China cuisine is extensive and profound, and its cooking techniques are as many as thirty or forty, which is far more than that of western food, which is actually the core of the advanced technology of Chinese food.
"Stew" is one of the common cooking techniques in the kitchen. Maybe at first, most people can think of braised dishes, and images of cauldron dishes come to mind. Braised dish is a hodgepodge. Everything can be put into a big pot, and the food is generous. Although it has the technique of "stewing", it is too rough. In fact, "stewing" also has its fine side, such as stewed mullet egg soup in Shandong cuisine, hibiscus chicken slices in Sichuan cuisine and stewed silver carp in Jiangsu cuisine, all of which are representative dishes with fine dishes and subtle details. So what kind of cooking method is "stew" in cooking? In this paper, the chef will make a detailed introduction from four aspects: the definition and characteristics of "stew", the choice of raw materials and the change of knives, technical points and skills, and examples of dishes. Definition and characteristics of "stew"
"stew" refers to a cooking method in which the raw materials that have been preliminarily cooked are put into a pot, water or fresh soup and side dishes are added, cooked in a short time after being seasoned with medium heat, and finally the main and auxiliary materials are thickened with starch. The characteristics of the finished product of "stew" are: the soup is half and half, the vegetable juice is one, the soup is slightly thick, the taste is strong and the taste is very rich. The ingredients are crisp, tender and smooth, the taste is mainly salty and light, and the heat preservation is strong, which mainly highlights the texture of the ingredients. Selection of raw materials and change of knife for "stew"
"stew" has a wide range of raw materials, including animal ingredients and plant ingredients. Most of the animal ingredients are delicate and soft, such as common chicken, duck, kidney, pork belly, shrimp, sea cucumber and mullet eggs. Plant ingredients include winter bamboo shoots, mushrooms, dried mushrooms, yuba, tofu and so on.
Because of its short heating time, when the ingredients are changed into knives, most of them are silk, diced, fine particles, mud and other shapes. Many ingredients need preliminary cooking treatment before stewing, such as blanching or lubricating oil, and some need sizing before cooking. Technical points and skills of "stewing"
1. The raw material of stewing can be either raw meal or clinker. Generally, the raw meal of animal food will be modified first and then sized, and then cooked with warm oil before stewing. Generally, vegetable ingredients will be boiled after changing the knife, and cooked ingredients can be stewed directly.
2. because "stew" needs to be cooked in the early stage, it is not suitable to cook in the pot for a long time when it is stewed for the second time. Generally, after the soup is boiled, the ingredients that need to be stewed are added, and the soup can be thickened after it is boiled again, so as to ensure the freshness of the finished product in a short time.
3. "Stewing" pays attention to half of the soup, so thickening is also a particularly important technical link. The finished product should be thick and moderate. If the soup is too thin, the ingredients will not float, and the soup is too thick and easy to stick to the mouth. Therefore, in the thickening process, the fire should be stronger, the soup should be boiled before adding water starch, and the starch should be stirred quickly after adding it, so that the starch can be gelatinized quickly. It should be noted here that when using water starch, water and starch must be mixed evenly to avoid small pimples. Inexperienced partners can add starch several times to prevent the finished product from being too thick.
4. Because "Stew" pays attention to half the soup, so "Stew" also has high requirements for the bottom soup, not using simple water, but generally using clear soup or thick soup. There are finished dishes that require plain taste and innocent soup, and some braised dishes that need aftertaste need thick soup. Try not to use clear water when making such dishes.
5. Because "stewing" can't last too long, medium fire is usually used when selecting firepower, so that it can be boiled quickly and then thickened, and the finished product can be bright in color.
6. Although "stewed" dishes vary from place to place, there are relatively few classifications, which can be roughly divided into red stewed dishes and white stewed dishes only by color. Red stew is to add colored seasonings on the basis of white stew, such as soy sauce, oyster sauce, delicious and so on It is characterized by thick juice, strong color and thick fresh flavor.