76 Chinese recipes. Page 3 of 4. Compare ingredients and cooking times. Chinese Soy-Braised Beef Shank, Mixed Seafood and Vegetable Stir-fry.
Dark soy turns this Chinese braised beef shank deep brown, and the meat is chilled until set in its own liquid before being sliced thin across the grain, with only two star anise in the pot so the spice never buries the beef.
Shrimp, squid, bamboo shoots, shiitake and bok choy are bound in a clear, glossy sauce made with chicken stock, oyster sauce and starch. The seafood's first sear stops as soon as the surface turns opaque, because it keeps cooking once the stock is poured in.
Squid and shrimp take the place of pork, so the familiar black bean sauce picks up a briny note as the seafood releases its juices into it. Potato, onion and zucchini soften into the sauce for sweetness and body, and a little starch slurry gives it the glossy, clinging texture that coats the noodles.
Kkanpunggi does not sit in a pool of sauce. Chicken thigh, fried twice, is tossed for a moment over high heat with garlic, dried chilies, soy sauce, vinegar and sugar, and comes out with just a thin, sticky coat on a crisp crust.
The eggplant is fried and set aside first, then returned to the sauce at the end, which keeps the pieces whole. The sauce starts from the spicy oil released as ground pork and doubanjiang (chili bean paste) fry together, and the sourness is adjusted at the very end with a little vinegar at a time.
Born in the Chinese immigrant community of Kolkata and now cooked across India, Hakka noodles keep their seasoning spare: soy sauce, a little vinegar and black pepper. Cabbage, carrot and bell pepper are cut into thin strips close to the width of the noodles, so each forkful picks up both evenly, and they spend only a minute or two over high heat to keep their snap.
Four fist-sized pork meatballs sit on a bed of napa cabbage and braise slowly in a light soy broth, staying moist and soft right to the surface instead of carrying a fried crust. The cabbage keeps the pork off the hot pot bottom and turns silky as it soaks up the meat juices.
Cumin and chili flakes are held back until the final minute so their aroma stays sharp. Before that, thin slices of lamb are spread in one layer in a very hot wok and left untouched for the first 40 seconds to brown.
Dark soy sauce turns the chicken broth a deep mahogany, and a cornstarch slurry thickens it into a glossy gravy that coats the yellow noodles completely. In the Chinese communities of Singapore and Malaysia, the bowl is finished with raw minced garlic, whose sharpness cuts through the thick gravy.
Two kinds of heat meet here: the chili burn of doubanjiang, a fermented chili bean paste, and the tingling numbness of ground Sichuan pepper. That numbing quality, called ma in Sichuan cooking, is what separates mapo tofu from other spicy braises. Soft tofu takes on the rusty-red sauce at its edges while the center stays silken, and spooned over steamed rice, the thick sauce runs down between the grains.
Beef shank simmered for 2 hours with star anise, cinnamon and ginger yields a clear broth with a gentle spice aroma. The dish comes from Lanzhou in Gansu province, where the noodles are hand-pulled; store-bought Chinese wheat noodles stand in for them. Keeping the pot at a quiet simmer the whole time decides whether the broth stays clear. Daikon, sliced beef, cilantro and chili oil finish each bowl.
Turned out of its steaming bowl, this Hakka dish lands as neat rows of soy-darkened pork belly sitting on a bed of preserved mustard greens, with the juices poured back over the top. Over an hour of steaming, the salt and fermented tang of the greens works its way into the pork.
Unlike chow mein, which gets fried until crisp, lo mein tosses boiled noodles gently with sauce so they stay soft and glossy. Soy sauce, oyster sauce and a little sugar make a salty, faintly sweet coating, mixed in advance so the seasoning spreads evenly during the brief toss. Half cooking the shrimp before the vegetables go in keeps it from toughening while everything is tossed, and the broccoli and carrot come off the heat while still bright and crisp. The noodles are plated the moment the sauce turns glossy, since left in the pan they dry out. Chicken or beef works in place of shrimp with the same steps.
