Although we love to cook at home, we're also guilty of indulging in takeout and delivery
— maybe a little too often.
Sometimes, after a long day, it's just too overwhelming to contemplate the chopping,
the organization, and the time involved in making a home-cooked meal.
But there's another reason we sometimes reach for a takeout menu instead of our sauté pan
— and that's authenticity.
When we're craving nuanced cuisines such as Thai, Indian, and Chinese, it can be difficult
to recreate the exact flavors of our favorite dishes at home.
"I feel like just walking over there and taking some food off somebody's plate."
"I'll tell you what.
There's 50 bucks in it for you if you do it."
Particularly with Chinese food, we've found that attempts at recipes such as beef and
broccoli, sesame chicken, and even just a basic stir fry sometimes fall flat, lacking
the authentic flavors found in restaurant cuisine.
If you've noticed this in your own cooking, don't worry: It's not just you, and there's
actually a few reasons for this disparity.
First of all, Chinese restaurants tend to use high-powered gas burners that are 10 times
hotter than your stove at home, making it much easier for restaurant cooks to achieve
wok hei, that smoky flavor we love in Chinese food.
Additionally, lots of Chinese restaurants still use at least a little MSG in their dishes,
providing an umami punch you just won't achieve at home without that magical white powder.
MSG works to amplify the flavor of food, which can light up our taste buds and adds just
the right amount of that savory taste that we all crave.
That can't be the only secret restaurants have, right?
It's not.
There's another reason your Chinese food is lacking and thankfully, it's a problem with
an easy solution.
Have you noticed that some of your favorite Chinese dishes come bathed in a glossy, sticky brown sauce?
If you're trying to recreate them at home but aren't mixing up some stir fry sauce,
chances are your flavors will never approximate the stuff from the white cardboard cartons.
This multipurpose sauce adds some serious flavor and a smooth texture to Chinese dishes,
and it's easy to make at home.
According to Martin Yan, perhaps the most recognizable name in Chinese home cooking
and the host of public television's "Yan Can Cook," this sauce is a foolproof way to bring
authentic Chinese flavors into your home — without consulting Uber Eats.
He calls it "the Chinese mother sauce," and his recipe for all-purpose stir-fry sauce
includes canned or boxed chicken broth, rice wine or dry sherry, soy sauce, toasted sesame
oil, and a few other ingredients you're likely to have on hand or can easily pick up at the supermarket.
It comes together with a teaspoon of cornstarch or potato starch, which instantly thickens
the sauce and turns it smooth and glossy, ready to pour over any stir-fried meat, vegetable,
or tofu, or over noodles or rice.
We mentioned something called wok hei — what, exactly, is that?
When dining out in Chinese restaurants, you may have noticed that their stir-fry offerings
have a far more complex flavor profile than the Chinese dishes you stir up at home.
This is due at least in part to wok hei, a term that is often translated as "the breath of the wok".
This smoky depth of flavor comes courtesy of cooking a stir-fry at intense heat and speed.
When a wok is heated to about 650 degrees Fahrenheit, polymers and oils within the food
start breaking down, and microscopic droplets of fat start to vaporize as you toss the ingredients
within the wok and they pass through the hot column of air created by the intense heat of the burner.
This imbues the stir-fry with the smoky, singed flavor of wok hei, a taste which homemade
Chinese food often lacks.
But how do you achieve wok hei at home without the high-powered gas burners common in Chinese restaurant kitchens?
Serious Eats' J. Kenji López-Alt offers a few ideas.
First of all, he points out, put down any non-stick skillet or wok — at the temperatures
you'll need to heat the pan, its nonstick coating will begin to break down into toxic fumes.
López-Alt suggests using a traditional carbon steel wok, and in order to get it ripping
hot he recommends you head outside to your grill — using either a chimney starter or
a charcoal grill loaded with red-hot coals will usher you right into wok hei territory.
So, the next time you're craving a delicious, authentic Chinese dish, you can feel confident
opening your pantry and not the delivery app on your phone.
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