ComputerHunter.org |
|
|
|||
|
 |
Chinese Cooking Technique: Thicken
"Thicken", or "Thickening" is a very common technique used in both Chinese restaurants and household kitchens. It is very easy to prepare, but if not used properly, can really mess up the presentation. Below is a brief description of "Thickening". You can learn more about other Chinese cooking techniques in the Techniques section of our website. Technique: Thicken Thicken, or thickening, refers to the use of cornstarch as a part of the process of preparing a Chinese dish. Cornstarch is a very commonly used condiment in Chinese cooking. When used properly, it can really make your presentation stand out. Below are two important pointers: Too much cornstarch can make the dish too pasty. Too little would make it too thin. After cooking a particular dish the first time, you can use the original recipe as a guide to increase or decrease the amount of cornstarch to add to your dish to your liking the next time (even though we are confident that you'll love the recipes we have on our website :). Do not add cornstarch (and water) until the dish is cooked. You must also stir gently and quickly once it is added to the dish, as it tends lump up if not stirred immediately. Pretty simple, right? Now, you can check out our recipes section and find a recipe to practice it on (wink). Helen Fan grew up in a family that has owned various Asian restaurants all over North America, from Vancouver (Canada), Houston (Texas), Decatur (Illinois), to Chicago (Illinois). She, and the rest of the Fan family are now sharing their decades of knowledge on the art of Chinese cuisine at http://www.ChineseHomeCooking.Com You can learn more about other Chinese cooking techniques at http://www.chinesehomecooking.com/techniques/techniques.htm
Google News - Top Stories
|
|
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
How to Bake: Muffins (with recipes) Muffins are a mainstay around our house. They are as nourishing as they are good to eat. They are quicker and easier to make than cookies and usually contain much less sugar and fat. We usually eat them for breakfast but like them with any meal. (For Easter, we served cranberry nut muffins with a ham dinner.) They work well for snacks and desserts as well. Extras can be frozen and heated in the microwave for hot muffins anytime. Outdoor Chefs Choose Gas Grills How many of you remember dad trying to get the charcoal started? The mess, time and burgers tasting of lighter fluid are some reasons why outdoor chefs are choosing gas grills for their recipes for BBQs over a charcoal barbecue. A gas grill offers many advantages for BBQ over charcoal. An outdoor chef doesn't want to wait for the coals to heat up when a turn of the knob quickly gets the barbecues started. A gas grill offers the ease of a push button start, temperature control and no mess. How to Choose the Right Smoke for the Right BBQ Dish BBQ smoke is one of the easiest ways to add a nice touch of flavor to a grilled dish. You'll be amazed at how many different flavors there are! Knowing which smoke is the best match for different BBQ flavors can be a challenge though. Here's a handy guide to help. Kid Birthday Cake Idea Collection - Cake Decorating Without Fear Our kid birthday cake idea collection makes cake decorating fun and fearless. You don't have to be a pastry chef to create a professional quality cake for your child's birthday or other special event. Learn unique and easy cake decorating ideas to make spectacular homemade cakes. Wok this Way! (Part 2 of 5) Selecting a Wok As mentioned in Part 1 of the series, woks come in different sizes ranging from 10 to 32 inches in diameter, but a wok that's 11 to 14 inches in diameter should suffice for use in a household kitchen. Eating Healthy with a Meat Grinder While it may be surprising, owning your own meat grinder can help you in your pursuit to live a healthier life. According to the USDA, the average American in 2000 consumed 300 more calories than the average American in 1985, a 12% increase, including a 24% increase of fat calories. The average daily fat intake was 81.4 grams and saturated fat intake was 27.9 grams in 2000 (ers.usda.gov/briefing/consumption). Americans are consuming too much fat, especially saturated fat. Preparing Lobster Tails Lobster, once the food of poor farmers, is now considered a special treat for many. Although some people prefer the meaty claws, I think that lobster tails are the best tasting part of this delicious creature. A great meal of lobster tails might seem like a gourmet feast to your guests, but they are actually quite easy to prepare. Add a little sprig of garnish and a fancy side dish and you're sure to impress even your mother in law. Family Meal Planning Made Easy As moms, we have hectic lives. Whether we work out of the home, in the home or look after the kids full time, we definitely have our jobs cut out for us. We clean, chauffer the kids around, mend scraped knees, help with homework, do laundry and on top of all that we STILL have to figure out what we're going to make for dinner each night. Grilling Tips ? Safety Comes First at the Barbecue