because Chinese dishes are normally shared by everyone at the table, serving quantities are worked out differently from the way they are in Western cuisines. Basically, you need to make sure there’s at least enough rice for everyone to eat their fill, and then the quantities of the other dishes are flexible. A single dish of meat or tofu and vegetables may suffice for a very casual meal for two (though adding another simple vegetable dish won’t take long and makes more of a spread). On the other hand, if I’m making a quick lunch when I’m at home on my own and using up leftovers, I may end up eating three or four small dishes with my rice: yesterday’s soy bean salad, perhaps, one egg stir-fried with a single tomato, a little spinach stir-fried with chopped garlic, and so on.

In planning a meal, I suggest you think in terms of serving rice or noodles with one accompanying dish per person and perhaps one extra. So, if you are cooking lunch for one, a bowl of noodles with one or two dishes will do; for four people, five dishes is perfect. For a special occasion, increase the number of dishes, especially cold appetizers that can be made in advance. And if you suddenly have an extra, unexpected guest, it doesn’t matter: just add another rice bowl and pair of chopsticks to the table and the dishes will go further.

AT THE CHINESE TABLE

For simple home-cooked meals, a table setting will consist of just rice bowls and chopsticks. The rice bowl is used to hold rice and other dishes, as well as soup, which may be drunk directly from the bowl.

For more formal settings, a small plate is laid underneath each rice bowl. The plate can be used to hold pieces of food taken from the common dishes in the center of the table. It may also be used to hold bones, shells, whole spices and other unwanted bits and pieces.

Chopsticks may, in a more formal setting, be laid on chopstick stands. Spoons are offered for drinking soup and for eating soft ingredients such as silken tofu. China spoons are most traditional and their shape makes them very suitable for using with rice bowls, but metal spoons may also be used.

At home, people normally help themselves with their own chopsticks to the shared dishes in the center of the table; in more formal settings, shared “public chopsticks” or serving spoons may be offered alongside each dish. It’s a good idea to provide serving spoons if your guests are not confident chopstick-users.

It’s perfectly polite, in a Chinese context, to raise your rice bowl to your lips so you can push rice into your mouth or drink your soup. It is also polite to spit bones on to your saucer, gently and quietly, and to place choice morsels of food into other people’s rice bowls. It is not polite, in a Chinese context, to rummage around in a shared dish, or to touch food with your chopsticks that you don’t intend to eat.

The photograph below shows a meal for four. The menu includes Sichuanese Spiced Cucumber Salad, Spinach in Ginger Sauce, Fish-fragrant Eggplant, Cold Chicken with a Spicy Sichuanese Sauce, Steamed Sea Bass with Ginger and Spring Onion, and Stir-fried Garlic Stems with Mushrooms, served with plain white rice.

AFTER THE MEAL

Rather than dessert, the Chinese usually serve fresh fruit at the end of a meal. In a smart restaurant, you might be offered iced platters of beautifully cut watermelons, pineapples, oranges and apples; at home, whole fruit may be served with little paring knives for peeling.

My favorite place for after-dinner fruit is the Dragon Well Manor restaurant in Hangzhou, where they always serve the best of the season, often gathered earlier the same day from the farms that supply their kitchens. There might be small, crisp peaches, pale green and just blushed with pink; orange loquats, their juicy flesh a little tart and arresting, their flavor reminiscent of passion fruit; or fresh jujubes, mottled and crunchy as apples. Once they gave me a full, ripe peach that had been stewed with crystal sugar, served in its sweet broth in a china pot.

At home in London, I also like to serve my guests fruit after dinner. I love offering some of the more unusual Chinese fruits they may not know, such as longans or “dragon eyes,” whose dull brown shells encase delicately sweet, jade-white flesh; loquats from my local Turkish supermarket; or ripe persimmons that can be sliced open and eaten with a spoon, like soft-boiled eggs. There are also the better-known Chinese fruits, such as lychees, with their dragon-like pink and scaly skins and shiny secret pits. The luxuriant sweetness of this fruit is associated with the decadence of the northern Tang Dynasty court, because of the legend that the Emperor Xuanzong ordered relays of horsemen to carry lychees all the way from southern China to please his beloved concubine Yang Guifei. Peaches are the favored fruit of the mythical Immortals (steamed buns in the shape of peaches, their white dough dusted with pink coloring, are served at birthdays in parts of China, as symbol of longevity). The golden skins of mandarins make them an auspicious fruit for the Chinese New Year.

With fruit and sweetmeats, Chinese tea makes a beautiful postscript to dinner. Sometimes I’ll serve Dragon Well green tea, with its spear-like leaves and nutty fragrance; sometimes a honeyed oolong, brewed in a small clay pot and served in tiny porcelain bowls. Or perhaps soothing pu’er, made in a pot and poured into rough earthenware bowls, which is the perfect digestif. And if people prefer something herbal before sleeping, I might give them chrysanthemum tea, made from tight knots of dried yellow flowers that “bloom” in the hot water and have a delicate, almost artichoke-like scent. This tea looks lovely when brewed in tall glasses, with a few gouqi berries to add a splash of color.

A NOTE ON DRINKS

Tea
The classic accompaniment to the Cantonese dim sum breakfast, Chinese teas or herbal infusions (such as chrysanthemum tea) may also be served alongside other kinds of meals.

Beer
Light bottled beers are popular accompaniments for more casual meals.

Grape wines
Red wine is now fashionable in Chinese cities, but whites tend to be a better match for Chinese food. Rieslings, Grüner Veltliners and Pinot Gris can go well with spicy dishes; Champagne is often delicious with gentler flavors; oaky whites are best avoided. If you prefer to drink red, pick lighter, fruitier wines, not those with heavy tannins (Pinot Noirs are a good bet).

Chinese wines and spirits
Shaoxing wine is served with food in eastern China, while fiery grain vodkas are more common elsewhere. Grain alcohols are always served with dishes, never with rice or noodles.

MENU IDEAS

Except for those that include noodles, all menus are intended to be served with plain white or, if you prefer, brown rice. Most Chinese people like to serve a simple soup with any rice-based meal.

As in the rest of this book, work on the premise of one dish per person, with perhaps one extra.

Please remember that these are simply suggestions; there are infinite possibilities.

FOR TWO PEOPLE

Menu 1

Cold chicken with a spicy Sichuanese sauce

Hangzhou fava beans with ham

Spinach with chilli and fermented tofu

Menu 2

Smacked cucumber with sesame and preserved mustard greens

Twice-cooked pork

Bok choy with fresh shiitake

Menu 3