by TrystynLynn

Created on: February 14, 2011   Last Updated: April 08, 2011

In Chinese cooking, seasoning is the most important thing in the line of preparation. As long as you have the basic ingredients for the seasoning you are pretty much set and have already won half the battle of creating a good Chinese dish.

Chinese cooking is very simple and requires fewer hard to find herbs and seasoning as compared to dishes from other cultures. By using the same ingredients, you can also make western dishes.

The main ingredients you will need are chopped garlic in oil,  onions, sesame oil, ginger, corn starch, oyster sauce, chicken stock, Chinese cooking wine, soy sauce, salt, eggs, pepper, bay leaves and chillies if you like your dishes spicy.

For vegetables, usually you will stir fry them. First you fry the chopped garlic and onions till they brown and become fragrant. You then throw in the vegetables and fry them to the texture that you like.. Drizzle a bit of soy sauce to your required taste and that's it. If you like your vegetables spicy, you add the chillies with the chopped garlic and onion to fry first to bring out the spiciness of the chillies. If you like a touch of sweetness in your vegetables, you can drizzle some oyster sauce on top before serving it.

For meats, you have to season the meat with chopped garlic, Chinese cooking wine, eggs (depending on the amount of meat), a sprinkle of corn starch to make the meat smooth, salt, pepper and soy sauce to desired  taste.  After mixing them together, place it in the fridge for about 15 minutes to half an hour for the meat to soak up the flavors. You can either fry it up, or make it into a stew or soup.

For soups, to make it sweet and tasty try using the shells of prawns, fish bones or bones from meat like chicken and pork, you boil it for about an hour and let it simmer. You can use the stock to cook anything from soups for noodles to porridge and stews. You can pack and freeze the stock in plastic bags for future use. If you like a more herbal taste in your base, you can add in sliced ginger, whole garlic, wolf berries, ginseng and dried red dates. Cabbage is also commonly used to make soups sweet as the sweetness comes naturally from the cabbage itself.

For steamed dishes, all you will need is soy sauce, Chinese cooking wine and sesame oil and a sprinkle of chopped garlic. To top it off, sprinkle some chopped chives and parsley for some crunch and fragrance.

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