You're standing at the gas grill in the hot sun, wiping the sweat from your brow, and having your favorite cool drink. You are making one of your favorite grill recipes for the neighbors that are coming over in a few minutes for a home and garden party. You are using your brand new gas grill with all of the bells and whistles. You even went to the trouble of sending out fun invitations you found on the internet and you have just the perfect theme picked out for your party. Your new pool furniture has arrived and the weather is a perfect 80 degrees. Your picnic table is set up for the kids and their friends. Summer life doesn't get much better than that. With every grill recipe, party and backyard barbecue you can still maintain safety and common sense. Your party could be a disaster without first thinking about safety for yourself and your guests. Here are a few tips that ensure safety first: Emergency Bread: Can you Bake Bread Without an Oven? What would you eat if you were stranded without power? It could happen; it does happen. A natural disaster, a breakdown in the delivery system as the Northeast experienced recently, or a terrorist strike against the infrastructure could leave you without power. Don't despair. You probably have a source of heat-a camp stove, a barbeque grill, a fireplace, or a place to build a fire to cook with. (Never use a grill or camp stove in an enclosed room.) In most cases, you can find a way to eat your daily bread--even without an oven. Bread in the Woods We really like fresh bread while we're camping. There is something about bread products that just seems especially good in the woods. Maybe it's the fresh air; maybe it's the appetites that we work up in the woods. Storing Fats and Oils The human body requires the intake of six types of substances for survival: Fats, carbohydrates, proteins, water, vitamins, and minerals. Certain fatty acids are essential to our health and fats and oils are important components of our food and their preparation. Fat is responsible for much of the texture, appearance, and taste of our baked goods. Since fat is both required for human health and an important part of our diets, we should include fat in our emergency preparedness plans--some combination of butter, margarine, vegetable oil, olive oil, and shortening. (Oils are liquid at room temperature; fats are solid.) Though we need to store these foods to maintain our lifestyles and our health, they represent a particular food storage challenge. As oils and fats age, they oxidize. Oxidation is the process that turns fats rancid. Rancid foods not only taste bad, they are unhealthy. As fats and oils breakdown, they become toxic. These oxidized oils promote arterial damage, cancer, inflammation, degenerative diseases, and premature aging. So it is important that we store fats properly, use all fatty foods well before they become rancid, and discard those foods that have been stored too long. Fruit Cake Are you the fruit cake in your family? Before you raise your eyebrow, I would suggest you read on to know what I mean. 10 Simple Ways To Safely Store Food Storing foods can present its own set of problems. And different types of foods have different storage requirements to prevent bacteria from setting in. Here's some tips to protect your family and yourself. Picnic Tips and Tricks The most difficult task of a picnic is remembering everything. Make a list on the computer of everything you might need for a picnic. Then as you pack, check off the items that you really need. Save the list for the next picnic or camping trip. When you return, add items that you wished you had taken. Eventually, you'll have the perfect list for your family. Barbecue for You In may just be in human nature to barbecue. Well, we have been doing it as far back as time can denote. In the Stone Age, man hunted for food and cooked it over an open flame. And while we still cook over flame today, there are actually two different types. True barbecue requires a sauce. If not, you are just grilling. While both are good, barbecue involves slowly cooking the meat with low temperature for hours. Working with Eggs Bad eggs are rare but they do occur. Crack eggs into a separate bowl before mixing with other ingredients. If the egg is bad it will have an unmistakeable odor. 10 Simple Kitchen Organizing Tips A lot of the times we mean to get in there and finally organize the kitchen, but once things get out of control the job can seem so daunting and you just don't know where to start. These top 10 kitchen organizing tips will help make your kitchen pleasant and welcoming. Chinese Cooking Technique: Deep Fry There are usually 2 ways of deep frying in Chinese cooking: Fine Tuning Bread Machine Mixes Sometimes bread machines can be tricky. We were trying to help a customer whose bread did not rise enough. It seemed that he did everything right. Come to find out, he had an older model and a brand that we were not familiar with. (Bread machines are becoming more standardized but there are still different requirements for different machines.) So we tried to help him fine tune his mix to work perfectly with his machine.
|
|
|
|
|
