The Qian Technique
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 22 พ.ค. 2024
- Brown sauce, white sauce; stir fry sauce, mother sauce. The internet is collectively convinced of their 'thing-ness'. Are they right?
0:00 - Is Brown Sauce Really a Thing?
1:50 - What is Chinese "white sauce"?
3:26 - Making white sauce
5:27 - What is Chinese "brown sauce"?
7:06 - Recipe for one possible seasoned soy sauce
8:16 - Making a brown sauce
9:34 - Thickening before storage?
FULL WRITTEN RECIPE
As before, the full written recipes for the two dishes are over here on Substack (free, if it had to be said):
open.substack.com/pub/chinese...
INGREDIENTS FOR THE SEASONED SOY SAUCE
* Dried Shiitake Mushroom (冬菇), 2
* Water, 2 cupS
* Ginger, 1 inch. Smashed.
* Scallion, 1 sprig. Tied in a knot.
* Soy sauce (生抽), 1/6 cup tsp.
* Oyster sauce (蚝油), 2 tbsp
* Liaojiu a.k.a. Shaoxing wine (料酒/绍酒), 1 tbsp
* Dry Seasoning:
Sugar, 1 tsp;
Chicken Bouillon Powder (鸡粉), ¼ tsp;
Salt, 1/8 tsp;
MSG (味精), 1/8 tsp
______
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/ chinesecookingdemystified
Outro Music: คิดถึงคุณจัง by ธานินทร์ อินทรเทพ
Found via My Analog Journal (great channel): • Live Stream: Favourite... - แนวปฏิบัติและการใช้ชีวิต
Hey guys, a few notes:
1. I know that this one was slightly different, in that we really didn’t show how to make the two dishes at all. I figured that this video might be better off really focusing on the idea of brown sauce/white sauce and how they’re used… and I could go into detail on the recipes themselves in the written Substack/Reddit posts.
2. The “language lesson”, as I said, was a *drastic* drastic simplification. It’s also important to point out that what we taught there were descriptions of how the words are used, and not definitions. There’s also handful of other characters that also can be translated as “sauces” (or pastes!) - in particular, 水 (water) and 油 (oil) are two that stand out off the top of my head. Also, there's a borderline comical level of broadness to all of these characters - like fruit juice is also a zhi 汁.
3. Not sure who edited that Wikipedia article - it was pretty egregious. In a cooking context, you’d usually see the character “褐” instead of “棕” (e.g. the proper translation of espagnole is 褐酱), and the character “色” (emphasizing color) feels really out of place. Honestly feels like someone just popped something into Google translate and called it a day. Nothing against the people that take their time to edit things - doing god’s work there! - but food articles seem to consistently be one of the lower quality corners of Wikipedia. If I was a better human being I’d edit it myself, but I’m lazy :)
4. In the context of a stir fry, you can obviously have different orders of operations. Usually what we do is add our ingredients after the aromatics/wine, give it a brief stir fry, then add the sauce. The advantage of doing it this way is that the ingredients get a bit of a fry (and you can sizzle in some soy sauce if applicable), and take on the subsequent flavors a smudge better. The advantage of making the sauce first is that you can more clearly control the consistency of the sauce.
5. We chose to go sauce-first this time in this video in order to show the underlying technique clearer.
6. One thing that I’m worried that I didn’t show clearly enough was the motion of adding in the starch slurry. In an ideal world, you want to add it in in a thin stream *while* stirring constantly - this helps prevent clumps. In the shrimp stir fry, I did it after (not best practice, but hey), and unfortunately Art of Cooking just sort of… dumped his in lol.
7. As an aside, Art of Cooking is still probably the best channel out there for takeout style Chinese food. It feels like the world desperately needs an American Wang Gang to just... show what’s going on behind a professional wok clearly.
8. Oh, when thickening, potato starch or tapioca starch are preferred. These starches thicken better, are quicker to act, and hold longer after cooking. Cornstarch can work in a pinch, but is generally thought of as the least-good option for this sort of thing (great for deep frying coatings however).
That’s all I can think of for now. More straightforward recipe video coming next week :)
Regarding Wikipedia, as a frequent editor I can confirm that articles on food and non-western culture tend to be poorly written. This is because a majority of the English Wikipedia editors are young white males whose interests primarily covers science and technology. We have very detailed articles on lightsaber and rice production in China, while articles for something as important as cooked rice and lo mein is pretty brief.
Thanks for the info on the starches, so good to know.
