Dried Products Chinese Ingredients

One cannot get very far with Chinese cooking without dried fungi. They are used, according to variety, to provide texture or taste, and very often make a simple dish outstanding. Black mushrooms, used whole or sliced into small pieces, provide their own taste but also absorb that of others. Both cloud ears and golden needles absorb tastes and are often used to give texture to stir-fried pork or beef dishes; wood ears, which need to be cooked longer, are best in soups.

Wood ears

Large, edible mushrooms cultivated in large quantities in Western China.

Chinese mushrooms, dried and reconstituted

These edible tree fungi vary in both quality and price, the most expensive being the floral mushroom. Medium-sized mushrooms are most frequently used in this book.

Floral mushrooms


Straw mushrooms, canned

Straw mushrooms, dried Cultivated on rice straw in paddy fields, they are used more for their texture than their taste.

Straw mushrooms, dried


Cloud ears

Like wood ears, these mushrooms are grown in Western China, but they are more delicate in taste.

Golden needles

Golden needles The dried buds of the tigerlily flower, generally used for their texture.

Tangerine peel

Dried peel, often used with star anise and Szechwan peppercorns.

Dried red dates

Sweet, prunelike fruit of the jujube tree.

Creamed coconut

Concentrated coconut milk in solid form.

Cornstarch, Potato flour, Water chestnut flour and Rock sugar

1. Cornstarch Fine, white starch extracted from corn, used as a thickener.
2. Potato flour Made from cooked potatoes, this flour produces a more gelatinous sauce than cornstarch.
3. Water chestnut flour Made from ground water chestnuts, and used when a lighter sauce is required.
4. Rock sugar Crystallized cane sugar.

Agar

Agar Gelatinous thickener derived from seaweed.

This Ingredient Information was published in 'Yan-kit’s Chinese Cookbook by "Yan-Kit So (Foreword by Claudia Roden)" - p20 and p21'