Chinese Cooking [antikvár]

DISCOVER THE DEEIGHT5 OFCHINESECUISINEDiscover the delights of Chinese cuisine with food that's easy to prepare and cook. Chinese cooking is famous for its variety, its subtle tastes, and its beautifully built-in balance of foods.Chinese cooking is one of the world's great cuisines, popular in many countries around the world. Superb combinations of flavors and textures also offer the bonus of good health. It has been described as the ideal diet for our modern times, being high in protein and complex carbohydrates and low in fat and calories. It also caters to vegetarians and people on a low cholesterol diet. Meat plays a secondary role and vegetables, particularly the non-starchy varieties, predominate.Grains are plentiful, mainly rice and wheat. Rice is grown in the south and forms the staple diet. It is also used for noodle making and flour. Wheat is grown in the north and north-west, and used for flour and many varieties of noodles, which are served in place of rice.Meats used are low in fat and other high protein foods play an important role. For hundreds of years soybeans have been used for rheir rich protein, which closely resembles chat of meat. Soybeans often are ground and mixed with water, converting them into a milky substance, then into a curd which is pressed into blocks called bean curd or tofu.Bean curd can be dried, deep-fried, salted, made into sauces, steamed or eaten fresh. Soybean sprouts are also eaten as a vegetable.Sweets are seldom eaten. The Chinese prefer savory foods. Between-meal snacks include many delicious dumplings, steamed buns and dim sum. Fresh fruit is usually served at the end of a family meal. The few dessert recipes that exist are usually reserved for banquets.The format of a family meal is simple. Every dish is served on the table at the same time, not in courses as in the West.Most modern food markets have pork, chicken and beef shredded or cut into chunks, as well as a variety of marinated meats and poultry. Chinese food stores sell freshly roasted and barbecued pork and cooked ducks and chickens, whole and in portions. These are easily kept on hand for quick meals by slicing, dicing and freezing in recipe-size quantities.Many ingredients, such as water chestnuts and lychees, are available in cans, and a great variety of ready-made sauces can be found on the shelves of most supermarkets and Asian food stores.mIntroduction 3