@@commenter4898There is actually a person who did edit this sentence out of Wikipedia. If that's you, great job ! *virtual high five*
That was definitely a question I had. Format works fine, no need to stay confined to just recipes IMO.
@@77Assassas77 thanks but it wasn't me
There's literally no one else providing the information that you provide us. You guys are invaluable
Chef Wang Gang and Chef John from Taste Show are excellent sources as well
@@djpillarboxWang Gang is the unequivocal GOAT of Chinese cooking content.
@@ChineseCookingDemystifiednobody cooks a moderate like Chef Wang Gang
its not that complicated its one trick the gravy trick
I was talking about all the free information they bring us as a whole, carl@@SnakeBush
I've been cooking like this for years and I had no idea that my lazy, all-in-one-pan, saucy stir fry is ✨technique✨
Laziness is the mother of invention after all
Most "techniques" evolved from practical cooking, a.k.a. "lazy" cooking by people who have other things that demand their time. The question is just how far removed they are from the source - in this case, not much.
Same! It's so cool to see this here.
@@thotslayer9914no
Yes! Sometimes I am lazy and throw stuff together in one pan. Sometimes the food includes meat, soy sauce, ginger, garlic, and hot peppers. When I do that it tastes kind of like Chinese brown sauce. Lol! Now I know why! It seems like a very intuitive way of cooking. This video was great!
Even though I don’t really do this myself, it reminds me of pan sauces made from fond that is deglazed with a liquid and then thickened up with butter or just reduction. You don’t buy this “pan sauce” and it’s not bottled. It’s just a part of the dish.
if you think about it, a steak with a pan sauce is sort of just a deconstructed beef stir fry
@@ChineseCookingDemystified Oh, true!
@@ChineseCookingDemystifiedsomewhere in Texas a large number of steak purists shuddered in horror, even if they didn't know why, when you typed that out
Growing up in a *mostly* Asian environment, I always wondered how they made these deglazed sauces that are often called "gravy". It was more mysterious to me because at least I know the brownish stuff in Asian cooking is probably made with Soy sauce or something derived from fermented soybeans...
The brown sauce is like the gravy for Christmas roast turkey. You can't buy it or make it without roasting the turkey first and collect its oils and juices dripped on the oven tray. Then you thicken the turkey oils and juices to make the brown gravy. Same concept!
you can buy gravy granules tho
@@jljljl1820 that's still an ingredient though, you can't buy a jug of gravy.
Not really the same concept... 😅 it's not sauce like western cooking... it's literally part of the dish...not a separate topping, if you get what I mean...
@@zrrion6the6insect6 yes you can :D
turkey gravy is absolutely something you can buy separately, and is used separately. And the turkey gravy used in, say, fries and gravy, will taste identical to the turkey gravy you serve over mnashed potato with turkey dinner.
But the beef and broccoili brown sauce will taste quite different from the seafood brown sauce, despite both having the same base, because it's not a complete sauce with a full body on its own, but the result of seasonings and cooking fluids being thickened. It is not another element being layered onto the dish's existing layers and profiles, just a thickening of existing juices.
In this sense, each brown sauce in Chinese cooking would be unique to each dish, while we would just have brown sauces unique to each major protein in western cooking, (turkey gravy, chicken gravy,. beef gravy, pork gravy, etc.).
Appreciate the "Chateau de Chinois Démystifier" menu a lot! Do yourself a favor and pause the video to read the thing 😂
I used to make a premixed stir fry sauce, but now I prefer to make it while cooking, just like Steph and Chris have been teaching us all these years.
6:53. This is a hoot!
Completely missed this hahahahaha
This is the demystifying content I come here for! Super interesting.
I have an old Chinese cook book from like.. the 70s. In the recipes it constantly refers to "Brown Master Sauce". Clearly the terminology is borrowed from the idea of the French Master Sauces. The cook book, itself, has no mention of what this sauce is supposed to be. After trying a few of the recipes, I came to the conclusion that the 'brown' sauce used is different from recipe to recipe. I tend to default to a mixture of oyster sauce, dark soy, light soy, xiao xing, sugar and chicken stock just because that's my preferred go-to for the majority of recipes.
But for the longest time, I just used light soy and this premade gravy mix that I found in my grandma's pantry. No idea where it came from or who made it, but it lasted me about 15 years until it ran out lol.
yes, hundred year old gravy mix, found next to dragon eggs and dried bear bladder in spooky cupboard above fridge. you must have Chinese grandmother.
when i worked at a small chinese restaurant, there was always 3 open containers next to the wok: one had the "brown master sauce", one had the thickening slurry and one was clearish. nearly every dish that the cook/owner cooked up got a ladle of varying amounts from 2 or all of the open containers. the "brown master sauce" went into nearly everything. one thing i do remember distinctly is that the "brown master sauce" at this little restaurant was very watery and i imagine did not have a lot of oyster sauce in it cause the ones i've seen online and tried to make come out much thicker than what i remember because of the added oyster sauce.