The sea bass is steamed whole and comes to the table head to tail on one plate, and you pull the flakes away with chopsticks. The soy and sugar sauce is poured on lightly enough that the fish still tastes of itself, and smoking oil goes over a pile of shredded scallion at the end.
Wide, thick noodles take on the numbing tingle of Sichuan peppercorns, the heat of chili oil, the tang of black vinegar and the fermented saltiness of doubanjiang (chili bean paste) all at once. The numbing note comes from warming the peppercorns briefly in chili oil over low heat, pulled off before they darken or smell scorched. Heat is best adjusted with the amount of doubanjiang rather than more chili oil, which keeps the flavor clean. Because the noodles are so broad, a sauce with oil floating on top seasons them unevenly, so the sauce gets stirred to the bottom and the noodles are tossed hard. Boiled 1 minute short of the package time, they stay chewy to the last bite. Bok choy blanched in the noodle water adds a crisp, green bite between the oily strands.
Shell-on shrimp get a thin coat of potato starch, two rounds in the fryer, and a quick toss with garlic, red chili, salt, and black pepper, and no sauce follows. The seasoning is only what clings to the outside: salt, pepper, and fried garlic. Every bite hits those first, and the shells crackle between the teeth.
Unlike the glossy, starch-thickened black bean noodles found in Korean Chinese restaurants, this Beijing version gets its body purely from reduction: pork and fermented bean paste cook down until a spatula leaves a brief trail through the sauce. Doenjang mixed into the sweet bean paste pushes the flavor toward salty and funky, with a spoonful of sugar to soften the edge. The thick sauce sits on chewy fresh wheat noodles alongside crisp cucumber and bean sprouts, all tossed together hard right before eating.
Chopped shrimp in the pork filling gives these dim sum a springier bite than pork alone. The wrapper is pressed up around the sides and left open on top, and by the time they come out of the steamer the thin skin has turned translucent.
Thin rice vermicelli turns yellow with curry powder and tosses with shrimp, bell pepper and bean sprouts into a light, loose stir-fry. With only 1 tablespoon of soy sauce in the pan, curry aroma rather than salt carries the flavor.
A Shanghai soup dumpling holds both a pork filling and a mouthful of hot broth inside its thin wrapper. The broth begins as pork stock jelly, chopped and folded into the filling, which melts as the dumplings steam. Set one on a spoon, nick the skin, and drink the broth before dipping the rest in black vinegar with slivered ginger.
Black vinegar and chili oil hit at the same time, sour and hot, over a chicken stock with slippery, springy sweet potato starch noodles. Both are added to the bowl rather than the pot, leaving each person free to tune the sourness. The noodles turn clear before they are fully done; the real signal is when the firm center disappears but the bounce remains.
Beef shank, first fried with doubanjiang (fermented chili bean paste), simmers in a soy broth until it splits under a chopstick, then goes over wheat noodles in big chunks. The broth is dark with soy and only gently hot, and a few blanched bok choy leaves add some green.
Sesame paste whisked into chicken stock turns the broth thick, tan, and nutty, and a spoonful of crumbly pork plus a drizzle of chili oil sit on top as separate layers of salt and heat. Doubanjiang, a fermented chili bean paste, gives that pork its savory backbone, and the pork is fried until its moisture is gone and the edges brown and crisp. Stirring the bowl gradually blends the chili oil into the sesame broth, changing the taste of the soup from the first sip to the last. Peanut butter can stand in for half the sesame paste, and the amount of doubanjiang sets the heat. The noodles come out a little before the package time so they stay firm in the hot soup. Blanched bok choy adds a crisp, green bite against all that richness.
It tastes like Chinese home-style tomato and scrambled egg turned into a noodle soup, with sweet-sour tomato broth, soft egg curds and fresh noodles. The eggs are folded briefly and lifted out while still slightly wet, then return for only a minute at the end; fully cooked at the start, they would toughen in the final simmer. Pressing the tomatoes as they cook draws out the red juice that lets the pieces and the stock blend instead of sitting apart, and cooking them down well deepens the savory flavor. A little soy sauce and sugar only round off the tomato's acidity. Fresh noodles cook fast in the hot broth and come off the heat while the centers are still slightly firm.