For some reason I've never run into the idea of 'Chinese Brown/White Sauce' as not a result of the cooking process, and my mind was mildly blown by the idea that it can be thought of that way!
I think I've just been looking for recipes by the names I've been exposed to (so broccoli beef, no brown sauce mentioned).
But I am glad to have some more terminology and context. Thanks!
You're welcome
I've been eating Chinese food for decades (even worked in a restaurant) and also NEVER heard of anyone refer to white sauce or brown sauce in this way.
LMAO the shade thrown under the menu with the astrix is hilarious!!
For some time now I've been approximating "brown sauce" without having any idea how it's actually made, and what I've basically been doing is making a pan sauce with "usual suspect" Asian ingredients and thickening it with a corn starch slurry. I'm pleased to know that this was basically spot-on 😂
Mind blown. I love eggplant in a garlic brown sauce and spent years trying to figure out how to make it at home. Stumbled upon a chinese restaurant that makes it in the US and asked what the hell is this sauce? All I got out of the waitress is it's a brown sauce which further stumped me. Your video just showed me what that sauce is and that it's actually more complex than just buying something in a bottle at a grocery store. My mind is blown. Wow!
Love the recognition of “The Art of Cooking” channel. I miss that guy… and coincidentally I first heard of “Chinese brown sauce” (being used as a base) from his channel.
6:52 "Are you ready to order?"
"Yes. I'd like a bowl of your..
*squints down at menu*
steamed fish semen."
"Excellent choice, sir."
That's basically shirako in your fancy Japanese restaurant.
Tiger Puffer ballsacks are expensive. But do not mistaken it for the puffer's ovary, that thing is packed with poison and is deadly.
Ok... The footnote on the fictitious menu is everything. Kudos for it.
Glad to see an Art of Cooking shoutout. They were one of the earliest English resources for Cantonese cooking on TH-cam, and as a Cantonese guy born in the west, they were invaluable and I still refer to some of their recipes.
I just wish he'd let us know if he's still alive.
I hope he’s ok 😭
I hope he's ok too. The moment I heard that TH-cam would be deleting inactive accounts over 2 years old, I saved all his available videos. Thankfully, YT's backtracked on that.
Nice to know I'm not the only who enjoyed Art of Cooking. I still follow the Siu Mai recipe as I find it superb exactly as the Charsiu and Siu Yuk recipes. I check the channel from time to time just in case I find a surprise.
He should have just shown the Art of Cooking "brown sauce" video and be done with it.
Most people might pay attention to the first dish in the menu at 6:52, but dish #3 is the most eye-popping to me...Sashimi that requires picking prickly bones is devilishly evil
Oh nah that's 鲩鱼. No bones or anything. Fantastically delicious, super umami fish. Pesky thing about it is that being freshwater, it can give you a nasty case of the liver fluke if you iterate that function a number of times.
Would probably be super illegal in America, but is a must-try if you find yourself in Shunde (maybe just don't make an everyday habit of it)
@@ChineseCookingDemystified In America, the FDA process is that if a fish is to be served raw, it first needs to be frozen in a manner that will kill parasites like the liver fluke. This is a minimum of -20C but can be colder if you want the process to be faster. Most sashimi restaurants have to do this themselves, the alternative being buying frozen fish from a properly certified fish distributor. -20C is basically min temp on most commercial units and it needs to be there for a week with no temp fluctuations above -20C, but if you have a dry ice setup you can freeze the fish solid at -35C and then transfer to -20C for minimum one day.
Your real issue is going to be the ethical sourcing part, because most U.S. Fish and Wildlife agencies hate the Grass Carp, as it's known here. They got released into a bunch of our freshwater ecosystems and without predators they've massively transformed our river and lake ecosystems. Getting permits to actually farm them is a nightmare because they want to be 100% sure none will get out (some infestations are because aquaculture lagoons broke during severe weather, releasing fish into floodwaters). Sourcing them directly from freshwater rivers is a possibility, but then you run into a bunch of regulation on commercial freshwater fishing, along with figuring out an economical system to do it.
@@ajjdgj6tmgedvnmtmek If they’re invasive, that suggests that any that you pull out of a stream in the US are ethically sourced be definition
@@Goldjin13579 It's counter-intuitive... because in isolation, totally, if you're fishing by the river and happen to catch a grass carp - that's going to help on the margin. BUT if Americans suddenly develop a taste for grass carp and they begin to grace restaurant menus... then that would in turn incentivize fish farmers to raise grass carp (a proper supply chain will always be more economical), some would inevitably leak out into the ecosystem, making the problem even worse. The idea of "let's eat the invasive species" is a compelling one, but can only work in conjunction with a re-thinking of the food supply chain.
@@ajjdgj6tmgedvnmtmek So in Shunde the process is to take live fish, kill it, hang it and thoroughly drain out the blood, and then slice it up. I've had the same dish at some higher end restaurants, and the fish is no where near as umami as the little mom and pop joints in Shunde - I wonder if it's the freshness/lack of freezing that actually contributes to the flavor?
For those who are wondering why you can't buy the 'brown sauce' in a bottle:
Imagine bottling the fond you deglazed from your pan and selling it in a grocery store.
Yeah but...maybe I should do that
That would need lots of preservatives!
When I was trying to figure out a beef-and-broccoli recipe, I discovered quite by accident that soy sauce, diluted with salted water, with some dried onion, black pepper, and a little sugar, tasted a lot like beef gravy. I started using this combination whenever I'm making a beef-based stir-fry, or when I just want a beefy flavor with little or no beef in a recipe. It's great to know I was doing something right, even though I didn't know what I was doing. lol
love the menu at 6:52 lol
Would definitely go to that restaurant ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️
Best Chinese cooking channel for English speakers, period. And that’s one lucky dog!
Some brown sauce is Southern brown gravy. Like in Massachusetts the Hoo Mee restaurant came up with a cheap dish to feed hungry workers. It's a big mess of fried noodles in brown sauce served with a hamburger bun because carbs. The brown sauce couldn't be made with the fried noodles, and trust me, there are no vegetables. So they basically just make Southern brown gravy. They even sell it, so you can confirm for yourself it's a bag of instant gravy. (Maybe they do some Asian cookery to make the gravy powder, but trust me, grocery store brown gravy is fine).
Short version to make Southern brown gravy to double as American Chinese brown gravy. Make a roux heating some flour in neutral cooking oil - just a few tbsp of flour and oil can thicken gravy for a small pot of vegetables. Obviously subbing beef fat, lard, etc is also good. Mix thoroughly and allow the roux to darken a little to taste over medium heat. Pour in a little beef broth or whatever you like to make a paste. Once it's as brown as you like and lumps are mixed. Continue to add liquid to desired consistency, and it does thicken on standing.
That's it. A little salt and pepper goes a long way. Maybe some five spice. Turn this in American chow mein. And since we're not factory workers. Shred a head of cabbage into a big pot with a little butter to help it wilt. Thinly slice anything else you like, such as celery and onion. Browning the aromatics before you wilt the cabbage is obviously a pro move. Either way. Add gravy, and enough broth to help the gravy coat the cabbage. Cut in any meat you like. A simple ham steak cut into cubes is great.
Now you have a big pot of delicious vegetables, and yes it's amazing with fried noodles just give them time to soften. But it's a big cheap pot of Chinese American food. And it's mostly vegetable so it's quite healthy. You can feed a whole family for next to nothing.
This would explain why I have tried virtually every "brown sauce" recipe online and none have gotten me close to what I want. Though I want basically a beef broccoli tasting sauce without any meat. That's been my largest challenge. I'll have to try this some time.
I'm curious how adding something like an oxo cube or Marmite would do in a recipe like that. Also I know a lot of vegans add stuff like Better Than Bouillon's vegetarian meat flavors to better simulate intense meat flavors while keeping it meat-free.
The art of cooking channel has the recipe for the brown sauce that you're looking for.
You can build upon a base of vegetarian oyster mushroom sauce, soy sauce and starch. Adjust the other ingredients according to your liking and what you intend to be cooking (meat, seafood, vegetables, tofu) / (stir fry, saute, braising).
@purplegill10 There is dried mushroom powder, which also acts like MSG.
Use dried shiitake mushroom like in the video example for a base stock that can be vegetarian/vegan. Also the shiitake mushroom itself is yum.
Six years of weekly uploads... and I realise I haven't even grasped the basics.
I am eternally grateful.
This is probably one of the most informative cooking show I've ever watched. I love how you just not only show us recipes but also the way of thought behind it which most people don't really think about. You are such a helpful angel for Chinese cooking
Wow. Y’all are doing the Lord’s work and delivering esoteric Chinese cooking knowledge to the English speaking internet. I can’t tell you how long I’ve been wondering what this stuff is. Thank you from the bottom of my heart!!!
The way you made Jiang and Zhi plural by adding a ‘s’ is absolutely hilarious 🤣🤣🤣🤣
You solved two longstanding great mysteries of Chinese cooking for me in this vid. I can't thank you enough.
Videos like this one about technique and theory are incredibly valuable. Please continue making these types of videos along with recipes
Your in-depth info on terminologies and technique is presented in such a genial manner---with your gentle humor---that I may just binge watch y'all once we are snowed-in up here this winter. A big thank you for incl. the Chinese word, it's correct pronunciation, it's character (!), definition, and ingredients (---when appropriate). You are the most complete info source here. Please keep on keepin' on with all of this valuable info, we love it.
Man, I love how you break down and educate. It is easy to follow and demystifies things so well! Thank you. You really are unique!
I pre-prepare a three-to-one mix of meat broth and soy sauce, using the stock corresponding to the meat in the dish. I sweeten it with sugar or honey, season it with ginger and garlic, and store it in the fridge in a squeeze bottle to use later. I thicken it with starch and water as I cook. It may not be right but it works.
Awesome video and a really clearly argued. Also, almost comically well timed for me. I made Dan Dan noodles from your recipe for dinner tonight and was going through the process in my head afterward trying to figure out how I could speed it up / pre-make parts of it because it was so delicious and want to eat it all the time now. Then I remembered an earlier video you made about seasoned soy sauce and decided that would be the best thing to pre-make along with the chili oil. And then I was trying to think of other things I could use it for and now you’ve answered that too. You guys are amazing.
even when your video topics get 'borrowed' by other youtubers, your videos are always superior! I learn so much from you! thanks!!!
this channel is fabulous, keep up the amazing work guys, these videos are so informative and an absolute joy to watch
Excellent information. Understanding cuisine is fun and your videos are so easy to follow… just wanted you to know how much it is appreciated!❤
These tips, tricks, and deep dive explanations do so much to make my "almost like Real Chinese Food" attempts at traditional dishes taste just a bit more authentic.
Fantastic info, thanks so much guys. The humour is great too, I paused to read the "Démystifier" menu and was glad I did. :D
Love you guys, super important food history research, presented so well. You are a treasure.
Do not try and make the brown sauce, that's impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth… there is no brown sauce.
the word qian in Chinese, is replaced by ankake in Japanese. same thing, liquid thickened by a starch. and zhi, is often used for it's "juice/juices" meaning. so the heme or liquified fats that comes out of a raw/rare steak or a "juicy piece of chicken", that's zhi, as is apple juice or the liquid that comes out of cooking down vegetables.
I can't speak for authentic cantonese "brown sauce" but canadian-chinese brown sauce almost always has some oyster sauce added, so if you are trying to recreate your fav takeout brown sauce, i would recommend using some of it in your seasoned soy sauce mix.
Yes, the first time I tried oyster sauce I immediately recognized the flavor as one of the main flavors in beef and broccoli
I've been looking for this explanation forever! Thanks for such an informative video!
I always thought of these types of “sauces” as pan gravy.
I like how you still say "fer" instead of "for" 😁 It is very hard to drop it isn't it. This is a super video. There is always a hand full of mysteries in every cuisine and this was one of them for me. So funny how it has seemed to be difficult for others to explain such an easy concept. Thank you. You have unlocked something really important here.
Nicely done guys! I think I've always intellectually knew this before, but my brain was thinking it was more complicated when my wok hit the fire so to speak.
(My very first job was as a dishwasher/chopper boy in a Chinese restaurant near Chicago, I ate what the kitchen ate, and even though I saw them put it together, "Live" I still disconnected decades later.) Thanks for putting this out there!
Y’all are * undefeated * for this one. Premium content, the history, the chemistry, the application.
Amazing
Great video. I worked in Chinese American restaurants (and cantonese) for 7 years and the head chef always made a master brown sauce that's thickened per order which is used the most for the C/A menu, beef & broccoli etc... Also a garlic sauce, a white sauce and a sweet, thick sauce used for sesame chicken, Tso & orange, each having a distinct variation once in the wok. Again, good video, interesting to hear this from a different viewpoint
Yes. When I worked in an Italian restaurant there was "red sauce". It was crushed tomatoes, tomato sauce, oregano, basil, and garlic. The boss made it up in the Hobart mixer five gallons at a time. It went into everything. By the same token, every Chinese takeout in the USA seems to have a brown sauce that goes onto all the beef dishes and the stir fried rice. It seems to be about equal parts oyster sauce, soy sauce, and shaoxing wine. I bet TexMex restaurants have something similar.
It's not a traditional thing from the original cultures, but it's a necessary part of trying to replicate the restaurant food you grew up with :-)
Also, since these things are the individual creations of thousands of mom and pop restaurants Wikipedia is not a useful source. Wikipedia is a place that attempts to catalog published sources.
@@bob-rogers it's definitely not so plain like you say, our brown sauce had around 10-15 ingredients if I remember correctly, and people who use a sauce in their rice are wrong
@@AncientMysteriesAndInnovations That's an interesting approach. Was the sauce made freshly daily?
@@ChineseCookingDemystified we made a large bucket at a time so they'd last half the week usually
Chef non-chalantly going from Mandarin to English and the throwing us a bit of French with 'raison d'etre'. Damn, Bro. Good work. Your brain is a culinary treasure.
Love this video packed with information! This really explains a lot!
i dont do a lot of chinese style cooking at home, this was so interesting! thank you so much for explaining the techniques in their proper context
The deep dive we didn’t know we needed. You guys rock!
Well here goes. I have no idea how to reach your guys... But thanks to you i have "Demystified" most of the dishes i have been searching for... Some times for more than 20 years LOL.... Thank you!!
This is a very deep lesson. In my ignorance let me say this: In northern New Jersey when you get Egg Foo Young, often it comes in this "brown sauce" that is lighter: like caramel colored. You have to specify I want DARK "brown sauce" like you put on Chicken and Broccoli. Then you get this darker brown sauce that is almost the color of dark chocolate. And this is really good, ginger in there and some other magic. The lighter color sauce is.. sigh.. like turkey gravy or something... (I have to add Tabasco sauce to doctor it up.) The darker one stands on it's own and really makes Egg Foo Young (or Chicken and Broccoli) really shine. When I look at your video I can't tell which one of these (if any) you are making. I will watch it again.
You and your lovely wife are just the best. You really are opening up an amazing culinary world that is so sophisticated, nuanced and delicious in ways that many western tongues have never dreamed of. Thank you for this!
When i first started cooking American Chinese food, i had this exact problem, i didn't know what brown sauce or White sauce was. So many recipes existed for making pre thickened sauce, and i would follow those recipes but i NEVER got the right consistency. It took months of mistakes to finally understand that the "sauce" isn't a sauce at all! It's just thickening the final dish with starch slurry! And now you've helped me give this technique a name! Thank you so so so much!
This is exactly what I wondered about for years. This is exactly the information I needed to fix all my dishes when I'm making American style brown sauce. It never has come out right? And of course it's that intermediate state that no one would think to say but they would just make. I feel like this is a huge puzzle piece for so many dishes I've screwed up. Thank you thank you and thank you!
So because of this video I've been obsessed and done it four times in a week. I can't believe how close I was but yet so far away for years. I want to my favorite stir fry joint. Ordered my favorite dish and I tried it against one that I made... So freaking close. I tell you your channel is changing lives
Thanks for the 'white sauce' recipe. After searching and trying many 'brown sauce' recipes I did find a simple and easy version very common in the area I live. A cup of chicken broth, 1 or 2 tsp.s of mushroom soy sauce and 1 Tablespoon. of Oyster sauce. Thicken with a slurry if you need to. Definitely going to try both of yours. Thanks so much !!!
Another banger of history crossing over to cooking. Big fan. I am from Australia and there is a lot of Chinese meals that are popular here that i don't believe are as popular else where. If you ever travel here, make sure you look them up. Although I imagine there would be a fair bit of cross over with American-Chinese food.
That would be amazing.
Excellent lesson!
i love you guys and your offerings!
Perfect!!!
On the subject of Chinese-American takeout food, another channel I'd recommend to supplement your videos is Happy Wok. He's not very chatty, but he's a very skilled retired restaurant chef and shows all the techniques and recipes for the take out classics. I find between his content and yours, I get a much better understanding of the food.
This is a lesson in American Chinese food. I’ve never heard of either white or brown sauce in relation to Chinese cooking.
hello steph and chris!! i've been watching your content for a while now and its also the go to channel i recommend for learning chinese cuisine. i appreciate the spoken mandarin voiceovers as well. recently i've been thinking of how cantonese is a dying language and as an ABC cantonese speaker im hoping to keep learning + adding to my vocabulary. i'm just wondering whether you would consider adding cantonese voiceover too? 🥺
Absolutely amazing info as always!
The easiest thing to find out about asian cooking technique, yet for many people hard to grasp. Sometimes it's best to hide something in plain sight maybe. Thanks for the video
I'm glad you got rid of this one. There's too many "brown sauce" in Western cooking. There's the old French ones (the historical brown coulis, sauce espagnole, demi-glace). The British brown ketchup HP style "brown sauce" thingy, and often other brown gravies are also referred to as brown sauce.
Here in Sweden "brown sauce" or brunsås is a light brown cream sauce that is almost like a gloriously brown base sauce in our food culture. Too much confusion.
There’s still one mystery - my dad’s brown sauce had a smokiness I cannot replicate. He was a Chinese chef with forearms as hard as rocks working those woks!
I bet it was his amazing seasoned pans!
did you mean wok hei? i believe it's created by wok stir frying at extremely high heat that's usually only possible with the powerful gas burners seen at chinese restaurants. i'm not sure how your dad would achieve this in a home cooking setting though. i think kenji lopez tried to research it to find a way to replicate it in home cooking, you might find whatever he discovered useful
@@aliasonarcotics he was the chef of his own restaurant. There was definitely plenty of wok hei happening!
@@mellarius188 ah well that explains it then. but wok hei is very difficult to replicate in home cooking unfortunately. some people have tried using a blowtorch while stirring and tossing the food in a wok, but it seems only partially replicate the effect that the very powerful gas burners in restaurants produce
Outstandingly educational and informative...thank you!
6:30 for others who got caught up here, "gyofen" here is hondashi, the bonito fish stock powder.
This was so helpful in understanding the base and the process!
Thanks so much for explaining this!! That's always the question of my non-Chinese friends asking me what brown sauce is and my reaction is always I don't know! I never ever heard of that!!
"Chateau de Chinois Démystifier", "Miscellanious du vache", 'Century egg gruau de riz"
As a french speaking person, those ones got me!
Don't forget "raison d'être" too!
Big fan of the channel for years, commenting to just say the D&D GoT reference was amazing (07:35) . Thanks
Thanks for the rundown. It's interesting that there is a not only a language barrier here but also a paradigm of cooking barrier.
There are some similar concepts in Italian cooking. Especially egg and cheese based pasta sauces just don't become a thing until the pasta is added and tossed together.
6:44 That hit the nail in the head - you *can* do this but it's not really a practical or necessary thing for home cooking. One might use different ratios of the same ingredients for different dishes; what I want my ratios to be is not the same as your preference; etc.
Some things don't translate well language-wise, and some things don't translate well technique-wise.
This is actually pretty enlightening: I found a lot of different jiang being used to make the zhi for many different beef w/ broccoli recipes and so it makes sense to me that depending on how you make it, you might use different jiang (whether you are using gai lan or western broccoli, how much carrot you add, whcih cut of beef you use, etc). I like the one that cooking with Lau uses and it's interesting that he specifies that oyster sauce is a must when making a beef stir fry, but that other meats don't call for it.
I did not know I needed a Chinese brown sauce tutorial and historical analysis until today. Great video.
Also, this channel and The Art of Cooking are my go to videos when I'm making stir fry. Plus The Art of Cooking guy is hilarious.
This channel is a world treasure
I love the video, it really helped me to understand things about sauces. I kept going into asain places and asking what kind of sauce they were using, and they would always tell me that it was "teriyaki sauce". But when I would go to the store and look for teriyaki sauce, I would always be confused as to why it was so watery and not thick. It makes allot of sense that you can't really find bottles of it given how it's made in multiple cooking processes during the same dish.
I've gotten a fairly "okay" brown sauce by just mixing soy sauce, oyster sauce, and sugar. Often a sour ingredient as well like a vinegar or rice wine.
Certainly not as robust as the sauce shown in the video but extremely easy to make on the spot for home cooking and still very tasty. Of course thickened with starch during cooking as well. I use it most often on sauteed vegetables, usually broccoli.
I do the same. A tiny bit of something sweet (sugar, mirin, even some beer or white wine), a tiny bit of something sour (vinegar or lemon juice), soy sauce, msg and a slurry. I make this sauce several times a week and it goes well with almost anything. To me, the hard part is the balance of sweet/sour/savoury. The sauce shouldn't be really sweet or sour, these should just add a little kick to the sauce.
Art of Cooking - the best for Americanized food chinoise-is right. Raymond- where did you go? Great videos all CCD! Excelent analysis
Love this video. I found a recipe that is similar to your seasoned soy sauce. The differences are the use of cornstarch as the thickener and that it is added to the cooled liquid before placing in a jar, in the fridge. This way you can shake the jar up and pour in what you need, eliminating the extra step of adding your thickener later. It's basic enough that you can add a few other ingredients when you're cooking and change the flavor profile, like hoisin or crushed peanuts (peanut butter). I get about 5 servings from one 16oz. jar. It lasts for at least 6 weeks. I like not having to get out all of the ingredients every time I want to stir fry. Seeing the jar in the fridge inspires me to whip up more stir fry. P.S. Using a jar to shake up your cornstarch before adding to any slurry is a great way to avoid lumps- it's how my mom taught me to make smooth gravy.
Interesting take on a Chinese buffet recipe. I love to make various dishes, but the brown gravy I make is similar in only one direction, like oyster sauce added to Mongolian beef, while other ones, like the omelet, are more hoisin without much oyster sauce. Or some other stir fries that go in another sauce like the brown ground bean sauce infused soy sauce to make a "lo mein" that I often enjoy making or black bean sauce on chicken and so on. It's almost a base that is constantly taken to another sauce as a mother sauce like Americana bechamel/roux is the starter for things like sausage gravy or gravy-covered chicken with a white onion flavor. Thanks, C.C.D., for letting us think of it as a way to start various dishes and thus pass those ideas forward to the next generation.
I'm telling you this just straight-up reminded me immediately of How To with John Wilson on HBO. He has a documentary series in the same manner as this video, I'm not sure how to explain it necessarily, I know squat about filming or editing but I'm telling you it's spot-on. Thank you for the amazing video... TIL'ed.
To do a pre-thickened version that is long-term stable, you need modified starch, which is in general not available to individual consumers.
It's highly available, just not labeled as such. Find a store that sells canning supplies and look at the ingredient list of "cook-type" thickeners or "clear jel". At least one of them should be 100% modified food starch. Shouldn't cost more than a dollar an ounce or about $16 per pound.
Thank you for this video.
It's crazy learning about the seasoned soy sauce technique here.
I kinda sorta do the same thing myself and keep it in the fridge, then add extra spices/ingredients as needed.
Thanks for making this. I have been chasing a classic American Chinese take out kung pao or szechuan brown sauce for years. But I can't ever nail it from my childhood.
This is a real deal! This lady is speaking the truth of what will become of brown sauce if you thickened in advance in hope to save time. It’s a total rubbish.
Thank you for being authentic.
Some of us working people are trying to save time and we're not professional chefs trying to make prefect magazine food. If it tastes good, and fills the belly, then they should just go for it without worrying if it's "authentic" enough.
Thank you for showing the other videos where you use the visual demos how Chinese sauces are used in cooking, eating and preppring.
This is soo interesting and informative, thank you!
I made a version of the beef and mushroom with the "brown sauce" tonight. Subbed the beef for chicken and added celery. Turned out fantastic as always with any of these recipes or techniques. One thing I also did differently was I simmered my mushrooms in the seasoned soy sauce and then once cooked through I added my slurry to thicken. Saved a pot to wash and who doesn't like extra mushroom flavor?
This is how I make my stir fries already, just because I've always found it more convenient to premix a "sauce" blend and thicken as I go. I had no idea there were specific names or techniques involved, but I should have guessed there would be.
Es lo mejor que he encontrado. Ustedes son un espectáculo de la cocina. Muchas gracias desde México. Pd. Algunos detalles tienen semejanza con nuestra comida de Yucatan. Saludos
Oo, estoy interasado en más detalles. Cuáles semejanzas? Gracias!
Yes please give me those language lessons, Chinese is such an intriguing language
In many ways, the "brown sauce" here is essentially just a pan (or wok) sauce, thickened with a corn starch slurry. Kinda why the sauce can be a little generic at times
I always wondered how to make the brown sauce but learning the white sauce was a plus I love a seafood vegetable stir fry in white sauce
Just wanted to say that I used to watch your videos all the time, I don’t know why I haven’t seen you in like a year or so, however, you seem to be back in the algorithm
Yeah I do some variation of this when I do "brown" sauce.
Never actually thought about doing the same for white sauce though (or actually doing white sauce in the first place)
Thanks, amigos. Great content.
Thank you for featuring Art of Cooking channel!!! That channel is so underrated, if anyone of you wanted learn how chinese resto do their stuff, you can visit that channel. Unfortunately, the chef on the video Raymond(rip) already passed away a couple of years ago.